| Liss |
|
|
Background
Liss was born to be a tavern girl. She was literally born in a tavern. Her folks owned it; the Red Pine Inn. It wasn't much; just a couple of rooms and a taproom attached to the stables which provided fresh mounts for travellers and couriers up and down the Kingsroad from The Twins to Winterfell. But the food was good, the beer excellent and the place kept clean. As soon as she could walk, she began to learn all the chores of the inn, from helping her Mama in the kitchen to mucking out the stalls, and as she grew up, she became part of the living machine of the place. Her parents used to joke about how the whole place would fall apart once she married and left them. As it turned out, that wasn't actually an issue.
The summer Liss turned fourteen, a man rode into the innyard, his horse lathered and spent, and tumbled, face down, into the dirt of the road. When they rolled him on to his back, they saw that his skin was darkened with black patches and he was very dead. Liss became ill first, spending days lying in a fever while her young body battled with the disease. The inn was closed by order of the King, and her parents took turns tending to her, both day and night. After two weeks, she finally woke one morning, exhausted and sore, but clear of the disease. Her relieved parents, on the other hand, were not so lucky. They died within a day of each other, Liss tending to them both, alone.
She then sold the horses and the metal pieces in the inn to a group of gypsies wandering through, laid her parents out in clean clothes on their bed, and burned the inn to the ground. Young girls may recover from the plague, but inns never do. She sat and watched it burn all night, and, in the morning, started heading south.
Liss worked her way down the Kingsroad, and ended up working in a tavern called the Hanging Wolf. It was much larger than her parent's inn, and it was a lively place, where musicians often stopped to play for a few coins on their travels to more lucrative courts. She enjoyed the music very much, and began to pick up the lyrics to a few songs, here and there. One musician who made a regular stop there, began to teach her how to play the lute, among other useful skills, and helped her buy and restore a second-hand instrument of her own. The tavern wasn't a bad place, in all, but when a well-dressed merchant told her that the Crane's Crossing in Stonebridge was looking for some experienced staff, and would pay a good deal more than she was earning at the Wolf, she packed her bags and headed West.
Liss is a cheerful, lively girl, with a strong practical side to her nature. She has no naive delusions about how the world works; she knows her part in it, and plays it well. She's a rather mercenary creature, and not afraid to use her youthful charms to coax an extra coin out of a traveller, but she's an honest girl, and would never think of stealing. She works hard, plays hard, and generally enjoys her life, but every day she saves up another coin or two, in a little leather purse she wears tied around her waist, inside her clothes, for the day when she can open an inn of her own.
Family
Liss has no remaining family members that she knows of. However, she may have some cousins she's never met.
Physical Features
Short, curvy, with startling bright blue eyes
Allies and Foes
None, yet, but she's only just arrived.
Recent Activity
Gallery
 |
 |
