Born in the summer of Y71, Clara has lived her whole life in Svenstavik, Sweden (not including the occasional venture to Mora). Her mother was a skald and her father ran a small business. She was generally well-educated, and can’t believe that the Icelandic she learned in school actually stuck with her. Her family was never much in support of the military, mostly because they believed them to be ineffectual. Clara likes routine, and never specifically wished to get out of the house, but when military recruiters came to town, she saw it as an opportunity to get out of school and get out of doing chores. “Oh please Clara, don’t join the military,” said her mother “...and they have cats, you’re allergic." “To put it lightly, you’re not fit to fight,” said her father. “You know what,” she thought, “I’ll prove them wrong. They can’t tell me what I can’t do!” and she signed up to be a cleanser.
The only person she proved wrong was herself, but she will never admit it to anyone. ("F-fire? Pah!”) She was sent into real combat only recently, and only used her flamethrower once, kind of by accident (long story). She swears she’ll only use it for emergencies (and yes, she /does/ know how to use it, gosh!), maybe partly because her peers burned down one of the prettiest abandoned houses she’d ever seen and she teared up a little. Sensitive and timid, that Clara.
Kind of small and always quiet, she has never been assertive by any definition. Her lack of friends in school was mostly due to her general avoidance of conversation and social interaction in fear of being annoying. Hence, she’ll only talk to people if they talk to her first, and will still be a little hostile for a bit, but she’d never intentionally be mean to anyone, don’t worry. Just don’t keep her talking for too long or leave her in the middle of a crowd: she does get very lonely, yes, but she can really only stand people for seven hours out of twenty-four. Don’t try to get to chummy too quickly; leave her alone with a sketchpad and/or a pillow and you’ll gain her trust.
And “Piney” (pronounced… very wrong) is more of a personal nickname, probably only one person has called her that ever, and she wasn’t comfortable with that. But just the /idea/ of having a nickname is fun to her, so hence. Don’t ask where she got the name from (clearly it’s neither Swedish nor Icelandic), she read it somewhere (but she doesn’t know where; she doesn’t read a lot), liked the sound of it, and adopted it.
She got the vegvísir pendant from a relative who visited Reykjávik. She doesn’t wear it too often, and she’s not quite sure what it means. She would love to go to Iceland in the future, and would consider retiring there if it didn’t mean being so far away from her family.
