Nina

History

Nina was born the fifth child to a happy couple late one winter. The family lived on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, raising cattle, poultry, and tending an orchard whose fruits they took to market every summer. It was apparent from birth that Nina wasn't like her siblings. While pregnant with her, Nina's mother had a vivid dream about a white stag bolting through the forest. When she was born, her parents were startled to find that their daughter had two additional small horns on either side of her head. They weren't sure what to make of it, but after doctors and healers assured them that the baby was perfectly healthy the family decided that it was best to simply go on and raise her as the normal child she was. From a young age, Nina was always a difficult child to deal with. She got stuck on the roof of their homes no less than three times a month, until she finally learned how to best climb down on her own, and she was constantly leaping on the backs of their herd animals – cows, goats, horses, you name it. Her parents and siblings were terrified when she leapt onto the back of their very touchy adult bull one day. They could only watch in horror as the thousand pound beast leapt and shook and did his best to kick the small child off and trample her. But, half an hour later, the old bull had worn himself out, and the gleeful little kirin still clung happily to his back. Her parents gave her a vicious scolding for it later, but when she was asleep her parents quietly confided their astonishment to one another.

Several years and three younger siblings later, Nina left her familys farm. She took with her the spear that their old neighbor helped her make, a length of rope, a knapsack, a tarp, a knife, a waterskin, and the cow she'd raised from a calf, Lily. With only these and the clothes on her back, she left to go live in the wilds. She was still only a child, and her parents did their best to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't be swayed. She didn't feel at ease in the confines of their routine. For a while, no one heard from her. But soon enough, Nina began appearing in different towns across the countryside, selling fine pelts and meat, some from beasts other rosales had never even heard of, much less hunted. Her rise to fame began when a rosales came across a sprawling golden pelt in an outpost. Flabbergasted by its color and sheer massive size, he asked the keep who had brought it in. The keep described Nina, and pointed the man towards the direction of her nearby encampment. The young man quickly took off towards it. This rosales was grown, and a hunter himself, but believed that anyone so skilled as to take down a strange beast of that size with such precision must be a master. He hoped to make himself an apprentice to that rosales. When he arrived at Nina's camp, he recognized her from the keeps description of her. He had assumed, however, that Nina was simply a daughter or errand-runner of the master hunter, and so asked where her master was. There was a bit of confusion on the ends of both parties, as Nina wondered who the heck this guy was looking for, and he wondered why she seemed so flabbergasted as to the whereabouts of the master hunter. When Nina finally explained that she was the one who had hunted the massive tiger whose pelt he had seen, the other rosales didn't believe her. Nina, who had never had her skills called into question before, became furious, and challenged the older rosales to a hunting challenge. He haughtily accepted, and was swiftly and thoroughly defeated. Thoroughly humbled, he asked Nina's forgiveness, and begged her to teach him her skill. While quick to anger, Nina was equally quick to letting things go, and so agreed (under the condition that he only ever refer to her as 'Master').

This was how Nina gained her first apprentice. She taught him to listen to the world around him, and think like a creature of the forest. By the time he left her tutelage, he was one hundred times the hunter he had been before. When he returned to civilization, the rapidness of his improvement as a hunter stunned those around him, and he spoke to them of his Master, a young girl still living in the woods. Nina became very popular after that. Although she never went back to living in the towns, she started getting a lot of visitors. People would track her down to challenge her, or to learn from or, or simply to buy exquisite cuts and pelts (she rarely sold the nicest ones to the trading posts, instead keeping them for herself until another rosales sought her out and bought them directly from her). Despite her moderate fame, Nina continued to live out in the wilderness, as she preferred it there. These days she still takes on apprentices, eager to teach other the proper and respectful way to hunt and gather. She is constantly on the move, going from place to place and town to town on the back of her big lazy cow (the sight of the little black kirin on the back of the bog brown cow has become somewhat iconic of her).  

Personality

In spite of her skill, she is still very young, and other rosales are sometimes surprised at how childish and petty she can be at times. Nina is not above playing the 'why?' game (i.e. answering every statement and question "why?") or sticking her tongue out at people when she's mad at them. While, in the ways of hunting, she is an exceedingly patient and skilled teacher (if you don't mind being hit with a stick a few times), in other areas of her life Nina is exceedingly impatient and even bratty. She doesn't listen to anything anyone has to say, even if it's for her own good, preferring to learn through her own painful trial and error. She can be a little bit of a bully, and is used to getting her own way, one way or another. But her childishness is a two way street. She can be startlingly naive and trusting, and tends to randomly decide that people are her friends. When hurt or betrayed, her first reaction is usually to get angry and lash out, but at the end of the storm, she's likely to flounder and sit down and cry about it rather than look for a solution. 

When it comes to her wok, Nina is incredibly intelligent. When in company with other rosales, she can be a bit of a blabbermouth, going on and on and off on different tangents, so it can be surprising how much she clams up when she's out in the forests and wilds. She takes hunting and gathering very seriously, and demands that respect be given to the hunted. She believes in using every bit of a kill, so she despises wastefulness. So despite the fact that she's earned plenty of money, she makes all of her own... everything, only spending money on things she is incapable of crafting herself (such as metal pieces that require forging, etc.) While on the hunt, Nina seems very adult, not speaking and hardly making a sound moving through the underbrush. Once a hunt is completed, she does not celebrate, but instead performs a ritual thanking the prey for its sacrifice.

She is still an adventure seeker, however, and never did outgrow her childhood habit of trying to ride whatever new creature she encounters.