Name: Maeve de Althon
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Description: Maeve has a round face. Her large, expressive doe brown eyes peer out over full cheeks and a soft jawline. It is easy to assume she is younger than her twenty-four years, and the dense spray of freckles across her pale skin works well with that illusion. She is rarely seen without a smile on her somewhat plump lips, though there is usually some element of mischief behind it. The rest of her frame is fairly thin and built with lean muscle, narrower in her shoulders than her hips, and standing at 5’2” tall. Her hands and feet are small, marked with many small scars from nicks and scratches spreading to her lower arms and legs as well. She has chestnut brown hair that falls to her mid-back when it isn’t tied back in a loose bun, which is most of the time.
Her chosen wardrobe is plain, typically made up of whatever old or worn fabrics she can find cheaply, and almost all of her clothing is stained with muddy pawprints or marred with holes from excited bites. She is rarely seen in skirts or fancy dress; her occupation demands both coverage and full range of motion, so trousers are her preference, though it might earn her sideways glances from the more upright members of society.
Maeve is quiet. Despite being in the palace for nearly four years now, she is still uncomfortable around multiple people at once, and often copes by working in total silence except for an occasional whistle or click of her tongue to communicate with the wolves. When she does speak, her voice is melodic and soft, with a heavy accent from another land. Ironically, it isn’t even her land; she picked up her speech patterns from the old immigrant man who raised her from five years old.
She is usually surrounded by a minimum of three wolves, but the palace now owns a total of twenty-one. She knows the name, personality, and preferences of each one, and she treats the wolves like her personal pack. Sleeping in a pile of wolves is exactly as comfortable as you would expect, and she’s already accepted that wolf fur is a staple part of her diet now because it is simply not possible to keep it out of her food.
History: She doesn’t remember much from her early childhood, but she remembers the day she was abandoned. She was barely five years old, holding her mother’s hand as they took an early morning walk through the woods. The dawn light streamed golden through the trees, and her mother was crying, but she wouldn’t say why. They stopped to eat breakfast on an old stump that looked just like a table. And then she was alone.
She was alone for a long time, but she stayed at that table stump. Her father always told her to stay still if she was lost, so they could find her. They never came back, though. Two days passed before someone else came along that same wooded path; a shepherd.
She spent the rest of her childhood chasing sheep. She learned to read by telling the sheep apart with their tags and to count by sorting them. The old shepherd died when she was fourteen, and she took over his role, working night and day for a landowner whose name she barely knew. She was content, though. It was a quiet life, away from noise and stress that could trigger her episodes and away from those who would judge her for it. She loved her sheep. She lived for them, and she killed for them. A young lion, a hungry bear, a wolf mother full of milk… She found her pups the next day by following their hungry cries. On sheep’s milk, they grew large and strong and followed Maeve with loyalty that couldn’t be trained.
When she was nineteen, her quiet life was abruptly uprooted. Soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms came, took her sheep in the name of a king she didn’t know, and told her that the landowner had surrendered her to them by default in his retreat. She found herself in chains, her wolves muzzled and sold. Her condition made her unsuitable for work, so she faced death or banishment from the only land she’d ever known.
A secret third option soon became available, and the choice was made for her. Her wolves now belonged to the king of kingdom name, and he wanted them to obey him like his soldiers claimed they obeyed her. He wanted her as a slave, so a slave she became: Wolfkeeper.
Other: She has epilepsy caused by severe illness when she was a child. Her parents abandoned her when her seizure activity worsened, fearing demonic possession or interference. During any seizure activity, the wolves are extremely protective of her and will not let anyone near.