After high school graduation, close friends Faye, Leaf, and Mabel fix up and move into a long-abandoned manor in the woods. Not long after they move in, a mysterious but friendly wanderer named Oxalia shows up at their doorstep asking for a place to stay. The girls didn’t want to turn her away, and so Oxalia joined the family. Once the four of them were nicely settled into their roles in the manor, a fugitive from the brutal fighting pits a few villages over named Annika nearly collapses on their doorstep, scared from hiding in the shadows for over a year. The girls helped Annika out, as they did with Oxalia before, but not much is known of Annika’s past, or even what her real name is. It is a year later, and the girls are continuing to live comfortably in the manor.

Characters:

Annika

Age: 23

Height: 6’0”

The newest arrival in the manor. She doesn’t have a particular role in the home; she just helps where she’s needed. Other than that, she keeps to herself. The other girls try to get her out of her shell, but it’s taking a while.

Faye

Age: 20

Height: 5’7”

Faye went to school with Leaf and Mabel, but the two don’t really know where she’s from. Faye doesn’t truly know herself, which is why she occupies her time going through old books in the manor’s library. In her time there, she learned to restore and catalog books. She sells the uninteresting ones online and keeps the cool ones for herself. She also browses thrift stores for old paintings and furniture to decorate the library. Faye also has the least tolerance for Leaf’s antics and will sometimes snap at her. In these cases, Mabel would serve as a mediator, but she figured that Oxalia was much better at it.

Leaf

Age: 19

Height: 5’0”

All the girls agree that Leaf is terribly annoying. She always buts into what everyone else is doing and pesters them. Faye hates it, Mabel tolerates it, and Oxalia secretly enjoys it. Only Annika is safe from Leaf’s constant presence, and that’s only because Leaf is infatuated with her. Why would she ignore someone she likes? Don’t ask Leaf, because she won’t answer you—she probably doesn’t know why herself. When Leaf isn’t bothering everyone, she spends her time slaving over the ancient sewing machine upstairs making clothes for herself and sometimes for the other girls.

Mabel

Age: 20

Height: 5’5”

In school, Mabel was the medium between Faye’s hotheadedness and Leaf’s annoyingness. Her ability to fix all of Leaf’s very menial problems, offer advice, and cook tasty food made her the Mom Friend. Mabel never thought she would become the Mom Friend, but realized she fit well in the role, so she spends her time in the manor doing housework like cooking meals, buying groceries, cleaning, and listening to Leaf drone on about nothing. When she’s not doing that, she spends time reading and talking to Faye in the library.

Oxalia

Age: 22

Height: 5’9”

Oxalia just… showed up one day. She told the girls that she was from a village where Fae and Humans cohabitate, which is rare for the area, meaning she could be anywhere from 200 to 2,000 miles away. She is half Fae and half Human, giving her some of the characteristics of Fae like an affinity for nature and markings on her body that glow when she’s happy, but also the characteristics of humans like the comparatively short lifespan. She’s blind in her right eye, but whether it was a birth defect or acquired in her youth, she won’t reveal. Since she’s good with plants, Oxalia spends her time growing fruit and vegetables in the garden outside, and succulents and other indoor plants in the greenhouse out back.