Olva

Name: Olva Patterson

Species/Race: Golem

Gender: Female 

Age; 23

Occupation: Farmer

Playlist: Here

-Physical Aspects-

• Extremely strong; about the same strength as 10 to 15 people
• Mute; Uses sign language and pantomime to communicate
• Short and stocky; well built
• She has three iron bracers that allow her to have sentience. They are on her right thigh, one on her right wrist, and one on her left bicep
• Made of mud, dirt, and shale
• Overall has a very dusty quality and feels similar to clay
• She lacks a nose or digits on her hands or feet. The latter can be sculpted into existence if a job calls for it
• She cracks pretty easily, primarily around the joints and bracers
• Her eyes are actually onyx gemstones; they don't have a cannon style to them, so they can be drawn however is seen fit

• Stubborn; doesn't like to accept help on projects
• Extremely connected to her close group of friends, due to her lack of voice
• Good work ethic
• Loves gardening, farming, and putting life into the soil in any form
• Gets anxious and annoyed at yelling
• Fear of water; contact with water is very painful for her as she loses form when wet
• Cheeky sense of humor
• Creature of habit; doesn't like to break routine without good cause
• Beats herself up over any failed project; feels like she has to do everything right the first time

• Can mold her body to a degree, making crude tools for various tasks
• As noted before, she has the strength of 10 to 15 people
• Fluent in ASL, and proficient in pantomime and charade
• Green thumb; has extensive self-taught knowledge on crops and soil maintenance 

-Likes-

• Farming
• Finishing a job/project
• Instrumental music; primarily jazz
• Her pet Lamb of Tartary, Hortencia
• Practical jokes
• Summer days
• Bar-room strength tests (Arm wrestling, etc.)

• Water
• Yelling
• Winter 
• Droughts
• Abuse of authority
• Other golems

When magic was first brought back to the Earth, the first thought was for defense, and the second thought was for profit. Although a slew of mythical creatures had come through and helped out society, even more, had slipped through the cracks with malicious intent. The monsters and malign makings of myth plagued the mind of many of the humans. So the golems were constructed to not only help build up towns and cities but to protect them too. After all, having little free will and three times the strength of a human made them perfect sentinels.

Olva, though she didn't have this name at the time, was just one of many golems that were made for this purpose. Made in the image of traditional Jewish folklore, she was blocky, bulky, and had no ability to communicate. Though the golems were made to protect the city, they were also considered a rebuildable workforce that could be pushed past the limit to be broken and remade again. It was around the seventh or eighth time that she had been broken and remade that she decided enough was enough.

With some spark of free will that started to quickly burn into a large fire, she walked away from the current job she was tasked to in the city. She could walk away. So she could make other choices too.

 She strolled into the nearby national park, getting many strange looks from people and creature alike. She found herself for the first time being able to enjoy the scenery of a path that she had been sent to routinely monitor many times. However in her newfound awareness, and eagerness to see more, she found herself careening down the steep banks of a river after making a misstep on some not so solid ground.

With a newfound awareness, she also had a newfound sense for pain, feeling the water start to break her apart, tearing holes through her as she jetted down the rapidly flowing river. Feeling her body wracked with pain, she knew that she had to get out immediately, but she wasn't seeing any open banks to lurch her way on to. She steadily lost more and more of her former size and mass, being roughly human-sized, albeit definitely not human shaped, before she felt the strong pull of something pulling her to a narrow shore that stood by a calmer sluice of the river.

Through her extremely muddled vision, she could make out a large, spindly, and faintly glowing figure rapidly pulling her to the shore, where she saw a much smaller, meeker figure standing anxiously. Before passing out, she heard a voice come from the smaller figure saying,
 "Oh goodness, I hope they are alright" to which the spindly figure replied,
" I hope so too. It certainly doesn't look like it".

She awoke not on the soggy banks of a black silted river, but instead by a fireplace, given some crude arms to support herself in the chair she was placed in. She heard the two voices having a conversation to the right of her, the voice belonging to the spindly figure sounding a bit irked.

"Ma'am, they are just a golem. If it were another creature, then I would allow you to tend to it for a while. This is just a lump of mud given life though, it won't matter what you do to it", the figure groaned out.

Feeling a spike of anger, Olva, who still didn't know this would be her name, flung a piece of her left arm at the figure, hitting them square on the side of the face. The figure, bewildered, turned towards her, now in much better view and lighting than before.

He was tall and slender, albeit hollow looking, fireflies filtering in an out of the holes in his chest. He looked scratchy and sort of jagged around his torso, but his limbs were long, thin and gangly, with various vines creeping down to the fingers. Its large, cervine-like head bore a huge pair of what looked like antlers but were actually grey branches on closer inspection. The bright yellow eyes pulsated with light, illuminating the fact that they were sunk into the face a great deal. Despite the animalistic and elongated features, it seemed oddly human. Most likely due to a pair of khaki pants, black dress shoes, and a pine green button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, wrinkles set into the fabric as if the shirt had never been actually buttoned up before.

"A spriggan", Olva thought to herself, the name of the creature springing into her mind as the eyes bore into her seeing stones with confusion and intrigue

"Well, it seems as if that 'lump of mud' didn't like that very much", said the person next to the spriggan, briskly striding over to the fireplace.

The woman was much more meek and modest compared to the beasty looking spriggan in her living room. She wore a small bright red dress, daisies scattered about the end of the dress that seemed to bounce to life with every step. She had dark chestnut hair that flowed down to her shoulders, curling at the end of its length. To compliment her opaque mass of hair, she wore a loosely woven sun hat that let the light of the room seep through it bit by bit, the pale yellow offsetting the deepness of the brown. Her eyes were grey, with little flecks of green that drew attention to the center of her face, making you pay attention to her tiny button nose or her pomegranate lipstick instead of the mass of wrinkles and laugh lines that coalesced on her rounded face.

She sat down in a rocking chair by the fireplace, staring intently at the misshapen mud as the spriggan moved forward, ever interested.

"You can understand me?", the spriggan questioned, to which the "head" of the mud pile unquestionably nodded "yes"

" Interesting. That's a first", the tree-man noted to the woman before continuing by asking, "Why were you so close to the river? Were you directed to?"

This time, the amorphous mud shook their head "no" slinging a little bit of wet mud off them.

"You were there of your own accord?", the woman pursued, to which the mud changed back to nodding "yes".

"Wow, this really is a first. I can't believe it", whispered out the spriggan. "A truly sentient golem. Who knows how long before others do so? If they ever do so...anyways, are you alright? I'm Leif, by the way"

"And I'm Wendy, darling, " said the woman politely, putting a gentle hand on the crude appendage.

A surge of pain shot through the golem as water squeezed out of the mud, collapsing air bubbles inside them. Violently shaking their head gave an answer to being "alright"

Wendy quickly lifted her hand away, feeling terrible for causing pain inadvertently. Leif shared a similar response, taking note of the water running out of the crude arm.

"They're water-logged. That probably feels terrible, huh? They need to drain this water, stat," stated Leif promptly. With a quick glance up and down the golem, he added, "a new body too".

Both Wendy and the golem perked up at that sound of that, the idea of a new body sounding appealing to the golem who had only ever been a large, hulking mass.

Wendy squealed out "I could make something entirely new! You could be your own...person? You could be you. After all, a newfound consciousness deserves a little treat. Would you like that?"

The golem nodded quickly, excitement visibly exuding from them despite lacking most facial features.

"Great!", shouted Wendy. "Do you want to look human or like something else?"

The golem pointed their head at Wendy, which they assumed meant human.

"Okay", she continued, trying to festinate the process. Do you want to be any gender? I'm not going to be too detailed, I'm not skilled enough for that, nor do I want to be. However, I can make the difference known."

The golem thought about it for a moment before pointing its head again at Wendy, to which she nodded happily.

"Righty then! I don't think I can sculpt 'her' of she is awake. Do you have anything to sedate her?", Wendy asked.

"Actually, yes", Leif responded. " I do, indeed". Leif knelt down near the golem, a gaggle of flowers growing in his hand, fireflies darting around the quickly sprouting plants. "I'll worry about getting all the water out, don't you worry. By the time you wake up, you should be looking good and feeling good", Leif rambled out, carefully watching the glowing bouquet shoot up in his hand. He finally decided it had grown to its proper height and snapped them out of his hand with a twinge of pain before holding the luminous blossoms in front of the golem. "Sweet dreams", Leif muttered out softly before blowing the glowing mixture of pollen into the golem's face, sending it out cold immediately.

When they awoke, they found themselves feeling spectacular. Or, did she find herself feeling great? She knew the language and how it worked but had never thought of it in terms of her. She decided that what was right though and got to stand up.

Although a little wobbly at first, she found herself feeling better on her own two feet now that she was lighter and differently built. After a couple of uneasy steps, like a newborn deer, they found themselves walking easily. She took at her hands, or what was to be them. It seems like they were given up on and turned into hand-shaped objects. They still worked fine, though, and were more nimble than her previous iteration.

She heard clanging around in a room behind her, so she went to investigate. She found Wendy, her head deeply buried in her fridge, searching for something to eat, a concept that the golem never fully understood, feeling no hunger herself. After a couple more seconds of clanging and humming, Wendy pulled her head out of the fridge and jumping back a couple of feet upon noticing that her newly forms guest was now standing in her kitchen. Her initial surprise turned into happiness as she beamed up and down the guest, happy that she was walking well

"You are looking great, sweetie. I'm so very happy that it all worked out alright", Wendy cooed. "Let me show you to a mirror".

Wendy quickly grabbed hold of the golem's arm gently, taking care to not touch the metal bracers that had formed themselves when she was letting her set her new form

"Here we are, what do you think?"

She took a look at her new body. The short, spiked hair that swooped in front of her eyes, her curves and hips that led down to built legs with small feet. She touches her neck, something she had never really had before, seeing how it flawlessly connected with her upper torso. She didn't know how Wendy had done it but it was perfect.

The golem quickly turned around and gave a huge hug to her reformer, taking her by surprise.

It was overwhelming.

"Woah, woah", Wendy stuttered out. "You're welcome! I'm very glad you like it". Wendy continued to hug the golem, taking on a tone that bordered on somber.

"So, you'll be wanting to head home, huh? Back to the city?"

The golem pulled her head away before shaking her head no, a smile on her face before resuming the hug

"Oh! Well, you will need a place to stay then, huh? Can't have you out when bad weather comes along, huh? You can stay here if you'd like!"

The golem pulled away and nodded, being more than happy to stay with the woman who made her feel like herself. She and Leif were beacons of kindness to her, and she wasn't eager to leave that

"Fantastic!", Wendy pipped. She turned back towards the kitchen before stopping and turning back towards the golem. "You need a name, huh?", she asked

The golem hadn't thought about it before but silently agreed that it was important to get one. They both thought in silence before Wendy chuckled sheepishly.

"You know, I had always had dreams of being a mother, from a long while back", she stammered out. "However, as life went on, it became more and more apparent that wasn't going to be a reality. However, I did have a few choice names chosen for the if and when. How about Olva?"

Olva.

Somehow, it was just right. It fit her to the letter. If it could roll off her tongue, it would. She loved it, but couldn't think of an easy way to let Wendy know at that moment in time. So, to show her approval, she did the first thing that came to her mind.

In an instant, Olva was hugging Wendy again, tighter than before.

In that instant, she knew who she was and where she belonged