Isobel Blarach
Profile
Basic Information
Name:
Isobel Blarach
Nickname(s):
Bel, Bella
Age:
64
Birth Date:
7th Frost, 8231
Height:
5'8" (173 cm)
Gender:
Female
Race:
Dark Elf
Class:
Bard
Occupation:
Physician (pesticide..maker on the side)
Guild(s):
Enhancement(s):
Dark Blossoming
Atros' Favour
Likes
The evening ambiance
Hearty soups
Mild days, she's sensitive to temperature shifts
Folk songs
Feeding smart animals (cats, crows)
Dislikes
Her mother (by extension, flakes), herself
Bars, liquor, taverns
Distractions
Being cheated
Early mornings
Personality
✓ : pragmatic, disciplined, hardy, dutiful, undaunted
x : clannish, biased, selfish, vengeful, distrusting
Though she's an able practitioner of healing arts, Bel's bedside manner is (politely) not warm. Her speech is curt and stinging with a fierceness barely contained by a personal discipline. Kindliness make her uncomfortable and her attempts to reciprocate are usually underwhelming, if she chooses to do so at all. There is a clear delineation between those she favors and those she doesn't, but even the people she's chosen can feel the distance she nonetheless keeps. And it's not that Bel is unaware that she's difficult - she just believes she's justified. As far as she is concerned, who she's become is a result of learning how horribly trust can burn; now, forfeiting herself to others' whims both disgusts and scares her.
However, these experiences have lent her a distinct lack of pity for herself. Bel is not ignorant of others' graces and in fact strives to repay even things that are freely given. She is mindful of dues and respects exchange as a fundamental part of relationships - even of those she doesn't want to maintain. Although she will only make wagers she can't lose, she'll no sooner treat a penniless man without expecting reimbursement than she would turn away a beaten child at her doorstep. She will also repay disfavors in kind...which sort of speaks for itself.
History
Bel's childhood began in the basement of her mother Fiona's tavern workplace. Though not ideal, her life was certainly not the worst in a small town with few opportunities. She had friends, a dry roof over her head, and a parent...until the night Fiona Blarach packed her bags and disappeared without explanation. The tears had been heavy, quelled only by a swift eviction (Bel didn't have the finesse to replace Fiona as tavern mistress) and the realization that her mother was really never coming back. An all-powerful fear of betrayal transformed Bel nearly overnight. Everyone became suspect, even the close friend who gave her board aftweward.
She didn't, couldn't, talk about it to anyone. Instead, she took her boiling emotions out on higher powers. She blamed Atros for everything, and He became the silent keeper of all her truths. So when her aunt, whom she had met only thrice, suddenly came looking for her, Bel wondered if Atros had taken pity on her after all. Their beginnings were trying, and while Bel found in amiable Sorcha a willing caregiver and mentor, she simply couldn't trust that her new life wouldn't be as impermanent as her last.
This fear laid dormant until the Queen spearheaded Reluir's war with Iadlain. Sorcha gave her allegiance to righteousness, whereas Bel insisted they avoid the fray. The Blarach household entered its own warzone, ending in a messy ceasefire with venom and regret on both ends. Sorcha departed for Iadlain in justice's name - leaving Bel behind, just like she'd expected. She didn't even get a sweet goodbye.
Their clinic remained in limbo as new borders were carved, separating aunt and niece along their incompatible principles. Bel kept busy with an influx of patients, unable to forget when given new wounds to mend every day. She was tired, irritated, and all too aware that her aunt had chosen her heart instead of her family. All too aware that this whole time, she'd needed someone after all.
Current Story
Her rage took action the day the Queen summoned a leviathan and set monsters among Reluir. She ventured into the woods to set it to fire, only return to her broken home and honestly, broken heart, after the threats were subjugated. She passed the ensuing days like sludge, lacking fire to fuel hate nor an enemy to condemn. Yet months later, Sorcha walked back into the clinic. It was a miracle, a victory, and a chance for Bel to relive her betrayal - but all the same, she felt a weight lift. Loathe as she was to admit it, months of listlessness gave her a real longing for the life she had built since Fiona's disappearance. She had missed it; she had even mourned it. It was hers, and she didn't want to lose it to a god or her mother's enormous shadow.
That quiet assertion made, Bel recoiled all the more when Princess Lorna's rebel army broke Relan borders to fight, as it were, for all of them. Her unease was validated when the giant rose again on the revolution's tail, this time sundering the land so completely Reluir was lost in all but name. Though Bel prayed for her Father'd aid, it would not take long for her to realize He was that very monster - because she would come to hear Him herself.
He wasn't all she heard. In her dreams, which had grown wild and strange, she met people from other lands. One of them would convince her that salvation must be sought and found, and so with fiery intent she marched to Iadlain - not for glory, or heroism, or in anyone's name...but for the rarest, most desperate flicker of hope.
But of course, none was waiting there.
Additional Info
Blossoming: black sclera, black nails
Their clinic, Cungaidh Oidhche (Night's Remedy..or so i hope), mainly deals in pharmaceuticals and general wellness. However, Sorcha is trained in surgery and was known to operate on a pittance of whatever clients could afford. Her compassion is probably why the clinic wasn't plundered.
Bel has been apprenticing under her aunt for 4 decades, so she can hold her own as a healer. But thanks to her harmonic affinity, she can't exercise the sheer remedial power of her Cleric aunt and has neglected her magic for the shared medium of medicines/instruments. It never made much of a difference before the war and all that followed.
Her favorite plants are belladonna and foxglove. Foxglove blossoms are bell-shaped, while "belladonna" reminds her of dusty but fond nickname.
Bel will sing to patients who refuse sleep draughts (instead of shoving them down their throats like she tried to do in the beginning). Normally she dislikes even humming in public, but this way they get fixed quicker and leave quicker.
Sorcha is driven by good and, however subconsciously, a savior complex. Bel has never made the cut for Sorcha's moral code and she understood intuitively that her aunt sometimes thought of her as a bad, or at least difficult, person
Though her interest has waned over the years, Bel always wondered who her father was. She's gathered that he was either unaware of or unwilling to recognize her birth, which of course allows for plenty of damning inferences about his relationship with Fiona. Some part of Bel recognizes that her mother was probably a combination of deeply troubled, flawed, and pained, rather than a complete monster; the similarities in herself deeply troubles her.
Her necklace has a pendant of dragon's breath opal! It holds a lock of hair she and Gigi exchanged upon recent events.