The Basics
Name: Miran Floin
Age: 20
Element: Wind
Classification: Citizen
Birth Kingdom: Ventus
Home Kingdom: Ventus
Appearance
Playby: N/A
Appearance: Height - 5'4"
Weight - ~105 lbs
Miran has a narrow scar on the left side of her face, running from just under her nose to the bottom of her chin.
Personality
Personality: Miran is a brusque, often self-centered young woman. She finds it difficult to place herself in others' shoes, and imagine what they might be feeling. If someone wrongs her, no matter what the reason, she'll hold a grudge and make a fuss, yell until she's out of breath, and generally get mad. Temperamental as she is, she also finds a very hard time finding the fine line between frustration and suicidally-overconfident-rage. When she's not angry at someone, she's usually bored with them. However, there are times when, if she and the other person can stomach each other, she can be very caring and kind. When people are close to her, no matter how angry may become, she can calm down fairly quickly.
She doesn't have any inhibitions against telling people what she thinks of them, and will not apologize for voicing her opinions. Once she says something, she stands by it, which can be either admirable or stupid depending on the situation. She enjoys people who are similar to herself in this - she doesn't mind others being snippy to her, as long as she can turn it around; she actually enjoys verbal sparring. She is intelligent and can be very witty, though stumbles over words when she is well and truly flustered, embarrassed, tired, or too angry to speak clearly.
Though Miran is quick to yell and make a fuss, she's not as quick to start a physical confrontation. It takes a long while of boiling rage for Miran to become quite so furious as to throw a punch. This is not so much based on Miran's ability to place herself in others' shoes, but rather because of the few physical confrontations she's had, she's usually lost. Badly.
With her quickness to anger, Miran masks insecurities about her own perceived weaknesses: her scar, her intelligence, and her lack of strength. She prefers, often times, to be alone, with few exceptions. She prefers to be with people when she's eating, or happy (food time is fun time), but prefers isolation when upset. She finds people many people exhausting.
Likes:
- Food - Miran greatly enjoys eating. Food time is fun time.
- Verbal Sparring - Though she doesn't consider herself particularly intelligent, Miran does love a good debate. Even a poorly-thought-out one will keep her occupied for some time.
- Animals - As they are rare in Ventus, Miran rejoices when she can find any indication of animals, especially birds.
- Almost anyone who is able to tolerate her - As Miran is a very difficult person to get along with, she's not so picky as to what kind of company she'll keep. Anyone who will have her is a potential friend, in Miran's mind.
- Books - Although Miran can barely read at all, she enjoys having books because they feel like a luxury, something she is unaccustomed to.
Dislikes:
- Losing fights - Be they verbal or physical, Miran doesn't enjoy losing. It's one of the few things that can silence her.
- Expensive things - Because she and her father have very limited wealth, she gets very irritated when she sees things that are overpriced - even if they aren't something she wants.
- Large groups - While it won't trigger her anger, Miran has a limit to how many people she can tolerate. Once forced into a large group of more than a dozen people, especially in a condensed space where she cannot leave easily, she tends to freeze up and be very irritable.
- Her father - She considers her father to be fairly lazy, and avoids him whenever she can.
- People who walk away from arguments -
It's not over until Miran wins, damn it!
Elemental Strengths- Though Miran is not very good at using her element (especially not as a weapon) she is able to use it for practical purposes such as picking fruit from trees, or knocking things off of very high shelves.
Elemental Weaknesses- Miran isn't very good at controlling her element, especially not as a weapon. She can use it very briefly, which could be expected considering she only recently uncovered the ability.
Background
Family:Mother - Moira Floin | Water Apprentice | Deceased at 56
Father - Rourke Floin | Wind Consular | 58
Siblings - None
Other -
Hagen Floin | Paternal Grandfather | Wind Apprentice | Deceased at 80
Vevila Floin | Paternal Grandmother | Fire Consular | 92
Aleski Minetti | Maternal Grandfather | Health Consular | Deceased at 76
Nola Minetti | Maternal Grandmother | Water citizen | Deceased at 43
History: When Miran was very young, she looked to her mother for most things. She saw her mother as a strong woman who could carry her through anything, and wanted to be just like her. Her father, however, she saw as a layabout, and as useless. She didn't quite understand what her mother saw in him, and often avoided him. After all, he never seemed interested in playing games with her, which her mother so frequently did. In actuality, her father was working very hard to support them, planting trees which rarely survived for very long. As her mother put it, a few good trees could keep them rich with fruit, although the few good trees they did raise did not benefit the family as much as they had hoped.
Miran preferred the trees for climbing, rather than for raising fruit. When she was about nine years old, she scrambled up the largest tree they had grown and stumbled upon a bundle of straw with eggs inside. In her excitement, she scooped it out of the tree and hurried home, careful not to drop the eggs. When she showed it to her father, he struck her, assuming that Miran had constructed the nest, and stolen the eggs from somewhere else. No matter how she tried to explain, he would have none of it. He took the eggs and threw them into the fire. Her mother did not rush to her defense, but instead tried to console Miran, and tell her that she could not steal. No matter how Miran plead her innocence, no one believed her. This was one of Miran's earliest lessons: she couldn't rely on her parents to come to her aid, and she would be assumed dishonest if only because she was poor.
As Miran grew older, she grew more and more hostile. If her mother asked her to go to the market, she would be lucky to come home without her voice raw from screaming at a merchant who overcharged for a peach. She thought she was haggling, but usually was only shooed away from the stalls. From time to time, she managed to save a few bronze pieces by debating how disheveled the food was, and the leftover money she hoarded. By the time she was fourteen, she had saved enough money to buy a single book. She had never been able to read herself, but her mother could. At first, when she asked her mother, her mother demanded to know where Miran found the book, once again assuming it had been stolen, or tricked away from some schoolboy. Miran was persistent, insisting that she had never lied to Moira, that the bruised fruit and browning lettuce had been a means of saving money. Though Moira was irritated, she taught Miran how to read, how to sound out words, and how to write. Alas, the lessons were short, and ended abruptly.
Miran's worst memories were of a time when she awoke to a sweet-smelling smoke. She found it pleasant, and comforting, given how cold she was, but when the reality of
why there was smoke set in, it terrified her. Somehow, the trees had been set on fire. Miran insisted it must have been that one seedy merchant boy, he must have been angry that Miran noticed a worm in an apple he had tried to sell - but her father insisted it must have been an accident. He led Miran away in her mother's old cloak, and Moira tried to put out the fire. One of the trees collapsed on her, although Miran had only heard from her father, and had not seen how her mother died. To her, it didn't matter. All she knew was that the trees, and more importantly her mother, were gone. Miran was sixteen.
Her father and her replanted the trees, but it was a time of struggle for them. They had very little income in the mean time, reliant on their smaller patches of cabbage, and carrots, and were forced to sell off personal belongings. Miran's books were the first to go, and all but two lumpy mattresses and a worn-out chair followed. Her father sold his boots, and tried to sell Miran's cloak, but she refused. It was all that remained of her mother, and she refused to give it up, even if she were starving. She and her father argued frequently during this time, and Miran found herself spending more and more time away from home. She would wander towards town, staying at a safe distance. When she did have to go to market, she could swear the merchant's cowered in their stalls, for fear of Miran's often-furious haggling. If it came to blows, nearly all of them could easily best Miran, but no one wanted to take that chance.
Until, that is, she met a man in the market, about twice her age, who unleashed a strong gust of wind to force her away from a merchant. He calmly told her that she was holding up the line. Miran began to scream at the man as well, but he was unfazed, serene, throughout the encounter. With a few simple words, "You're all talk," he had her throwing a punch, and in an instant he had blown her away. When she charged him again, he blasted her, stirring up dust and debris. A stray rock cut her chin and lip, and she fled. It was shameful to her, and her father admonished her to learn how to control her temper.
That was when she began to scream at him, and Rourke very nearly struck her again. In her anger, she began to stir up wind even within their own home. It was the only time he ever told her he was proud of her, and she assumed he was being sarcastic. Her father, unlike her mother, had no interest in teaching her control. When she asked him to help her practice, he would shoo her away. "Teach yourself with your books," he would say, although this was impossible, since she had not even owned a book in years.
She continued to live with her father, detesting every minute of it. From time to time, their trees bear fruit, but the fruit is scant and small, and they either go hungry or are forced to venture out, beyond their farm, and beyond town, to gather what they can.
OOC
RP Sample: If Miran could find any coins on the ground, she would rejoice. Perhaps it was strange to walk through the market with a far-too-light coinpurse, staring at the ground, and perhaps to some people it would even seem suspicious. Miran didn't care. She had long since grown accustomed to the idea.
It was when she bumped into someone, when they growled, "Watch yourself," that she took offense.
"Oh yeah?" she would growl. She was largely ignored, waved away, which irritated her to no end. If they wanted to start something, why wouldn't they finish it?
She scowled after the first time, and she continued to scowl. She scowled, all the way to the usual fruit stand. This time, it was not the younger man running the stall, but the older one. He was far firmer about what he would charge, so Miran resigned to the possibility of not having any money leftover.
"Some of the peaches, over there. And those pears," she said, gesturing to the various fruit. She wanted him to pick up the bruised ones, the one she could argue costed a few pieces less. "That one - that one should be cheaper."
"It's all the same stuff," he growled. "Thirty pieces."
"It's not worth more than fifteen," she said. "I won't pay more than twenty."
"Thirty pieces."
She could, she supposed, back off, but she needed just a little money for bread. She could throw herself upon the ground and beg, but instead she growled back, "It's not worth more than fifteen, and I think twenty is pretty generous. So I'll make it seventeen."
He paled, if only slightly. "Twenty-five pieces."
"Besides, we have a taste for bread, and maybe some butter, since we won't be buying fruit," she suggested, glancing at the other stalls.
"Fine. Twenty."
She could, she supposed, continue her ruse, but she didn't want to push her luck. Out of her scant thirty pieces, she handed him two thirds. That left them barely any bread, at least unless they got lucky, and the fruit came too early on a very young tree, cabbages became very rare, very suddenly.
She made off with her winnings.
Alias: Wicked
Subject: Miran Floin 
Fri Feb 01, 2013 7:49 pm
