Harpalyce

History
Once, sometime in distant centuries, a Bearwarden might have done something vaguely approaching importance. In any case, it was quickly forgotten, and the few members of the Bearwarden clan settled in with a few other families into a rural town on the shores of Darkshore, perpetually farming rice in a stretch of freshwater marshes. When Harpalyce was born she was viewed less as a miracle and more as a valuable commodity, another pair of hands to help in the fields. She was born in a period of relative peace, when Illidan was safely locked away in his prison and the cares of the world seemed very distant. The history that came to the farming village mixed with rumor and superstition, and 'Illidan' became the name for the boogeyman that parents threatened their children with to make them go to bed with; for the first few decades of her life Harpalyce was convinced that Illidan lived in her closet, and, given recent events, if she's absolutely sure nobody is watching, she will often still check any closets just to make sure Illidan isn't lurking back behind the mothball-ridden coats.

Inbetween helping her parents, Harpalyce had a carefree, if plain, childhood. Her father taught her how to hunt as soon as she was able to hold a bow, and by the time she was the equivalent of about six, she would beg to go out to practice shooting at small game; by the time she was the equivalent of eight her parents trusted her enough to let her wander into the forest and bring home a few rabbits for dinner. Her parents alternated between being strict and spoiling her - she was an only child, and one of the few in the village. When she was about the equivalent of fourteen, they spent the entire profits from a year's harvest to send Harpalyce off to a finishing school in Darnassus - an extravagant expense, but something her parents considered well worth it, as neither of them could read or write. Needless to say the finishing school was a disaster. It was there Harpalyce first began to figure out that maybe all the other Night Elves didn't live in nice quaint farming villages, and that maybe they didn't regularly trip over their own two feet... Harpalyce quickly earned her role as class klutz as she tried to keep up with future priestesses and Sentinels of Darnassus who outclassed her in, well, everything. She didn't technically graduate - she flunked out, thoroughly failing Ballroom Dancing and Polearms 101 - but her parents still considered it a success, as she came out knowing how to read and write. Time has solved all of the bitterness she accumulated when enduring the torure at the boarding school, but meeting her former classmates is awkward at best - yet another reason she doesn't go to Darnassus much.

As the war abroad and at home finally began in earnest, information began to trickle down slowly to Harpalyce's little village, half-mixed with rumor. Harpalyce spent most of her time out in the forest hunting, keeping her family and village well supplied with venison and rabbit, before suddenly it seemed everyone was off to the defense of Darnassus - her childhood friends, one by one, until finally she was the only one who didn't have a farm or a spouse or a child at her knee and was able to go fight. With the whole village staring ominously down at her, she finally gulped, gathered her things, and somberly went to go find the recruitment officer.

Since then, she has broken all of her promises to her mother: Wear clean underwear, be nice to the Archdruid, don't talk to strangers, and brush your hair and polish your sword every day whether they need it or not.

Harpalyce's first goal was to get out of Night Elf lands as quickly as possible. Unlike others, she didn't ever really mind the errand-running tasks she was given, after all, it was what she had been doing all her life. Although Teldrassil was home, she very much had the sense of needing to get away - not because she was bored of the familiar trees and fauna, but because of the awkward encounters with Sentinels that used to be her classmates, or the Sentinels in Darnassus that snickered and pointed and whispered to themselves when she walked by, or, especially, Archdruid Staghelm. Although it takes quite a bit for Harpalyce to devellop a grudge, she manages to have one against the Archdruid. (For example, she doesn't begrudge the Sentinels, even the ones that laugh at her - she just thinks of the matter on a cause and effect level - she knows that their laughing makes her blush and feel awful, so she wants to stay away from them, but she holds no lasting hate towards them.) It was the Archdruid's rudeness when she stumblingly asked questions, prodding him politely for answers as to why they fight Tauren when Tauren are Druids too (something that still puzzles her) that made her devellop such a grudge. Instead of answering her persistant "But why?"s, he had her forcibly thrown from the top of his tower in Darnassus. Although the top of her head has healed, her pride is still rather wounded.

By calling in a favor from a warlock from whom she saved from a bear (or, she saved the bear from a warlock, it depends on who you ask), Harpalyce reached Human lands. Ever since Stormwind has been her favourite city. The guards don't mutter and point and laugh at her - in fact, they salute right back at her, which fills her with a special sort of joy - and the other Night Elves in the Park are just thankful to see another friendly face, no matter how covered in dirt it is. Whenever she sees him, Harpalyce always salutes the general outside the gate on his horse - she reckons he is the most important by the simple fact that when she salutes him, he doesn't salute back; therefore, he must be her superior.

The more time Harpalyce spends in Human territory, the more she likes Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes in general. She never really picked up on the vague arrogance and "We're The Best Because We're The Kaldorei!" attitude that some Night Elves have; instead, she mainly judges person by person. The most she generalizes by race is that they're amusing, which in the case of Gnomes is probably true. The more time she spends speaking Common, especially around Dwarves, the worse her Common becomes; Harpalyce has develloped quite an accent. Most, if not all of it, drops out when she speaks Darnassian.

All in all - except for baths - Harpalyce is quite pleased with her current circumstances, especially with being part of the Farstriders. She counts herself as very lucky to have so many friends/drinking partners, and if anything were to happen to any member, would surely fret endlessly over them. Although she jokes about her lack of a beau, she is quite happy not to have men chasing after her - and is rather relieved at the lack of attention. She actually doesn't have much of any plans to marry, her perfect life being a simple one of Dianaesque hunting. Her pets as of late have been causing her a bit of a problem - Amalthea, her Moonstalker, followed her around patiently until one night in Darkshire when Harpalyce went to check on her and found not one but two cats staring back. Her quite psychotic wolf Mercury long ago went off tearing into the woods to terrorize some unfortunate camp of Defias; however she still carries around her kitten of a moonstalker, alternating cuddling it and singing to it in baby-talk Darnassian. Her jaguar Iarbas quite obviously is more intelligent than she is, and seems to have bigger plans for her than she does; her worg rescued from the Bloodaxe orcs is quite simply motherly in a neurotic way, and Harpalyce puts up with having her hair groomed into place near-constantly.