Esoka Greenblood

Esoka Greenblood
Social Rank	7
Fealty	Grayson
House	Greenblood
Gender	Female
Age	36
Religion	Pantheon
Vocation	Knight
Height	5'6"
Hair Color	Dark Brown
Eye Color	Blue
Skintone	Bronze
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Description

Bronzen skin is the backdrop of a shifting, rippling art piece in needlework across the sculpted strength of Esoka's stocky frame. Her tattoos are lessons, interlocking circles in copper and black that twist and writhe over the breadth of her back. The curving bulk of her biceps suggest the power of a battering ram behind each fist. Broad-hipped and powerful, there is little spare flesh on Esoka; there is, rather, the sense that her entire body is a weapon to be hurled. The readiness and pride that frequently light the bright summer blue of her eyes contribute to this impression. Her hair is kept short: deep, dark brown, cut into a curving bob of weighty thickness that curls inward at the tips around her jawline. Her lips are full and dark, frequently painted a deep, ruby red; the slash of her smile is sometimes mocking, sometimes sharp, but always lights her strong-featured face with bright energy.

Personality

Esoka is a hothead with a fierce attachment to her own dignity. She takes failures personally and struggles to build herself up each time she falls. A perfectionist with a chip on her shoulder, she sometimes creates more problems for herself with her insecurity than she can solve with her confidence. With that said, there is nothing to be found wanting with her courage, her integrity, or her interest in duty. She cares passionately about her people, and when her heart is given, she loves whole-heartedly and with a fierce, romantic idealism. Intensely organized, it drives Esoka nuts when things -- or people -- are out of order, and she has an overwhelming desire to just FIX IT when things are somehow out of alignment -- this happens in relationships as well as just objects in rooms she happens to be in.

Background

Esoka Greenblood grew up as the granddaughter of the Elder of her tribe, which lent her a certain status even in amidst the fluctuating lifestyle of her people. It came with a sense of responsibility, of the duty to serve her people as the Elder served her people, of the need to be well-behaved. Although war leadership was not hereditary, it was simply considered that there was going to be some kind of greatness in her future because there was some kind of greatness in her blood, passed down generationally and with wisdom.

So it was a fairly structured childhood, built on expectations and hopes for a future that shattered in disaster when the tribe fragmented while Esoka was a teenager. It took her structured life and threw it into chaos and upheaval. Why she chose as she did -- to follow the rebels rather than stay with her family -- is a complex tangle of emotions for her even now, years later. But whatever the reasons she chose, she did. Young, and fierce, and too young to fight, she nevertheless followed, swore herself in defiant loyalty to Thesarin, and never looked back ... for long.

Accustoming herself to a completely new set of disciplines and structures was very difficult for Esoka. The social mores of the Count's people were a struggle. Worse, her own position seemed to fluctuate and change with passing years. When she was 22, Count Thesarin knighted her. To this day, she still is uncertain why -- there were excuses given at the time about her great service to the countship, but she always had the sneaking suspicion that this was some kind of politically oriented compromise between Count Thesarin and Countess Mia about who was going to take up arms and serve the Twainfort under the aegis of knighthood.

Hungry to prove herself, Esoka sought out ways to make herself critical to the county, and ended up making more mistakes early on in her service than she would have liked. The first time she was forced to face down former members of her tribe who had been raiding the fishing villages along the Daughter, she could not bring herself to raise her weapon, and stood behind her men while she sent them on ahead to take care of it. It was a 'cowardice' that she felt incapable of living down for years afterwards. She tried to resign her knighthood, but this was refused. Her need to prove herself has never gone away, not even with subsequent successes bolstering her military career and making it clear that Thesarin's judgment in raising her to a knighthood was not so strange as all that. Her early mistakes and confusions haunt her.