Bramble Hawthorne
Race: Viera (Rava)Gender: MaleAge: Mid TwentiesHomeland: Ul’dahCurrent Status:
Street Rat | Wanderer | Thief
Background
Bramble was not born under the lush canopy of Galmore like his kin before him might have been, heeding to the stern rules of the Green Word. His first cries were not to the trees, but to the dusty underbelly of Ul’dah, away from the protection of wealthy merchant housing and the golden spires of the royals, buried deep in the city’s filth with poverty and endless hunger.His mother was a starry-eyed dancer from the forest where she fled, abandoning the protection of her tribe for the lure of fame, taking the name of Sylph. Eventually her travels lead her to Ul’dah were she captivated crowds with her grace and caught the eye of a wealthy Hyur merchant. Sylph had fallen in love with the merchant, but in her naivety, she mistook his affection for devotion. Once Sylph became pregnant, the man would not claim her or the baby, unwilling to leave his wife or risk his reputation for her.Heartbreak hallowed the once bright wanderer’s spirit. Year by year, that spark of light was replaced by exhaustion, loneliness, and silent despair. Bramble had faint young memories of his mother’s laughter, something that was rare and faded like dandelion seeds in the wind drifting with hallow wishes. She drifted like a fading ghost, seeking the bliss of oblivion in powders and tinctures and smoke that never could quite dull that ache.Bramble had only seen six summers when his mother died. He didn’t have any answers as to how it happened. Maybe it was the drugs that finally gave her that oblivion she craved, or maybe her heart just simply could no longer carry the sorrow she had endured. In the end, she was buried in the sands of Thanalan without ceremony, like so many forgotten souls before her.The grief of a six year old boy did not cause the world to pause and the alleys of Ul’dah were a cruel teacher and hunger a driving force. He began to survive on his own by stealing scraps of food from merchant crates or slipping his small fingers into coin purses when he was big enough to reach them. The city never really cared for forgotten children, especially one marked as foreign with his floppy rava ears too big for his head.
As Bramble grew older, survival only hardened him. He became swift with his hands and even quicker with his tongue, finding which merchants could be fooled and which corners brought in dangerous, but profitable, prying eyes. Still, there remained a gentle innocence within him that the city could never quite beat out of him. He’d often use his ill gotten earnings to feed stray animals and share his stolen bread with younger children. Ul’dah had taught him that most people value coins above all else and he refused to submit to the notion, secretly despising wealth and the hollow cruelty it always seemed to breed.By the age of twelve summers, Bramble had earned a reputation among the poorer districts. He was known as a ghost like thief who slipped through crowds completely unseen and revered by those he helped. He earned the name of “Bramble” because of his nature, being wild, stubborn, and difficult to catch. The name stayed with him much longer after he forgot the one his mother first gave him.The surname of Hawthorne came later, given to him by an elderly gardener who occasionally caught him stealing fruit from his orchard. The gardener said that Bramble reminded him of the hawthorn shrubs, growing stubbornly from cracked stones, twisted, thorned, and hardy enough to survive where gentler things could not.Bramble inherited more from his mother than just her blood, he also had her stories. He reveled in tales of a river hidden deep in the Twelveswood were she met an elderly viera woman weaving flower crowns in the moonlight. Stories of caravans across burning desert sands where the dunes seemed to be frozen in time. Of a small village in Gridanian where she met a boy who could talk to crows.It was these stories that ultimately drove Bramble to leave Ul’dah and become a traveler himself, seeking out the world's small wonders and maybe even create some of his own.