[Bêthberry]

Hello Palando, Squatter, and Estelyn. It is great to see Aylwen, Ransom and Adanedhel here too! Thanks for accepting me into the game, Palando and accepting my interpretation of the characters.

My characters will be Catrina and Kiatus. Here are their descriptions:

Catrina

Fetted and petted throughout her short life, Catrina, just 17, is intelligent and strong willed but irresponsible and undisciplined. She has been raised in a somewhat bewildering way, indulgently but with restrictions. Her father delighted in showering her with small presents of pretty dresses and dolls and pets, as reward for her cleverness and talents and appearance, yet she not has learnt how to handle disappointment, frustration, or even boredom. Clever and charming, she often has got her own way by appealing to her father over her mother and has spent more time with him than with her mother. She has little aptitude for the traditional kinds of labour most often done by women such as the hand sewing of clothes, churning of butter, baking of bread, and the growing and harvesting of crops; in fact, these chores are often done by her younger brothers in concert with her mother, who has schooled Catrina in nothing much other than to find a wealthy husband as she has done in marrying a landowner. Yet the thought of Catrina managing or running the homestead, of bartering or negotiating with the neighbouring homesteaders is a ridiculous impossibility to her father who, when he is not in the mood to be entertained, usually dismisses her to go play. He has not understood that she is becoming an adult and sees only the little girl. Her intelligence has no outlet and her boredom causes her to yearn for action and activity beyond the limited means of the homestead. At heart she has a lack of positive self-image because she has never really done anything and is not truly sure where she wants to be. As a result, she is a rebellious risk-taker who is not aware of how to handle consequences.

Kiatus

Kiatus is much older than Catrina, by a good twelve years or more. He is not a very steady or principled man, preferring to work the system by manipulating it rather than by being a legitimate contributor to it and so, while he is undoubtedly clever, is more shrewd than wise. Yet he is not evil or viscious, really just lazy or lacking strong motivation. He has worked occasionally for Halasan on the homestead and so has gained a close knowledge of the family and free access to the home, which he has used to establish a clandestine relationship with Catrina, sensing her boredom and enjoying the opportunity to appear to her as an important man. He is attractive in a dangerous sort of way to an inexperienced girl, for whom he appears charming and thrilling, but women see through him rather quickly. (Thus the attraction for him of an adolescent--he does not have to handle a woman's maturity.) He met Halasan at the local Inn. Indeed, they are the kind of 'hail buddy, well met' sort of boon companions rather than intimate friends. He also associates surreptitiously or quietly with the more unsavory characters in the community and this gives him a sort of cachet with Catrina, who yearns to see the world beyond the homestead.

Well, let the game begin!

Bethberry