Cicero

[del]

Name: Cicero
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Species: Otter
Occupation: Former slave, wanderer

Physical Appearance:
Cicero's fur is thick in length and silvery in color. Over her face exists a large cream-colored patch that ends just above her jawline. She has a very feminine frame, but she's actually quite muscular. Her most defining mark is a large, dull silver cross marking on her back. It matches her brother Cross's almost exactly. Her eyes are pale blue, and her nose is a charcoal black. She normally wears a sea-green dress and maroon leather bracers on her shins. A thin gold ring is pierced through her bottom lip.

Possessions:
A wooden flute, a seashell necklace, a bag to carry provisions, and her mother's gold ring set with a deep blue gemstone.

Personality:
Cicero is sweet, caring, and very affectionate. Despite a hard life molded by the cruelty of others, the ottermaid still believes beasts are mostly good, and makes it her personal mission to find the goodness in even the harshest of creatures. Sometimes this comes off as naiveté, her optimism and idealism. But even those slavers; they could have killed her right off, couldn't they? What good was such a young ottermaid to them anyway? At least in the beginning, Cicero had been nothing more than used up space and an extra mouth to feed.

Cicero is affectionate and likes to show it, even if others don't like it as much. She's sweet and talkative, never passing up an opportunity for idle chatter. Sometimes she doesn't quite catch on when beasts want to be left alone. Having an incessant need of socialization, she doesn't quite understand why anyone would want to be alone when upset. Also, she's prone to hugs. Lots of hugs. She likes to hug new acquaintances, old friends, strangers. She hugs to say hello, goodbye; when she's happy or sad. Most beasts won't escape without a Cicero hug.

The young ottermaid, although happy and optimistic, can be quick to anger. Irrepressibly friendly to everyone, she is quickly insulted when others take advantage of her kindness. Although hardly one to make enemies or hold a grudge, she is not afraid to tell others when they have been rude or mean. Beasts should be prepared for a lecture if they're not quick to apologize. However, her temper is as quick to subside as It is to spark.

Also, Cicero is quite musically inclined. She loves to sing, and has an almost haunting voice. Even in her days as a slave she was often allowed to sing, provided the vermin wasn't in some especially foul mood. The otter also plays the flute, a skill she learned from her mother. She went her entire time as a slave, though, without playing the instrument, so it's a skill she's still honing now as a free beast. Predictably, Cicero loves dancing. Perhaps the one thing she does more than hug others, is dance. With our without a partner, with or without music, the ottermaid will dance whenever the mood strikes.

Having spent her entire life in the southern cove, Cicero has developed a strong desire to travel far away and see the world. The young otter feels beholden to her freed holt though, feeling she must help rebuild their former way of life. Also, her ailing mother has possessed much of Cicero's time and freedom to take care of her. Although now ostensibly on a trip to find Cross, the journey is also fulfilling her need to see the lands outside of the cove where she'd spent her entire life.

Strengths:

Strong: Although nothing special, from her years of slave-working, she has a lot of strength and stamina for an ottermaid her age.
Singing: Cicero has an almost haunting voice, and loves to sing.
Dancing: She's a great dancer, and will do so at any opportunity.
Friendly: It's really hard not to like Cicero, because she probably likes you.

Weaknesses:

No combat skill: Cicero is absolutely not a fighter. She has no combat skills with or without weapons.
Naïve: Even having spent most of her life enslaved, Cicero is still extremely trusting, and believes there's good in everyone.
Untraveled: The otter has never left her home at the cove. She doesn't know HOW to travel, doesn't know her way around and is utterly unfamiliar with Mossflower and its inhabitants.

History:
Cicero's memory of life before slavery is extremely limited and mostly inconsequential. She has trouble differentiating the time before and after. Some snippets of her past surface at times: swimming about in the shallows with her brothers, dancing on the rocks as her mother played her flute, gathering watercress with some other young otters for the evening's supper. Although that last one could've been before or after, too. She never really knew.

Cicero was born to Luca and Andreia in a lush cove on the far southern shore. The only daughter of the couple, (Cicero was born after three males) she became her mother's darling. Andreia sang and danced with the little ottermaid, cultivating a love for both in the little girl. Cicero never heard anything about her father's complicated, torrid past; her whole world was the holt's cove.

When the ottermaid was seven, the cove had been taken over by vermin. The takeover had been swift, decisive, and Cicero hadn't really understood what happened. The only thing she knew was that her mother's singing and dancing had stopped; that she couldn't go play in the shallows with her brothers anymore. In fact, for a couple years, she saw very little of her father and brothers.

During the day, Luca and his three sons were usually away for the harder labor, returning only in the evenings, quiet and bone-tired. Cicero mostly stayed with her mother, harvesting fruits and vegetables while learning to cook and mend clothing. It was dull work, but she tried not to complain. Seeing her disheartened mother, and the sheer exhaustion in the males, she could hardly bring herself to whine about her own lot in life.

Eating only so much, and doing work all day, Cicero grew lean and strong. When she was eleven, she became the personal assistant of some of the higher-ranked members of the vermin crew. Her days consisted of cooking to order, and lugging heavy buckets of water. Sometimes she was asked to sing for their own amusement. Although unhappy that they would turn around something that brought her so much joy, she supposed she could sing for them all day, as long as they didn't ask her to mend their horrible clothes. Some poor other ottermaid was stuck with that deplorable task.

One day, when she was almost fourteen, she was out tending a garden when terrible screams cut through the cove. Moving away to see what the source of distress was, she was shocked and confused to see their captors fleeing from the rebelling otter slaves. By the following morning, the news of the vermin leader's death had spread and the realization of their freedom had come. The following day was one for celebration. But her family's freedom had come at a sore price. While the rest of the holt celebrated, building an enormous bonfire to burn all the vermin's things, Cicero was with her mother and brothers, burying her slain father.

The next few days were a mixture of celebrating and grieving. It was not until this time that another young otter with whom she was helping clean out a cave with told her all about what had happened with her father and Cross. Even though the loss of their father had been devastating, her oldest brother had seemed to take it the hardest. Now she knew why. That afternoon, she sought out Cross, hoping to talk about everything with him, but couldn't find him anywhere. Asking around the holt, it was soon clear that her brother had left.

At first, they were all hopeful that Cross would soon return, but after months of waiting, it was clear he was really gone. Her second oldest brother, Calivar, took upon the responsibility of caring for his family, and became something of a leader in the small holt as they worked to rebuild their lives. Cicero took upon many responsibilities of her own. Ironically, they were much the same tasks she performed as a slave, and the thought had occurred to her one afternoon as she was carrying a bucket of water back to her family's encampment. But upon approaching her family's home, she heard something she hadn't heard since she was a child. Her mother's flute-playing.

The next couple years passed quietly, peacefully. The little otter holt in the lush southern cove had no need for excitement or adventure, happy enough for their home and peace. When Cicero was sixteen, her mother started becoming weak and easily-tired. She soon became too ill to perform her daily tasks, spending most of her time laid up at home. The holt's resident healer didn't seem to know if Andreia would ever fully recover from the illness. When she heard the news, Cicero had cried the whole night. She was sixteen, and was in danger of having no parents.

The next morning, she resolutely strode to her brothers and informed them she intended to find Cross. The very least Cicero could give her mother was to have her family all back together, to at least see her oldest son once more. Calivar and Cato wouldn't allow her to go, not alone. But neither would they join her. They said they were needed more at the holt. Cicero considered leaving on her own, but she couldn't do that to her mother, not again. Finally, her uncle Vale stepped forward and offered to make the journey with her. A couple days later, the two were off.


Relationships:
Father: Luca (dead)
Mother: Andreia
Brothers: Cross, Calivar, Cato
Uncle: Vale

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