Virvatuli (Bruna fra þygghólti)

Virvatuli the human and Virvatuli the horse are technically two different characters, but also they're maybe more like the same Virvis from alternative universes.

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Horse Virvatuli's story

Virvatuli was born on a very icelandic island (Iceland) to a very icelandic mare living with some other very icelandic horses. Her mother, Blíða, wasn't very popular among them so she decided to raise her foal alone and mostly just keeping away from the others. Virvatuli never really learnen how to enjoy the company of other horses. When she was old enough she pretty much left entirely to live by herself, and for the next couple of years her contact with other horses was rare.

But in reality, Virvatuli wasn't a proper real wild horse, and there actually are some humans that owned her, and those humans sold her abroad. Suddenly Virvatuli's quiet life was over, and she had to deal with humans and moving across the ocean and everything. But Virvatuli had never been the type to stress over things she couldn't control, so she accepted her fate quickly and learned to adapt.

There were nine horses (Hekla, Smiður, Eldur, Katla, Vindur, Tinna, Muskur, Flóki and Aida, not that most of those matter at all lol) in Virvatuli's new home, and there was no way to avoid them completely. Virvatuli made it clear, though, that she did not want to get to know anyone or, pshhh, make friends with them. The others stepped aside politely when Virvatuli came close, but no one really liked her and some of them were even kind of afraid of the odd mare. It wasn't unusal that the other horses were keeping the cold and wind out by huddling close together and Virvatuli was on the other side of the paddock, completely alone. She wouldn't go in to the stable (open stable? what's pihatto in english? loose housing?) if there was someone in there that refused to get out first.
But she did get used to humans and became a pretty nice riding horse with a lot of energy and pleasant gaits. She was also all tiny, fluffy and bullied, so she quickly became the favourite of many children.

Life was ok, more or less, until an accident happened. It was a regular riding trek through the woods, most of the horses were there, and they were moving in a brisk tölt, when a young deer dashed right in the middle of the horses. Virvatuli was right behind a young mare, who spooked, walked backwars right on top of Virvatuli and accidantally kicked her front leg. Hard. It was bad.
It probably would've been more merciful to put Virvatuli down right here and then, but the owners didn't want to lose one of their most popular horses, and so she went on a impossibly long sick leave.

For ages and ages, or at least it felt that way, Virvatuli was confined into a teeny tiny stall she could barely take half a step in. She could've put her head out through the door to see the outside world, but right outside was the paddock and in the paddock was Aida, the young mare who had kicked her, and was now spending all her free time waiting outside and trying to apologize profusely every chance she got. Aida didn't care about Virvatuli's angry glare or mean words, but hung around anyways, and after a while Virvatuli started to actually like Aida's company, and was even looking forward to seeing her again after every time she went on a riding trek.

For the first time in her life, Virvatuli was happy. She'd never had a friend before and even though she could barely move she was content. Also, Aida with her positive attitude was the best company recovering Virvatuli could've ever hoped for. Time went on and Virvatuli's leg was slowly healing, and one day she was able to take a few steps. And day by day the distance of her walks grew longer and longer, and finally she was able to even be ridden again.

Virvatuli's recovery seemed to be going amazingly, but for some reason moving wasn't at all fun anymore. She got winded ridiculously easily, and that made her throat hurt and nostrils burn. At first the humans thought she was just out of shape after just standing around for so long, but then Virvatuli started bleeding through her nostrils and a couple of times even couching up blood. Since the symptoms never really went away, Virvatuli was put on another extended sick leave - practically an early retirement, and participated only a few short walking treks here and there.

That didn't bother Virvatuli. She had her friend to keep her company and was able to just graze away all day and night. Because Aida had started hanging out with Virvatuli, she wasn't welcome to be with the other horses anymore. Virvatuli didn't care about that, but Aida was a tiny bit sad because of the others' narrow mindedness. But life went on and even the humans were happy, because Virvatuli wasn't standing around alone in the corner of the paddock anymore.

The happy routine was broken, though, when a human became interested in buying Aida. Because the young mare had been a bit of a dissapointment when it came to her gaits, the owners were more than happy to sell her in a decent price. Virvatuli realized how much she had actually loved her, only after Aida was gone forever.

Virvatuli became the weird loner once more. She still kept away from the others, but started cooking up some pretty harmless, but really annoying pranks, to wind them up. She dug the stable floor full of holes, so no one could sleep in there. She knocked over the water buckets and dragged most of the hay to the muddiest parts of the paddock. The other horses began to hate Virvatuli in all earnest, and finally they had enough of Virvatuli's shenanigans and in retaliation started beating up Virvatuli - who in all honesty, probably enjoyed getting the shit kicked out of her as much as she liked doing those pranks.
The humans nevertheless weren't going to watch that through their fingers and moved Virvatuli into a different paddock and there was peace once more among the horse kind.

One summer there were so many children who wanted to go swimming with the horses, that even Virvatuli was taken with them. She didn't mind at all, because the day was awfully hot and nothing sounded better than nice cool lake water. Actually, the water was so nice that once there, she just kept swimming, not caring about what happened to the small rider or anything.
At one point she must've passed out or died (it was called Afterlife RPG, after all), because at one point she was swimming further from the shore on a lake and the next thing she noticed that she was climbing out of an ocean to a sandy beach that didn't look anything like the shore back home. She had just arrived in the isle of Audeles.

Honestly though, Virvatuli didn't care where she hand ended up, and was right at home right away. She started avoiding all the other horses in the island and found her new home at a swamp (bog? marsh?). It was like Virvatuli had been made for the wet landscape, and mayber her name (will o' the wisp) had been an omen, because it didn't take long for her to master going carefully around bogholes and get to know the swamp like the back of her own hooves.

Despite spending most of her time at the swamp, she did sometimes venture to the other parts of the island. Some of those were very succesfull, like the time when she found a nice long rope that she started carrying around her neck so she'd have it on hand every time she needed a nice long rope. Some of the wanderings were less fortunate, and one time Virvatuli nearly lost her life when a puma attacked her and would've probably killed her if not for a young lone wolf that challenged the puma for the tasty dinner and when the two predators were fighting themselves, Virvatuli managed to sneak away back to her swamp to lick her wounds.

One of Virvatuli's favourite things to do, soon became luring unsuspecting horses deeper and deeper into the marshes and watching as they got completely lost and finally sank to their deaths. Sometimes, if the victim was young or otherwise small, she might've pulled them out with her rope, but even then only if they'd answer some stupid riddles or engage in otherwise fun banter or if she'd just feel like it. Might be she actually hung some horses with her rope, too, when there weren't any bogholes near by.

There were a few horses she didn't want to drown, though, one of them being a young palomino who was immensely fun to tease and make fun of, and would maybe later on become Virvatuli's girlfriend. Then there was quite an unreal meeting with another icelandic horse, who somehow convinced Virvatuli that he was a swamp spirit. Not too long after that Virvatuli had a foal, Änri, who she loved very much.
But one of the weirdest things was meeting Kallava, who not only turned out to be Virvatuli's sister that she didn't know she had, but also a friend of Aida's. That was strange, discomforting and it didn't help that Kallava soon realized that Virvatuli had had a huge crush on Aida, and teased her mercilessly. Mostly it was sad, because Virvatuli would never get to see Aida again, but also really really annoying, because Kallava was the most annoying person Virvatuli had ever met. Also, Änri really liked Kallava and started following her around, which... unfortunate.

Nowadays Virvatuli is probably living happily ever after with Difolia, but maybe also still drowning horses at her swamp.

Fun facts about Virvatuli vol 2:

• Virvatuli was created in 2011 (or late 2010)
• She's only about 128 cm (12.25hh) tall
• I didn't get to rp like anything that we'd planned for her before Afterlife rpg (ironically) died, but oh well. She still was like the easiest character, i've ever had, to rp with, and I loved her a lot and I still love her a lot, and she (horse and human versions both) is probably my favourite oc ever
• One time she and a shetland pony called Zhenya (© Musti) killed a young wolf. That was really fun.