They hide in the brook when I seek to draw nearer,
Laughing amain when I feign to depart;
Appearance: Everything about Nafiah is fluid: the way she walks, the way she speaks, the way she moves and even the way her hair moves around her. It's quite graceful but a little bit eerie at the same time.
Name: Nafiah
Age: Twenty-four
Biography: Nafiah grew up as a fletcher's daughter in a place far, far away. Her father would tell her sisters, brother and her stories passed down from father to child for as far back as her village could remember. Nafiah never cared for them much. She'd pay more attention to braiding her sisters' hair than his stories. Legends weren't alive, legends didn't put food on the table. That's what her mother did.
Nafiah's mother was a hunter from her youth. When she married into a fletcher's family, she took up the sport again. Her stories were far more useful. Her stories taught lessons of men surviving for years in the old forest near their town. They taught Nafiah how to survive without the relying on others. When she was old enough, she would go out each and evening with her mother and brother, Tariq. They would remove their scents from their bodies then sit patiently for the deer to go to the riverbank for their evening drink, or else they would go to the edge of a farmer's field and target birds as they flew into the open. Some nights she would be given two coppers for every crow she landed.
After they had bagged their catch they would wonder down to the riverbank to wash off the mud they used to mask their scent. Nafiah would opt to stay a little longer so she could practice the quis aquam in piece. She could move about the river as the river. She could become part of it. Oh, how it felt to have water flowing through her own waters! It was a feeling she has never found an equal to.
Alas, this peaceful life was not to last.
At the tender age of eighteen she developed what appeared to much like a plague of legends. First, she would be flushed with fevers then came pallor and chills. She would have darkened smears across her lips and the skin below her eyes would yellow. She found herself nauseous and occasionally food would meet her lips a second time. She do not know if it was due to plague or vomiting but she oft became faint and weary.
her family could not cope and the village could not cope. People became afraid of her and gave her a wide berth when Nafiah left her sickbed, fearful of the legendary plague. Her own family began acting as though she was already dead. They went through the rituals of mourning while Nafiah stood by. The day a sheet was spread over her bed and the last rites said remains vivid in her memory.
And so she left. At first she made for the forest, where she slipped into the river and let it take her where it would. She remembers days in a daze, looking up at the forest canopy as it took her northward until she became beached by the riverside. She had blinked, coughed up any water left in her body and crawled up to the bank. She lay in a patch of light watching two birds flitter two and fro. She smiled at their joy, their liveliness. She wanted to feel like that. She wanted to feel joy in still being alive. For she was alive, she assured herself. She had not died. She would not die.
She pushed herself to her feet and headed north. At first she swayed but finally she could take her first step of her new life. She then took another, and another. Walking itself reassured Nafiah that she still lived. Soon she even had enough wits to think up a plan.
It was one of her father's legends that gave her the plan. She remember a tale of a magical, frozen tree that could heal all ailments. If she could get there, if she could push her body that far, she would live. Where would she find it? In her nauseous state it took her a while to remember the tale. The strange tree grew where it snowed. That meant north. She continued until her footfalls felt the Northern Road. Alas, she was not able to make it to the Tree. It was then she feared she would die in earnest.
When she awoke, Nafiah was curled up between the roots of the Winter Tree. She opened my eyes and looked about, at first wondering where she was and how she ended up there. Nobody could help her with the latter. She had turned up during the night, presumably some travelling wizard had saved her. Only Nafiah knew the truth, that the White Animals that plagued the town were the ones who had saved her. These animals, who had once supped upon the fruit of the Tree, knew the reason for the Tree's illness, that humans were slowly starving it to death by surrounding it by walls and towns. It needed to feed off the energy of other trees and plants to survive, not being plucked of its leaves and bark. Nafiah heard the White Animal's reason and became their informant as to the human's actions. Her and her friend, a falcon called Tariq, would aid the White Animals in their attacks on the humans.
She have stayed with the Winter Tree since my arrival. The first few nights she slept beneath its branches until the guards sent her on. To get herself a new home in the town, she would sell her catches to the local butchers. When she had saved up enough she bought a room at an inn. She wanted to stay near the centre of town so she could be close to the Tree. It saved her from a shortened, plague-filled* life with no hope. She owed it everything she had. She would not stop until she had found a way to restore it.
Alas, it was not to be. The townspeople acted too slow and the caretaker decided too late to call a meeting. By the time Nafiah and a band of questers - volunteers sent on a quest to find the reason for the Tree's illness - got back from their quest, the White Animals had wiped out the entire village and the Tree... the Tree was dead.
Nafiah had failed.
This was not the end of Nafiah's woes, however. News had spread of the quest and its failure, which meant excellent pickings for slavers. What better than a demoralised group of powerful magic users who were chosen to save a once-rich nation. Nafiah and the rest of her surviving questers were captured, bound and sold into slavery. Her bow and other belongings have been taken from her and she is on her own once more. Not even her companion, Tariq, is still with her.
*It wasn't a plague. It was malaria (contracted from a mosquito at the river) but they wouldn't have known what malaria is in their village.
Personality: Nafiah has been injured by the death of the Tree and her failure to do anything to help it. Her spirit is injured and there is something almost dangerous about her. She is angry, hurt and on edge. For now, her only goal is to live, just as the birds in the trees still live. The passion is still there but the reason is gone. She no longer gives off the vibe of kindness or innocence. The sharpness she has always had to her is now a knife's blade. She no longer has the compassion for people she once had. The only people she still seems drawn to are those who society rejects: the plagued the loathed and the broken. She has had a soft spot in her heart for these people ever since she was touched with the plague but now these are the only people she bothers to be more than cordial to.
Abilities/Powers: Nafiah uses the quis aquam, or water magic. She embodies water. She is able to turn her body into water, absorb water from her surroundings and use it as an attack. It's something she won't share with people until she trusts them, unless she's under attack but even then she'd much rather use a bow. She simply has never felt comfortable with people knowing what she can do. Knowledge is a powerful thing and it is best for enemies not to know anything.
Often I hear them, now faint and now clearer-
Innocent bold or so sweetly discreet.
Innocent bold or so sweetly discreet.
