Rea Bremming (character)

[Octoverous]

Rea Bremming is a spirited and confident young girl. Her pride and stubbornness always results thorny (not to mention painful) outcomes. Because of her boyishness, she is always scorned by her eight sisters. The main problem for Rea is that her father is a wealthy land-owner, and expects her to behave like a proper lady. Rea refuses to accept her position.

Rea has rather large navy-rimmed grey eyes and short, dirty-blonde hair that falls in waves to her shoulders. Her skin is tanned since she spends most of her time outdoors. Rea is supposed to wear fancy dresses like other wealthy girls her age, but she despises them. So that she wouldn’t have to wear the disagreeable “frills and laces� all the time, Rea creates an outfit consisting of a loose old canvas shirt, which used to belong to her brother, and a pair of baggy dark blue pants rolled up just bellow her knees. Every day she would manage to slip from her father’s grasp and run into the village, just to play with her friends, a group of peasant boys.

Things she adopts from the group of boys:

-   Occasionally uses slang (to the great exasperation and dismay of her parents)
-   Laughs fully and loudly (unlike quiet, controlled laughter of her sisters and other girls of high-class)

Her parent’s reactions:

Mother: shocked and worried about her child
Father: extremely angry with his daughter

History

This is the part I need help with. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! I've had some of my own, but none of them contain that spark of life which all writers aim for. I was planning on making Rea's history tie in somehow with someone or something magical. I'm not sure how I can do that, and at the same time prevent the story from becoming cheesy or fake!  :

[esaquam]

Good start, but you have left out some critical details that would allow anyone to help with the history.  Let me ask a few more questions about what is already in your mind:
  - What place/time period does she live in?  From the given information, it could be anything from modern religious sub-culture to future space-fantasy to ~mediavel European (stretching on the clothing here) at the moment.  My first guess might be Regency England, plus or minus a couple of generations?
  - What general kinds of magic do you have in mind?  Not the specific (since that is what you have asked for help with), but rather a sketch of the magical background.  Is there a great deal of magic or is it rare?  Is it flashy and astounding, or subtle and not immediately impressive?  Is it spells and incantations that people do, or objects that people discover and use?

I'm guessing you probably already have all that in your head.  If we knew this, then we could start to suggest things that were much more likely to fit into your conception.

Hope this helps!

[Tariel]

First of all, the idea sounds great. Ok, we see many tomboys but I really like something about her as a whole. It's like a combination about two of my characters, one of them a hunter girl that was practically raised as a boy, and another a pretty girl who was almost married off to a man a couple of decades her elder, so she fled home. Ok now those sound a bit boring when I represent them so quickly... *sigh* And hey, not to mention my drow character who was the younger daughter, spend most of the time locked in her room but levitated out of the window to the yard and started playing with slave boys. Something familiar? She ended up being a mage since they had no other candidates and the house had to be protected from supposed threats. Though then she screwed it up and went rogue.

Anyway, why do you want to get Rea interested in magic? Arranging an incident in her past that includes some sort of magic, there are many options for that, but is magic really needed? I have sometimes noticed it's a real pain in the butt...

A quick idea for a story. She decided to run away for a little adventure with the boys, they started playing hide and seek and she stumbled across a badger's nest. At least she figured it was badger's since she didn't know much about wild animals other than those dusty rugs in his father's library, and he had always scowled at her for petting them and told her they were no toys.
"Eight... niner.... tenner! Ready or not, here I come!" screamed the seeker with boyish glee.
Rea ducked quickly. Oh no, he was heading her way... The black hole gaped in front of her, inviting her into the dark safety. Taking a deep breath she started crawling inside. The air smelled of soil and something bitter, badger pee perhaps?
The hole soon extended into a cramped cave. Soon feelings of clausthrophobia filled her and she started turning around to at least be able to see outside. ("Hah, I caught Tommy!" the seeker hollered outside.) Rea's eyes set on something gleaming next to the tunnel wall, reminding her of the glass eyes of the poor bearskin in front of the fireplace. Wow, a new marble! she thought. It was waiting for me all along, I bet I win all the games with this! She pinched it and pulled but somehow it seemed to be stuck though that didn't make any sense at all, the wall was just earth, it should have come loose... She started digging around it, completely forgetting her fears. Yes, the marble, or was it even a jewel of some sort? seemed to be attached to something, a small metallic hilt, and when there is a hilt, there is also a blade... A final tug and the dagger was free.

Now she might release a power, or probably start digging for more, finding the sheath and then a skeleton of the old carrier, but at that time the cave will start collapsing. Her friends will hear her screams and find her half buried alive and unconscious. They quickly dig her up and she is sure to have a trauma for life... probably preventing her from remembering the incident until years later. Dream sequenses trouble her though, and she gets an odd feeling when observing kids play with marbles.

Ok, maybe my imagination is running too wild today...

[MoonHunter]

There is the chance a ghost or old ancestor comes to visit her either when she is awake or in a dream.  If she talks with them, they could lead her down the magical path.

If the ghost was a "girly girl" who died because she was so unathletic, it could be her inspiration to get out and hang with the boys.

There might be a magic mirror in a back hallway in the house.  Those with a little gift for magic might be able to see themselves as they will be in the future.  Maybe she does not like what she sees.

thats all I think up right now.

[Veritasg]

What if her father decides to send her away to a boarding school, but on the way her carriage is raided by swordsmen. They appear to be searching for somebody. Rea manages to escape by horse back ( unleashes one of carriage horses), but everyone else is murdered, including the nurse maid Noni who had come along. ): The swordsmen follow her through the forest until she reaches a wide rushing river. Attatched to the bank is some kind of old dock/raft. Rea tries to persuade her horse to go onto it, but the horse refuses. He knows that it will not be able to support the weight of two. Rea notices the swordmen getting closer and closer on their mounts. She is forced to leave her horse behind, and jumps onto the dock. She hacks at the rope holding it in place with one of the rocks by the bank. She even tries biting it loose, but it is suprisingly firm. Suddenly she remembers the old sword she found in the badger hole and yanks it out of her belt. With one swipe, she cuts free and is swept down the river in the strong current. She is just in time, for at that moment the men arrive. They fire a few arrows at her. One of them hits her arm, but otherwise she remains unharmed. The men try to follow her downstream on their horses, but the ground becomes muddy and the underbrush tangled, and they are forced to hold back. As Rea's raft bumps along in the water, the young girl begins to wonder if there is reasons why she was so different from her other sisters, why she always had an ache to explore and discover, and why her father is always so anxious in keeping her inside. She also began to wonder if there is also a reason why her father had sent the carriage with eight armed men for protection. (They had been no use, for the swordsmen had shot them down with arrows from within the thickets.) As for the swordsmen, they had definitely been after her...

[CaptainPenguin]

Yeah, but that still doesn't explain why they want her, or why she's so special.

[Tariel]

I'd say that was.. random robbery. But, searching for someone? And might think Rea is that someone? And besides, I think I said a dagger, not a sword. How could anyone forget they are carrying a sword? And besides, pulling out a full lenght sword, even a short one, would prove mighty difficult. You would be required to twist it to your side, and risk harming yourself.

Edit: The strangest thing is, last night I had a dream about that dagger. But I think it was made of plastic, since it felt oddly light and smooth. And it was smaller than I had thought. *Frown* Maybe I should submit it into items? And besides, there's no need to base your ideas on mine, it may be so that there never was no badger hole. It just popped into my mind while I was writing.