Character Post - Deidre Traviat

Deidre Traviat ~ The Sorrowful Wanderer
(Dead-dray Trav-ee-ought)

She had dark hair that was lightly streaked with gray, which seemed out of place around her youthful face. Her clothing was rough and sturdy, but skillfully cut, and she handled her heavy staff with practiced ease.- Tribes of the Earth

Deidre is quite an interesting character to me. She is the first character that I created for TOTE, aside from the characters in the prologue, which I had a hard time abandoning. I have to consciously make sure that I don't just duplicate her from other characters that I've created, because there are similarities to Rienna (from Aouthentica). 

Deidre's a traveler. She doesn't stay in any one place for very long, and she lives in an age where travel is very dangerous. Not only have all the animals of the past century been turned loose and become wild and bloodthirsty, but the tribes are slow to trust strangers, and often the safest course of action is just to remove any possible threat, meaning that strangers are often killed on sight.

She travels the same route every year, or every season-cycle, depending on which tribe you're from. She goes from tribe to tribe, so she's safer than most travelers because the tribes know her. She keeps her past to herself, rarely gives out her name to anyone, so she's known merely as the Sorrowful Wanderer, which happens to be the literal meaning of her name (quelle coinky-dink, eh?).

She has dark hair with grey streaks, though it's because of genetics, not age. (Pay attention to that.) In her past life, she was fairly well off, as evidenced by her clothing, which is stylish and flattering but made of leather, wool, and other materials better suited for her rough lifestyle. On that note, she wears a cape and cowl, which I find a little difficult to describe. It looks like the picture above combined with ←this picture.

Pictures really are worth a thousand words, and because I had the freedom to create Deidre however I pleased and my brain didn't have any preconceived notions of what she should be like, I based her off a couple of different pictures. The two up there and this one → which I've posted before. 

Mostly the first and last one. Those are the ones I look at as I write (Scrivener!) for inspiration. 

Okay, now a little more about her personality. 

Deidre's ultimate goal is to have complete self-control. She doesn't want to let anyone know that they made her angry, or made her sad unless she wants them to know. She wants to be in control of herself. Not that she desires not to have emotions, but she wants to keep a tight leash on them instead of letting them flow. She wants to cry when it's appropriate to cry, laugh when it's appropriate to laugh, and be angry when it's appropriate to be angry.  

Which I think is something that I myself desire, especially being a teenage girl. Sometimes you get upset and when you think about it, you have no idea why.

She is a woman of many skills and when her control slips, she sometimes finding herself doing things she wouldn't have done had she thought it out rationally. And she prefers to be very rational and logical.

She has a great respect for the sanctity of life, both animal and human. However, if it's a choice between an animal's life and her own, she will always choose her own. If it's a choice between another human's life and her own, she will do her utmost to choose both.

As for why she's called the Sorrowful Wanderer (I keep writing "warrior" instead of "wanderer" for some unknown reason. Please ignore that mistake if you come across it.), she's seen a lot of terrible things in her relatively short time. At one point (that is yet to be posted) she tells someone that she comes from "a scattered tribe". She's seen many tribes rise, fall, and reform, usually violently. Sometimes, I imagine, she was even involved.

She has had to develop the skills to fend for and defend herself. Some she learned, and some she was taught. Her weapon of choice is her iron staff, which when manipulated correctly becomes more like a trident, only with the tines in a circle, like a claw, rather than lined up. If that makes sense.

For lack of a better explanation it looks like this, but on a staff. Then, when she's finished, or when she needs more of a javelin than a trident, she can slip the tines back in, close to the core, so it becomes a spear. It's very precious to her, as it was designed and crafted by someone she loved very much.

Deidre reached over and picked up her staff, holding it up for him to see. It was about an inch and a half wide on one end, narrowing to a point on the other. Near the sharp end, a wide leather band was wrapped around it. Deidre set it upright, wide end in the dirt and grasped around the leather band, pulling it downward in a quick motion. The top split apart into three razor sharp prongs.  

~Tribes Of The Earth

She also carries a long knife, which becomes very useful to her in the near future of the book. She also uses it for skinning, making tinder, and chopping small branches. Very useful. In a pinch, she won't hesitate to use it in self defense, though she prefers to use her staff.

Deidre's goal in her travels is basically justice. She intends to prevent what happened in her own tribe if at all possible.

And that's about it. I decided against putting any spoilers in this time, though I did hint vaguely at some things, which may not make sense until you've read the rest of what I've written. Besides, what's more fun than trying to figure out what's going to happen before it's happened when you actually had possible clues and hints to go on?

Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass! 

~ Trinity