Meli Dejarin, aka The Minder of Trees

((stole this format from Charlie Gerard's post - thank you!))

Names: The Minder of Trees, Tree Minder, Minder, Meli, Meli Dejarin

Age: appears 23, real age 612

Height: 5'5" in human form

Weight: About 115# in human form

Alignment: Neutral good

Race: Nature Spirit

Archtype: Dryad

Occupation: Registered Nurse (BSN from University of San Francisco)

Sexual orientation: Cis majority of the time

Relationship status: Unattached

APPEARANCE

Her first form was that of a white spotted doe. Just like it says on the tin.

Her second evolved as she spied on humanity and developed a desire to communicate, to have hands with thumbs, to interact with the world somewhat as they do. In this shape, she is a centaur only with the body of a deer rather than a horse. She has white spots on her dark skin, and her eyes are those of a deer, almost entirely black with the horizontal bar for a pupil. She has a love for roses and freely decorates herself with them in this form.

Her third form evolved over time as she paid more attention to humanity and wanted to walk on two legs. Still hooved, deer legs dainty and slender, the fur morphs into smooth skin around mid thigh, and like her centaur shape, her skin is spotted and her eyes are those of a deer. For the first time, she began to wear clothing. It took her a while but soon she could run as fleetly in this shape as her four legged forms.

Finally, her human form is the last she learned. Meli has a Pacific Islander vibe, brown skin with curly black hair and eyes so deeply brown they appear black. She has a light step and loves to run.

BACKGROUND STORY

She opened her eyes and thought, 'these are my eyes'. She took a breath and thought, 'these are my lungs.' And then she stepped. Out. Out from the Tree. She will never know what she looked like at the dawn of her existence. She only knows this: that the first thing to fill her sight was a white-spotted doe, poised and graceful and staring at her from deep, dark eyes. And she took that shape. Fleet, nimble, and she ran, hurtling through the Forest, glorying in the joy of it. Finally, she trotted back to the Tree, hers to Mind. There in the deep forest on the island that would someday become Wailing Rock. It was 1407 AD by human reckoning.

Centuries passed. She expanded her territory, never going any further east than the Rockies. She learned and adopted new shapes. Met other beings, but remained shy of civilization or large groups. She kept to the trees, the forests, the uncomplicated life of the wild. She preferred peace to war, flight to fight, and when she eventually ventured out into the human world, she inevitably adopted a healing or supportive role. Despite herself, she gradually spent more time among humanity, and at last, she took a human name. Meli.

It was the turn of the 18th century when Meli fell in love with a mortal man. She'd migrated down the Columbia river and discovered Sauvie Island, glorious and green, and decided to make this her home for a time. There, as a spotted doe, she found the Chinook people, the Multnomah tribe. Where she saw him. Beautiful and bold outside the longhouse. And he saw her back. Frozen, she met his gaze and electricity rippled down her spine. And then she leapt, turned, darted into the forest, vanishing from his sight.

Meli ventured back that night, a small brown woman with black curls. And with a breath of glamour to encourage him, she joined him in the longhouse. Became his mate. She lived as a mortal for that time, having his child, learning their ways. And it was hard but when she was tempted, she'd look into his amber eyes and find the strength to stay. To keep pretending. If she took long forays into the forest to gather herbs and medicines, if she vanished for days when the tribe was on a hunt, her mate learned not to ask. There was a fey quality to her, no matter how she much adopted the air of a mortal, but the tribe cherished her for her herb lore and medicine, unaware that Meli also used magic to assist with healing.

Time passed. Years. And Meli felt her heart clench in worsening agony as her mate fell increasingly to the rigors of time. As her human son moved into his own longhouse, consumed with the rituals and rules of the tribe. She changed her skin and shape in subtle ways, aging herself, but finally, she could tolerate it no longer. She went to gather herbs and never came back. Shedding anything remotely human about herself, she transformed into the spotted deer and remained so for over two centuries.

Until eight years ago. She'd migrated down the coast and was now migrating slowly back up, nothing planned, just a natural progression. And a feeling rivered through her. An attraction. A /pull/. It was in Berkeley, California that she finally took a human shape again. An easy town for the odd to blend in. And she /was/ odd. The world, so different, fast and sleek and blazing. Meli had so much to learn. She learned how the modern world worked. She learned to read and write. She got a job working at a plant nursery, then another one walking dogs. At night, she took her deer shape and roamed Tilden Park.

She met a trio of nursing students while dog walking and they invited her frequently to coffee, then to be their fourth roommate. Meli became curious, then fascinated with their studies as they took pre-req nursing classes. Helping them with subjects that seemed obvious to her. They talked her into auditing a pre-req nursing class with them. And Meli, surprisingly, found that she liked it.

And she used her glamour judiciously to gain what she needed to enroll at the University of San Francisco nursing program. While her identity was fake, and tuition seemed to magically be handled, Meli's studies were in earnest. Her diploma is real. And she's very proud of passing the NCLEX exam on the first try.

Meli worked as an RN at UCSF, then at El Camino Hospital, floating between units, her curiousity about the human condition deepening the more she learned. But the city was getting to her. So many people, so much sorrow and joy and pain and bad decisions in one place. Her wanderlust started to kick in. That odd, pull to go further north. Meli started looking at nursing jobs and there, a small rural hospital on an island called Wailing Rock. All the hair on her human body stood at attention. And it was on her arrival that Meli knew why.

This is where she came into being. She feels it from her pores, in every breath, in the way that each step feels familiar.

This is home.

PERSONALITY

• Quiet, prefers to listen rather than speak, can be shy

• Introvert but curiosity will lure her out of her shell

• When working as an RN, she's completely immersed in her work; the shyness all but vanishes

• Can be skittish in crowds or among strangers

• Can seem a little off, a little fey when drawn into conversation; her mind will make connections in ways that can seem scattered or like she's leaping from subject to subject

CHARACTER STRENGTHS

• Skilled healer and will use magic to defend nature and those who need protection

• Is not afraid to run from a fight; strong survival instinct

• Honest as she's allowed to be given the masque

• Can run long distances in all her forms

• Cooperative and works well with others; does not need to be in charge but can quietly lead from the back

CHARACTER WEAKNESSES

• Can isolate herself or lean too far towards the passive

• Hates the masque and the way it forces her to lie or try to guess about other people

• Has a terrible poker face; what she is feeling, it shows

• Wild at heart and inexplicably vanishes for days on end