reachforthesky

NAME: Timi
CANON: Timi, the Tale of a Griffin by Barbara C. Freeman
REFERENCE LINKS: ...there are really none, so. HAVE THE BOOK ITSELF (http://www.mediafire.com/?fbydhgo9hek6099). It's short and pretty!

CHARACTER INFO:

Every autumn, the Griffins escape winter by migrating south to the deserts of Africa and Arabia. Timi, an orphan who fell from her nest when very young, is too afraid to fly and is left behind by her flock. When winter comes, she panics and blunders into the human village below the mountain where she lives. She's picked up by the kindly village baker, Jon Dumpling, who adopts her and keeps her safe. Jon raises her peacefully through the winter, but in spring things get complicated: he has an accident at the Palace above the village, and Timi ventures forth for the first time to help him out. She winds up having to deal with things like Carving Knife, Jon's black-hearted cooking rival at the Palace; a visiting Emperor and an unhappy Dragon; the return of the Griffin flock; and of course her continued inability to fly.

Timi at book start is very different from Timi at book end! At book start she is literally afraid of everything; the only reason she doesn't die in her blind panic once she leaves the nest is through sheer luck. She stammers all the time when she talks (and never quite loses the habit, though she gets better), doesn't know very much about the world at all, and is very hesitant to try new things. Her fear of the sky is crippling—she hurts herself a lot because she can't get over it on her own.

With Jon's support and encouragement, she blossoms into someone who can truck on through her fears instead of being paralyzed by them. She's much better at doing things for others rather than herself, and makes friends through her honesty, her earnestness, and her willingness to help others in a pinch. She regresses some when she thinks that Jon Dumpling's dead—she falls into a funk and lets Carving Knife use her so he won't ruin Jon's reputation—but when she learns he's alive, she gains the courage to finally use her wings, to prove that she belongs with him, and even to stand up to the Griffin flock when they want her to rejoin them.

CONSIDERATIONS:

She would be super nervous and skittish at first! Timi starts out scared of eeeeverything in canon, and even without the memory of her fall from the nest that would linger. Without her experiences with Jon Dumpling and the village, she wouldn't have the impetus for will and courage that she'd gained by the end of her story. She also won't have much reason to trust humans, so how she reacts to people will be really, really dependent on her initial interactions after flopping out of the Ring, joining her team, etc.

She would also be unable to fly, both because it counts as a skill and because she has only one memory of figuring out how to do it.

SKILLS:

Flying, some cooking/baking knowhow. Has unusually nimble front paws and a partly prehensile tail, too. Griffins don't seem to be super magical in the book! Her only special skill is with language: she's able to speak with humans, and shares a common tongue with other mythical beasts (dragons, probably unicorns and phoenixes, etc.)

WRITING SAMPLE (OPTION 2):

http://community.livejournal.com/campfuckudie/4501846.html

http://community.livejournal.com/cryfuckuwolf/225586.html?thread=26145842#t26145842

http://thepiesthelimit.livejournal.com/ CFUW POSTS \m/!

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