Florence Olivewood - Elsewhere Adult

[Florence Olivewood]

E L S E W H E R E   A D U L T

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Florence Alice Olivewood
Gender: Female
Age: 67 (23 August)
Blood Status: Muggleborn

Education:
Hogwarts - Hufflepuff

Residence:
The village of Castle Hedingham, Essex

Occupation:
Retired Healer

Do you plan to have a connection to a particular existing place (for example: the Ministry, Shrieking Shack) or to take over an existing shop in need of new management?
St. Mungo's

Requested Magic Levels:
Adult characters have 32 starting levels to distribute across these four categories (less levels can be used if you so desire, but no more than 32). The number of levels on the lowest ability must be at least half of the highest ability.

If you want levels above the usual 32 total, or a significantly uneven distribution of starting levels, please fill out and submit the Exceptional Levels special request form here.

• Charms: 6
• Divination: 5
• Transfiguration: 11
• Summoning: 10

Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason?
No.

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Dienne, Benji, and Ben Sr. Orellana; Wyatt McCormick, Hollis Thornton, Sierra Jalson.

Biography: (300 words minimum.)
"Excuse me, ma'am, there is no smoking in here." A hesistant voice sounded behind her, one that tried to say those words three times before finally gathering the courage and volume.

Her head turned.  Her neck looked like it'd turned many times over the decades, with its natural creases buried deep the way a shovel digs into soft dirt.  "What?"  The single word ended in a drawl, as if the speaker couldn't let go of the vowels, the closing consonant, until the last minute.  That stark Essex accent makes itself known as the blonde, older woman lifted a cigarette from her mouth.

"You're talking about this?"  She drawled.  Her lips puffed on the stick.  Her tone wasn't arch or insulted but tired, slow.  As if moving her mouth before 9AM was incredibly inconvenient.

The nervous waitress could practically hear the ash form on the inhale. "Erm, yes."  She pointed above the diner counter.

Blues eyes flicked to the painted sign hanging there.  They dropped lower to linger on the empty coffee pot, and a half opened muffin on the back counter being lipped at by an interested fly.

The woman sighed.  The waitress swore she heard teeth being sucked on, before the blonde woman crushed the end of her cigarette into an empty coffee mug.  "I'll take another," she ordered with a tired flick of two fingers.

The waitress stammered agreement and fled.

"... and a muffin!"  But her now soft voice wasn't heard by anyone nearby, so the wearied Florence Olivewood continued to stare longingly at the muffin.  She was even jealous of the silly fly.

You would think being semi-retired from St. Mungo's would mean Florence would have more than enough time to rest, to take her ease in a quaint corner cafe just outside of Castle Hedingham, Essex.  But there was a difference between readying oneself to put away the books, set down the vials, and pack up her desk; and a completely different experience entirely to walk into her office after a late night, and be met with a 'Sit down, Flo, we just want to talk.' and 'Don't you think you've worked long enough?'

Flo leaned back in her seat, considering the steaming rim of her new coffee.  The customer walking behind her swerved, nearly colliding into the hanging coats of the next table.

Her neat, trimmed fingernails absently tapped the ceramic.  If she had been at work today, those nails would have been caked in fresh dirt from sifting out burgeoning weeds from suffocating her medicinal herbs.  The dirt might have settled into the fine lined cracks along her hands.  Blotches she'd long forgotten whether they came naturally or the potions she spilled on herself over the ages ran from her fingers down her wrist, to hide beneath her rolled up, rumpled button-up.  Half scrubbed lines of writing were scratched absently on her forearm.  They were less permanent than the thin lines of ink her children had gasped to realize she had on her bicep, at her collar, down her ribs.  Small sketches done just when she'd declared herself free at last from her husband of over twenty years, from her grown children now capable of managing their own families and leaving her in peace.

But, just like a retirement forced upon her, freedom hadn't really meant anything to Florence Olivewood.  Other people took to travelling, spending outrageous amounts of money on trinkets they'd never keep, and boasting about it all to their colleagues.  Florence had done the same things before her divorce, before raising her family, as she had after.  Twelve plus hours a day, five days a week, working at her profession, with a firm no for any weekend request.  Forty plus years maintaining the same routine, rain or shine, and now she was faced with... what?

Flo sighed as she drained the rest of her cup.  A bit away, wiping up a table, the waitress jerked, startled.  Flo set down her mug and turned to look out the window.  She set her chin on her hand, and drummed on the counter now an insistent tap-tap-tap that had no tune, no impatience, but was simply habit.

The fields beyond the cafe looked as they always did: familiar, overgrown, plain.  She'd never loved living in Castle Hedingham, but she deny her parents their dying wish that she inherit their ancestral home upon her marriage so many years ago.  Generations of Olivewood farmers had occupied that settlement.  Bluebloods to the bone, though somewhere along the way, some magic had been sprinkled in.  Being woken up at dawn on her eleventh birthday not to harvest the fields, as had been her accepted existence up until that point, but to greet a stranger who explained an impossible fantasy world called magic, was a memory fading with every passing day.

Flo stared out at the acres and acres of nothing.  The mix of lush greenery, of cattle and dead grass burned by the hot summer sun.

Maybe she'd make a garden at home.  Grow vegetables rather than dry herbs for research.

Yes, she would do that.  She would return to her family cottage, over full from acting as storage to two children, four grandchildren, and an ex-husband that still visited, curse him, and set about clearing a place for a garden.  That would give her plenty to do.

The waitress squawked in protest as smoke wafted up from the older woman again.

Roleplay: 
You come across one of these posts on the site. Please select one & reply as your character:

Option Two -
The snow had been falling steadily all morning and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Joshua Campbell scrunched his face up in a frown as he lifted his gaze to look to the sky. Snow. It really was quite a bother.

And it certainly didn't make it better that Diagon Alley seemed to be getting more and more crowded. Joshua sighed and pointed his wand at the large box that was currently placed on the doorstep of his shop. He had to get going. He had an order to deliver.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" The elderly man muttered and watched the box hover in the air for a moment. Honestly, did St. Mungo's really need that much tinsel? And with glitter of all things? He sighed again. If it hadn't been for the rather convincing stamp on the order, he would have been likely to believe it had been a prank by one of those orphaned rascals living up there.

Oh well, there was no point in waiting. Joshua deftly stirred the box down the doorstep and out onto the street, carefully levitating it above the heads of the crowd.

"Coming through! Coming through!" His voice sounded over the chatter of the crowd. "Keep out! Move ahead! Go on!" This was going way too slow. People were in the way and walking like they had all day! He huffed. Luckily the road was down hill.

"Coming through! Coming th--- arrrgh!" Joshua let out a loud shout as his feet suddenly slipped in the snow and sent him, the box, and several long strands of tinsel tumbling into the person who had been walking in front of him.

"For Merlin's sake!" Joshua muttered angrily as he hurried to his feet again, red and gold tinsel now decorating his black coat. "I am so sorry! This blasted snow!" He looked apologetic at the person he had crashed into.

Roleplay Response:
Florence Olivewood didn't have many strong opinions (probably a lie) but there was atleast one that stayed constant over her sixty plus years of life: Flo hated winter.  The older woman stuffed her hands in her well worn russet red coat--a Christmas gift from her daughter twelve years ago--and peered up at the sky.  The corner of her mouth twisted in familiar exasperation at every cold snowflake that dared descend from the heavens.

She couldn't remember if her potted rosemary bush was too close to the glass windows at home.  She recalled shifting it about to make room for the mint and oregano, but had gotten distracted by the wilting leaves of her peppermint sprig.  Puttering around about her home to check on her dwindling supply of peppermint oil had distracted her from setting the potted plants back in warm enough places not to be threatened by any frosted windows or left cracked shutters.

More snowflakes dusted across her upturned face.  They melted into her short blonde locks, swept back from a face made lined from years of intense concentration to the point of obsession.  The chill in the air had bled its way past her worn coat, nipping at thin arms easily chilled by a hated winter breeze.  Flo stared at the sky for a few more moments, cursing that her family had lived in the U.K. for generations, then checked the scroll in her pocket.

She'd scribbled something to pick up in her haste to do something productive outside of her home today.

Curse her handwriting.  There was an S... and the symbol she used to shorthand elixir, but which recipe was she trying to make...

Suddenly, a weight slammed into Florence's back.  A shout had come with it, either before or after, but all Florence felt was her sore back protest the intrusion.  Backs, especially hers, were not meant to lug endless bags of mulch and heavy pots of poisonous shrubbery, back and forth from a shed to a house.  She had known this, but her mind had told her if she spent another minute sitting in her recliner, her brain would collapse like rotten fruit.

Curses sounded from Flo's mouth, soft and raspy from a voice like crushed foil.  "It's alright..."

Her voice trailed off as blue eyes followed a roll of parchment falling to the ground, mixing in the red and gold tinsel to land on its own in a puddle made of melted snow and dirty pedestrian travel.

"Blast!" Florence muttered.  She turned to look at the man who'd bumped her.  Her free hand--traitorous one that couldn't hold onto parchment, clearly--pressed to her back.  "You alright?"

OTHER
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[Willow Foxglove]

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