PLAYED BY: Bethany Peckham
CHARACTER NAME: Signe Járnúll Ironshear
GENDER: female
PRONOUN(S): She/her
CLASS: Rogue
AGE: 30
RACE: Ulven
HAIR: Brown
EYES: Blue
OCCUPATION: Angry ex-farmer of miscellaneous food items bent on revenge.
KNOWN SKILLS: The first part of making a weapon, sewing a hole shut in a garment, but don’t expect it to stay, making food that will keep you from starving.
BIRTHPLACE: Signe was born in pack Ironshear in the lands of Nightriver. Close to the Hackles where her father used the ore from the mountains for blacksmithing.
RELATIONSHIPS: Hildr Rammerúll Ironshear, Halfdan Olegson, Æsa, Froden Nightblossom
Bio/Background History:
Signe woke with smoke filling her senses. Tears streamed from her eyes as she tried peering through the heavy haze to make out her surroundings and get to safety. All of the usual items of her bedroom were present so she was still in her home and not transported to some unknown place. As she reached the door she called out for her children.
“Revna! Kåre!”
The smoke had filled her lungs and she dropped sputtering to the floor. Crackling wood made itself known. It wasn’t the warm sounds of a happy hearth. She struggled up to her feet and pushed against the door. As the door gave way flames filled her sight. The heat enveloped her but Signe kept moving forward. Her eyes locked on the doorway to her daughters’ room. The fire had already engulfed it. Where once there had been walls there was fire climbing the structural supports, but her eyes didn’t see it. Moreover her mind wouldn’t acknowledge the fact that there was no movement in the space that had once been their room.
“Signe! Get out of there!”
The voice sounded distant and muffled, she paid it no heed. A hand grabbed her arm, gripping it tightly and pulling her away from the flames, away from her daughters.
The sun rose behind dark clouds. Few houses still stood in the village that Signe had called home. She and her mate, Svend, had chosen this place as the best location to raise their daughters and start a farm. The farming was difficult, since the last season Svend had fallen ill and the healers could do nothing for him. He had been with The Great Wolf since then and so the care of the farm came down to Signe and their daughters. Had the girls been a few years older it may have made things easier but they had still been in their child years. Meant to be playing and teasing with the other pups of the village. That day had been particularly rough working in the fields. They had eaten their supper early and likewise went to sleep earlier than usual. Signe’s mind replays it for her, the outcomes that might have been if they had done things differently. She was told that the raiders were cutting down the ones who ran. Maybe if they had just stayed working longer out in the fields they wouldn’t have been there. Her girls would be alive, but that’s not how it is.
Days had past since the raiders had come through. Those of the small village that are left have packed up what they could. There is no home for any of them here. Some head to larger villages, hoping for security, some go to other packs.
“I’m going to Onrich, if you’d be going that way too we could pass that way together?”
It was the young Ulven, Hildr, who had saved her from the fire. Brave and strong beyond her years. Signe nodded. The smoke had damaged her lungs and voice. She wouldn’t be able to speak for a while. It would take time for those wounds to heal. The loss of her daughters is a wound that would never heal, though the thought of revenge seeps deeper into Signe’s mind.
*Clang, clang* “ Signe! Come here and mind the forge!”
The darkness split in front of Signe as her father’s forge came back to her from memory. A young girl barely in her 20th year came bounding across the floor.
“But Svend was going to show me the sheep that he tends to!”
The warmth of the memory slipped away and she was standing next to her mother. A stern woman able to keep any Ulven male from speaking sideways at her.
“Do you love him? Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be putting me through this! He best be good to you or I will make sure to put him in the ground!”
She was raking the comb through the unruly hair of the girl that sat in front of her. She started plating the tresses with purple flowers.
“Yes I love him, yes he’s good to me, no you won’t have to put him in the ground.”
Signe remembered this well, her all too common eye roll and response that followed.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me!” her mother had chided.
Once again the memory faded away like smoke to darkness. She was left alone now in this blackness, this emptiness, with her thoughts. The knowledge her father had passed down to her was useful, if she had listened to his teachings with more than half an ear she would have made a fine amount of silver at it. But such are things when you are young and in love. So many days spent running through the tall fields with her soon to be mate. Her mother’s teachings went the same way, mending clothes, making food, who had time for these things when the sun was so warm.
Hildr shook her awake.
“The sun is about up. Time to be moving on.”
The horizons color had just started changing hue. They had no fire set to keep away the nights chill. Would all of her dreams be like this? Moments from her past, things that couldn’t be changed, words that could no longer be said. She dreaded the nights that were to come. The thoughts of reliving her most recent pains sent tears to fill her eyes.