Deschene, Willow

NICKNAMES/ALIAS: Willow, Will, Willa, Willz, Wiz--she's not generally picky what she's called, so long as it isn't unkind. 

AGE: 21

ALLEGIANCE: Neutral. She's American.

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Trained in Navajo school systems and then later by medicine men and women, in Navajo tradition. as See history.

WAND: willow, aspen, hawthorn, with a unicorn hair core, with a natural quartz crystal in the tip. flexible.  small, pocketsized  ; looks rustic, maintaining the original look of the branch from which it was taken; the wand itself is only 4 1/2 inches. The crystal adds another 1/2" to the overall wand length. The purpose of the crystal is to magnify the power potential of the wand to have the same power/ability of a standard sized wand.  the wand was a gift from her paternal grandfather.

Spoiler:

Willow's pocketwand (pic by Etsy)

PLAY BY: Imogen Poots.


GENERAL APPEARANCE: Willow is rather short, standing only 5'2", and weighs a slender 100 pounds. (Well, she vacillates between 98 and 102.) She is small framed, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Her hair is, naturally, more of a strawberry blonde in the winter months, and a lighter, sun-bleached blonde in good weather months. She has a small but elaborate tattoo of a Navajo medicine wheel on her back, at the base of her neck.


TRAITS:She's basically a Moon Child. free spirited, fun loving, natural, candid, intuitive, quick learning, perceptive, spiritual, empathetic,  graceful, intelligent, gentle, organized, creative, hard working, somewhat athletic, usually happy, loyal, brave, impulsive, annoyingly energetic, ambitious, rarely gets angry but it comes in a quick flash and then she's done with it and is moving on.

LIKES & DISLIKES:
+home and family
+jewelry making, especially with raw gemstones
+drawing, sketching, weaving, beading, making pottery--all sorts of handcrafts
+native american flute music, especially Nakai
+outdoors
+cooking
+her cast iron cookware. Its a necessity for her.
+animals
+doing things by hand
+living off the land, as much as she can
+all kinds of weather
+fry bread, with honey, of course
+plants, gardening
+Native American herbal teas--especially Warrior's Brew from Native American Tea Co.
+reading/studying
+meditation. She uses totem meditation most often.
+yoga
+running
+medicine wheel ceremonies
+horses, riding, the whole horse thing
+her boots. what cowgirl doesn't love boots, seriously?
+living in the country
-hates division (loves unity and community and peace)
-materialism
-phoniness
-"sugar coated" verbage
-metropolitan living
-spaces with no windows
-artificial anything, but especially lighting. Natural light is always best
-cruelty, especially to animals
-braggarts
-processed or conjured foods
-conceit
-Quidditch. Well, in all honestly, she doesn't really hate it. She just doesn't get it.
-foo foo furniture. French Provincial is ridiculous.
-ruffles on anything. No ruffles anywhere, anytime, ever. never.
-contemporary design--too much chrome, too much white, too much black. no personality. boring as hell.
-mass transit
-waiting in line for anything
-heavy metal music, rap, anything that sounds a lot more to her like fingernails on a chalkboard

GOAL:  She wants to have a family of her own, a great sprawling, non-pretentious farm, and she wants to do "something of consequence" with her life. Its not enough just to have a farm and a family. If she can have it all and do something that matters, that makes an impact, then she's going to find a way to do it.


FATHER:Peter Deschene, age 49, historian, archeologist, Director of the Navajo Nation Museum in Arizona, wizard, halfblood.

MOTHER:Fala (nee Neswood) Deschene, age 46, healer, potions maker, raises herbs and animals on the Deschene farm. Artisan--jewelry making, weaving, pottery, painting--which she sells or makes for commission. witch. haflblood.

SIBLING/S:Anca Deschene--brother--age 25--wizard--works at home on the Deschene family farm.
                          Jace (Jacy)--age 23--brother-- wizard--works at home on the Deschene family farm.                        
                         

OTHER: Tate Deschene--age 68--paternal grandfather--Navajo--wizard--local shaman
                       Chiana Deschene--age 68--paternal grandmother--Navajo--witch--owns a local diner
                       Aiden Lloyd--age 70--maternal grandfather--British--wizard--retired wandmaker
                       Dena (nee Baptiste)--maternal grandmother--British--witch--retired magical artist, makes magical portraits.
                       several aunts, uncles, cousins on both sides of her family. She has a large extended family.


SPECIES/BLOODTYPE:Human; halfblood. Technically, she's 1/2 Navajo, 1/2 British--or thereabout.

SOCIAL STATUS: Willow is wealthy, but the rest of her family is upper middle class, or at least so far as she knows.


EARLY YEARS:Willow's Navajo name, Kai, means "Willow Tree", which was how everyone came to call her Willow.  Her middle name, Namid, means "Star Dancer" in Navajo. Willow was born the youngest child (and only daughter) of Peter and Fala Deschene. She was born in Window Rock, Arizona, and her totem animal is the eagle. Her brothers had the dark hair of their father and the blue eyes of their mother. Willow, however, inherited both the blue eyes and blond hair, making her look very much like her Caucasian in a Native American household. However, her father's Navajo tribe welcomed her, and she spent her childhood growing up happily in the American southwest. Her brothers were older, and she grew up to like a lot of the boys games that they liked. She especially liked all the running contests they liked, and she liked baseball and football.  As they grew older, her brothers learned they needed to be protective of her because as they saw she was going to be short and fine featured, she became easy prey for older, bullying kids not only in the tribe but when the family would go into town. When older, rougher boys would try to take advantage of her, her brothers were always somehow instantly there to settle the score. She didn't have a particularly close relationship with her maternal grandparents simply because of distance. She knew them mostly through letters and photographs and a few visits her grandparents made to Window Rock as she was growing up.

She learned early how to ride a horse, how to do almost every traditional craft her tribe would teach her. She learned to weave, learned how to paint, how to make baskets and pottery, how to make jewelry, how to dance, and she was fascinated by the culture of her family. She didn't ask for many toys because she had a whole wide world around her to explore and learn about. The elders called her Star Dancer, and to her delight, there were always elders who took the time to tell her stories, taught her how to cook, taught her how to plant and how to care for animals, and how to handle herself against bigger kids. They taught her how to speak her mind, how to stand up for herself, and how to fight.  She couldn't imagine going or living anywhere else.  It was like growing up with countless grandfathers and grandmothers, a huge, insulating, loving family. As she grew up, it became clear to her tribe and to her family that she had "the gift" that the rest of her family did.  She began to experience accidental magic episodes early on that increased steadily over time.  Her first wand was given to her by her paternal grandfather on her 9th birthday, a gift he'd had handmade for her by the medicine man in the tribe. The little pocket sized wand had never been intended to be her wand when she grew up, but it was a beautiful little wand that Willow so loved that she never wanted another.

HOGWARTS YEARS: N/A Her tribe started teaching her how to cast spells as soon as she got her wand. She attended Navajo schools for basic education in reading, writing, math, Navajo culture and values, Navajo language, American culture, and English. She also mentored under her tribe's women to learn cooking, sewing, and knowledge of plants and animals, beadwork, pottery, weaving, how to own and successfully manage living off the land, financial management, child care, and a thousand other things. From the men in her tribe she learned about fishing, hunting, wood working, managing livestock and crops, metal jewelry "smithing" skills. From the medicine men and women, she learned her magical skills. She learned about basic physical healing skills, the study of dreams and how to use them to benefit others, charms, elemental magic, hexes, seeing, potions/medicine making, healing herbs, using crystals and other natural means of seeing or healing. Her tribe had different terminology for them, but some of her medicine men were knowledgeable to try to translate them into some sort of Western equivalent for her. In keeping with her Star Dancer name, she was a quick study at whatever sort of magical task they would give her, and it was her favorite subject of all. She was fascinated and seemed to never tire of learning. She often worked late into the night on a beading project or on learning how to differentiate between one herb and another and how to use them safely in a medicine or a tea. She began to work part time under the medicine man in her tribe. They didn't consider that she needed to be expert at all of the things they taught her, but their goal was to make sure she could be self sufficient if she needed to be. Much as she knew they loved her, she also knew they wanted to make sure she could survive independently because, it was obvious she didn't exactly match the exotic beauty of a native woman that the Caucasians were so infatuated with. She grew up knowing and understanding that she might well have to learn how to keep one foot in each world. It was frustrating for her, but she accepted them at their word. She got a part time job working at her grandmother's diner, initially bussing tables and mopping floors.

ADULTHOOD: As she reached age 19, she was finding she was being given more and more responsibilities in her tribe to help others. People in her tribe were beginning to trust her judgment on illnesses, medicines, and spiritual matters that needed her magical skills. It was a busy, hectic job that was never boring. When she wasn't doing that, she was working in the diner, either as a server or as a short order cook. She loved it. She couldn't imagine her life being different or happier.

And then came the parchment from England, from some guy she'd never heard of. Her father said the man was a 'solicitor.' It was a notice that she had inherited a vast amount of galleons from a great aunt in London. She'd been, actually, a stepsister to her British grandfather. Willow had never met the woman, but apparently the woman was a tad eccentric, according to family lore, and had believed the inheritance needed to go to the youngest woman in the family--and that was Willow. Willow had no clue what a galleon was. Her father had only figured out that it was some sort of a coin. The idea of taking time away from her grandmother's diner to take a flight halfway across the world to fetch some sort of eccentric old woman's coin collection does not amuse Willow, but her plan is to go get the coin collection, maybe visit her grandfather, and then perhaps find an auction or a buyer online for this coin collection, unload it, and go the heck home.


ALSO KNOWN AS:Khaaty

RP EXPERIENCE:....

HOW YOU FOUND US: *shrugs*

MAIN CHARACTER:Pick one.

I'm gonna PM you bout this.