Post by Pullet on Aug 13, 2017 13:24:45 GMT -5
Player: Pullet
Best Contact Method(s): PM
Have you read the General Rules?: Yes
Are you adopting a character from the Open for Claims List?: Yes
If so, have you discussed the required character elements with the contact person?: Yes
Character Name: Elspeth Cameron
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Birthdate: May 13th, 1405
City / Region: Marlowe, Shelborne
House [ Birth, Marriage if applicable ]: Cameron
Played by: Emma Stone
Appearance:
Like most of her family, Elspeth is built healthy, strong, fair-skinned, with brownish-red hair and blue-green eyes. Standing at 5’7’’, she’s taller than most of the women in her family, and while she currently maintains a pleasantly average weight and curvature, the width of her hips and the roundness of her chin predict that she too will achieve the stoutness of the classic Cameron figure with age. Prolonged exposure to strong sun makes her skin burn and freckles appear on her cheeks and nose, but that hardly stops her from enjoying her outdoor activities, be they work or pleasure. Her posture is always perfect and she moves with a purpose, swift and agile but not exactly elegant or feminine. Her voice melodic and deep, always clear and never raised. She doesn't yell or scream, or use rude language; instead, when upset, her voice simply becomes... sharper. Harder. Colder. Those who know her learn to fear that tone, because it is the first indication that they have somehow displeased her.
Elspeth spends most of her time working, and this shows a lot in her daily attire. Her hair is usually bound in some way or another, in a chignon, a braid, or under a kerchief of some kind. Her nails are always clean and short, and her fingers and wrists unadorned even in cases when a festive show of wealth is in order because she cannot abide anything that would weight her hands down and get in the way of work. On the daily, she will have on a pair of light earrings and some hairpins, but even when she goes out of her wear to adorn herself, she likes to keep things simple because she does not feel very comfortable wearing jewellery, and much the same goes for decorative cosmetics. She is, however, very fond of perfume, creams, and soaps, which she makes herself, and her brother Ian gladly makes sure she has fresh batches of her favourite blooms every year - linden blossom, elderflower, lily-of-the-valley, honeysuckle, St John’s Wort, Breckland thyme... fresh and light scents that suit her personality well.
She is also rather fond of pretty fabrics, which clashes with the strict practicality she had to adopt very early on in life, but Elspeth reconciled this discrepancy through compromise. Her everyday wear mostly consists of simple pieces made of high-quality fabrics in muted shades of brown, green, orange, and grey - practical, but very obviously very well made and expensive. When engaged in physical working, though, she’s dressed much like any of her workers, and, at first glance, an outsider could easily mistake her for one of the serving girls of Glencairn Keep. But the clothes she wears on special occasions are elegant affairs of delicate, elaborately designed fabrics, with intricate patterns and splashes of wild colours atop sedate bases. The one thing she will never compromise on, though, is footwear, and she will always favour comfort and quality over fashion.
Personality: Elspeth is a bit of a mix of contrasting traits that sometimes work great together... and, sometimes, not so much. By nature, she is cheery and romantic, with a vivid imagination and a relaxed demeanour. However, as she had to grow up a little bit too fast and take over more and more of the duties that would normally fall within in the purview of the lady of the house, Elspeth taught herself to be practical, serious, driven, and take on as much work on herself as she possibly can. As a result of this clash, she can sometimes forget to relax, often overthinks and overstrains herself, hasn’t really developed any social grace whatsoever (and is self-conscious about it), tends to put the needs of others over her own, and she’s much kinder and more forgiving to others than she is to herself.
But she is also the most hardworking person you will ever meet - and, even better, she not only works hard but works smart. For all her pride, she is very well aware of the fact that, much as she would love to, she isn’t capable of doing everything, so she relies on a vast network of aides she delegates all the work that she has no talent, skill, or time to do. She is very open and precise about what she expects from those that work for her, but though this might make for an occasional grumble, Elspeth’s more than earned their respect and loyalty because they know that, no matter how high the standards she holds them to are, they’re nothing compared to the standards she holds herself to, that she doesn’t shy from getting her hands dirty either, highly values and generously rewards good work, gladly defers to their expertise, and that the interests she takes in their lives is genuine.
However, a small but highly neurotic part of Elspeth is convinced that everything would collapse if she weren’t there to at least oversee the work being done, if not do it herself, and that part (often goaded by her perfectionistic streak) drives her into overworking herself more often than not. She rises early and goes to bed fairly late, and only her obnoxiously robust health keeps her from falling ill from the exhaustion. Not that she would ever acknowledge the fact, let alone complain about it; Elspeth is proud of her position, her abilities, and the success and reputation that she’s achieved as a capable manager and businesswoman. In her eyes, work is where she has any value... mostly because her lack of confidence when it comes to anything else.
Of what few moments of leisure she allows herself that she doesn’t spend with family, she uses to replenish her energy by getting the hell away from both work and people. If the weather serves, she will ride out, find one of the many streams that join together to form the Marlowe River, and, depending on the season, try for some trout or hare, or just scoot somewhere to read and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. This is not to say that she’s an introvert or doesn’t enjoy working. Quite the opposite, she’d go nuts if she had nothing to do and no people around her for a prolonged period of time - but she’s go just as crazy if she didn’t have an hour or two a day to herself.
She’s a bit of a mother hen, especially to her siblings. This leads to a lot of good-natured teasing, especially by the men in her family, who take a particular pleasure in ribbing her about being serious and grumpy. But the truth is that she can only be considered grave when compared to other Camerons because Elspeth laughs, and has her fun, and is in possession of a ferocious temper and a bit of a violent streak, just like them... she’s just choosier about when she allows herself to cut loose and better at subduing her irritation. Granted, her family makes her lose her temper more often than she’d like to admit (she is particularly prone to anger born of worry and slapping her kinsmen upside the head, a common occurrence when you have a family full of boisterous, brawling loudmouths), but that’s just because she’s far more relaxed with them than she is with other people.
However, all this has subsequently caused her to have a somewhat lowered opinion of men as a species, and that is a part of the reason why she has so far avoided even the conversation about possibly getting married. She rather likes the fact that she’s independent and self-sufficient, that she is regarded as useful and respected for her skills and success, and she fears that she will not have the luck of being paired off with someone who will be able to appreciate her the way she feels her family does. Besides, her life’s work is in the Cameron fields and herds, and who would regard leaving their life’s work behind just to maybe get to start from scratch with a complete stranger? And, also, it’d be nice if she’d, you know, like the guy, and finding a guy you like when you regard adult men in general as little more than overgrown adolescents is... challenging. But that’s OK, because, for the time being, she’s not particularly interested in looking.
Loyal to a fault, Elspeth’s heart has always been with her family and Shelbourne, and she has had little actual contact with people from other Duchies, other than through trade. Which is not to say that she is ignorant - her education was just as extensive and seriously undertaken as that of any high-born lady in the Kingdom - simply that her experience is limited, which makes her a bit of a provincial. That, combined with being very well aware of her flaws, as well as her lack of social skills and femininity, makes her feel self-conscious and awkward when in the company of people more worldly than herself.
It doesn’t help that she’s not exactly diplomatic by nature. She isn’t rude, mind you, but things like subtlety and shrewdness are most certainly not her forte. Elspeth is intelligent, and the things she does well she does better than most other people do, but the people she usually deals with are far more straightforward and honest than the highborn tend to be, and where ladies of the more political regions tend to be scalpels, Elspeth is more akin to an axe. An excellent, useful, and very sharp axe... but an axe nonetheless. This gives her a bit of an inferiority complex, and while she is very confident and assertive when dealing with the familiar, she grows painfully awkward when dealing that with which she isn’t.
All in all, Elspeth can be both relaxingly simple and irritatingly complicated, two extremes that might, perhaps, balance out if she were to acquire some more... diverse acquaintances and experiences.
Specific Skills or Abilities:
- She is well educated in both the theory and practice of everything that has anything to do with wool, from the very basics of sheep-care, through shearing, grading, sorting, cleaning, scouring, brushing, carding, dying, spinning, weaving, knitting, fulling, crabbing, and decating. However, her innate talent lays in spinning and weaving, something she does better than anyone else, and there are few who are not amazed by the threads and fabrics coming from under her skilful fingers.
- Homestead and farming economy and management
- Trade and bookkeeping
- Speaks several languages, though not fluently and with a vocabulary largely centred on trade
- Making dyes, soaps, creams, and simple oil-based perfumes
- Horse-riding and carriage driving
- Fishing and small game hunting
- Makes a mean pot of stew
Character History: Elspeth Cameron has led by far the least interesting life that she knows about. She was lucky to have been in born into a family that was not only wealthy and privileged, but also in the part of the Kingdom where the kind of skills, drive, and ambitions she possesses would be thought of as an asset rather than a flaw... but also unfortunate enough to have been born to a mother whose already fragile constitution only grew weaker with each new birth.
While her childhood had been happy and relatively carefree, spent in study and play with her siblings and cousins, her mother had decided early on that Elspeth’s education on the matters of running a noble household would be considerably more intensive compared to that of her younger sister. She knew that the time when she will not be able to actively participate in the running of the household would come much sooner than she would like, and she trusted no one but her flesh and blood to have the best interest of the family always at heart.
The less time Elspeth had for fun and games with children her age, the more serious she grew. In an attempt to make Elspeth understand the importance and size of all the obligations she would one day have as a lady of a noble house, her mother accidentally drove her into becoming intensely concentrated on work, putting everything else, including her own needs and desires, behind. This resulted in her becoming a very efficient worker and a highly competent organiser at the expense of her social skills.
But she was good, oh so good, especially when it came to wool production and trade side of the family business, so Elspeth decided that it was a fair trade and decided to keep pushing on. Besides, if she made herself useful and her work valuable enough, then no one would find it profitable to put her in a position where her strongest assets couldn’t be used (like, say, making her one of the family representatives at the Royal Court), so she wouldn’t need to be any more subtle or delicate than necessary to deal with her own countrymen anyway.
Thus rationalizing away the need to fix her flaws, Elspeth continued to hone her skills and succeed in the things for which she had a natural inclination. As her mother eventually became all but bedridden, Elspeth became the de facto lady of her home and, thanks to her enterprising skills, one of the more important assets of Clan Cameron. In the younger generation, she outwardly seems like the most at-peace, most content of the bunch... but Elspeth hides ambitions much bigger than anyone gives her credit for and desires she’s long worked to convince everyone, herself included, are neither possible nor important...
...perhaps a push in an unfamiliar direction is in order?
Writing Sample: In the large oak grove located roughly half an hour on foot away to the south from Marlowe Castle, Elspeth Cameron stood in the cold water of a wide stream renowned for housing a large population of brown trout this time of year, when the fish migrated for spawning. This stream has been one of their favoured roads for decades, and many a time there would be so many of the fish congregating in the pooling parts of the stream that all one had to do was to lower their hand into the water and pick one.
Personally, while she enjoyed fishing by hand, Elspeth would not recommend the method for this particular prey. Fish that are close to or have just finished spawning tended to be rather aggressive, and brown trout have nasty teeth. No, the bow or the spear worked much better here, as nets were ineffective in such shallow water, and angling took up too much of the time she did not have the luxury to spend on leisure. Autumn was a busy time in any household, more so in such a large one as Marlowe Castle, and while Elspeth trained her staff well, she would’ve felt much too selfish if she spent more than two or three hours on her own pleasure.
The wicker creel on the bank of the stream already had five fish inside, but she wanted to bring home at least ten. To give herself a better view of her targets, and speed up the process, Elspeth had girded her skirting to just above the knees and stepped into the water as soon as she came, positioning herself roughly in the middle of the stream. Her boots were knee-tall, made of oiled pigskin, and impervious to water, though not to the cold (that's what the thick woollen socks were for, but by now she could feel them slowly beginning to lose their function). She walked cautiously through the water, both to avoid disturbing the fish more than she had to and to prevent such silly mistakes like slipping or accidentally waddling in too deep. The lowest points of the stream were no more than two or three feet in depth, but her legs were not very long, and she preferred avoiding getting water in her boots.
Eyeing a prime specimen just a few steps away, Elspeth firmed her footing and loaded her bow, taking her aim with the ease of someone who shot for nearly as long as they've been alive...
...and was just about to release the arrow when a small projectile (which, as she later found out, was an acorn) struck the back of her head.
Startled, Elspeth lost her grip on the arrow and, with it, her aim, so instead of a fat, juicy trout, it hit the rocky bed of the stream. The fish scattered in fear, hiding amongst the rocks, but she was too busy trying to spot the culprit, to be upset over it. She turned her head in the direction from which the offending object came, her squinting eyes surveying the bushes still rich with now mostly browned leaves. She could see no one there, and considering she was surrounded by oak trees, she deducted an acorn must've fallen off one, and a strong gust of wind must've shot it in her direction. A perfectly reasonable possibility.
One she would've continued to believe so had the exact same thing not happen nigh the second she reloaded and took her aim again.
This time, her grip stayed firm, and the arrow remained nocked, though she lowered the bow, easing the strain on the bowstring as she turned towards the bank once more. She didn't bother with surveying the parameter this time; this time, she knew for a fact someone was there, even if she could not see them... someone who believed they could get away with bothering her in a most inappropriate way at the most inappropriate time - which drastically narrowed the suspect pool down.
There was only a handful of people confident enough to tease her... and only one audacious enough to think ambushing her while she held a weapon in her hands was a good idea.
"Ian Cameron, you may be my flesh and blood, but I swear on all that is holy, if you do not desist this childish behaviour, I will shoot this arrow up your behind!" she called out sternly, not caring much that she's frightening the fish. They can't run all that far, after all.
Best Contact Method(s): PM
Have you read the General Rules?: Yes
Are you adopting a character from the Open for Claims List?: Yes
If so, have you discussed the required character elements with the contact person?: Yes
Character Name: Elspeth Cameron
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Birthdate: May 13th, 1405
City / Region: Marlowe, Shelborne
House [ Birth, Marriage if applicable ]: Cameron
Played by: Emma Stone
Appearance:
Like most of her family, Elspeth is built healthy, strong, fair-skinned, with brownish-red hair and blue-green eyes. Standing at 5’7’’, she’s taller than most of the women in her family, and while she currently maintains a pleasantly average weight and curvature, the width of her hips and the roundness of her chin predict that she too will achieve the stoutness of the classic Cameron figure with age. Prolonged exposure to strong sun makes her skin burn and freckles appear on her cheeks and nose, but that hardly stops her from enjoying her outdoor activities, be they work or pleasure. Her posture is always perfect and she moves with a purpose, swift and agile but not exactly elegant or feminine. Her voice melodic and deep, always clear and never raised. She doesn't yell or scream, or use rude language; instead, when upset, her voice simply becomes... sharper. Harder. Colder. Those who know her learn to fear that tone, because it is the first indication that they have somehow displeased her.
Elspeth spends most of her time working, and this shows a lot in her daily attire. Her hair is usually bound in some way or another, in a chignon, a braid, or under a kerchief of some kind. Her nails are always clean and short, and her fingers and wrists unadorned even in cases when a festive show of wealth is in order because she cannot abide anything that would weight her hands down and get in the way of work. On the daily, she will have on a pair of light earrings and some hairpins, but even when she goes out of her wear to adorn herself, she likes to keep things simple because she does not feel very comfortable wearing jewellery, and much the same goes for decorative cosmetics. She is, however, very fond of perfume, creams, and soaps, which she makes herself, and her brother Ian gladly makes sure she has fresh batches of her favourite blooms every year - linden blossom, elderflower, lily-of-the-valley, honeysuckle, St John’s Wort, Breckland thyme... fresh and light scents that suit her personality well.
She is also rather fond of pretty fabrics, which clashes with the strict practicality she had to adopt very early on in life, but Elspeth reconciled this discrepancy through compromise. Her everyday wear mostly consists of simple pieces made of high-quality fabrics in muted shades of brown, green, orange, and grey - practical, but very obviously very well made and expensive. When engaged in physical working, though, she’s dressed much like any of her workers, and, at first glance, an outsider could easily mistake her for one of the serving girls of Glencairn Keep. But the clothes she wears on special occasions are elegant affairs of delicate, elaborately designed fabrics, with intricate patterns and splashes of wild colours atop sedate bases. The one thing she will never compromise on, though, is footwear, and she will always favour comfort and quality over fashion.
Personality: Elspeth is a bit of a mix of contrasting traits that sometimes work great together... and, sometimes, not so much. By nature, she is cheery and romantic, with a vivid imagination and a relaxed demeanour. However, as she had to grow up a little bit too fast and take over more and more of the duties that would normally fall within in the purview of the lady of the house, Elspeth taught herself to be practical, serious, driven, and take on as much work on herself as she possibly can. As a result of this clash, she can sometimes forget to relax, often overthinks and overstrains herself, hasn’t really developed any social grace whatsoever (and is self-conscious about it), tends to put the needs of others over her own, and she’s much kinder and more forgiving to others than she is to herself.
But she is also the most hardworking person you will ever meet - and, even better, she not only works hard but works smart. For all her pride, she is very well aware of the fact that, much as she would love to, she isn’t capable of doing everything, so she relies on a vast network of aides she delegates all the work that she has no talent, skill, or time to do. She is very open and precise about what she expects from those that work for her, but though this might make for an occasional grumble, Elspeth’s more than earned their respect and loyalty because they know that, no matter how high the standards she holds them to are, they’re nothing compared to the standards she holds herself to, that she doesn’t shy from getting her hands dirty either, highly values and generously rewards good work, gladly defers to their expertise, and that the interests she takes in their lives is genuine.
However, a small but highly neurotic part of Elspeth is convinced that everything would collapse if she weren’t there to at least oversee the work being done, if not do it herself, and that part (often goaded by her perfectionistic streak) drives her into overworking herself more often than not. She rises early and goes to bed fairly late, and only her obnoxiously robust health keeps her from falling ill from the exhaustion. Not that she would ever acknowledge the fact, let alone complain about it; Elspeth is proud of her position, her abilities, and the success and reputation that she’s achieved as a capable manager and businesswoman. In her eyes, work is where she has any value... mostly because her lack of confidence when it comes to anything else.
Of what few moments of leisure she allows herself that she doesn’t spend with family, she uses to replenish her energy by getting the hell away from both work and people. If the weather serves, she will ride out, find one of the many streams that join together to form the Marlowe River, and, depending on the season, try for some trout or hare, or just scoot somewhere to read and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. This is not to say that she’s an introvert or doesn’t enjoy working. Quite the opposite, she’d go nuts if she had nothing to do and no people around her for a prolonged period of time - but she’s go just as crazy if she didn’t have an hour or two a day to herself.
She’s a bit of a mother hen, especially to her siblings. This leads to a lot of good-natured teasing, especially by the men in her family, who take a particular pleasure in ribbing her about being serious and grumpy. But the truth is that she can only be considered grave when compared to other Camerons because Elspeth laughs, and has her fun, and is in possession of a ferocious temper and a bit of a violent streak, just like them... she’s just choosier about when she allows herself to cut loose and better at subduing her irritation. Granted, her family makes her lose her temper more often than she’d like to admit (she is particularly prone to anger born of worry and slapping her kinsmen upside the head, a common occurrence when you have a family full of boisterous, brawling loudmouths), but that’s just because she’s far more relaxed with them than she is with other people.
However, all this has subsequently caused her to have a somewhat lowered opinion of men as a species, and that is a part of the reason why she has so far avoided even the conversation about possibly getting married. She rather likes the fact that she’s independent and self-sufficient, that she is regarded as useful and respected for her skills and success, and she fears that she will not have the luck of being paired off with someone who will be able to appreciate her the way she feels her family does. Besides, her life’s work is in the Cameron fields and herds, and who would regard leaving their life’s work behind just to maybe get to start from scratch with a complete stranger? And, also, it’d be nice if she’d, you know, like the guy, and finding a guy you like when you regard adult men in general as little more than overgrown adolescents is... challenging. But that’s OK, because, for the time being, she’s not particularly interested in looking.
Loyal to a fault, Elspeth’s heart has always been with her family and Shelbourne, and she has had little actual contact with people from other Duchies, other than through trade. Which is not to say that she is ignorant - her education was just as extensive and seriously undertaken as that of any high-born lady in the Kingdom - simply that her experience is limited, which makes her a bit of a provincial. That, combined with being very well aware of her flaws, as well as her lack of social skills and femininity, makes her feel self-conscious and awkward when in the company of people more worldly than herself.
It doesn’t help that she’s not exactly diplomatic by nature. She isn’t rude, mind you, but things like subtlety and shrewdness are most certainly not her forte. Elspeth is intelligent, and the things she does well she does better than most other people do, but the people she usually deals with are far more straightforward and honest than the highborn tend to be, and where ladies of the more political regions tend to be scalpels, Elspeth is more akin to an axe. An excellent, useful, and very sharp axe... but an axe nonetheless. This gives her a bit of an inferiority complex, and while she is very confident and assertive when dealing with the familiar, she grows painfully awkward when dealing that with which she isn’t.
All in all, Elspeth can be both relaxingly simple and irritatingly complicated, two extremes that might, perhaps, balance out if she were to acquire some more... diverse acquaintances and experiences.
Specific Skills or Abilities:
- She is well educated in both the theory and practice of everything that has anything to do with wool, from the very basics of sheep-care, through shearing, grading, sorting, cleaning, scouring, brushing, carding, dying, spinning, weaving, knitting, fulling, crabbing, and decating. However, her innate talent lays in spinning and weaving, something she does better than anyone else, and there are few who are not amazed by the threads and fabrics coming from under her skilful fingers.
- Homestead and farming economy and management
- Trade and bookkeeping
- Speaks several languages, though not fluently and with a vocabulary largely centred on trade
- Making dyes, soaps, creams, and simple oil-based perfumes
- Horse-riding and carriage driving
- Fishing and small game hunting
- Makes a mean pot of stew
Character History: Elspeth Cameron has led by far the least interesting life that she knows about. She was lucky to have been in born into a family that was not only wealthy and privileged, but also in the part of the Kingdom where the kind of skills, drive, and ambitions she possesses would be thought of as an asset rather than a flaw... but also unfortunate enough to have been born to a mother whose already fragile constitution only grew weaker with each new birth.
While her childhood had been happy and relatively carefree, spent in study and play with her siblings and cousins, her mother had decided early on that Elspeth’s education on the matters of running a noble household would be considerably more intensive compared to that of her younger sister. She knew that the time when she will not be able to actively participate in the running of the household would come much sooner than she would like, and she trusted no one but her flesh and blood to have the best interest of the family always at heart.
The less time Elspeth had for fun and games with children her age, the more serious she grew. In an attempt to make Elspeth understand the importance and size of all the obligations she would one day have as a lady of a noble house, her mother accidentally drove her into becoming intensely concentrated on work, putting everything else, including her own needs and desires, behind. This resulted in her becoming a very efficient worker and a highly competent organiser at the expense of her social skills.
But she was good, oh so good, especially when it came to wool production and trade side of the family business, so Elspeth decided that it was a fair trade and decided to keep pushing on. Besides, if she made herself useful and her work valuable enough, then no one would find it profitable to put her in a position where her strongest assets couldn’t be used (like, say, making her one of the family representatives at the Royal Court), so she wouldn’t need to be any more subtle or delicate than necessary to deal with her own countrymen anyway.
Thus rationalizing away the need to fix her flaws, Elspeth continued to hone her skills and succeed in the things for which she had a natural inclination. As her mother eventually became all but bedridden, Elspeth became the de facto lady of her home and, thanks to her enterprising skills, one of the more important assets of Clan Cameron. In the younger generation, she outwardly seems like the most at-peace, most content of the bunch... but Elspeth hides ambitions much bigger than anyone gives her credit for and desires she’s long worked to convince everyone, herself included, are neither possible nor important...
...perhaps a push in an unfamiliar direction is in order?
Writing Sample: In the large oak grove located roughly half an hour on foot away to the south from Marlowe Castle, Elspeth Cameron stood in the cold water of a wide stream renowned for housing a large population of brown trout this time of year, when the fish migrated for spawning. This stream has been one of their favoured roads for decades, and many a time there would be so many of the fish congregating in the pooling parts of the stream that all one had to do was to lower their hand into the water and pick one.
Personally, while she enjoyed fishing by hand, Elspeth would not recommend the method for this particular prey. Fish that are close to or have just finished spawning tended to be rather aggressive, and brown trout have nasty teeth. No, the bow or the spear worked much better here, as nets were ineffective in such shallow water, and angling took up too much of the time she did not have the luxury to spend on leisure. Autumn was a busy time in any household, more so in such a large one as Marlowe Castle, and while Elspeth trained her staff well, she would’ve felt much too selfish if she spent more than two or three hours on her own pleasure.
The wicker creel on the bank of the stream already had five fish inside, but she wanted to bring home at least ten. To give herself a better view of her targets, and speed up the process, Elspeth had girded her skirting to just above the knees and stepped into the water as soon as she came, positioning herself roughly in the middle of the stream. Her boots were knee-tall, made of oiled pigskin, and impervious to water, though not to the cold (that's what the thick woollen socks were for, but by now she could feel them slowly beginning to lose their function). She walked cautiously through the water, both to avoid disturbing the fish more than she had to and to prevent such silly mistakes like slipping or accidentally waddling in too deep. The lowest points of the stream were no more than two or three feet in depth, but her legs were not very long, and she preferred avoiding getting water in her boots.
Eyeing a prime specimen just a few steps away, Elspeth firmed her footing and loaded her bow, taking her aim with the ease of someone who shot for nearly as long as they've been alive...
...and was just about to release the arrow when a small projectile (which, as she later found out, was an acorn) struck the back of her head.
Startled, Elspeth lost her grip on the arrow and, with it, her aim, so instead of a fat, juicy trout, it hit the rocky bed of the stream. The fish scattered in fear, hiding amongst the rocks, but she was too busy trying to spot the culprit, to be upset over it. She turned her head in the direction from which the offending object came, her squinting eyes surveying the bushes still rich with now mostly browned leaves. She could see no one there, and considering she was surrounded by oak trees, she deducted an acorn must've fallen off one, and a strong gust of wind must've shot it in her direction. A perfectly reasonable possibility.
One she would've continued to believe so had the exact same thing not happen nigh the second she reloaded and took her aim again.
This time, her grip stayed firm, and the arrow remained nocked, though she lowered the bow, easing the strain on the bowstring as she turned towards the bank once more. She didn't bother with surveying the parameter this time; this time, she knew for a fact someone was there, even if she could not see them... someone who believed they could get away with bothering her in a most inappropriate way at the most inappropriate time - which drastically narrowed the suspect pool down.
There was only a handful of people confident enough to tease her... and only one audacious enough to think ambushing her while she held a weapon in her hands was a good idea.
"Ian Cameron, you may be my flesh and blood, but I swear on all that is holy, if you do not desist this childish behaviour, I will shoot this arrow up your behind!" she called out sternly, not caring much that she's frightening the fish. They can't run all that far, after all.