Caitlin

Caitlin is a 20-year-old ranger for the New World Order and was born in 2199 to Irish scavengers in an unknown location. She is seen mostly through Nathan’s POV.

## Appearance and Character

Like most rangers in the New World Order, Caitlin’s appearance is usually rugged and tactical. This is added onto her inherent tomboyish nature due to her upbringing. Caitlin has a lissom frame with the shadow of muscle. She has ginger hair which she typically wears tied behind her head, glassy blue eyes, and fair skin with freckles. When her hair is loose, it tumbles down to her waist. Her face is described by Nathan as being “less feminine than most”. Despite this, Nathan finds her beautiful.

She mostly wears clothing common throughout the New World Order, hooded jackets and cargo trousers, a tactical vest, knee guards and combat boots. She is usually smeared with dirt due to spending long hours in the wild. She prefers to wear her hair loose but understands that it would be a nuisance when ranging. Caitlin gets shy when Nathan tells her hair untied is pretty.

Caitlin is normally withdrawn, taciturn and moody. She chooses to avoid occasions with large amounts of people as she finds them unbearable. She sneers at those who are inexperienced with the wild and chastises those who are unable to cope in arduous situations. However, she is considered a pleasure once she grows a friendship with someone. She is a capable ranger and can handle a bow-and-arrow, but would choose an automatic rifle if given the choice. She is also familiar with horses, in which she eventually bonds with Nathan.

In spite of her stoic and robust personality, Caitlin does possess a hidden feminine and motherly attitude, swiftly falling in love with Nathan and becoming protective over him, when before she would ridicule him over his ingenuous personality, along with Hamish. However, this begins to change once she realises just how affected with guilt Nathan becomes when killing his first man, acknowledging she was prone to taking things at face value and evaluated him solely by her own arbitrary perspective of being brought up in a hardy environment, rarely ever thinking deeper about Nathan’s secluded life free from most dangers and somewhat admiring his tenacity. When told by Nathan that he was adamant over the thought of the wild being full of adventure and thrill only to find it horrible and unforgiving, she feels genuine sympathy for him.

She begins to find Nathan charming and good-looking, with his naivety making him seem guileless and oddly endearing. After falling for him, Caitlin wishes to spend more time around him and takes an interest in his personal training.

She often thinks through her actions and decides the best way to approach, but this can shatter when those she cares for are in danger, in which she becomes fierce and impulsive. When Nathan and Caitlin become lovers, she becomes very protective and motherly over him, surprising others with a side to her none have seen before. She will purposefully leave Nathan out of dangerous plans in fear he will be harmed, gets jealous when he is friendly with another girl and is generally a lot kinder and softer with him. Nathan is the only person that is allowed this side to Caitlin. Nathan eventually starts feeling smothered and emasculated by her mothering, sometimes even becoming irritated, but he mostly appreciates it. Caitlin’s reason for her protectiveness over Nathan is because she was brought up without a family and wants to preserve what little she can get.

## History

Not much is known about Caitlin’s past. When opening up to Nathan, she reveals that not even she knows much. She was abandoned by her parents as soon as a week after her birth. She was found by a raider gang on a wayside and was raised by a kindly man who she remembered calling father. She learned to fight at an early age and often overpowered the men in the camp. The raider camp was one day slaughtered by four figures on horseback and Caitlin fled when she was eleven. Stumbling across the New World Order, Caitlin was unable to find housing for a while and was forced to live on the streets, surviving only by robbing others and stealing vegetables from crops.

When she came to the age of thirteen, Caitlin realised she could stop living in fear and work at a nearby plantation. Because of this, she was allowed basic accommodation in the attic of the steading in which the farm was based. At the age of fifteen, Caitlin joined the rangers and was distinct in her capable fighting techniques. During her five years being in the rangers, she was in a relationship with two teenagers which lasted about a year each. Caitlin became so competent as a ranger that she was invited into Hamish McAllister’s personal scouting team. Though she always found Hamish a foul person, she admires how well he can make accurate decisions.