Nrr'iss

Character's Name:
Nrr'iss
(the apostrophe separates "nrr" said like a horse's neigh, in the back of the throat, from "iss" said like "hiss" without the "h")

Character's Race:
Unicorn...Sort of.

Gender:
Female

Age:
702 years or 2,807 seasons
(Because of their powerful ability to self-heal, unicorns can live indefinitely...though they're not exactly immortal.)

Element:
Star

Height and Approximate Weight:
Just under 15hh; about 600 lbs (very light, compared to a horse)

Description of Appearance:
You know the myths that describe unicorns as horse-like creatures with spiral horns and cloven goat hooves? Well, you're mistaken. First off, Nrr'iss isn't an herbivore, but an omnivore. While she can hunt and kill, she prefers a diet consisting of beetles and other small bugs, berries, and fruit. She does, however, have sharp front canines for eating other types of meat. Second, while Nrr'iss has a spiral horn, both it and her hooves are made out of a clear, diamond-like material that never cracks or breaks. Although both are clear, they can take on a faint blue, silver, or violet sheen--depending on her emotions. Her horn spirals to a razor-sharp point, with the edges of the spirals also being sharp enough to cut flesh with the barest touch. Her hooves, unlike a horse's, are not an outer nail, but a solid structure with the bone, tendons, etc ending just above the hoof (how this works anatomically, I don't know). Harder than rocks, they strike sparks when she walks across rough ground, and are as deadly sharp as her horn. She has been known to split rocks by pounding her hooves against them. Her coat is pure white, soft, and thick. It's slightly longer than the average horse's, but not fluffy. Her heavy undercoat keeps her warm in below freezing temperatures, though; which is important since she lives in the snow and ice. Her skin is also white and unblemished by any mark. This is partly because she enjoys rubbing her horn against her body, using its healing powers to keep her form perfect and free from scars. Her mane is thick and a deep indigo color: like the sky just past sunset; while her tail is like a lion's: slender and tufted at the end. The tuft, like her mane, is a dark blue-violet, almost black. Her eyes are black orbs, without any color. They give no sign as to what she is feeling, though her horn may indict her emotions based on its inner-tinted glow. When using magic, her eyes appear to swirl with faint silver lines spinning through the black. It's a very disconcerting sight to those who are watching.

History:
Nrr'iss was born near Shadow Lake to a small herd of unicorns. As life goes, they were attacked by other creatures on occasion and sometimes one of their herd would die, but not often. Unicorns aren't known for living together, though, so when she and the two other foals in the herd were considered old enough to be on their own, the herd broke apart, leaving Nrr'iss to find her own way.

She responded by traveling a good bit, learning as much as she could. She lived in a few cities, and even traveled for a time with a band of centaurs, but found that she preferred the silence to the hustle and noise of others. She needed the silence to think and to learn to know...Knowing became an important thing for her. She wanted more than facts, but the knowledge of what things were at their heart and center and why they were that way. In search of that information, she traveled far to the north, until the land became one of constant ice and snow. The sky stayed black nearly all day and the very stars seemed to change from what she knew. Eventually, lack of food drove her to the south. Even though unicorns can heal themselves, they still need food to survive on.

She came to the Northern Desert, but didn't like the dry heat or the constant dirt that matted her snowy coat. Disgusted with that, she traveled all the way to the ocean, but finding none of her sea relatives, she decided to return to Shadow Lake. Only the human cities to the south remained unexplored, but Nrr'iss knew the legends of the cruelty of humans--especially against her kind--and had no desire to venture there. At last, she returned to the Castan Mountains above Shadow Lake, finding the highest peak that she could that still remained reasonably close to food. Nearby was a large ice field, that she immediately began marking it to chart the stars. Nrr'iss built carved an ice cave and now lives there in the silence and solitude and ice that she so craves.

Education:
Nrr'iss has, not surprisingly, never learned to write. She can read a variety of different alphabets, however, from the dragon's to the human's. She's very intelligent and has studied astronomy and the belief systems of others extensively.

Occupation:
Star-gazer/astrologer. This is not so much an exact/literal occupation, as it is what she has been engaged for the past hundred or so years. Nrr'iss has moved away from other creatures and civilizations to live on her own in the mountain peaks where she can read the stars and study the signs that they give. She believes that "men may lie, but the stars never do" (The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis). So she has given her life to learning to understand their movements symbols and to chart their courses.

Status in Community:
While Nrr'iss has lived in two different cities at different times, and has held many stations in life, she is currently separate from any and all societies to study the stars and learn what they have to tell her.

Current Home:
The Castan Mountains, north of Shadow Lake, in an ice cave near the peak of a mountain she calls "Trre'La Var Merres" or "Tower of the Stars" (she rolls her R's).
{Meres: Tower; Var: Of; Treth'lan: Stars}

Personality:
Nrr'iss is both highly intelligent and very beautiful...and she knows it. Though not cruel by nature, she is vain and often arrogant, frequently discounting or completely ignoring the emotions of others. Like others of her kind, she is very perceptive, and when she focuses on it, she can often sense or read the emotions and sometimes the thoughts of others. However, she tends to be more absorbed in herself. She enjoys cleaning her coat, and may spend hours simply grooming herself by rubbing her horn all along her body, or by rubbing on rocks and rolling in the snow.

She is thoughtful, but quirky. When asked a question, she will give an intelligent, thought-out response, but not usually the expected one. For Nrr'iss, A + B doesn't equal C, but perhaps J or M...or maybe K on some days. Dreamy by nature, Nrr'iss spends considerable time by herself simply observing and thinking. This has never kept Nrr'iss from being practical, though, and aware of both the limitations and possibilities of life and herself.

Her passion is the stars, and she usually sleeps most of the day, staying awake at night to watch and chart the pattern of the stars. She believes that they predict the future and speak to the present. Of late, they have been showing bizarre and unpredictable signs, which she doesn't know how to interpret. It should be noted that Nrr'iss doesn't read the stars like an astrologer, looking for personality traits or lucky signs, but as a way to recognize seasons and shifts in the world.

Magical Skills:
Healing
Like all unicorns, Nrr'iss can heal. She can even heal fatal wounds, but this is difficult and painful, and she has never actually tried. Unicorns heal others by stabbing them through the heart with their horn and then retracting their horn. Needless to say, this is a painful procedure for the patient, and only used in extreme cases. Nrr'iss can also heal herself or minor injuries on others by rubbing her horn across the wound.

Purity
Nrr'iss can also purify with her horn. This includes negating poison, purifying water or food, or cleaning the air. However, purifying things is draining for unicorns, and so she avoids using this skill unless necessary. The more often she purifies things, the weaker she grows. This can be dangerous, as unicorns have been known to die from trying to purify too much or too large of a source too quickly.

Shielding
Finally, Nrr'iss can shield both herself and others. This is done easily if it's only herself that she's shielding, but shielding others is extremely draining, and usually can't be maintained for long. A full shield creates a clear substance either between her and her attacker or completely encircling her that is similar to the substance of her horn: it is nearly impenetrable. However, it takes several minutes for a unicorn to build a shield, and she can be wounded in the process of trying to defend herself. Not only that, but maintaining shields can be difficult: the larger and more complex they are, the shorter they last. However, when multiple unicorns combine their powers, they can create a shield that is impenetrable and nearly indefinite. Unfortunately, unicorns usually keep to themselves, preferring their own company to that of others: either of their own kind or of other races.

Personal Premise/Ambition/Motto:
I am the star speaker: I learn to hear their whispers in the silence and the void.

Whoohoo! I just wrote more than 1700 words! Btw, if anyone else makes a unicorn, it can be completely different from Nrr'iss in appearance/skills/whatever.