Appearance

Mentality

Personal history

Bathilda was born into a family of strong tradition and militant ties. For the past seven generations the first born child on her mothers side had been raised and trained to eventually surpass their parents’ position in the Military/Guard force of their hometown. For the past four generations, their family had even held positions as ‘Head of the Guard’. Just being born into the family did not mean that the position was granted to them though; they had to train for and earn it just like everyone else. What being born into their family did grant, however, was pressure from a young age to uphold this family tradition, so much so that it often became a point of pride. Before her mother, her grandfather had held the position of Head of Guard and when Bathilda was born, her mother expected her to carry on that tradition as well. As part of this, she - like most others in her family - had been given a strong name; ‘a name befitting a warrior’, as her mother so often reminded her.
Her training started early and by the age of five she was already being taught the basics of self defence, as well as how to hold and identify various basic weapons. From a young age though, Bathilda hadn’t shown much interest in fighting or carrying on in her mothers footsteps; often trying to sneak off into her fathers potion shop, where she would watch the various insects and creatures that he raised for their venoms instead. Her father remained fairly indifferent to the traditions of her mothers family; often keeping himself cooped up within his shop or study. That being said, he did not distance himself from his family and still made time to spend with them between filling orders and working on his research.
 
By the time Bathilda was seven, she knew she didn’t want to grow up to be a guard or a warrior, she wanted to raise and tame animals; but she was shut down each time she tried to tell this to her mother, who choked her ambitions up to nothing more than childish interests. Bathilda was often told that, ‘she is a warrior and she should act as such’, or to ‘get those foolish thoughts out of her head.’
 
Later that year, her little sister Odile was born. With the new baby, her mothers attention was split and Bathilda had more time to herself for a while. During this time, she secretly began keeping three garden mice in her room. She built them little nests in boxes and jars, which she kept hidden under her bed. When she wasn’t in school or training, she spent a lot of time working to gain the mices’ trust until she was eventually able to teach them some simple tricks. She taught them how to jump up onto her hand, to give little high fives, and other simple tasks in exchange for treats. When her mother found out, she was furious, telling her that if she had time to waste playing with mice, she had time to train harder. After this, she was made to release the mice back into the garden and told not to bring them back in. She did release them back into the garden, but continued to feed them in secret from her window at night. She even had some success teaching one of them to hide on command.
 
As she grew older, Bathilda began to deviate more from her training. By the age of twelve she began skipping out on training to run off into the forest and wild areas directly around their town instead. Her love and interest for animals truly began to shine around this time and she spent most of her free time befriending birds and small animals around the town. She was even able to train a small flock of starlings to come to her call. A great deal of tension began to form between her and her mother because of this though, and they began to fight about her training more and more often.
 
Coming to realise that Bathilda wasn’t going to change her mind, her mother seemingly gave up on her training, telling her that she had become a disappointment to the family tradition. This disconnect created a small rift and even some resentment between them. Her mother turned her attention toward Odile, who unlike her older sister, did show promising interest as she began her own training. Despite their differences though, Bathilda and Odile got along just fine.
 
During her teens, Bathilda moved into the second story of her fathers potion shop. She had begun to show extreme progress training the birds in town; having recall-trained a greater number of them and even having trained them to complete simple to moderate tasks, such as seeking and finding, singing on command, and collecting specific items. She spent a lot of her time reading her fathers books and journals as well, delving into the information he had accumulated on different creatures and beasts. Whenever her nose wasn’t in one of the books, she could be found out in the forest or by the river, observing and trying to befriend the different creatures native to their region.
 
During this time, Odile had really begun to shine through in her training, demonstrating a natural talent, genuine passion, and a determination to one day surpass their mother. Bathilda was proud of her sister, encouraging her to do her best and become stronger; happy to see that it was something her sister genuinely enjoyed and loved to do.
 
As she aged into her mid-teens, Bathilda began doing some odd jobs here and there for her father, helping him out with his shop, and starting to save up some money for herself. She mostly helped by gathering components for his potions and studies that could be collected from animals and beasts around their town. To do this, she’d begun spending days to weeks at a time out in the forest and hills surrounding their home in order to gain the trust of the animals and creatures so that she could gather from them without harming them. During her stays in the forest, she would live out of a small tent that she’d bought in town and live off of the land as much as she could. It was also around this time in her life that she decided to stop using her given name; rather, she began introducing herself as and going by Aspen. She did this to free herself of the pressure and expectations that her birth name set upon her. While most were not too bothered by the change, it was a decision that her mother vehemently disapproved of.
 
When Aspen was fifteen, she found and rescued an injured opossum during one of her trips into the forest. While it was still very much a wild animal, she’d formed a bond with it; a bond that seemed to be shared, as the opossum that she had come to name Arlo, would come and go, but always linger and spend time in her company during her trips. She would often find Arlo curled up in her sleeping bag or hanging from the branches directly above her tent. Arlo never followed her into the town though, which Aspen respected and did not try to force. Arlo was a wonderful companion nonetheless, one which Aspen grew to love quite dearly.
 
Around the time Aspen began taking more trips in the woods; word had begun to spread among the guard force back in town of Odile’s skill and exceeding promise in training, despite only being eight years old. A few rumours claiming that she would surpass her mother before the age of twenty even began to take root among the guards. Of course, her family was incredibly proud of her, including Aspen who continued to encourage and cheer her sister on. Their mother, however, had begun to favour Odile, turning more of a blind eye towards Aspen and her choice not to follow family tradition. Despite this, Aspen and Odile remained as close as ever, supporting and encouraging one another unconditionally.
 
As Aspen reached her late teens, she began planning to leave her home town behind. She had saved up a fair bit of money from working for her father and was looking forward to seeing more of the world, more of its creatures, and to begin forging her own path. Unfortunately, she knew that she would be unable to take Arlo with her, as she had begun showing signs of her age and Aspen knew that this would likely be her last summer. Arlo had had babies earlier in the spring, from which Aspen had adopted two; Roly and Poly, who were energetic, feisty, and full of vigour. She would go on to raise Roly and Poly, taking them with her on her travels; her first true animal companions.
 
At the age of nineteen, two months after Arlo had passed, Aspen was ready to hop on the back of a caravan and see where the road would take her. She told Odile of her plans before anyone else and promised that she would write home to her as often as she could. With that, she joined the next caravan to pass through their town.
 
She had only been with the caravan for about a month when an incident that would have lasting effect on her occured. Still young and inexperienced at the time, she’d been too confident in her abilities and had misread the situation as a young bear lumbered through their camp one night. It had become frightened by the fire and the group of people and Aspen had jumped up to try and calm it. Misjudging its temperament, she had approached it to offer it a strip of meat; placing far too much trust in the animal. Before she could fully comprehend what had happened, it had been too late; the bear had bitten down onto her hand and as a result, tore half of her left index finger off in the panic. Aspen had immediately lost control of the situation afterwards as the people she had been travelling with charged and killed the bear. Following this incident, she understood more clearly than she ever had what she wanted to do moving forward with her life; she wanted to gain a better understanding of the world's creatures, big and small - and help people to better understand them - to encourage a more peaceful coexistence with one another wherever possible.
 
Not long following the incident, the caravan stopped in _____, a larger city near the capital. Aspen decided to stay, spending the next few years living off of the land and out of the caves near the base of the mountains near the city. The variety of animals in this region far surpassed the creatures near her home and she was able to observe and learn much more about them during her time here. She would often take jobs protecting fields of livestock from predators, safely escorting merchants or caravans through the mountains and forests of the region, and teaching people about the creatures they shared the land with. People had begun to recognize her as someone who could calm and understand the creatures on the paths, and so trusted her to lead them through the forests more safely than they could travel on their own. She would go into the city itself once or twice a month still to buy and sell supplies, as well as to send and receive letters from her sister.
 
When Aspen was twenty five, she received a letter that their mother had fallen ill, so she made the trip home to support her family. She took some odd jobs here and there to help with the finances while her father focused on treating their mother, and while her sister took over some of their mothers duties in her absence. It was a long seven months, but with the help of their fathers treatments, their mother made a full recovery.
 
Soon enough, their mother was able to return to her duties, and her sister, who had already been climbing the ranks got back to her training fully. She had already been very near surpassing their mother before she had fallen ill and now all that was left for her to do was to complete her training and earn her rank. She was up against a few strong candidates for the head guard position, one of those individuals being a man named Belamy. Despite them being rivals for the position, they spent a lot of time together; training, patrolling, and sometimes just lingering in the guard house or walking about the town after their shifts to talk. Seeing the way they interacted and how happy her sister seemed to be around him, Aspen was almost certain that their friendship would likely blossom into something more.
 
At twenty years old, Odile became the youngest in the family to surpass their parent and earn the position as Head of the Guard after she had completed her trials brilliantly and out matched the other candidates. Aspen was glad that she’d been there to celebrate the occasion with Odile, as it had been a very important and special time in her life.
 
After lingering in her hometown for a while longer, Aspen once again ventured off, this time taking a more adventurous approach to her travels. She spent a lot of time hopping from merchant to caravan to travelling party; using her skills to guide them through the wilds, teaching them about the many creatures they encountered, and help them avoid as much trouble with wild creatures as they could. By some string of luck, she ended up meeting a fellow tamer by the name of Felda and her party; Saige, Roderik, and Sammy. She took to travelling with them for about a year and learned a lot from them, especially from Felda who was much more practised than Aspen at the time. They shared stories, advice, tips and tricks, and even took up a few jobs together while they travelled. Sadly, Poly had succumbed to his age during this time and Aspen laid him to rest beneath a beautiful oak tree they had passed during their travels.
 
When Aspen received a letter invitation to her sister's wedding, she decided to part ways with Felda’s party in order to travel back home to be there for her sister; it was a day that she would not miss for the world. Just as she had guessed a few years prior, Odile and Belamy had fallen in love and were to be married in just over a month's time, giving Aspen more than enough time to travel back home for the celebration. It had been a wonderful occasion and Odile, who had also adored Roly and Poly, asked Aspen if Roly could be given the honour of ring bearer. While his age made him slow, the wedding guests - especially the children, really enjoyed watching him waddle his way down the aisle with the rings held proudly on his tail.
 
A few short months after the wedding, Roly also succumbed to his age, having lived an impressive eleven years with Aspen. Being so close to her hometown still, she buried him next to the tree she had buried Arlo all those years ago, bidding him farewell before taking to the road once again.
 
Aspen wandered for a while on her own again until she met Scrunch. Then 31 years old, she’d been heading towards a town for some supplies after escorting a group of younger travellers through one of her more familiar routes. She’d heard a scuffle and a flapping of wings up ahead. Upon investigating the sound, she came across a small patch of blood and followed it to a hollowed tree; inside was a small, familiar bristle of gray and white fur. She spent the next few days gently coaxing the young opossum out of the tree with grubs and worms. When she was finally successful, she noticed that he was missing one of his eyes. Due to this, he would scrunch up his face whenever he was focused on one of the worms or grubs; earning him his name.
 
Once Aspen had earned Scrunch’s trust, she took him with her as her new companion. He quite enjoyed riding on her shoulders, where he would perch and keep a lookout as they travelled.
 
With things seeming to calm down, Aspen decided it was time to start seeking out thrill and adventure once more. She had enjoyed her time with Felda, Saige, Roderik and Sammy, and so she decided that it would be nice to find herself her own party - her own self-made family if you will, just as they had. She spent the next year jumping from place to place, offering her skills to travellers and small groups along the way, looking to find a group of people she might form a more lasting bond with; who she and Scrunch could go on to share adventures and experiences with together.

Education

Basic schooling in her home-town up to her early teens.

Personality

Motivation

Aspen strives to gain a better understanding of the worlds creatures; big and small - and help people to better understand them. She hopes to one day encourage a more peaceful coexistence between people and the worlds many beautiful creatures.

Personality Quirks

Aspen tends to pace back and forth while speaking, and often chews on the stems of leaves or sticks while travelling.

Hygiene

Despite spending a great deal of her time outdoors, she does practice regular hygiene. She tries to bathe at least every other day, if not more often when clean sources of water are available to her.
 
Despite regularly bathing, she also often covers herself in dirt, mud, and leaves to mask her scent while tracking other creatures. She may bathe often, but she doesn't always look clean.
 
There is almost always dirt under her fingernails.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Felda (a fellow tamer) and her party; Saige, Roderik, and Sammy.

Family Ties

Odile Silvius - Younger sister - Extremely close.
Belamy Sutton - Sisters Husband - Close
Bathilda Silvius - Mother - Strained Relationship
James Silvius - Father - Close