Olivia Ashford
Description
Hers is a gentle visage, with cornflower blue eyes and a set of dimpled cheeks that flush prettily with every display of emotion. She's soft and feminine, with sweet curves and dainty hands. For all her sugary charm however, there is an occasional hint of mischief in those big blue eyes, a touch of spice to her 'everything nice'.
Personality
Olivia spends as much time under the open sky as any in House Ashford, her love of trees and flowers and the smell of wet earth an almost visceral thing. It's too bad then, that she has such a strong aversion to animals of all sorts, be they tiny insects or vicious predators. People are another story however, Olivia loves to meet and catalog people almost as much as her precious herbs and flowers. She's nosy but generally well-meaning, and a bit of a gossip, though she's fiercely loyal to those she considers true friends.
Background
As the youngest of Duke Barton's legitimate children, Olivia enjoys something of a privileged status, not expected to lead she's been coddled more than Ashford's usually are. One would expect such treatment to have turned her into a maniacal brat, but somehow it has not. Certainly she is mischievous, and she sneaks around more than one might expect of a young woman with such an innocent face, blending into the shadows of furniture as a child, and moving through the shifting shadows of trees as an adult.
She's no warrior, stalking the trail of tribal shavs, but rather she's avoiding the animals that plague the forests of her home. She's not scared of them, they are a necessary evil if she's to find the perfect blossom for a bouquet, or that one specific plant she's promised to find for the apothecarist. But she will walk miles out of her way to avoid a family of geese, or avoid an entire part of the forest during mating season. Her love of nature stops at the greenery, for certain. Prickly thorns and poisonous saps are all part of the adventure, but cuddly rabbits are simply loathsome and more than once she's released her cousins' pets into the wild where they'll be free - and no longer underfoot.
The plight of Alaric IV has drawn Olivia to Arx, his condition sounding quite unlike anything she's ever seen before - and she's seen plenty, from poisonous roots contaminating a march's water supply to stinging beetles blinding infants in a tribe of Ravashari. Surely there is a cause and a cure to be found, and Olivia means to have her name mentioned upon this discovery, and many more.
