A Chill Bro
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- #49
- Joined:
- February 24, 2012
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 Name: Serenity Former Names: J3, Bubbles, Peaseblossom, Clara
Personality: Serenity is a hardworking aershaa but she also knows how to relax. She is usually the embodiment of calm in both hard work and mellow conditions; or at least she will be again someday. She is extremely nervous of man and currently only trusts Fletch, but only when he is calm and moves slowly around her. She doesn't like strangers at all and won't leave his lighthouse for now.
Backstory: Spoiler: click to toggle Serenity, as her latest name dubbed her, did not have the easiest life. She was born to a breeder just after the Sundering to a littler of 3. Her name was simply J3. She lived on a farm in the south of Jiskadar until she was six months, playing with her brothers, running in the fields, sleeping in a warm barn with other youths and interacting with her owner and his family. She was usually a cheerful airla and only feared thunderstorms. She loved to play and swim and have fun. But one day in summer, her master told her to say goodbye to her mother and father. It was time for her to go to the trainer who would make her a skilled working dog and pet. She was sad to bid farewell but happy she wasn't going alone.
For a year and a half she lived with her trainer, a young woman named Liza Dravenshine. Liza named her Bubbles and made sure that play time started to melt into the past and that the dog learned to obey commands. She was gentle but firm and definite until the airla was sure she didn't step out of line. Because of her obedient but cheery nature, she was ready to be sold much earlier than her brothers. (who spent a lot of time in the kennel as punishment for stealing food and chasing the ordos up and down the fields when they were supposed to be herding them.) Under Liza, she also became a very strong swimmer. At the adoption auction, she was a star attraction. Many bid on her, admiring her beautiful form and strong back. But it was a local fishery that bought her in the end.
At the fishery, Bubbles had a good life. She woke early in the mornings and was fed and exercised by her handler, a young man named Louis. After that routine, they walked to the ship yard and boarded a small vessel called The Seawolf. Her work was simple. She would swim about in the waters by the boat and herd fish into the waiting nets. She was very good at her job, collecting tons of fish for her crew while warning wild aershaa away from the nets and frenzy. She worked hard because her meal and pay came from whatever she caught. If she didn't work, she didn't eat.
Fletch Greenbarrow was a good friend to her and her crew at the time. The local lighthouse keeper, she was also tasked with delivering fish to his lighthouse. Her fishery relied on the lighthouse for laying their nets and navigating the churning waters by night, so he was thanked with free fish. She enjoyed hanging with him because he always shared the fish with her and told her stories of his tribe. She liked learning about Glenna'ri and the Ottara clans.
But all things must end. For the fishery, it started with a storm. The storm scared Bubbles to pieces and she refused to work for three days. Without her herding ability, the fish were scared away by the nets dropped into the bay and swam for the sea. The raging currents pulled the school away, even after the storm died. To make matters worse, the storm had blown rocks and silt into the bay and ripped not only a valuable net but also shredded the base of the boat. The damages cost the company too much money and it eventually went bankrupt, leaving her to be sold at the market in the next town.
The market was a busy place, full of people who had no need for a water aershaa. Several came by to check her teeth and body, impressed by her muscles. But she wasn't big enough. That was what almost all of them said. It was thankful she wasn't big enough because they intended to either put her in the pit fighting circle or use her on their farms, away from the water.
She was eventually sold to a cold looking man. The man had a rather dark home made of stone with a low wall around the property. Bubbles, whom was renamed Peaseblossom, never got to see the inside of it. She was kept in the yard in a small pen. Every day the man would come out, loop her neck with a strap and look her over. He'd take her for a run around the yard, pulling on her neck when she slowed the pace. He eventually set up jumps, smacking her with a crop in an attempt to make her go over them. But no matter how hard she tried, she could only clear them half the time. She wasn't used to running on land and her agility was only visible in the water- the rest of the time she was almost clumsy. Her new master, who's name she never learned because he told her to call him Master, worked her over the jumps every day, laying into her with the crop when she messed up. Soon, the fear of the crop forced her muscles to behave and she was able to make the jumps every time.
Just in time too. One cold morning, he pulled her wordlessly to his cart and hauled her to a large city. She tried to watch through the bars but she was covered by a thick flap of canvas. The ride was long and she became stiff and sore, her faith in humans wavering but unbroken. Even though she trusted man, the arena was a rather traumatic experience. Instead of running a course like some did, she was entered in the racetrack. Her wings were bound to her sides and her jaws were buckled behind leather the moment she stepped off the cart. She became anxious, still sore from the ride and unsure what was happening. And now, unable to ask. Stuffed inside a small cage, she panicked, pushing on the sides and unable to turn around. There was a thunderous roar and a loud ringing noise and the front of the box ripped open. She saw many forms around her bolt out, heading down a long track towards a low jump. But she remained where she was, shaking with fear. She slowly peeked her head out and balked at the crowd on the side of the track with a loud whimper, the noise coming from them causing her to remain frozen. Something similar to electricity slapped her from behind and she bolted, sure she was able to hear her trainer screaming at her to run from somewhere.
It was his fault. He hadn't trained her to expect this. She was terrified and that terror caused her to sprawl over the first jump and hide to the side of the track in a ball. Her master was not an adept trainer but had heard there was money in it. Some money...he retrieved her shivering form and tied her off to the side of his cart while he went to retrieve booze.
In his absence, she pawed at her face and rolled about, trying to free her maw and wings. . A kind trainer named James Lexington was walking by with Aces High, his show dog. He stopped, looking at the sorry state of the creature, and made Aces sit and stay while he went to help her. He took off the muzzle and racing strap and gave her an affectionate rub down- a real handler of the creatures. "You poor thing." He cooed, admiring her colors. "This isn't the right place for you, is it girl?"
They had a long conversation while they waited for the master to return. James learned of the horrible training she had endured and sighed, knowing the other man had probably ruined her chances of ever being a show dog. But that didn't mean she didn't deserve a good home. A present, he decided. He would buy her as a pet for Mrs. Andrea, Aces' owner. When the trainer returned, he got an earful from James and a small wad of money thrown at him. Then, they parted.
James did not have a cart that could carry her and the journey was a long one. Instead, he arranged to have her brought over by a ship. The vessel was a cargo ship but didn't mind making the delivery, for a price.
But the weather was turning bad again. The drey had not quite settled since the sundering and the storms were rough. The ship she was on was tossed about in the swill, great squalls and waves crashing over the deck. Finally, after two days of navigating the storm, the ship capsized and was lost to the deep. Peaseblossom was left alive but remained all alone in the ocean.
She swam for days, clinging to a piece of driftwood, barely alive. Even a water couldn't swim as long as she had to without rest. And finally, she washed up on a shore, exhausted and starving. She dragged herself to the shade. But she may not have survived if not for the ones who found her, but with what happened next...she wished she hadn't.
The ones who found her struggling for life were a group of brothers, their little sister and their parents out for a very loud day at the beach. The youngest boy was the first to find her and he screamed for his dad. The family gathered and, despite the mother's protests to leave it there, decided to adopt her. The children were overjoyed at first; they'd never been allowed a pet. The father claimed she would be a good guard dog but the mother didn't want the beast in her house.
Time passed and for a while, things were good. Renamed Clara, she was a good pet, even if she did track mud and yell too loudly when she was playing with the children. She was fed scraps from the table and they went on nice walks.
But after a year or so, things began to change. The father was offered a new job that required him to be away from home a lot. Without his watchful eye, the family began to waver. The children grew bored of her, like they did with their toys, and seldom walked or played with her. The woman of the house still disliked having a pet and often kept her out on a chain in the yard in the day. She stopped being welcome at the table and eventually became lucky if she was fed or remembered at all. And then one night, she wasn't brought inside. She remained on the chain for the rest of her time there, without shelter, often without food. She discovered, over her thinning time, that some of the boys were attending school. And when her neck was raw from the rubbing chain, she met some of his friends. They were the cruel sort who thought she would make a great target for their slingshots, riddling her soft pelt with stones and marbles. They only laughed when she strained on her chain, trying to get away from them. Over and over they came, some days to beat at her with sticks and other days to tease her with food. Peer pressure or cruelty or indifference, nobody stopped it.
The worst day was still to come. One of the boys fathers was in a pit fighting ring. The boy had witnessed his first fight and thought it would be good fun to stage one in the back yard with Clara and his own pet dog. The dog was not a fighter, but a hunter, and there was no stopping him. Clara was too sweet and mild to try and fight back and eventually fell to the other dog's teeth, covered in bites and wounds. Only when she was a bleeding mess did her boy feel guilt, trying to break up the fight, screaming for his mother.
That night, he felt sick to his stomach. He had to make it right with her, so he went to her with a bowl of food to apologize. But she wasn't in the mood to forgive. Thinking he was coming to hurt her again, she strained on her chain, running from him. He kept coming and finally she lashed out.
Demanding execution for mauling his child to death, the father was only consoled by his wife who described what had happened, also feeling guilt that such a kind creature had been driven to that level of fear. Instead of being destroyed, she was sold back to the market. No-one wanted her. Most looked at her with disgust. Even the fur trader Lesser did not covet such a scrawny, dirty and marked up pelt. She was probably going to be sold for the meat price or to a pit ring as a bait dog, but finally someone smiled upon her.
Recognizing her markings and unsure what else had become of her, she was spied by a kind ottara, Fletch Greenbarrow. He remembered sharing fish with her and how happy she always was. It must have broken his heart to see her like this, shivering in the back of a cage, snarling, fearing any man who looked in at her scrawny, scabbed form. He bought her on the spot to return her home, her real home, with him in the town where her journey began. Keeping with the traditional naming of his tribe, he gave her the title of Serenity. And now its his job to help her trust, laugh and live again.
Voice actor: Snowdrop Theme song: Time and Storms
Plots:
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