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Full Name: Darcy Turner
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Height: 5 foot, 3 inches
Weight: 130
Hair: A shock of bright, curly red strung through with various baubles and bits of cloth.
Eyes: Bright green. Curious, intense and thoughtful.
Skin: Fair, but not truly pale (she's in the sun a lot) with a spattering of freckles.
Occupation: Midwife and Herbalist ; hedgewitch
Familiar: Fero – a white rook.

Personality:
Good: Compassionate- she will not turn someone away who is in need
Motherly- often known for giving guidance to others younger, and sometimes older, than herself Responsible- she takes her work, and her promises, seriously
Open Minded- she is very accepting of many different ideas and tends to respect most ideas, even if she cannot agree with them.

Neutral: Adventurous- she will chase after anything interesting enough to catch her attention Intelligent- she is generally a good problem-solver when it comes to puzzles and riddles, as well as working out ways to deal with real-life problems.
Curious- it is boundless and is probably the main reason behind her sense of adventure.
Intuitive- she is good at judging character as well as telling when someone is lying or not telling the whole story.

Bad: Selfish- when she finds or hears of something she wants she will stop at nothing to get it, save hurting another person (though if the prize is great enough, there's no telling what she might do!)
Stubborn- as a mule. When she gets an idea in her head to do something, no one can stop her.
Vengeful- if you hurt her or someone she cares for, she will make sure that you get your just dues. Luckily, it takes a true act of malice or cruelty to evoke this side of her.

History: Darcy grew up in the poor west side of Palisade. She was an orphan for as long as she can remember, her parents being a group of children and teenagers as young as mere toddlers to as old as 17 and 18. She grew up in the streets, learning the ways of a pickpocket, how to survive the cold of winter with little more than the clothes on her back, and how best to fish from the river that separated them from the other side of the city.

While her life was certainly a difficult one growing up, it was also far from boring or without love. The friends around her were her family, and every day was a challenge and an adventure. She has known loss and hardship, the grief of one who has seen death, but also the joy of one who has triumphed over it and beaten back again and again.

At the age of 13 she discovered an affinity for luring animals to her, which helped her and her friends to eat on days when food was scarce-- though it was not always a sure thing to do so. Around this time is when she began to suspect that, perhaps, such an ability was not mere luck. The few books she managed to get her hands on and read – lucky to be able to do so, for one of the older boys had learned it from a mentor that had since left their group years before her time-- were mostly about the lore she has grown, in her later years, to love even more fiercely since then.

At the age of 17 she began learning her trade as a midwife. A girl off the streets, she was turned aside many times before she found an old woman willing to train her-- after she witnessed young Darcy's trick of luring a wild rabbit to her side. The old woman died two years after, and Darcy, then 19, took over the clients the old woman had attended to regularly. In addition, Darcy has taken to brewing various herb-mixes to help with various aches, pains and sicknesses, and relies on this trade when her other work is lacking.

Some of the friends she knew growing up she has since helped find positions for work, as well, never forgetting those she called 'family'.

Her mismatched, patched and obviously hand-me-down clothes, paired with the shock of her wild, bright orange hair – too curly to ever be tamed by a brush, bits of it braided or stuck through with odd trinkets – make her a bit more difficult, perhaps, to forget than some. At just 5'3”, she is not a tall woman by any means, though the slight plumpness to her frame gives her a sturdier look than she might have otherwise – for her mother's bones are fine and bird-like, angular in a pretty way.

Even more memorable, though, is her personality. Darcy is as fiery and lively as her hair; and just as full as odd tidbits. And like a flame, she consumes everything in her path – each scrap of gossip or story, and whatever books she can lay her hands on. She is warm to those who seek her out, maternal in a way beyond her years and something of a guardian-figure to women younger, and some her age or even older, than herself. But those who know Darcy – and some who did not but quickly learned-- know that her temper, and the lashings of her tongue, can be as dark and harsh as the alleys in which she grew up. For she has little tolerance for cruelty and ignorance, and though her patience is great she will not hesitate to give any who ignore the warning look in her eyes the lesson they deserve.

She loves a good bit of adventure, and when the mood strikes her to find it she truly seems her twenty-two years of age, if not younger. And hardly being above getting into a bit of trouble, should the reward and mystery be great enough, the young woman has been known to suddenly disappear for days or weeks on end, chasing some tale or bit of lore far from her home in Palisade, and often has the habit of spouting what odd tidbits of knowledge she may have learned at anyone willing to listen. Sometimes, she seems more than a little half mad -- and the point could be debated, in all truth, though she's hardly what one would call 'dull'.

Fero is different, though. Pale in color, and quicker than many people she knows (in every sense), the rook is her closest friend and companion, never judging her for her oddities. He has a mischievous streak in him, though, often pilfering anything that catches his eye, and which he manages to get into his beak. Yet, most of the time, he is of a quiet, reserved temperament, and Darcy often thinks he looks like a wise old man as he sits perched someplace, overlooking whatever scene is before him. And like an old man, his moods can be finicky. While he seems to tolerate young children, he will often fly to some place where they can't rather than allow himself to be pet (and risk having his feathers pulled). And those with questionable reputation – men, especially-- he has been known to make menacing sounds at, even going so far as bite one who later was caught for cutting a man's throat. Since then, Darcy has always trusted his judgment of those around her, though her own judgment is usually quite good.

Darcy has no idea how old the bird really is, though, and this has always been a source of intrigue to her. Fero came to her one night after a frightfully strange dream marred with fire and blood, and the screams of the victorious and dying. She'd woken up shaken, with a stab of fear in her heart, and had shaken it off as reading too much of the old lore she'd discovered in a dusty old shop a few weeks prior. But just as she was to get out of bed for a glass of water, the bird had crooned quietly at her from the shadows of the room, tilting it's head this way and that, as if the better to regard her-- as if he were surprised to see her. It was Solstice night.

Since then, the tentative hold she's had on magic has gradually strengthened, just as her friendship with Fero strengthened. She's never spoke of thinking the bird anything more than a stray who has attached himself to her – though of course she believes differently. How can she not? And since then, her pursuit of knowledge about the Old Ways, the Wardens, and even the Wardwood itself has increased double, if not more. She wants to know what lies on the other side of that mysterious, dark wood.

One day she hopes to see it for herself, with Fero at her side.