Danya

Player: Ronin

Character Full Name: Danya Ethelwulf

Character In-Game Name: Danya

Nickname(s): Dani, "Wolf"

Association(s): Stormwind Military (formerly), a few "honest" Mercenary Bands

Race: Human

Class: Warrior

Age: 29

Sex: Female

Hair: Golden-brown

Eyes: Rich Brown (almost gold-like tinges in the light)

Weight: 159 lbs (Primarily Muscle, light fat)

Height: 5'7"

Usual Garments/Armor: She's rare to dress down, but when it happens, she adopts a tom boy-ish look. When traveling or doing good old manual labor, she dresses in hardy wools and some leathers (she doesn't much like the cold), and when going for a fight, it's the heavy, bulky armor she's been trained to use that she dons.

Other: She wears little jewelry, if any, but in casual settings she can be spotted with a peculiar ring adorned with a family crest, it seems. While a bit crude, it seems to depict a plant, tree perhaps, sprouting from the ground and growing into a beast of some sort. Other than that, she's a few rough, slightly aged tattoos popular among some of the Stormwind Military's younger recruits. Finally, her body boasts an impressive number of scars, most faded with healing and well-attended mending, and they blend in easily enough with her skin tone.

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Personality: Most people have difficulty understanding the inner workings of Danya, as she isn't the most prone to in-depth conversation, and even less so on personal subjects. This often leads to a 'cold' perception, as if she's not really emotionally connecting to other people. She's rare to act out, seeming to direct impulses inward whenever in social settings. In contrast, she's all about action when the situation demands it, showing a fiery side of herself.

History: Born just around the time the First War ended, Danya was brought up in a society focused on its hatred for the Orcs, and her home in particular held hatred for them -and- all other non-Humans. Her father was a staunch soldier in the Alliance's army, and served out of Lordaeron. Her mother was meant to stay at home and take care of the children, a job she never seemed to mind. She stoically faced the hardships of single parenthood whenever Danya's father was called to battle.

Danya knew a life of relative ease coming up. Her father was no mean footsoldier, and they had some noble lineage. However, both her mother and father did not believe in letting the children run rampant while maids and servants did the chores. They felt it would build character for the girl to learn responsibility early, and so she and her mother tended the small estate together.

Danya was an only child for many years, technically up until the last time her father had come home. Nearing the age of eleven, her father had begun to worry about his legacy, and despite reservations had begun schooling his daughter to become his heir. She would become Lady Ethelwulf upon his death and take over the estate and his finances upon his death, unless a male heir could be claimed.

The next year had both high and low points for the young girl. She enjoyed learning how to run things, and even more the basic swordsmanship training her father had insisted she take up for her own defense (he did not exactly like the idea, but neither did he care for her being defenseless if she did indeed inherit). Things looked bleak for her new future, however, when her mother turned up pregnant just a matter of weeks before her father left for another tour of duty.

He didn't return. After surviving wars and many battles, he was cut down by one of his own comrades, both heavily inebriated and arguing over a bad toss of the gambling dice. Danya found herself somewhat numb to all the news, if somewhat perversely pleased with hearing that the killer had been imprisoned for his crime in a notoriously bad prison. By then, her sibling had been born, a little girl. Which of course meant that all her father's assets were to be hers, if belatedly through her mother until she came of age. She was lucky, she reasoned later, that her father's own siblings had died in the first and second war, which left no viable contenders to her inheritance.

In the following years, her studies continued. Juggling weapons-practice (now conducted with the aid of the house guards), schooling (more tedious thanks to her mother's difficulty in dealing with the loss of her father), and chores (something Danya felt was her sister's place to take over, now) all together was a rather distasteful set of tasks, and she began neglecting the latter two for favor of the simplicity in the sword. It earned her the switch more than once.

More callused and emotionally detached, the girl's mother felt they would be unable to continue living in the home that reminded them (her, mostly) of the husband and father they had lost. Using her command over the family's assets, she, the children, and whatever guards felt like continuing in their service shipped off. They moved to an older estate in southern Elwynn, in the area now known as Duskwood.

With some careful verbal maneuvering, Danya managed to shift most of her chore workload off onto her sister, and reduce her study times with her aging mother. She began to devote herself more and more to her martial work.

Her newly crafted and not so unpleasing life took another unexpected turn for the worse, however, when her mother decided what would be best for the family was to surprise Danya with an arranged marriage. The family was well of, if a bit on the rural side, and was eager to increase their own social standing.

As she had been when her father died, Danya was numb to the shock at first. It didn't last, as it had before, though. The day she met the man that was to be her husband, a flurry of pent-up emotions burst from the girl. Contempt for her mother at trying to force this on her, anger at her father for leaving her to deal with all this mess, disgust at this country bumpkin who thought he was good enough for her, and even some heavily misplaced spite at her little sister, who could have been a male and saved her from all this (never mind that she used to want this fate, and that being a boy wouldn't have altered most of what happened to Danya).

Danya remained largely silent all through the meeting with her suitor, silently trying to work her feelings out. By the time he had been sent home, Danya had rationalized all hope away. With the consideration and foresight of a sullen, spoilt child being forced into something she didn't want, she rashly decided to take matters into her own hands. Paying one of the guardsmen handsomely (a new one, a more easily persuaded aid), she had him whisk her off in the dead of night, heading straight for Stormwind with naught but a still hefty purse of gold (her mother had kept heavy sums of it in easy reach, her mistake), a bagful of clothes, and the family signet ring.

Even the rough journey of the days long travel to reach the wondrous city did not cool the girl's anger, and she marched to the military barracks with reckless abandon, signing herself up without a thought. And she sure paid for it, too. When the guards would teach her things, they were careful not to bruise her body or her pride. Being that she oh so cleverly used a fake alias so as not to be found out, as far as the other soldiers were concerned, she was some raw recruit of the street, and the treated her like one. Granted, her previous training with a blade did give her some merit among the local farm and shop boys, but she'd been more a noon-ish riser, rather then a crack of dawn sort of girl.

She bared the hardships like most would, and didn't back down, though. She reached the rank of Private with minor distinction. At first, she was stationed at a few different areas, unable to make much of a splash. With the third war came more possibilities, though, what with an increase in opportunistic bandits to clean up, and even a few run-ins with Lordaeron Deserters (which, by Danya's estimation, were just Bandits with better equipment).

The war was finished and the years continued on, with Danya little affected until various races began moving into Stormwind, seeking to join the Alliance. When she had first come to the city, the Gnomes had been busy with this or that in their own home near the Dwarves, and she was unfamiliar with the odd creatures. She had served with a few dwarves and could interact with them readily enough, but the Night Elves were quite the oddity. Still, being as she had cast off her former life, she would do her best to also look beyond the prejudices of her younger life (not that she always met with success).

Like other times in her life, things never continued to go her way. Some manner of curse began corrupting the southern end of the kingdom, where her family lived. Her anger having had years to cool some, she found she still had a shred of worry for them. She had asked to be sent down there to investigate the odd claims coming back, but Stormwind was too busy with it's own troubles, and she was forced to agonize over what might be happening.

Her nerves frayed and her calm demeanor shaken, it was a cool late summer's night when everything came down around her. She had been drinking at a favorite pub, trying to distract herself from her worries as well as getting one last easy night before setting out in the morning. She was supposed to help guard a convoy headed for Lakeshire, in the Redridge Mountains. A smooth stranger had joined her at some point, slipping beside her unnoticed. He started up casual conversation, seeming quiet charming and sophisticated, despite his casual garb. At first she had been determined to ignore him, but he seemed to compliment her in all the right ways (as well as provide many nice drinks), and while she hadn't any manner of reputation for promiscuity, she found herself enchanted by the man.

The last things she recalled were the cheering of her mates and slipping out the front door of the tavern with the stranger. She awoke to banging on her door, the same mates, ironically, and rushed to get ready while battling with a hard hangover. Everything had seemed in its place, her weapon and armor, her undercoat, and the detailed route layout they were to take for the mission, a new path that was supposed to circumvent where bandits would usually be looking for the sort of cargo we were transporting.

It was the end of that night, with Danya's hangover almost gone as she and most of the guard were drifting to sleep, that the bandits fell on them. Danya knew immediately what had happened, and for the first time in combat, she didn't feel elated, she felt sick. It was a large force of the brigands, well organized, too. As she fought through them, still a bit sluggish - she stubbornly decided to believe that she must have been drugged the former night, too, and that attributed to both last night's folly as well as her current weakness - and was having some difficulty, but was staunchly searching for that pretty boy's face so she could have it kiss her boot.

The battle ended with what guards lived taking shelter from the bandit's arrows while the thieves highed off with their ill-gotten loot. As Danya, bruised and miserable, cast her gaze around, she saw a few accusatory glares shot her way. By the time the small group trudged their way back to Stormwind (their horses had been stolen, too, go figure), the boys from the evening at the bar, her former 'mates', had spread what they had figured out, and what she wasn't denying, and had let her walk alone. She simmered the whole time, unable to deny the obvious, unable to meet their eyes in the face of her failure.

Danya stood in shamed silence before her commander. Suspension, no pay. Official court date set for next week. Likely demoted from Sergeant Major to Corporal, maybe Sergeant if she was lucky. Danya could hardly hear the man's voice, yet it was like the words were being hammered into her brain like nails. All her hard work, all she'd lost and given up. She knew she was unlikely to ever get above the position the stuck her in now, and she'd never see Officer status.

During the time between then and her trial, buried evidence came to light. Her family lines became known and were often commented on in distaste. Besides her own failings, her mother had evidently squandered the rest of the family's money on the Light knows what, and her sister was said to have been sold off to another well-to-do family and had later disappeared, thought to have likely become nothing but a "lady of the night". Danya's self-pity quickly turned to rage at the scrutiny she had fallen under.

"Danya Keis... Or, Danya Ethelwulf, as the case may be, you are hereby demoted to the rank of Private," even lower than expected, and it wasn't helping to calm the fuming soldier, "and you will be docked a month's pay in additional to your suspension. Do you accept this?" The judge was already raising his mallet, assuming his question would be taken rhetorically.

"No! This isn't fair! I only screwed up once!" Danya roared before she could stop herself. Her blood ran cold at the disapproving glare the judge gave her, almost as much as it did at her own idiotic outburst.

"Very well. Then you are dishonorably discharged form the Stormwind Military. Next case." And like that, Danya was ushered out. No one made a sound until the big courthouse doors slammed shut behind her. Outside, a few groups of soldiers stood about and all turned to glare at her. They jeered as she stumbled from the courtyard, yelling things like "Dani the Wolf, lied her way in and payed for it, she did!" and they'd laugh and laugh. She simmered silently, thinking them incredible morons for making such a big deal from her name, when that wasn't even the main issue at hand. Or was it? Did it matter?

The next few years were wasted on wines and lost coin. It was long enough for Danya to largely fall from memory, though, and when money grew tight, she did what came naturally. She signed up to fight. Not in the military, of course, but as a Mercenary (not much better than a glorified bandit, she felt, but when money's tight...).

The days have dragged on since, and she with them. Most people have forgotten her completely, but she'll never let go of what happened. She still has the little signet ring with her fallen family's crest on it to remind her.