Name:
Teryl

Position:
Healer Trainee

Age:
Roughly 14, but there's no one about who can vouch for Teryl's Birthing Day.

Physical Description:
Teryl currently stands at 4'5, and is quite skinny; both a result of her malnourishment. To date, she has not begun developing curves of any sort. It is likely that once she begins to blossom, she will be tall and not overly curvaceous, like her mother. Her facial features are delicate, with her hazel eyes being very large in her face. She has dimples, if one can catch her smiling. Teryl has a mop of very curly brown hair reaching to her shoulders that she normally uses to hide behind.

Personality/Attitude:
Somewhere along the way, Teryl managed to develop a sense of responsibility for those around her, especially those who were weaker or younger. She is especially protective of those she calls 'hers'. For the most part, she is a somber girl. She's seen too much of the ugliness that people are capable of. Her sense of humor, the rare times it emerges, is very sarcastic and dry. Beneath all of this, there is a contradictory mix of caring, capability, and anger.

Brief History:
Teryl was born in the darker parts of Haven, to a woman forced into prostitution by circumstance. She has no clue as to the identity of her father, nor any curiosity about the man. The girl grew up seeing the darker side of humanity, and began protecting those that she could, especially as she got older and her mother lost herself in Dreamerie and drink more and more. Teryl attended Temple classes, mostly to get warm for a few hours a day, and to get the meals provided to the students. More often than not, she smuggled her food home for the children too small or sick to attend classes.

Around the time Teryl turned eight, the little girl discovered an inner city inn, with a stable. The stable housed animals to be sold to the glue factories and less picky slaughter houses. Feeling pity for the poor animals there, she found that she could Heal some of the ills that plagued the animals. From there, Teryl was able to begin treating the people who lived around her.

Teryl has lived her brief life to this point trying to make things better for the younglings she adopted into her 'family'. Orphans and street urchins, all of them, with no adults willing to look after them. She taught them to steal what wouldn't be noticed, to find value in the cast-offs and leavings of those wealthier than them, and how to survive through the city's winters.

One day, one of 'her' children was kicked by a horse in a busy street. Driven by protective fury, Teryl began Healing the little boy in an alleyway. A Healer, passing by, sensed the energies Teryl was pouring into the boy and sought out the girl and her charge. Unfortunately for Teryl, the boy was too grievously wounded to be saved, and she was pouring her energies into him for naught. The Healer pulled her away, and made the little boy's passing as painless as possible. She then took the nearly catatonic Teryl to the Healer's Collegium for training.

And this is how Teryl has found herself at the center of the city, to be formally trained in the ways of Healing.

Goals:
Teryl doesn't have any concrete plans yet. She's still too shocked by the sudden change in her life to be anything but confused, and angry that she's left her 'family' behind.

Gifts:
Healing (strong), with middling Empathy and a slight Gift of Mindspeech.

Author's Comments:
I see Teryl as a very angry, probably rebellious young girl. She wants to return to her 'family' but isn't even sure that she'd be able to find them. Her mother died at least three winters past (she's not sure, because survival was more important than marking the death of an uncaring addict), so the other street children were everything she had. It's likely that without her protection, they will have been absorbed into rival 'gangs' or otherwise met their ends.

Due to the harshness of her street life, and her mother's profession, Teryl has been raped. Unfortunately, this is not something that marks her as different from any of the other young women in her part of the city. Violence and poverty are rampant. It hasn't embittered her because rape is a part of her reality, just made her even more wary than she was before. Teryl is also very good at disappearing and blending in with the background, even in a classroom. It's likely that this is a combination of uncanny stillness and her Empathy and Mindspeech working in tandem to keep her camouflaged.

Teryl is a bare few steps above illiteracy. She tended to fall asleep in the warmth of the Temple during classes, when she was able to attend.