Starwind was my character in Fred Wolke's Amberway PBeM. This page is an attempt to give form to her personality for those who weren't lucky enough to play in the game.
Starwind is eighteen, headstrong, and somehow ended up being stuck as Captain of the Morning Glory. Actually, she knows how that happened; Prince Brand of Amber picked her for the job (well, the job of First Mate, anyway), and that was trouble right there.
She has a very dry sense of humor for a sailor:
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that you'll warn me before you try to get yourself killed.
Starwind started out masquerading as a boy, and she really liked to tease her shipmates, especially Seeker, who seemed to be on the edge of finding her out for a long time. She hinted around her true sex quite a bit:
I'll trust to your judgement on that, Fisher. I'm a sailor, not a swordsman.
She started the masquerade after her family's merchant vessel was sunk by a mysterious warship without pennants. She survived the wreck, alone insofar as she knows, and went looking for her twin brother, Firewind, whom she believes to have survived as well. She took to the life of a sailor lad like a fish to water. She's developed a real penchant for swearing when upset:
Shut your bleeding mouth before whoever's conjuring this hellstorm gives you your wish! The tiller's bucking like the Guild's favorite whore the night after the fleet comes in, that hellwind is running us into a blasted coral atoll and all you can do is flap your jaw? Get over here before I keelhaul you along with that motherless whelp Behemoth ...
Starwind was born a princess in the sphere of Rivenrock, but her family is in exile, and she doesn't use her title. Her awareness that she was born noble has left her with very little respect for high birth and social pretension. She's not above mocking those who condescend to her based on it.
I guess I just don't belong to the right class of people. (now really quite amused) I suppose you wouldn't talk to one of those Princesses of Amber that way ...
Starwind is a windspeaker; she sings to the winds to obtain favorable breezes for her ship, and for other things, as needed. She doesn't have full control of her powers yet.
Damnation, that was a lot more than I asked for. I'll have to remember that the sea breeze here is too eager to please.
But, then again, it's a tribute to her intellect and patience that she's done as much with it as she has.
Magic isn't simple or easy; if it were, everyone would use it.
Starwind is Gwyneth Paltrow