player information!NAME: Elle
CONTACT: AIM @ the dove pursues.
FAVORITE BOOK: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
character information!CHARACTER'S NAME: Sabriel.
CHARACTER'S BOOK(VERSE): The Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix.
POINT IN CANON: After freeing Touchstone from his figurehead prison in Holehallow.
AFFILIATION: Civilian.
CHARACTER'S JOURNAL: thewalkerDESIRED PB: Keira Knightley.
CHARACTER'S APPEARENCE: Sabriel is described as being a 'curiously pale' young woman with dark hair cut fashionably short. She's willowy and slender in physique, and is quite tall - almost the same height as Touchstone. Sabriel possesses sharp, angular features and eyes that are dark enough to match her hair. She is far from soft and feminine, though she used to put
some stock into outward appearance when she attended Wyverley College. Since crossing the Wall, however, Sabriel has forgotten most about looking her best and dresses practically, in breeches and shirts (as opposed to her neatly pressed school uniform). She wears a tunic and supple leather breeches, reinforced with some segmented plates at thighs, knees and shins, and over that a long armored coat that buckles at the side and a pair of hobnailed boots. Sabriel carries with her at all times her bell-bandolier and all seven bells; she also keeps with her the
Book of the Dead and her father's sword.
CHARACTER'S PERSONALITY: Sabriel has grown up the social retard. She was always a very stern, wise little child who found it difficult to interact with her playmates. That didn't change much when she grew older, and the only person she could really talk to - Terciel, her father - was usually miles away fulfilling his job as the Abhorsen. From a young age, Sabriel learned about death and what came after it - it was no longer a mystery to her, though she wished it was. For some reason, knowing what came next almost put a damper on what was current - there was nothing to hope for or dream about or believe in. Sabriel just
knew. It was fact.
She was never interested in the opposite sex and didn't suffer through months of woe and anguish over a boy like some of her friends did. Her friends, of course, were never allowed so close as to know exactly where she was from, what her father was and what she, eventually, would become - and Sabriel was happy for that. She's standoffish and possesses a cool disposition - others find it incredibly hard to approach her at first as she always seems so terribly fierce. Nonetheless, she's generally always available to lend a hand as best she can, and she's a quick-thinker and acts immediately when confronted with a dangerous situation. Sabriel is a quiet type of leader - she doesn't call people to her or demand they follow, but she knows how to use the abilities of those around her to benefit every one. She's also very strong-willed and stubborn - though that can get to the point of bull-headedness.
Upon being thrown into the unknown world beyond the Wall, Sabriel has been faced with far more life-changing experiences than she ever wished for. She is a young woman in many ways and has always seemed older than she really is, but Sabriel is, essentially, still a little girl - one that has lacked a mother figure her entire life, with only a ghostly father to support and guide her - and now everything stable in her life has been yanked from beneath her feet. Anything but a jokester, Sabriel is most likely to have a frown on her face than a smile, and she's always geared up to clip out a quick and cutting response to anything that irritates her. She carries on like a pack horse until everything just gets far too difficult and that's when she needs a moment of reprieve.
Sabriel is aloof and hard to read, stubborn, relatively cool-headed, tenacious and brave - she's also proud but prone to bad social awkwardness, and she needs to learn to open up far more.
CHARACTER'S BACKGROUND: Sabriel was the death of her mother, who passed in the birth of her - and Sabriel herself saw Death for the first time that night. Her father, the Abhorsen Terciel, however, retrieved her from the hands of the Greater Dead by the name of Kerrigor and returned her to life. She spent the first few years of her life living with her father in the Old Kingdom, a land of magic and necromancers - the Abhorsen's job was to put those risen Dead back to rest. Finally, her father decided it would be safer for her across the Wall in Ancelstierre, where magic could not exist. She was sent off to a boarding school called Wyverley College, her father paying frequent visits to her. She had the normal life of a young girl, though decidedly without any over dramatic romantic entanglements - she avoided them like the plague, and when other girls were fond, she would smile and wonder 'how?'
She dedicated herself to her studies and proved to be a very successful student, and after being made prefect in her sixth year, she came first in English, equal first in Music, third in Mathematics, seventh in Science, second in Fighting Arts and fourth in Etiquette. (She had also been first in Magic, but that wasn't publicly acknowledged and the college only taught students who had permission from their parents). The Headmistress was quite fond of Sabriel, and Sabriel of her - though the former often grew worried about the girl due to her father's rare visitations. Of course, she didn't know that Sabriel saw her father frequently in the form of a Sending, where he would sit with her in her room and talk. It was never as good as having her flesh and blood father there to hug, but it was better than nothing - and Sabriel learned early on to appreciate the little things.
Three weeks away from her last term in her last year, Sabriel was jerked from her quiet college life when a dark Sending arrived in the college, sent by her father who was trapped deep in Death. The creature carried with it the bell-bandolier of the Abhorsen, and her father's sword. The seven bells were all for different purposes on Dead things or Free Magic beings, and even on humans if used by a skilled necromancer. Ranna, the smallest, who brings sleep or wakefulness, Mosrael brings the Dead into Life, but throws the caster deep into Death, Kibeth forces the Dead to walk deeper into Death, even to the ninth precinct, Dyrim grants or revokes the power of speech, Belgaer gives or revokes freedom, Saraneth forces compliance Astarael, the Weeper, forces all who hear its ring, including the caster, into Death. They must be used carefully or can invoke adverse effects - one can also use pipes, which are weaker, and Sabriel demonstrated that she was able to simply use a whistle to enter death, though this was only to retrieve a girl's pet rabbit from the first river.
After crossing the Wall, Sabriel was confronted with frozen bodies under the snow in the Old Kingdom. She was chased by a Mordicant, a vicious creature free from Death, and was aided by a Sending of her mother before reaching the Abhorsen's house - conveniently protected by running water, of which the Dead cannot cross. There she met Mogget, a white cat who was, in truth, a Free Magic being kept under control of the Abhorsen by the collar and small bell on his neck. Her first step was to be to find her father's body - from there she could follow him into Death. With Mogget in tow, Sabriel left the house on a Paperwing - a plane made entirely of paper and flown by whistling - after a flood that would cover the house and hide it from Dead beings until it was safe again. Chased by gore crows, the real trouble came with the wind and Sabriel's exhaustion. Unable to keep control of the Paperwing with whistles, she lost control and it plummeted towards the ground - until, as a last ditch attempt, Mogget told her to loose his collar, telling her to trust him and to remember a ring that she'd received in the Abhorsen's house. Mogget was freed into his Free Magic form - nothing but spurts and shafts of bright light - and managed to break the Paperwing and land - only for the plane, he and Sabriel to slip over the lip of a deep cavern and fall even further.
Sabriel came to in a dark cavern with bits of Paperwing strewn about, and was then attacked by the Free Magic Mogget, and it was only in her desperation that Sabriel remembered the ring - which seemed to be growing larger with every passing second. It formed a ring larger than the creature's white, blazing head, and so Sabriel hooked it over its neck and reduced it - with much complaint - back into the form of Mogget, the ring forming a red collar with a miniature Saraneth on it, and the cat coughed up another ring. With the normal Mogget back - thankfully - and continued onwards in the sinkhole that they had found themselves. As they walked, they came across paved areas with old ships resting upon them - they were funerary ships, and Sabriel had found herself in the burial grounds of the First Kings and Queens of the Old Kingdom.
It was there that she discovered an awfully lifelike (and very naked, to her embarrassment) figurehead on one particularly old and plain looking ship, who she discovered was a victim of a Free Magic spell, his soul neither in Life nor in Death. (After some agonizing) she soon ventured into Death and found the figurehead's body further into death than she expected, beneath the waters - she pulled him out, and they were pursued by a Dead thing though she was thankfully able to make it back to Life with the spirit before it could reach them. Nothing, however, seemed to have happened to the figurehead, but with some urging from Mogget, who told her a kiss - or a breath - would wake him, Sabriel vouched for the latter and with a breath, the figurehead awoke to become Touchstone - who would become the newest member of their little company.
SAMPLE: Sabriel had pointedly avoided the strange new addition while he slept, being as quick as possible when she'd thrown a blanket over him and left some of her spare clothes folded up by his head before darting away again. She had also made a point to avoid Mogget's piercing gaze that seemed far too amused for Sabriel's liking - she did just want the stranger to have an undisturbed sleep, after all. It wasn't like she was frightened of him or anything. And it didn't have anything to do with the fact that he was totally stark naked, she'd
seen him naked, she'd
looked and - oh dear, that was embarrassing.
Sabriel had never quite experienced
that sort of embarrassment before and found it all terribly confusing; and she didn't like it one bit. So, with pursed lips and a disgruntled glare shot in Mogget's direction, Sabriel took up a seat near the little spring they'd found, in the catbalm garden that had put her catty friend to sleep some time ago. The air was thick with the sweet smell of the pollen, but it was tempered slightly by the water she sat near and so she successfully avoided too much lightheadedness.
She fished around in her bag for a few moments and then drew out the Book of the Dead, pausing to stare at its cover for a few moments, that perpetual frown creasing her brow. The book itself sent shivers down her spine, and she absolutely loathed being scared of it. She'd read through it with her father, but Mogget told her it changed its contents - and the idea of a book that changed itself worried her. Nonetheless, it would have been stupid of her not to take it on the journey, though she stared at its pale green cover for another second before cursing below her breath and shoving it back into her backpack. Sabriel slumped back into the grass and rubbed her 'sunburned' face, muttering a quiet, tired, "Blast."
STORYLINES: Dead things getting through rips in stories and causing trouble! Kerrigor joining 'em and making things worse, though that would require a Kerrigor player, methinks. Still, Sabriel not being totally oblivious about the rips and stuff like that would be fun and will allow her further interaction with other characters as... I think the Abhorsen trilogy is a bit obscure. D: