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December 29th, 2008

11:48 pm - Application for britannia_ny Player Name: Nanni Player Age: 23 Contact Info: autumnoxchild @ gmail.com – Available for gtalk. Time Zone: Central US Character: Nissa Sergeant Based on: Galahad Age: 25 Occupation: Minister Bio: Galahad was raised in an abbey, until, sometime in his teens, he was knighted by Lancelot and tossed out into the world on a quest for the Holy Grail. Over the course of his wanderings he unseated Lancelot several times, knocked Gawain upside the head, left a lot of recreant knights with headaches on the side of the road, accidentally ruined a friendship with a fellow named Melias by way of not speaking up for him, healed a lot of sick kids and hurt grown ups, and became the fastest and best of friends with Peredur, who was also looking for the Grail, and Heliabel, Peredur’s sister, who didn’t care particularly but was determined to stick with the boys. It was a hard quest, and a long one. Heliabel died along the way, and at the end of the road Galahad died too. Peredur buried them in one grave, beside the place where they found the Grail. As far back as Nissa can remember, it’s just been her and her mother. Her father died when she was a toddler, and Etheldreda Sergeant (unfashionable taste in names runs in the family) raised Nissa in the quiet, isolated shelter of the Montana Rockies. Nissa went to Harvard on a scholarship and at a ridiculously young age, and promptly immersed herself in the divinity program. She loved it. It suited her. She learned a lot, she made new friends, she grew taller and wiser, and got used to living within five miles of unrelated fellow humans. Britannia First Presbyterian is her first congregation – although, of course, she worked the supply circuit in seminary, and did her chaplain rotation too – and though she’s trying not to show it, she’s a little overwhelmed. She has no intention of running away, and she still longs to serve God and God’s people with every last fervent bit of her, but she’s starting to wonder if, after her contract’s up, she shouldn’t go back into school and go into pure systemics instead. She’s getting that feeling again, that one that plagued her her first few years at Harvard, that she just plain doesn’t get other people. Personality: Nissa is a quiet woman, more likely to listen to other people’s talk and ask them questions intended to keep them talking than to talk herself. This is because she’s awkward around other people. Nissa likes other people, but is easily confused by them. She has no filtering mechanisms, and takes everything intensely seriously. In some ways, this is a good thing; other people’s troubles are important and real to her, and she never brushes anyone’s fears off as minor. In other ways, it’s a problem; she never brushes anything off as minor, and is consequently easily overwhelmed. Sometimes she has trouble understanding when something’s a joke. Sample Post: “God, good God, let me die soon, please, please, just take me,” he knelt on worn boards, his hands clasped tightly together in his lap, and meant every word with everything that was in him. “Let me end it well –” The night air was chilly and crisp and wet in his lungs, and he felt almost safe, as safe as he’d ever felt, since leaving the abbey, when Peredur wasn’t with him. It didn’t stop him reaching for the sword he wasn’t carrying when a hand fell on his shoulder. “Galahad,” Peredur said, and he slumped, slipped forward, felt something crack inside him. Nothing physical, but something. “Galahad, you don’t mean that.” He swallowed hard, but the tears came anyway. “I do though, I do mean it, I wish- ” He couldn’t explain it. He’d hurt Peredur, which was the last thing he’d ever wanted. “I wasn’t me anymore, when I held the Grail, I was. I just wasn’t, I was filled up, and now I’m me and there’s not enough of me, I’m empty.” “Shh, shh,” Peredur rubbed small circles on the back of his neck, knelt down next to him, held him tight and warm and safe, and it was good, but he was still empty, it felt like something had gone from him and would never come back. “You’re precious, you, just you, precious all on your own, you’re good.” Nissa woke up, and for a moment wondered why she was alone. Ah, but she remembered: she’d slept alone since she got to be big enough that it didn’t do her any good to sleep with her mother. She’d always slept alone, never slept curled close to somebody for friendship. She slipped free of her covers, padded down the hall of the manse (such a fine old building, and how strange it was to live in a house that was, it seemed to her, practically a mansion, meant for a family, not one small young woman living alone) and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. The glass was dark with age and spotted, which was only to be expected, since the mirror was another antique, having been part of the house’s furnishings since the Edwardian era, but the girl who looked out from it was comfortably familiar. A broad, generous mouth, slightly outsized nose, large eyes, sharp bones, hair disordered. The face could be fierce or soft but it was not, thank God, thank God, the face of a handsome man from a thousand years or so ago. “God, let me die.” No. No, and no, and absolutely not. It was not her prayer and she would not pray it. She lifted her chin, looked herself in the eye (this necessitated a slight readjustment, since there was a spot directly where one of her eyes had been reflected) and said, very firmly, “God, give me today the strength to be yours, to do as you would have me do. And please, give me patience with the administration committee, because I’m pretty sure that screaming in the middle of a meeting isn’t good ministerial practice.” Journal: seekyefirst Played By: Katy Manning Current Mood: quiet Tags: #application

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