First things first,
have a Lark song. Hopefully this post will explain a bit how it fits her.
I mentioned before that I had a few things occur to me regarding Lark. I'm attempting to remember what they were, and also try to make them make sense. Bear with me here.
Lark is a complicated character (I know, I know, who isn't?). Trying to figure out how she'd behave in a scenario, and figuring out why she acts that way, is part of what makes her interesting.
First and foremost is her... gimmick, I guess I'll call it. That one thing that starts shaping who she is. Every character has one (or if they don't they're a fairly boring character imo), and Lark's is based on when she was growing up. Her storyline is that her older brother was a hero, the kind you read about in books and comics- he somehow always managed to not only be in the right place at the right time, but always came out on top, to boot. Then came the
War of the Shifting Sands, where his luck ran out and he was killed. The details on that haven't been worked out and aren't really important, because he isn't the focus of the story, just a part of it.
Lark, the real focus of this story, was born twenty years later, so she never knew him. She literally grew up hearing stories of her brother, the hero, and as she got older and passed her coming-of-age, her parents began telling them a bit differently- instead of "this is your brother, see how great he was?" it became more like "this is your brother, don't you want to be like him and make your family famous like he did?" Yes, that's a bit harsh, but Lark's family wasn't really the loving, caring, be-who-you-are type. Needless to say, Lark decided that no, she didn't want to be a hero, because heroes usually wound up dead (oh, hey, like her brother did, huh?). After a little over 4 centuries of this, she decided to leave home and strike out on her own.
Enter Lathenil. He is possibly the most important figure in her history, because he did a lot to shape her into who she is now. Lark had no money when she left home, just her nightsaber and her bow. After a couple years of roughing it, often camping out rather than renting a room in a house or inn because her finances were so tight, she meets a random druid who takes a shine to her. Lath helps her find work, opens his home to her, and then gets her into his company of caravan guards. That began the best period of her life.
Lath was more than just a friend that helped her out. Up to this point, Lark had heard nothing but how great her brother was, didn't she want to be like him, you don't want to let us down now, do you? When she left her home, she accepted in her mind that she was a failure for not living up to her family's expectations. Lath never treated her as such. From the moment they first met, he treated her as
herself, as someone that was worth something without being a "hero". This was a totally new experience for Lark. He was her lover, partner, confidante, and in some ways, her mentor. In the
one story I wrote about the two of them, he proposed to her and she accepted. That might not seem like a big deal, until you think that at that point, Night Elves were
immortal. She would have spent the rest of eternity with him. That's not something she would have taken lightly.
In that same story Lath is killed, so their future never happens. At the time of his death, Lark has the more pressing issue of simple survival to worry about, but you can believe that she grieved for him once she was safely back in civilization. Lath's death was the beginning of a trend that has affected Lark deeply. She lost her first pet only a couple years later, to a centaur attack similar to the one she lost Lath to. Her next pet, and her next lover, had similar fates. Over the centuries this has repeated, until now Lark believes that whoever she gets close to will die, sooner or later (more likely sooner). This haunts her more than she'll ever let on.
Lark's
in-game introduction began when she met Pitch at a random nameless tavern. Since then, she and Pitch have become closer than she really wanted to be. He is her friend, and she's gotten dependent on him enough that she doesn't want to lose that friendship, but she's in constant fear that his association with her will cost him his life at some point. So for anyone that knows them in-game and might be wondering, that is why they are not "
dating". It isn't really Pitch's doing that they aren't- it's Lark's.
She had a similar dilemma when she found her spirit beast, Komah. Her moonstalker Tuah had been with her for 4 years; she knew he would die sometime, and by then had accepted it as she accepted everything else her life threw at her. But Komah is different. Being sentient, she can speak with him same as with any person (sort of), and so he's more of a friend and partner than a pet. When she met him, she knew that if she accepted him as a pet he would likely die because of it, and to have the life of such a wonderful animal, and demi-god to boot, cut short because of her was nearly more than she could stand. She did take his offer, obviously, and she lives with the pain it causes her without complaint, but it's still there.
So. Getting back to Pitch again, I wondered a time or two why she was so attracted to him. The answer finally came to me- Pitch reminds her of Lath, whom she still loves and misses. Oh, she knows that Pitch isn't her long-dead lover and never will be, but the similarity is enough that she finds a great deal of comfort from him. He cares for her, gives her the space and privacy that she needs, and yet is always there when she needs him. In turn, she helps steady Pitch, whose spontaneity would get him into a lot more trouble otherwise. They balance each other nicely.
That being said, I don't see them ever becoming an official "couple". Lark's fears are too great, and she cares for him too much. To put it bluntly, she could live happily just being friends with him, even if it was strictly casual (aka no more bedding him), if it meant that he was
alive. Letting him get too close would only be a death sentence, she believes, so she keeps that little bit of distance between them. Pitch accepts this without question; he figures that if he needed to know her reasons, she'd tell him.
Now this may make Lark seem to be a gloomy sort of person, but that isn't usually the case. Her life, instead of making her bitter and withdrawn (well, maybe a tad, but still), has instead taught her to take the good moments as they come, and enjoy them while they last. She tends to live in the moment a lot, and not worry about things until she has to. All of this together makes her an absorbing character to play, and is probably why she's become my RP main ever since I first created her.
And all this is because of a druid that never actually existed. Funny how that works, isn't it?
(P.S. I may do a story about when Lark first meets Lath. I've had bits and pieces of it running through my head, and will probably sit down and write it all out sometime. Muahaha)
