Corinna of the Clarus Stream

About You
Name: Cara.
Age: 19.
How did you find us: An old advertisement, ages ago!
Rules Password: [Password Accepted ~Misha]

Character Basics
Full Name: Corinna.
Alias(es)/Nickname(s): None.
Gender: Female.
Age: Her stream is relatively young, having branched off from a larger river some hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. She has no known age, though her physical body looks to be somewhere in her mid to late twenties.
Species: Naiad. (More specifically, a Naiad of the Potameides which are specifically Nymphs of rivers and streams)
Status/Title: Keeper of the Clarus Stream.
Affiliation: Narnia.

Character Appearance
Hair/Fur/Feathers: Corinna has long, very light blonde hair that hangs free and blows around in the wind. She rarely ties it back; she likes the way it feels when it’s falling over her shoulders and down her back. Because she spends so much time in the water, it rarely even has the opportunity to fully dry in the sun. Because she never sees any need to do anything with it, it often has a bit of a wave to it. She doesn’t own a comb so the best she does is comb her fingers through her hair.
Eyes: A pale, almost colourless blue. Always expressive, always curious.
Overall: The first thing one might notice about Corinna is that she is an all around tiny, unassuming sort of figure. However, just because she’s small doesn’t mean she is easily overlooked. Standing at some five feet, three inches, Corinna is thin and waif-like. She is lightly skinned and has long, wavy blonde hair. Her large, ice blue eyes, are expressive and always hold some sort of question. She holds herself tall, carries herself with elegance and grace. She walks and moves with a sort of fluidity that only a water nymph can have. It’s difficult to pinpoint just what’s different about a naiad; like all nymphs, there is a difference about them that can be noticed but is difficult to express. She appears to “flow”, if that is a proper term for it. It seems as though there is little that can contain her – much like water cannot be easily contained or kept in place.
Portrayal: Emilie De Ravin.

Character Personality
Likes:
+ Stories. {She loves any sort of story that might catch and hold her attention, anything about great bravery or love, and she greatly enjoys telling stories though they’re usually whispered to no one but the empty fields around her stream.}
+ Nymphs in general. {She considers them, in a sense, her “brothers and sisters” because she can sympathize with them, and they with her. She does not understand humans, nor does she want to. She cares more for the talking animals.}
+ The rain. {It’s like a fresh start; it helps wash away the terrible things people have put into her stream and every time it rains, she feels stronger and refreshed. It’s reminds her of her home when she’s away from it.}
+ Sea creatures. {She feels a sort of kinship with them; they need her to survive, she often has only they for company. She almost sees them like a man might see a beloved pet dog, and she takes great delight in the fish in her stream.}
+ Warm weather. {When the sun is shining and her water is warm and the plants that crawl the bottom are getting the light they need, that is when Corinna is the happiest and most comfortable. No matter where she is, she can feel that warmth.}
+ Her stream. {It isn’t solely a matter of liking the Clarus stream, she loves it. It is a part of her, and she is a part of it, and it is not only her home but the foundation for her existence. It pains her to have anyone mistreating it.}
+ Rocky cliffs. {Where some may only dare to tread, Corinna can find herself comfortable, content and happy. Rocky cliffs overlooking beautiful ocean views provide excellent places for sitting in thought, or singing to one’s self.}
+ Singing. {She’d never sing in the company of anyone else; this is one of her private joys. Her voice is soft and sweet, though her songs are often sorrowful. Not because she’s a particularly sorrowful being, but because she finds those songs usually tell the best stories.}
Dislikes:
+ Cruelty towards nature. {She feels a great tie to nature of all sorts, though of course more keenly to her stream, and water in general. Pollution in water, the senseless felling of trees and abuse of animals – talking or non, is the greatest abhorrence.}
+ Humans. {This isn’t to say she dislikes all humans, though she’s slow to trust them. She sees the majority of them as pig-headed and dull witted and believes that they are, at the core, incapable of the grace and majesty that creatures such as herself embody. }
+ Pollution in her stream. {Pollution to her stream not only offends her deeply, it can also make her incredibly ill and weak. It is intolerable, she thinks, that anyone would throw their trash into the very water that sustains her.}
+ Deserts/Barren Land. {It seems to her that there is nothing more saddening then land scorched by the sun and rendered dry and useless. She does her best to avoid such places as they wear her out.}
+ Liars. {Not that naiads, or nymphs in general, often hold themselves to any high code of ethics, Corinna does find great dislike in those who lie for their own selfish gains. However, she finds little fault in those who lie to preserve their safety. }
+ Cheaters and thieves. {She has such a great dislike for thieves and cheats that rarely will she allow herself the company of one such being. She finds such beings to be practically going against nature and this is a great offense to her.}
+ Fighting and wars. {She would greatly prefer to keep the peace then let squabbles turn to full out wars which, she believes, could have been more easily solved by talking or making deals. However, not at all politically minded or thusly interested, Corinna rarely says anything about it.}
Strengths:
+ Calm. {Sometimes too laid back for her own good, she has an easy smile and it takes a lot to upset her. And, even when upset, it’s rare she shows it.}
+ Composed. {While her decisions are often controlled by her ever changing emotions and desires, her emotion shifts are never evident in her expression, the way she speaks, or the way she carries herself.}
+ Determined. {Once she’s decided she wants to do something, nothing or no one will stop her – except her own frequent mind changes. It’s a gentle, quiet sort of determination.}
+ Commands attention. {Because of the way she carries herself, and the fact that she’s a naiad, awake, when so many are presently in a deep sleep, she draws attention wherever she goes.}
+ Intelligent. {She learns quickly, and prefers to observe a situation rather than be an active participant. She’s been watching the world for several decades now and has plenty of interesting knowledge.}
Weaknesses:
+ Easily manipulated. {She may be smart, but she isn’t exactly “wise”. She does not trust quickly, but she can be made to trust without too much work and once she trusts you and likes you, she's immensely loyal.}
+ Ruled by her emotions. {She jumps from this idea to that, this desire to the next, without much thought for consequences or trouble these rash decisions might cause.}
+ Intimidated by large crowds. {Especially because there are so few like her around, Corinna prefers to hang back and observe rather than be seen. Large crowds, especially of humans, make her uneasy and she would rather avoid them entirely.}
+ Bad judge of character. {Her intelligence does not necessarily make her wise, and she’s often oblivious to a person’s true nature and motivations. She often takes someone’s words at face value and this has put her in bad positions before.}
+ Her stream. {Because Corinna is rather bound to her stream – it’s health dictates hers – the most effective way to cause harm to her is harming the Clarus. She suffers when things are dumped in the water, or when the sun threatens to dry up the stream.}

General Personality: First and foremost, Corinna is a distant sort of creature. She generally holds herself above a situation, choosing to observe with quiet care than to allow herself to get involved. She’s quite content to simply watch and had, at one point, followed the life stories of one or two particular people in the small town hardly a ten minute walk away from her stream. This is for several reasons; large groups intimidate her. Large gatherings of animals and humans in particular make her uneasy. It is not that she’s had any terrible experiences with large groups but Corinna is quiet, she prefers to observe, and because she stands out she more often than not has most eyes on her. She doesn’t much like attention and prefers to blend into the background – a difficult task for a naiad, or any sort of nymph, as there tends to be something about them that draws attention. When she’s pressed to talk, that’s when she withdraws the most and when she does speak, those around her listen because it is such an infrequent occurrence. She has a good deal of knowledge stored in her head, things that have been collected for as long as she has been awake.

Corinna doesn’t care much for humans – she sees them as wasteful, ungrateful, and all around foolish sorts of creatures. She hasn’t always felt this way, at one point, she viewed them with curiosity and a sense of awe. This opinion changed rather early in her life, however, through a series of events that only proved, in her mind, the case to be true. She doesn’t trust them, or anyone, easily. Her trust can be won, but it isn’t an overly easy task. One of the best ways to win her over is to prove to her that you care about nature in a similar way that she does. But while she is rightly distrustful – in these days, there is a lot of evil to be found – she can be a tad naive and she isn’t a very good judge of character. She takes a person’s actions at face value and doesn’t really understand the concept of doing things with an ulterior motive. She is virtually incapable of being deceitful – she couldn’t lie if she wanted to, she’s terrible at it, and she’s never really had any desire to lie anyway. Not that she has much of a moral code – she just puts herself above those petty “human” conflicts like lying and stealing.

Ruled by her emotions and desires, Corinna’s thoughts and opinions change with the wind. While on the outside she seems steady, consistent, there is a battle raging inside her. She is determined when she sets her mind to something and the opinions of no one else could sway her. However, despite how determined she might be in one moment, hours later she could have taken the complete opposite view and her determination and passion might have shifted. She never lies, but she often changes her mind. She is rash; she does not think of consequences to her actions and her desires are often fleeting. Often they follow no rational, logical order. She tends to do what she wants, when she wants, with little concern to how it would affect others – not because she’s heartless, but she certainly does think of herself first. She can be quite self absorbed.

She is a fanciful sort of creature; she adores stories – especially stories about love and sacrifice. She has no real inclinations towards finding such things for herself, however. She prefers to observe, to watch, to maintain a careful distance. She’s had quite the time observing courtships of some of the couples in the town near her stream. She loves stories, she loves telling stories (though she normally doesn’t tell them to anyone in particular, mostly just herself) and she loves to sing. Her favourite songs are the sad sorts of songs, not because she is an overly sad creature, but because she thinks that sad songs usually have the best stories attached to them. Sometimes if you sit on the edge of her stream, you can hear her soft voice whispering some story of great but terribly fated lovers, or singing a heart wrenching song of love and losses and trials and sometimes, if you're lucky, unspeakable triumphs.

Character History
Family:
Mother, Father - None*
Aella Preco, daughter, somewhere between 4 and 10 years old**.

General History: It all began when, some one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago, the water in the Swallows river was unnaturally high. There had been a heavy snow that winter and a good deal of rain in the spring, and when the snow melted, there was too much water to be properly contained. There was some flooding and it wore away at the banks of the river; this was the beginning of the slow moving body of water that eventually became the Clarus stream. Because of how much water moves through the Swallows river, and how quickly, it didn’t take long for this little deviant to become a full fledged stream of its own, cutting a ragged meandering path through the forest and countryside. It could be this event that might be called the “birth” of Corinna – with the creation of a body of water, so a naiad is born to tend to it and guard over it. However, during this time, the nymphs of Narnia were lost in a deep sleep. Decades passed and Corinna, who must at one time have been “awake”, was rather unaware of that which went on around her.

It would take something big, something terrible, to draw her out of deep sleep. That “something big” happened several decades into her life, only some thirty or forty years before now. There was a small town located hardly more than a ten to fifteen minute walk away from her stream and that town was a busy, happy, successful little town despite how tiny it was. And if Corinna had been awake to observe it, she would have happily done so – in fact, in later years, this became one of her primary joys. The town was in the middle of a large clearing, and so because it was not surrounded by trees, the inhabitants often felt less need to be careful with their fires as did those who lived nestled among forests. And it was this attitude that resulted in a raging fire that jumped from house to house in the middle of the night. Luckily, most everyone managed to get out of their houses but by the time they realized what was happening, the fire was too vast to contain. By the time they got buckets of water, there would be nothing left. And still it grew, catching the grass and making everything worse – so they did all they could do. They grabbed what they could and they ran to the Clarus stream where they might seek shelter from the flames.

It was this flocking to her, the sounds of crying and hushed whispers and the overall fear and grief in the air that drew Corinna from her sleep. She could sense that they needed her but she didn’t know why; they were all so busy watching the fire in the distance creeping towards them that they didn’t notice the young woman who appeared among them, walked among them with grace and great interest. She didn’t understand their fear, though she wished she could help. She felt protective, she felt like they needed her. Instead of being cross at being startled awake in such a way, she was eager to do something to assist. She settled her water so it did not rush and ripple about – so it was easier to keep one’s footing – and wished she could do something else. But the fire was too far away for her to be much use in that aspect. So she sheltered them while she could, watching them with such curiosity and interest until finally the fires died down by early morning and they all set back to salvage what they could.

Now very much awake, Corinna sat on the banks of her stream and wondered what had happened, and why they had been so very afraid and sad. Though her stream, and in essence she, had existed for decades now, she was quite like a child in that everything was new to her. She’d experienced little because she’d been mostly asleep. And now she was curious about everything. By the time evening rolled around again, she was slowly approaching the two that had been burned to the ground. Those people were there again, picking through things, setting another fire – how strange it was to her, that they would first run from one, then bring one into existence – though this fire seemed rather carefully contained, surrounded by stones and pebbles and dry dirt. No one seemed to know what to do, and in their busyness they hardly noticed Corinna though she certainly did stand out. She sat and watched them for ages, out of view, wondering who they were and what they were doing. Perhaps it was a day, perhaps it was several, but they seemed to get things figured out and they started to clean up their little town. She quite adored this people, pitiful as they were, and she watched them from a distance like one might watch their caged bird or fish in a round glass bowl. They fascinated her. Everything fascinated her.

They started to make a pile of the trash, the ashes, the burnt and charred things that could not be salvaged. It was so ugly, she thought as she examined it, so ugly but so fascinating. She stuck a hand out to touch it and drew it back sharply, horrified by the black smudge that was left on her finger. How they could stand to have all of this here in the middle of their sad little town, she wasn’t sure.

And then they started to collect the dirty, charred things and carry them away. Corinna watched with wide eyes, curious, interested, as they paraded away. Where were they taking it, she wondered with excitement, eager to follow. So follow, she did. They walked along a worn path, the same path that Corinna had taken when she’d walked to find the little town. Soon she saw her stream in the distance and still they approached. An odd sense of worry settled in her stomach and she hung back, wondering when they were going to turn and take another direction. Surely they wouldn’t...

She felt a sharp pain as the first armful of burnt refuse was dumped into the stream. She didn’t understand why they would do that, she didn’t understand why they would put it in her stream! She moved to hurry towards them, to try and stop them, but another armful was dumped and she nearly fell over. So she dragged herself to the trees and turned her eyes away, feeling every bit of trash that fell into her water. She’d never felt so ill and pained in her life, not that she could recall, and when they were finished they left her to herself. As she crawled back to the water, she cried at the sight of it, and swore she could never trust them again. She had helped them, and look what they’d done to her! Her stream was sickly and darkly coloured and she wished she could do something to help herself but she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t very well pull out all the things that had been tossed in. So she sat and waited, hoping someone might take pity on her and help.

She waited and she waited, longing for help but thinking that none would come. Corinna suspected that she would simply have to wait it out. Eventually the debris would be washed from her stream – unfortunately into some other connecting body of water. She felt bad about that, but it wasn’t her fault. So she sat and kept to herself in misery, unable to muster even the strength to leave her stream for long periods of time. Time passed; weeks, months, maybe even years. Corinna had no way to record the passage of time, and keeping confined to her stream, and feeling as sickly as she did, she was miserable. As time went on, the water did start to clear as the ash and was washed away and she did start to feel a little better. Still, there was enough that remained to make her ache, to make her feel sickly. Sometimes, people from the small town would picnic by the stream and leave their trash behind. Sometimes children would play, running through the water, dropping all sorts of things into it. Eventually it stopped though, as fewer and fewer people came. Soon she began to wonder if the little town existed at all anymore.

And then, one afternoon, she was drawn from her self-pity by the sound of someone humming to themselves. She was startled, and wary, to see a young man walking along the edge of the stream with something in his hand. But then she noticed how he waded into the water to pluck something from the bottom. Then something else, and then another thing. Soon his hands were full and he left the water, and walked away. Curious, Corinna perched herself on the water’s edge . She watched him go and wondered who he was, and what he’d been doing. The next day, he was back, and again, he pulled a couple of things from the water – more trash, more of the things that so inflicted her – and left. This went on for several weeks; as the stream started to look cleaner, sometimes he would sit along the edge of it and write, or paint, and Corinna was captivated by him. After several weeks of this, Corinna felt better than she had in ages. She wanted to meet him, she wanted to thank him, but what was she supposed to say?

One day she was sitting on the edge of the stream, singing softly to herself, when he appeared. Embarrassed, she stood and moved to leave but he apologized for interrupting and she insisted that he hadn’t. So began a conversation – an awkward, slightly uncomfortable conversation because she wasn’t sure what she should say, wasn’t sure whether or not she should mention what exactly she was. Corinna did think better of it, knowing that the other naiads were asleep and while she wasn’t sure why, she knew something had to have caused it. Maybe it was dangerous. So she kept that bit of information quiet. Nevertheless, he came back and they spoke again. And again. Several times, in fact. Because Corinna felt so much better, she liked to sit on the edge of her stream, sometimes singing to herself, sometimes telling stories quietly, as though whispering them to the wind. And so they met often, because he came to the stream every day without fail. She quickly found herself smitten with him, and he with her. Things between them progressed rather quickly and then... stopped.

The week that he stopped showing up to visit her was the week that she found out she was carrying his child. It was an odd phenomenon to her, for she hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t understood it. She wasn’t sure where to find him and waited by the stream every day for him to arrive. And still he never came. and she grew lonely and unsure of what she was supposed to do. Time passed and she continued to swell with pregnancy and still she waited. Even after the child was born – a daughter whom she named Aella – she waited by the stream every day. But she soon discovered that having a child was practically impossible; she couldn’t bring the child into the water with her – she wasn’t fully naiad. She would drown. She didn’t know how to feed her, having never really needed to eat in such a manner herself. In fact, the child seemed to waste away before her eyes and Corinna decided the only thing she could do was find someone else to take care of it because she was oblivious.

So she wrapped the baby up in a woven mat of grasses and set off to find someone to take care of it. She promptly discovered that the little town was still where she remember it – they simply must have forgotten about her. And there, standing and talking to a large gathering, was the man who had, for so long, come to her stream every day. On his arm was a pretty young woman who seemed to be glowing with happiness and Corinna felt the bitter stab of jealousy. Still, she didn’t want the baby, and it seemed right to her that it go to someone who might take care of it. And the young man – she never did learn his name, nor he hers – might be just such a one. So she pushed her way through the crowd, speaking to no one, delighting in the recognition in his eyes as he saw her. The woman on his arm stiffened, and Corinna lifted her chin. And then she handed the baby to the man. “Her name is Aella,” she said and then promptly left, never looking back.

Back at the stream, she occasionally wondered about the little girl that she had named Aella and if her father was properly taking care of her. But, for the most part, she didn’t think of her, choosing instead to wander and explore. Sometimes she would torment travelers who happened to wander by her; she held a great dislike for mankind in general and decided that this dislike must be a mutual feeling shared by the nymphs and that must be why they slept. But no matter how she tried, she could not find that same sleep they had. So she wandered and wished that they might wake up so she would have some company.

And then one day she decided that she wanted her child back. She was lonely. The girl was probably old enough now that she wouldn’t be so very dependent on Corinna, she decided, so she set back for the small town that had caused her so much grief.

But it wasn’t there anymore. The town had been deserted, the inhabitants gone. So now Corinna is determined to figure out where they’ve gone to – even if she had no idea where to look, how long they’ve been gone, or if she’ll ever find them.

Other/Notes:
*Corinna has, technically, neither a mother, nor a father, as this is not the common way in which naiads are brought into existance. They are often born simply with the "birth" (or formation) of their respective body of water. If one wishes to be particular however, it could be said that the female naiad of the Swallows River, from which her stream branches off, might be called her "mother" of sorts.
**Naiads are not particularly thorough with keeping track of time. Coupled with that fact that they age differently than humans and most naiads are presently asleep (Corinna herself drifting in and out of it), she really has no idea how old her daughter is. She can only give a rough guess and even then, she's still at risk of being significantly off.
***Note; Finally, in Prince Caspian (the book), it is mentioned that the naiads/dryads/nymphs in general are currently asleep. I've attempted to present a believable enough scenario to explain why she isn't asleep, when so many others are.

Sample
RP Sample:

Quote

Caspian paced anxiously, waiting for further word. Last he’d heard, a Narnian was deathly ill and the suspected cause of said illness was Telmarine “medicine”. There were so many things running through the young king’s mind as he thought this over. The same “medicine”, perhaps, that Drinian had tried to convince Caspian to take? Not that Caspian suspected his old friend of foul play, of course. But Miraz? Definitely. Maybe his judgement, which he rarely trusted, wasn’t so far off after all. But that didn’t change the fact that somehow, someone had gotten some of the Telmarine medicine into their possession. Had Drinian’s party given it willingly, or had one of his own people taken it? Who was at fault? Had Drinian’s party known the danger, or were they just as oblivious to it as Caspian and his followers? And what were the Old Narnians going to say, how were they going to react? Caspian wanted to shelter Drinian from this – he didn’t care much about the rest of them – but what could he do without throwing into question his own capability as a leader?

But maybe he was over-reacting. Maybe all of this would settle itself. Maybe it would end well. Maybe Drinian and his party had already fled. Not that Caspian wanted them to go, he wanted the comfort of his old friend here, but... he couldn’t guarantee anything if this resulted in the death of an Old Narnian.

“Sire?”

“Yes, what is it?” Caspian drew aside the flaps to the tent, feeling chilled at the grave look on the messenger’s face. “Any news then?”

“Yes, the noble Narnian has died,” was the grim response. “The best healers were brought but nothing could be done. This is certainly Telmarine doing.”

Caspian’s mouth grew dry and his thoughts scattered. This was not looking good. It would cause direct danger to the Telmarines currently in the camp but worse yet, it would have greater repercussions than that. They were lucky to have gone so long without actual warfare. They had been hoping so fervently for the promised help from Aslan or whomever he might sent. But it wasn’t looking like they were getting help – at least, not yet. This was going to cause fighting to start, this was going to be the catalyst, the thing that sent the whole thing over the edge. They’d gone as long as they possibly could with some semblance of “peace” but they all knew it wasn’t going to last. Shame this had to be the thing that ruined the quiet.

He couldn’t risk letting anyone think his loyalty lay with Drinian and his men over that of the Narnians he fought for. He had to deal with this clearly, and with a level head. But that was going to be difficult.

“What would you have us do?”

“Make certain that our guests do not leave camp,” he said dully. He had to think, he had to figure out the best plan of action. “Bring together an assembly of Narnians. I will find someone to fetch the Telmarines.” He couldn’t deal with this in private, he would be under too much suspicion. He needed to have all of this in the open despite the fact that he would certainly rather not. “We will get to the bottom of this and put the situation to rights. At least, the best that it can be. A Narnian is dead and by what accounts I do not know. This is not something we will easily push aside.” He ran his fingers through his hair and waved the messenger on. “Hurry to it, I don’t think this can wait.”