Clara

"Brave girl, you were made for far more beautiful things. Chaos is only understood when it is loved by the wild, not the weak."

## Biographical Information

### Tethrasian Epithet

Goldilocks

What is there to say about young miss Clara? She was born three years after her older brother, the infamous Rebel Mage Anders, in a small farming village south of Crestwood called Wutherford. When her brother was taken away to the Circle, she was devastated and held a deep grudge against her father ever since. While they had not seen one another since childhood and Clara tried to hold onto the hope that they would be reunited some day, part of her had to admit that it was probably not likely. Until the day that the Champion of Kirkwall arrived at Skyhold, that is. Little did she know that his famed paramour, Anders, was her estranged older brother.

## Overview

### **Physical Appearance**

Much like her older brother, Clara is a gangly thing who is more limbs than body. She has the same coloring, with straw blonde hair and warm amber, or golden-brown eyes, if a shade deeper than Anders’. While she doesn’t quite have the same strong nose like her father’s people, it is a little similar and the family resemblance is very strong. Her fair skin is peppered with light freckles, across the bridge of her nose and over her shoulders and burns easily if she spends too much time out in the sun unprotected.

Clara is a pretty girl but spends little effort in making herself up and prefers a far more plain appearance. Her hair is usually left long and wild, quick to snarl and tangle and collect all sorts of stray brush or get caught on tree branches and yet she finds it freeing. When she’s working in the kitchens, of course, she pins it up in a crown of braids that still somehow manages to frizz and flyaway. Which is something that just seems to be her nature.

She smiles easily, lighting up her face and giving her a very youthful appearance no matter her age. As a kitchen girl, Clara is often seen around the keep in modest farm dresses, usually in an apron stained or dusted with flour, with her sleeves rolled up and hair pinned back ready to work. She likes neutral and earthy colors - greens, browns, tan, etc. as they complement her coloring but they also allow her to easily blend in with her natural surroundings and make her practically invisible to anyone not directly seeking her out. Who really notices kitchen servants anyway right? Given the opportunity, she’d almost rather run around barefoot and in her small-clothes, but sadly one must actually wear proper things to go out in public.

**Personality**

Clara has always been a bright and bold person - something she took heavily from her older brother and her mother. She has a strong moral code and usually follows it to the letter. Though she grew up under her father’s roof and he was a staunch traditionalist, her mother typically indulged her free spirit. She was the type of girl who was happy in both dresses and breeches, running after her brother and climbing trees one minute to practicing her cooking skills with her mother the next. Clara is not one to be tamed easily, though that is not to say she is uncontrollable and delinquent; she is simply wild of heart and fairly headstrong. While she cares for her family, she is quite independent and had no problem living on her own after she left home.

### **Talents and Skills**

**Combat Proficiency**: Clara is mostly a non-combatant. A civilian. However, she had spent some time with the Red Jennies in Denerim and thus learned a few things about holding her own in a fist fight. She’s somewhat scrappy and has been since she was young.

**Knives -** She is no trained rogue but she has a multitude of experience with handling knives and typically carries one on her person for self-defense. Clara is quick and fearless and knows how to hold a blade and where to strike.

## **Biography**

Clara is the second child to an Anderfels immigrant and his Fereldan wife. Growing up, she and her brother were nigh but inseparable, they were each other’s closest friend and confidante. Clara trailed after him, following everywhere he went and wanting to do everything he did. Naturally, the pair could be quite the rambunctious handful for their parents. Yet, where her brother made a number of friends within their village as a boy, she was quick to chase off anyone who was ever unkind or disruptive even despite her size. No play was too rough, no game too boring, or too messy - she could roll in the mud and climb trees just as well if not better than he could.

Their mother was a kind, loving woman who tended to give in to her and her brother’s every whim, a drastic contrast to their father. He was a strict and proper man, a staunch traditionalist with views deeply rooted in the Andrastian faith as was common in the Anderfels where he grew up. They were loved, of course, but he wasn’t the warmest person which led them to seek out their mother’s softer, gentler touch more often. She was an excellent seamstress, often making most of their clothing and the upholstery for the household. Most of their income came from farming but her skills were good enough that she often brought her wares down to the market for sale and brought in a decent sum every time. To Clara, there was nothing their mother could not do it seemed and she idolized her, wanting to grow up to be just as beautiful and just as smart and skilled. As it was their father’s household, they were brought up in the faith, learned their prayers, the Chant, and were expected to regularly attend Chantry services and be on their best behavior when doing so. Even as children, they were taught to pull their weight while carrying out chores around the house and the farm both. Although they were not the wealthiest of families, they had a comfortable living and made ends meet. They were happy children with strong morals and good manners.

However, her world crumbled around her some time after her brother twelve. You see, he’d been hiding a secret, only ever letting her in on it at first. He had magic. He had magic and could heal things, animals mostly, but he’d figured out how to heal her scrapes and bruises after they played just so father wouldn’t be cross that they were roughhousing and that she’d torn up her knees and skirts again. Not even mother knew though they suspected she would have loved him anyway. When a fire broke out in the family barn, an accident while her brother had been trying to practice his skills, their father had been horrified and the Templars came quickly to take her brother away.

Though she begged and sobbed and pleaded for them not to take him - her brother, her best friend, and playmate, just as their mother had done, father had shouted at her to go back inside the house. Clara waited by her window that night, hoping and praying to Andraste that he would come back to her. When he did not show, and all were asleep inside the house, she snuck out and headed for the dock where her father kept a rowboat. Though she was small and only a child, she somehow managed to unmoor the boat and drift across Lake Calenhad toward the big looming tower - the Circle of Magi - where they’d taken her brother. She distracted the Templars posted outside and tried pounding on the doors to be let in, only for them to return and find her in the midst of her tantrum. Despite her kicking and screaming and shouting, they managed to eventually calm her down long enough to find out where she’d come from and escorted her home where her parents had been waiting. Her father was furious to know what she’d done but her mother bickered with him in return trying to reason with him that she was only a girl and acted as anyone would. Their arguing lasted the night, long after she’d been sent up to her room.

Over the next several months, their mother regarded her husband coldly while trying her best to protect Clara. Sadly, her efforts would only go so far, as her father tried everything he could to get her married off and out of the house and when she refused every hand offered to her, she was to be sent to a monastery where she would train to be a sister in the Chantry. The night before she was set to leave, Clara left home at age 20, with only a note for her mother.

It was Denerim that Clara found herself in and eventually she fell in with a group known as the Red Jennies, staying with them for a few years until the Blight swept through Ferelden. She hadn’t wanted to leave the only other place she called home but between civil war, general unrest, and the threat of a real Blight, it was hard to ignore practicality over comfort and so she left. Clara, having fled to Orlais, didn’t really know what to expect since she’d been Fereldan all her life until now. Despite her fears of not knowing anyone, of being a commoner of mixed origins in a place like Orlais, she managed to make fast friends with an elven herbalist who was the son of a woman in service to the Empress, and his adoptive brother, an elf-blooded apothecary.

Between 9:37 and 9:40, all the gossip and chatter surrounding the incident in the Marcher city of Kirkwall with the destruction of the Chantry, the subsequent rebellion and the all out war - Clara was fascinated but worried. Her brother was out there somewhere and could have easily been lost in all of this. Upon the fall of the Circles, she even wondered if she might find him somehow. She tried writing home, hoping to appeal to her father’s better nature and ask forgiveness for leaving but was met with a cold response from some soldier that her parents had perished in the Blight - father had died trying to defend their home and mother had taken ill with the sickness. Distraught that she left them behind to die, Clara headed to the Chantry - to pray, to ask forgiveness, or just be alone with her guilt. It was there she met a one Sister Nightingale, aka Leliana, who had been in Val Royeaux for the celebrations. She confided openly in Leliana, and the two spent some time in lengthy discussion over faith and other related topics, with Clara even going as far as telling her about her family, and especially her older brother. Some time later Leliana, feeling optimistic about it and what it could mean for people like her brother, encouraged and invited Clara to sit in on the Divine Conclave.

It was fortunate that Clara hesitated, both uncertain if she could slip away from her duties and what it would accomplish by her going, for she was not there when the Temple of Sacred Ashes erupted and the sky tore open. However, once she heard of the formation of the Inquisition and the pilgrimage to Haven in Ferelden, she decided to venture forth. Upon arrival in Haven, she approached Leliana and pledged herself to aid the Inquisition however she could - leading to her joining Leliana’s team of agents, all the while taking on a cover as one of the kitchen servants. Clara was fortunate to have been amongst the survivors upon the fall of haven and made the trek to discover Skyhold Fortress...

## **Relationships**

**Leliana** - Even though she is the spymaster and right hand to the Divine, Clara does not fear Sister Nightingale. She met the woman when Clara had been at her most vulnerable and regarded her as kind and warm, but a little bit sad. Leliana was good to her and helped her find her strength again. She sometimes sneaks up to the Rookery sometimes to feed and talk to the birds.

**Sera** - Since Clara had spent time with the Jennies, she got to know Sera a little even though they are quite far apart in age. She thoroughly enjoys the young elf’s chaotic energy and her penchant for pranks. At the same time she regards Sera as something like a younger sister and tries to look out for her best she can. Clara was proud to see her become part of the Inquisition’s inner circle.

**Anders** - Her estranged brother. As children, they were very close and she regarded him as her best friend. She trailed after him everywhere he went like a shadow. Despite being younger and much smaller, she was quick to stand up to bullies twice her size that had any unkind words to say about him. Or herself for that matter. He made her laugh, smile and together they caused no end of mischief for their parents. After he was taken to the Circle, Clara was heartbroken. She never stopped thinking about him, especially not when she heard about the Kirkwall rebellion and how a mage was fighting for freedom on behalf of people just like her brother. It never occurred to her that they might be one in the same.

## **Miscellaneous**

### **Likes**

* **Food** - she spends most of her time in kitchens but she never gets tired of the different kinds of foods, treats and consumables. She is the sort of person who just likes to snack.
* **Cooking -** Naturally, she not only enjoys eating food but making it too. Clara is quite the whiz in the kitchen and learned much from her mother at a young age.
* **People watching** - As most other servants, it’s easy for Clara to basically go amongst the general populace unnoticed and she uses that to her advantage and takes the opportunity to observe others in their daily lives. If for no other reason than just to sate her natural curiosity.

#### **Dislikes**

* **Unnecessary frills** - Clara is not a girl who likes to dress in pretty frocks, or to be dripping in jewels and frilly petticoats. She’s a simple, practical girl who doesn’t want for much, and would feel rather awkward all dressed up like some kind of doll.
* **Authority** - She’s not *quite* the rebel her brother is, of course, but perhaps it’s a family trait that she doesn’t much care for authority figures or playing by anyone else’s rules. While she shows respect to those who earned it like the Inquisitor and the other kitchen staff, she won’t be outright rude to anyone unless they’ve wronged her. However, Clara maintains her own ideals and won’t truly answer to anyone who she feels goes against those.
* **The Chantry/Faith** - She was inundated by these things almost her entire young life and they are the reason her brother was taken from her. Her father was a pious man and had she not left home when she did, Clara knows she’d have wound up miserable as a sister in the Chantry. Again, she will not be blatantly rude or unkind to individual people but she has no love for the Chantry as a whole or the Faith from which it draws its values.

#### **Hobbies**

* **Reading** - When she’s not working, she has a fair amount of time on her hands and so you’ll usually find her nose stuck in a book. No genre is off limits to her, she has a healthy curiosity and thirst for knowledge so if she’s bored, she’ll grab any old thing off the shelf and start pouring over it.
* **Playing Cards** - Clara has met an assortment of people over the years and she has picked up all sorts of skills and tricks. Card games with her brother and later with her fellow servants in Orlais and in the Inquisition were a common thing and she fancies herself to be pretty good at a few different games.
* **Kuchen** - When she first arrived in Haven and started to work in the tavern, Clara discovered a stray cat had been stealing food from the kitchen. When she finally caught the scruffy little kitten, she named her Kuchen - the Ander word for cake - and has kept her and looked after her ever since.

#### **Habits**

* Humming
* rocking on her feet
* rambling (sometimes in Ander)
* twisting her hair until it frays laughing at inappropriate moments (nerves)
* climbing things (trees, counters, etc.)

## **Gallery**

* Paranormal.pngsample photo
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