THATCHER, LOTTIE

[LOTTIE THATCHER]

Player's Name: Urchie (PatchworkUrchin)
Other Characters: None as yet
Contacts: PM and Chatbox are fine
Random Fact: I am an amature corsetrix

Name: Lottie Thatcher
Alias:
Age: 14 or 15, one cannot be sure
Birthday: unknown
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Social Class: Poor
Job/Position: Begging waif/matchstick girl
Sexual Preference: Heterosexual

Hair: Brown, long with greasy tangles.
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 4'10
Weight: 84

Hunger and safety are major motivations for any psyche. Strip away everything and that is what a body is left with. Find food. Find safety/shelter of some kind. For the little Thatcher girl, hunger and safety are the only real motivations. If she has food in her belly, and a place to curl up for a night of sleep, then she will watch and listen.

The whispers she hears and the people who talk when they think no one will hear them stay with her. Secrets, gossip, and news are her companions and friends. Not all of it is understood, but the dirty waif has a sharp memory and can quote back word for word what she hears.

Food drives her more than most any other thing. Scraps of scone left on outdoor cafe tables after tea are are a rare treat. Meat pies that had been tosses away, even better, though more often than not they made Lottie ill. An apple nicked here or there, if she can manage it, but mostly there is hunger. The ever constant pangs remind her that she's alive. A familiar friend.

Even with the drive for food her fear of the poorhouse and those who run it keep Lottie in a kind of 'check'. Charity or not, something feels wrong about them to Lottie. She will take special care to avoid the area they are in directly. There should be no question that her fight or flight instinct leans heavily in the 'flight' column, and malnourished as she is, the girl is swift and learned the streets and alleys of London quickly as though she had been born to them.

Life was hard enough for the Thatcher family. The workhouse provided, but barely, for the woman, the man, and the child. Whether the woman and the man were properly and legally wed was a matter of debate, but ultimately it didn't matter. They were poor. Their life was poor, and everything they had was scrap. Woman and Man worked themselves to bone for a few bits here and stale bread there, but always there was hunger. Always.

As such, birthdays were never mentioned, and counting the years a thing of luxury that the woman, man, and child could not afford. It is a rough guess by appearance only that Lottie was near to her thirteenth or fourteenth year when the workhouse riot of 1842 took its toll.

When the riots happened at the Stockport workhouse in Cheshire, the woman and the man were trampled. The child waited. For a week she waited, until the landlord punted her out. Several matches, the clothes upon her back, and a basket were all she had, and they would have to last. Following the road for days, Lottie traveled towards London, though she was not positive that was where she was heading. She followed the direction most of the people were heading, and prayed that she was right. If she were not, then there was no harm done, nor time lost.

God had been with her, or so Lottie thought, as the buildings and smells of London engulfed her. The waif of a child who, had she been born to better circumstances, would be well into being groomed for presentation. As it was, She was not, and instead peddled the matchsticks she had, sometimes finding more where someone had been careless and adding them to her basket. A basket, Lottie was wildly protective of. She slept with her arms through the handle to keep it with her and to wake should anyone try to take it, or its contents.

The poor house was an option, but it terrified Lottie and she avoided it with as much caution as she could. It wasn't safe. Not to her. Everything about it, though she had been reared in conditions similar it did not feel safe. Or right. Instead, Lottie found spaces under stairs or wedged between the close buildings of London. They weren't perfect, but they felt more secure to her than the poor house.

Every day, every night, she begs or sells her matches, and though her supply is dwindling ever lower, it is all she knows to do. No other skill seems apparent. With no ability to read, and a less than basic understanding of her numbers, Lottie struggles, scrapes, and tries. Easily over looked by those who would rather not see, Lottie is able to hear, and see much of the goings on in the London streets. She may be aware and knowledgeable of more than she can fully understand.

I have read and agreed to the rules of this site. I hereby recognize that my disobedience of these terms will result in punishment at the sole discretion of the admins.

Signed: Patchwork Urchin