Gaia Username: Ellenoir
Character Name: Clover Sparrow
Occupation: Maid Servant
Organization: Allied to the house of Montresor, and formerly the house of Laurent
Age Class: Young
Age: 23
Appearance: Clover is a rather unremarkable young woman, aside from her hair. Feathery and hard to control, her ear-length locks often fall into her face. Its bright fiery colour alone is enough to keep her from fading into the scenery.
Her eyes are neither large nor small, her face neither round nor long, her nose neither sharp nor snubbed. All in all, pleasant to look at, but not gorgeous. Average, with a light dusting of freckles.
Her build is slight, being only 5 feet and 1 inch tall. Clover is strong enough to get through most household chores without any trouble, but by no means a warrior. Her true strength lies in her nimbleness. She can lace a corset tighter and swifter than maidservants ten years more experienced. Buttons, buckles, laces, complicated garments are simple tasks under her slender fingers.
When she is in the presence of the lords and ladies of the household she wears simple, proper, unassuming garments: A black ankle length skirt, over dark brown leather shoes. Her shirt is a high collared coal black knit long-sleeved affair. Over the knit shirt she wears a brown leather corset, a shade or two lighter than her shoes. The corset buckles closed rather than laces. Hanging from her corset she carries a watch as well as other small tools and keys, which she uses to wind and repair the clocks and gadgets of the household.
Sometimes she covers her hair with some kind of bandana or veil.
When she is in her own quarters, or in the human districts of the city, she dresses a little differently: Trousers instead of skirts, as a matter of personal preference. When she’s working on a project whether it be a watch, music box, or what-have-you, she has a pair of goggles that she can swap the lenses out to varying degrees of magnification.
Personality:Clover is driven by a few simple urges, whose conflict make for quiet but strong character. First her most instinctual urge is that of curiosity. She needs to know why things work and how. If she stumbles upon a secret passage it will pang away in the back of her mind leaving her agitated until she has the opportunity to see what lies on the other side. Her fascination with how things work is most obviously exhibited by her small experiments and creations. She has notebooks full of sketches and measurements and calculations.
The next pillar of her persona is her loyalty. Her first loyalty is to her family. In particular she feels a very strong bond to her elder brother. She writes home every week, and receives letters back in kind. Family news, and her brother’s latest compositions, which she dutifully begins making music boxes out of. The vampire family which plucked her out of the factory mill is her next greatest loyalty. She realizes that had she stayed in the factory she would have had no time to explore her craft. After a few years in the factories her hands would have been injured one way or another. A crushed hand is useless when working with clockwork devices. These vampires are her graceful benefactors; she owes them everything she has.
Quiet, gentle, unfailingly polite, she is every inch the servant, fading into the background when not needed. But her mind is always ticking, always pondering.
Biography: Clover spent her earliest years in the Under-cogs of Ilnaria. Her mother and elder sisters worked in the assembly factory, and her father at the water purification tower. So from a very early age she was learning how things worked. Their supper-table conversations were often about the various malfunctions at work and how they were being fixed. But when she was 12 years old her whole world changed.
She had just started working in the factory alongside her sisters when an inspection came through. That was her first time meeting a vampire, and she’ll never forget it. The unearthly grace of the man fascinated her. She knew he was different, and when his eyes passed over her she met them her curiosity burning. What was it that made him so different from the foreman?
It wasn’t until he had left that her sister scolded her for meeting his gaze. “Blast it child! That was the Comissioner, a Vampire, a Noble! We all could be written up for your disrespect!” But no write ups were handed down. Instead after their shift, after their supper, when they were taking Clover to her first dance ( see notes, #2) they were met by the vampire once more. There was a hushed conversation, from which the children were excluded, before Clover’s father took her home while the others were shuffled off to the dancehall.
They walked in silence, fear pressing hard on Clover’s mind. When they reached their small home in the East Wall her father told her only to pack her things. When the vampire returned, her father held her tight as the stranger picked up the small package of the girl’s belongings. She’d never seen her father cry before.
From that night on she began to live in a completely different world. She was taken to the Upper City and placed in the home of one of the Vampire families. Most of the other servants looked at her with disdain, a dirty little urchin from the Undercogs. And because of this, when she wasn’t pressed down by duties she snuck off to find ways into the Uncercogs. As she grew older and moved up from simple maid to lady in waiting, she made a habit of meeting her family every night at one of the dancehalls in the Undercogs. Eventually however, her mistress took to traveling, much to Clover’s despair.
Even without her family to visit, Clover would still slip away to find some sort of recreation with other humans, dancing preferably. And she often wonders if this behavior is what led her mistress to send her away. Now she tends to the affairs and household of an assuredly odd vampire. Brilliant though he may be, she can see why her mistress wanted someone to look after the poor man. If it weren’t for Clover he would certainly forget to eat and waste away to nothing.
It’s a big responsibility, but it’s also quite freeing. As she’s the head servant (often the only servant in the household) once she accomplishes the tasks she sets for herself, she’s left mostly to her own devices.
Notes:1) Her current project is a clockwork bird that has a music box in it so that it appears to sing. She’s having a great deal of trouble getting it to fly however.
2) Being old enough to work in one of the factories is seen as a rite of passage in Ilnaria. Many of the adults in the city spend the time after their factory shifts unwinding in one of the many dance or pool halls, drinking, singing, and making merry. Children are generally not welcomed to these places, so your first time going is a special ritual of ascension to the adult world.
3) Clover would never admit it, but she occasionally will make a correction to one of her master’s schematics. Other times she simply copies them down to try and make miniaturized versions on her own.
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