Natlya Cade

Natlya Cade
Nat-lee-uh
Created by	Bella
Portrayed by	Lauren Ambrose
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Gaidin Captain
Affiliation	The Grey Tower
Nationality	Unknown (raised in Illian)
Attributes
Weapon Skills	Sword ✦✦✦✦✦ Unarmed ✦✦✦✦ Daggers ✦✦✦
Masteries	Reformed Thief

Natlya Cade is a Gaidin of the Grey Tower.

Description

Natlya is of average height for your average farmwife, although she isn't this. Upon her admission to the Tower, her form is womanly and a bit on the plump side. This is exaggerated by her round features--round face, round eyes, round mouth--and the curves she developed early on. With red hair, neatly set between the colors of tomatoes and oranges, she often looks like her head is on fire and the effect is exacerbated if she doesn't tie them back. Her eyes are hazel, a muddy mix of green and brown, that set roundly above her pert round nose.

In terms of her personality, she comes across as cheerful most of the time. She's a good actress. Inwardly, she's still the timid girl growing up in the orphanage who feels the need to cover her reticence towards the world with happy bravado. She will get away with whatever she think she can, though she'd bright and quick, which helps her pick her battles... Unfortunately, she's bright and quick, which means she can get away with a lot when she sets her mind to it.

An accomplished liar, she struggles to see that there is wrong in doing so. She has been living by it for so long that it doesn't even occur to her that others don't live that way, and she sees that doing whatever she needs to do in order to survive is simply necessity. She doesn't understand why it should be such trouble for others, but she has often encountered the very fact that it is, indeed, trouble.

Biography

If Natlya had ever had parents, she neither knew nor cared. She had been found on the doorstep of an orphanage in a small, unimportant and unknown town in Illian. This orphanage was run by a spinster woman who had little desire to deal with children and, outside of accolades for her "goodness" to devote her life to the place, she did little in actually doing so. All care was handled by the elder girls of the place, who seemed fast on their way to replicating their mistress' life for none ever came to adopt of marry them.

Most children ran away by the time they were old enough to conceive of the idea, and rarely before they were old enough to survive the attempt.

It wasn't that Nat had a bad childhood. She did have a roof over her head and just enough food to keep her fed, but it was certainly a youth devoid of love and mostly of companionship. She was a timid child who, unlike many of the others, had no memories of a life before this place. The others did, and while it made it harder now, it gave them something to look back on. For Nat, all she had ever known was the orphanage.

She grew up self-reliant, with no desire to be otherwise. And with such inattentive caretakers, she discovered very early on that she had an intrinsic talent for lying, and soon she discovered that she even liked it; made a game of it. A shy girl she might have been, but she was also a pretty one--at least, pretty enough--and cultivated charm in her timidity. Within the orphanage and surrounding, nameless town, it helped her get away with everything just shy of murder.

Around the age of ten, she decided she'd had enough of this place and she became one of the numbers of children who ran away. She was, however, one of the lucky ones. She survived. It wasn't easy, as a girl her age and her size traveling alone from any place to any place was a very risky business for many reasons. But she was bright and quick, with a strong survival instinct, and she had blossomed into her womanly gifts early, which gave her pretty face an edge.

Somehow, even she didn't know how, she ended up in Lugard by the time she was thirteen. She had been pick-pocketing and conning her way across the lands, and getting rather good at it. It was because of this that she met Morgan.

She tried a lift on him. It didn't work out like she'd planned. In fact, it worked out better. She gained a partner in crime and a friend, the first real friend that she'd ever had. As a fellow thief with a talent for spinning tales, they became nearly unstoppable in their turns and tricks, their con games and thieveries, and they left a wake of missing coin-purses and confused nobles in their wake.

And one night which was unlucky for their game, became lucky for them. Young companionship became young love, and the pair became a couple. For the first time, Nat knew love. And she liked it. She vowed to herself that she would never be parted from Morgan Cade.

That vow would be put to the test roughly a year later. Another con gone wrong, because it was to be expected in their business. It was a risky life they led, but that was part of the fun. This time, it went terribly wrong... It wasn't just any passing noble that they had offended, but a much more terrifying pair. The woman--deceptively small--prevented Nat's escape when it went tits up, and Morgan did something...astounding in her defense.

He was rendered unconscious for it. It was unbelievable to her eyes and happened so fast that she was barely aware of what had happened. The man said they were taking Morgan to a place called the Grey Tower. Nat didn't know what it was but she said she must go. And when they looked like they would refuse, even by force, the girl became a ball of fury. She would not be left behind!

It just got stranger once they were there. Morgan could channel, and had signed to become an Asha'man in training. Nat couldn't leave him, but had no such gift...

There seemed only one place to go. She signed the books to become a drin'far'ji. She would learn how to fight and how to use weapons other than trickery. It would keep her close to Morgan, and it would be a reliable roof and food for a time. And if she knew how to fight, then nothing like what had happened before would ever happen again.

She would take control of her life once again, as she had always had to do anyways.

Career History

• Drin (18 January 2016)
• Ji'val (19 May 2016)
• Gaidin (27 December 2016)