Tauriel

*RP Backstory: Of Tauriel of Ostia*

Tauriel grew up within city walls of Ostia, Born in the Spring, a time of new beginnings. Born with brown hair and hazel eyes, I was my father’s shining gem. My mother, a respected Scribe, had once hoped I would follow in her footsteps long before her passing. Yet she never bound me to her path. She allowed me the freedom to discover who I would become.

And by her Parents named Tauriel. In Ostia a place where knowledge was hoarded carefully, copied faithfully, and rarely questioned. As a child, she showed an unusual patience she was not born restless, She was trained to be still. hands steady, eyes sharp, mind able to hold long chains of thought without drifting. The scribes noticed early. She could copy texts without error. She remembered footnotes.

She noticed contradictions.So they trained her. Still, when I wore my mother’s blue scribe robes, I felt as though I were only playing at the role. No matter how carefully I walked, I knew I would never truly fill her shoes simply by imitation.

When I entered Gorean University, I studied deeply immersing myself in the histories of my mother’s lineage as a Scribe, and the traditions of my grandmother, who practiced medicine. Knowledge surrounded me, yet my mind often wandered beyond the walls of the city. I longed to learn everything, and the more I learned, the harder it became to choose who I was meant to be.

Ink before dawn. Candles after dusk. Shelves of books that smelled of dust and permanence. Her world became margins, glosses, annotations other people’s discoveries preserved, never expanded. And she was good at it. Too good to be dismissed. Too obedient to be feared. But knowledge, when it stays still too long, begins to rot.

My schooling took longer than expected but I endured. I graduated as a Physician. No longer playing dress-up in my mother’s robes, I stood fully in my own right.

*Who Tauriel Is at Her Core*

(Tauriel is not driven by wanderlust. She is driven by responsibility. She believes knowledge is a living thing and if you do not walk with it, it dies. She carries the weight of every failure alongside every success, because she refuses to edit herself into legend. She walks the road not because she has nowhere to belong, but because belonging, to her, means leaving the door open behind her.)

*Arriving in Venna*

My arrival in Venna was, at best, instructive.

I had traveled far north farther than any road I had previously taken with intention. The cold greeted me not as a threat, but as a presence. It wrapped itself around my body with an insistence I was unaccustomed to, settling into my bones as though it meant to stay. This was not the forgiving warmth off of the Vosk, where the sea carried heat upon its breath and the air itself seemed alive with salt and motion. Here, the cold was disciplined. It did not yield simply because one wished it to.

As I passed through the gates and into the city proper, I was acutely aware of myself as an outsider, despite knowing that this place was to become my home. Venna moved with a rhythm unfamiliar to me, its normalcies shaped by climate, by distance from the sea, and by customs that favored restraint over indulgence. Even the stone beneath my feet felt different, less worn by tides and more by measured passage.

In the early hours, I encountered several who would soon define the texture of this city for me: slavers whose eyes weighed value with practiced ease; a blacksmith whose hands bore the unmistakable scars of long labor and honest craft; a pair of slaves whose silence spoke more eloquently than words; and a physician whose bearing suggested both discipline and authority earned through experience.

The welcome, while reserved, was nonetheless profound. Venna did not open itself with enthusiasm, but with acknowledgment and I understood immediately that this was its way. Yet it was impossible not to notice the contrast between us. From their attire to my own, from the cut of their cloaks to the layers I lacked, it was evident that adaptation would be required. Clothing here was not merely expression, but survival. Customs were not flexible suggestions, but expectations shaped by environment and hierarchy.

I have lived much of my life near the Vosk, in Turmus. Where movement was constant and the world felt wide and open. Venna is narrower, colder, and more deliberate. It will require adjustment—not only of habit, but of perspective. Still, I did not come north seeking comfort. I came seeking purpose. And in that, at least, this city may yet prove suitable.

*First Night in Venna*

Night in Venna does not arrive gently. It settles with weight, as though the city itself exhales and expects all within its walls to do the same. By the time I was shown to my lodging, the cold had fully claimed the streets, pressing itself against stone and timber alike. The room I was given was modest clean, functional, and entirely without indulgence. A narrow bed framed in dark wood, a woolen blanket thick enough to be practical but not generous, a small brazier already burned low, and a single shuttered window facing an alley where the wind found voice.

I did not remove my cloak immediately. Habit kept it fastened as I took measure of the space, noting exits, the condition of the floorboards, the scent of old smoke embedded in the walls. These are small observations, yet they steady the mind. A physician learns early that familiarity reduces fear; knowledge, even of trivial things, anchors the body. When at last I set my satchel beside the bed and unfastened my cloak, the cold made itself known in earnest. It was not the biting cold of sudden exposure, but the deep, patient kind that lingers, waiting for weakness. I layered my garments with care, adjusting them not for appearance but for efficiency, and fed the brazier sparingly. Fuel here is not wasted without cause.

Silence followed. In the south, even night carries sound the distant movement of water, the restless call of birds, the constant reminder that the world is in motion. Venna, by contrast, grows still. The quiet pressed inward, leaving room for thought I had not yet chosen to entertain. I sat on the edge of the bed and allowed myself that moment. I thought of Turmus on the Vosk, of salt on the air and warmth that rose naturally from the earth and sea alike. I thought of the ease with which one’s body moves when it is not constantly negotiating with the cold. More than that, I thought of familiarity of being known without effort.

Here, I am unknown. There is both danger and freedom in that. I reviewed the faces I had encountered that day the physician whose eyes missed little, the slaves whose posture revealed long training, the craftsmen and traders whose lives were shaped by necessity rather than choice. Venna does not soften those who dwell within it. It refines them, or it breaks them quietly. Before extinguishing the lamp, I recorded my observations with deliberate care. Not impressions, but facts. Temperature, demeanor, structure, hierarchy. Reflection may follow, but record must come first. It is the discipline that has carried me this far.

As I lay down, the cold crept closer, seeping through layers and bone alike. Sleep did not come quickly. When it did, it was light and vigilant, the kind one earns only in unfamiliar places. This city will test me. That, at least, is honest.
And honesty, I have learned, is a form of shelter.

To Be Continued....