Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: יונה (Yona)
Nickname(s): Bidgeon, Songbird
Age (Appearance Wise): 10
Age (Actual): 1

Thoughts on the Forest: Dark and cold, dead and silent, the forest scares Yona unreasonably. She knows she came from there, and yet she has no desire whatsoever to learn about it, or go back to it.

Thoughts of Book Children: She loves meeting other book children, and loves hearing their stories. She's curious about them, and feels comforted when they're around, because she feels less alone.

Thoughts on City People: Yona is usually scared of City People when she first meets them, because they're all "dark" (and often come in strange shapes, all of which are large and scary to her.) But after awhile of being around a City Person, she can get used to their appearance. Especially if they bribe her with treats, or if they have something she adores, such as an automaton.

Physical Appearance: Kind of cherubic, at around 9-10 human years of age. She has short pink hair, pale skin, and brown eyes. She typically wears very frilly dresses, and loves playing "dress up." Unfortunately... she also tends to ruin her clothes, due to her fun-loving nature.

History: As Yona is so young, she has little history. She awoke at the edge of the Forest like all Book Children, and immediately wandered away with the help of the Guards, barely needing any nudging to get away from the dark area. Fortunately it was daytime in Library City when she arrived. Though her surroundings were still dim, Yona was enchanted by the area as she wandered about, amazed at all the contraptions and objects that seemed (to her) to be working themselves.

Loneliness starting to set in, it was eventually that Yona wandered to a flower stand in Chippenhew, delighted by their colors among all the crowding and shelving of Library City. There she watched a small bunch of mums being exchanged in a floating, invisible dance throughout the air, and suitably enchanted, followed said bunch of mums to its home in upper Fin Magna. The flowers ended up belonging to one Caveat, a Librarian and established scholar in the upper echelon-- Yona simply followed the flowers inside and snuck about, unbeknownst to the unobservant City Person who she was following. Yona eventually stole a meal right off of Caveat's plate, and then went and curled up on his couch, exhausted from her wanderings.

She's lived with Caveat ever since, as he didn't have the heart to throw such a tiny thing out. She causes him much grief with her mischief.

Once upon a time, there was a vast world, filled with nothing but water.

On this world there was a single boat, which housed a single man. This man owned nothing except a golden cage, which housed a pair of turtle doves, who were nesting mates. For all his life the man sailed around the world, catching fish for his meals, and living simply upon his boat with his two doves. He sang to himself when he was lonely, or he would talk with his birds, teaching them things of the outside world. The birds would always ask him about the sky, and with a heavy heart, the man would always try to explain to them things they had never seen.

Many years passed until the man and his birds grew old and tired.

"How I wish I could sail to a single shore," said the old man to his birds. "I have not seen land in all my life."

"We could look for land among the sky," offered his turtle doves, who also yearned to see the world outside their cage.

The old man shook his head. He was going to refuse to let his companions go, but then thought otherwise. They had lived their whole lives in a cage, as he had, and he could not deny them their wings. He doubted they would ever return if they left. But they were all old, and the sailor thought that at least they should pass away in dignity, among the skies and seas.

"All right," the sailor agreed reluctantly. He slowly unlatched the cage door, leaving it open for the birds to freely pass through. "If you do find land, bring something of it back to me, so that I may know."

The birds agreed, cooed farewell, and then each flew out the cage door. They flew out from their small room, and into the world beyond their small boat. But as they soared out the door, they were immediately stricken with confusion. The sky looked exactly like the sea, and neither could tell which way was up.

"The clouds are up!" said one dove, seeing the white streaks among the sky. But the other disagreed. "The clouds are down!" said he, seeing the foamy caps of the waves.

They both quarreled, until flapping separate ways, intent on finding the sky and finding land. The first dove flew up and into the air, passing by the clouds, as she looked around for an island. The second dove flew down, crashed into the sea, and drowned.

The first dove flew on, until the sun set and it was night. Eventually she found a small shoal, of which grew a single, gnarled tree. She cooed in delight as she danced around her discovery, entranced by something she had never seen, and rested among its branches for awhile.

"Surely this is the shore that we were looking for!" cried the dove in joy.

But looking around, she realized that her mate had not followed behind her, and neither had her boat. The sun had long set on her journey. All around her was a vast world of endless black, which stretched infinitely in every direction.

"Where is everyone?" she quailed in fright. No answer came.

"I am all alone," she cried, and in terror, she grabbed a small twig of the tree in her beak and took off, hoping to find her boat and her mate.

Far and long the little turtle dove flew, until morning had come again, and the endless darkness had gone. She flew and flew for many more darks, and many more days. She flew all around the world, searching for the home she had left, until one day, she finally came upon a small boat drifting on the horizon.

"My boat!" she warbled in joy. She was old, and she felt her strength leaving her. Yet she still held the old, dry twig in her beak, intent on at least finishing what she had promised.

But when the dove arrived at the boat, there was no one there. Simply an empty golden cage and an empty vessel, left to sail alone on the wide, lonely sea.

Ahh, Yona is so adorable! I really can't find much to pick at, ahaha, but I hope at least some of this can be helpful. XP

▪ "Despite this, she's more self-aware than might be immediately obvious. But she's " -- this ends abruptly? o 3o;;
▪ I love her curiosity and her innocent look on life - it'll be interesting to see how she changes as she grows and becomes more acquainted with the world around her.
▪ One question I have, though, is how would her "Flighty Heart" trait and cowardice affect and interfere her "Curious Bird" trait? Would her fears stop her from exploring?
▪ And also in regards to the "Wide-Eyed trait", "she can't seem to grasp that people might actually hurt her or use her for their own ends," so why is she so afraid of the evils in the world? Because it seems like she doesn't comprehend the evils enough yet to know to shy away from them.
▪ Maybe it'd be interesting to see how she reacted when she was first able to see Caveat, since she's so afraid of city people. P: This isn't really a critiquing point, just a random suggestion. XD

Belated, but thank you for all the crits! <33 I've been considering them for awhile, and I think I've come up with some good solutions! I'll respond below and then add them in to the actual form.

1) Regarding her innocence/naivety vs. how she is afraid of all the "evils of the world":

I think I originally used the term "all the evils of the world" as a generalization (in hopes of getting the text out there faster.) I meant that she is inexperienced, and that lack of experience (along with her trusting and dependent nature) makes her initially naive and innocent. However, she's actually been around for an entire year, which is long enough to learn to be afraid of certain things.

A classic example of what I mean: You tell someone that a pan is hot, but they don't listen, touch it anyway, and burn themselves. Yona's other traits, like her curiosity and her innocence, would compel her to touch the pan anyway and burn herself. She wouldn't understand at first why you are saying that the pan is hot (and how that is a bad thing) until she herself experienced why. After being burned, she would then immediately become afraid of pans, because instead of being reasonable, she's a gigantic coward, and her fear irrationally rules her.

She is incredibly trusting until that trust turns sour. Since she's been around a year, I was thinking that she might have all ready had bad experiences with certain scary things endemic to Library City-- like the dark, for example.

Also, for trickery: Yona is smarter than she might seem (just like ten year olds are more crafty than they might appear), but I'd also imagine she's incredibly gullible, due to her very nature. It's easy to pull the wool over her eyes. But it's also very easy to plant seeds of doubt in her head.

2) Cowardice vs. Curiosity

Yes, her fears would definitely stop her from exploring! Her fear of the dark, for example, is really crippling. She probably has to go to bed with a light somewhere, and she's probably way too scared to get up and go to the bathroom at night by herself, or even move from her bed. (Cue Caveat going WHYYYYYY)

However, Yona is also able to overcome those fears, to an extent. For example, she's not permanently afraid of City People, even though they are also all "dark". But she is very shy and wary of them initially.

Because of how dependent she is, I imagine if someone was there to help her jump the hurdle of what terrifies her, then she could get past it. But alone she is useless.

3) Clinging to other City People

They could certainly draw her away with shinies and sweets, but Yona is very attached to Caveat-- she'd probably be distracted for a time, but then would want Caveat to come and join in. She's so attached to Caveat because of how much he does for her on a consistent, regular basis. She's incredibly dependent on him.

Outsiders beyond him would totally fall into a "collection" category, where they're all equally worthy of her time and attention. Yona is much like an actual child, so while she'd like having plenty of friends and being a social butterfly, she wouldn't really understand upkeeping them yet.

If another City Person were to, theoretically, offer the same attention and constant care that Caveat does, then Yona would also cling to them pretty hard. biggrin


And I also reaaally do want to rp her meeting Caveat and all those beginning things. I have to check again if that sort of backlog "past" rp is allowed here. <3