Post by Estella de Cartier on Jun 14, 2010 23:16:52 GMT -5
Avatar: Elisha Cuthbert
Name: Estella de Cartier
Age: 16 years old
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 3”
Province: L’Agnace/City of Elua
Appearance:
Once a very beautiful and bright girl, Estella, though only sixteen, has matured into a beautiful yet bitter teenager, looking a little older than her age, and acting far older than that. When the grime is scrubbed away, which is rare, it reveals pale skin, the colour of light ivory, which was once unmarred with scars, but now her body is littered with them. Not very large ones, all cuts received from her hard life, save the one that goes across her shoulder and falls just short of her breast on her right side. However, she has always healed well, and all that is left there is a pink line, a reminder of her misfortune and near death. Her hair, when washed, is the colour of wheat in a field, a bright blonde that shines almost like gold in the sunlight. Her eyes are brown, like murky waters, and they stare coldly out of an angular face. Her nose is petite, as is her height. She is small, but what she lacks in height and breadth she makes up for in her fierce nature. The child in her heart has been locked away behind steel doors, but it was once cheery, bright, happy, and content. Now her heart is hardened to all, and none have been able to permeate it, though very few have ever tried. She maintains that she needs to keep hard or she will be hurt again, and then she will have no one else to blame but herself for her further downfall. As it is now, she keeps herself unadorned, as she cannot afford it, and finds that men tend to stay far away from her the less she bathes and the less she cares for her appearance. It is a little difficult on her, as she is d’Angeline, and the d’Angelines value beauty, but it is a matter of life or death, of self-preservation, and she would much choose to live than to die, even if the life she leads is not much of a life at all. It is her life, regardless.
History:
Estella is the second child born into the de Cartier family, second to her brother, Aden, who lives still in L’Agnace. Her parents, Stephane and Lise loved her dearly, and loved her well. When they were alive, she was the happiest child there ever was. She wanted for nothing, and was treated with dignity, respect, and love. She had gotten along well with her brother, who had stayed mostly out of her way. As she grew older, and reached the age of five, her parents saw signs in her that they thought might be best suited for a house in the Night Court. She was beautiful, humble, and quiet, even though she was happy, and had a pretty shyness about her and the way she blushed so naturally. She always did as she was told, and without any argument, even if the task was something a 5 year old would rather not do, especially when they could be playing with friends out in the fields. They thought perhaps, that they would bring her to Valerian, or Heliotrope when she was old enough, and she, at six, having been told that, could not wait for this potential dream to become a reality. She had heard stories of the Night Court, of course some that made her blush a deep red, and others that made her wonder at what it would be like to be one of that sort of tutelage and upbringing. However, her dream was cut short.
On her 6th birthday, her parents had bought her a pony, and were transporting it back to the home as a surprise for her. It was unfortunate that along the way, their wheel broke, sending the cart into a ditch. They would have lived, especially had they been met by helpful hands, but such was not the case. A band of bandits passing through the passage they took saw their tipped carriage and saw this as an advantage that they could not pass up. Thy robbed them of all they had, and left them for dead. It was not until two days later that the cart was found, and Aden was informed. He told his little sister, making sure she knew well that they were on an errand for her happiness, and that it was her fault, even though in reality there was nothing that she could have done to stop it. The guilt rested heavy on her shoulders, and her brother, then in his early 20’s, became the Duc, taking his rightful place as head of the household. With his parents out of the way, he had no reason to treat little Estella as a loved family member. He was, to his core, a nasty, terrible, angry man, and he made sure to show his true colours to her immediately.
It started with yelling. But when he found that this did not phase her, he had to move on to worse measures. He progressed to beatings, which he found made her cry, but did not make her fear him, or abhor him. She felt as though she had deserved it, and took it quietly as her rightful punishment for making her brother into a hard, cruel person, and for leaving them both without parents. However, when the nightly visits to her bedchambers began, they both knew that that would break her. Estella tried everything from begging and pleading, to pretending like it did not bother her, to thrashing out at him, as small and as weak as she was. She even went so far as to lock the door, but even that could not stop him and he broke it down just to get to her. Any servants who had an issue with it either left or were thrown out, and ordered never to come back, and never to tell anyone, or he would find a way to bring hell down upon their heads, and the members of their families. So her torture continued.
When he told her he would not send her to the Night Court, her dreams shattered. She had tried to kill herself, then, making a slit down her wrist, but he had found her before she could finish and bleed out by herself, and bandaged her and brought her back to health, just o that he could torture her again in her own private hell. Eventually, she realised she would either need to die, or she would need to leave. And even though she was young, she left, striking out on her own, taking whatever few things she could take with her, stealing a horse from their stables, and she fled to the City. She had taken some of her mother’s jewels, those that her brother had not sold or given to random women he slept with, and pawned them to get enough coin, or what she hoped would be enough coin, until she found some sort of place to live, or somewhere to employ her. But, she was too young to be employed, even in the worst types of employment, and found herself homeless, friendless, and utterly alone. She took to begging in the streets, for coin, for food, for anything that anyone would give her. She learned to steal, and steal well. She made a few friends on the streets and they would band together and rob when they needed to. She had a clear streak, having not been caught for some time, but then she tried to steal from the wrong man, trying to pick his pocket at a market stall. He turned and, with his dagger, sliced above her right breast to her shoulder. She was able to ran away but collapsed in an ally. Her street friends found her, and cared for her, taking her to a Tsingano woman they knew who could help with medicines and salves to stave off any fever. From then on she was very careful of who she robbed, making sure to watch the person first, get a feel for them, what kind of person they were, and then making the choice as to whether she would leave them alone, or try her luck.
Now sixteen, she still continues to live on the streets, and little do her friends, or those she robs, know that behind the dirt, the sullied clothing that fit loosely on her frame, the silt and grime, was a nice girl, a girl with a shield up for all to see, a girl who had been hurt and harmed and who was once happy.