(MEU-ET' O'-DA-TREESE)
RACE: Feline
GENDER: Female
AGE: 90
PLACE OF BIRTH: Hardonas, Felinio
GAME WORLD: Drak

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1.73m, a strikingly attractive feline even for her age, her face somewhat lined, and a slight balding in front of her ears (which she tends to cover by combing fur from her temples over the affected areas. She has relatively long fur, pure white except for a black patch over her left eye, quite thin, with a haughty, statuesque posture. She has a very pleasant contralto voice, and was trained in singing and the harpsichord as a child. She still sings for her own pleasure, but her interest in instrumental music waned early in direct proportion to the amount of pressure put on her to play it! She is agile, and very quick on her feet, but is more likely to use that skill to blend into the background in the event of a disturbance.

PERSONALITY AND MENTAL DESCRIPTION: With above average intelligence, but a very reserved and quiet demeanor, she is abnormally alert to what is going on around her. Her senses are also far above average, and nothing occurring around her ever escapes notice or memory. She can remember an attitude or a cross word years after it occurred, and will greet an occasional acquaintance of 20 years ago by name, and be able to relate incidents from her earlier relationship with the person. She attended the best schools, but never achieved high honors because she was unwilling to allow that her teachers could possibly be right! She is a voracious reader, but finds that she best learns by observing and listening to others, and loves a quiet but intense debate on any subject imaginable over bread and wine in the neighborhood pub.

FAITH, MORALS, AND MOTIVATIONS: Muette has always been a born rebel. Resentful of people who have authority over her, she is likely to oppose them just for the sake of observing their reaction. Throughout most of her youth, she had absolutely no faith, believing that religions were self-serving, and did nothing but prey upon the poor to support the wealthy. This seriously disappointed her parents who were both the kind of Lumegans who believed that "all proper people practiced the traditional religions". To make matters worse, her parents were very proud of a very distant (and questionable in Muette's opinion!) family relationship (on her father's side) to the respected Prime Allona Lonioc. She was 35 when she was introduced to the Mithran Order, and much of her thinking about religion changed. She found among the Mithran sects the tenet she found so much missing in her parents' religious life, concern for people, especially the poor and oppressed. She was originally introduced to the Sisterhood of the Healing Touch, and her lifelong companion is a priestess of that sect, but Muette found that her sympathies fell more in line with the teachings of the Sect of Dedication, which she discovered while working among the poor.

CLOTHING AND GEAR: Muette has always dressed in the style of the common people in the area in which she has lived. One exception is that she very much dislikes the cold, and is by nature very affected by chills, even though she has lived all her life in a cold climate. Through most of her life, she has bundled herself warmly in heavy coats and cloaks, almost always very well worn and patched, and has complained often that "her body was built to live in a tropical land". Her boots, though worn, have never been allowed to deteriorate to the point where they would let in the cold or the elements. She wears no obvious weapon, and has always felt that violence is the last resort of stupid people. She does, however, carry two concealed knives, and she is quite good at hand- to-hand combat, especially with men who have all too often found that her first, unexpected and sudden strike has left them permanently unable to sire descendants!

LIKES & DISLIKES: As mentioned before, she is fond of music, sings well and often, but prefers folk music and the untrained voices of the average people in their homes, singing with their friends. She considers formal music to be "stuffy and uninspired". She considers art and theatre to be a waste of time, effort, and money. She is an excellent cook, and has a real talent for making the simple foods of the common folk of several cultures into very interesting and unusual cuisines. In fact, by combining foods from different cultures and a knowledge of unusual herbs, she has a talent for varying the diets of those with whom she has lived. Her "one sin", as she has put it, is her love of good wines. Her mother's family were grape growers and vintners, and she can be quite outspoken about the quality of wine she encounters. She detests ale, coffee, and tea, and prefers clear water if a reasonable wine is not available.

FAMILY: Her father was a younger son of a wealthy family with ties to the Hegemony, he was a respected but not particularly skilled low-level bureaucrat. Very conservative and protective of his position, he typified the image of the person who avoided making waves at any cost. Her mother was a social-climbing wife of a well-to-do vintner's family that owned extensive lands south of Hardonas in the famous wine-growing region. Her attitudes could best be described as, "keeping up appearances" and doing what is expected of you. The result was a faceless couple among the upper class of the city. Her siblings, three boys and two girls, shared their parents' values, and went on to lead similar lives. Muette, the youngest, kept no contact with her family after about the age of 30.

CHILDHOOD

Early on, Muette learned that to be a success in her parents' eyes, she had to be well-behaved, respectful to her elders, and to do what was expected of her "because of her station in life", which, in her opinion, was a great deal less impressive than her parents seems to think. She was, however, relatively successful at this living charade, at least until she reached her teenage years, because of her naturally introverted, observant nature. Even as a young child, she absorbed all that went on around her like a sponge. She felt no need to speak about what she was learning, simply filing it away for future use. It was difficult to slip foolishness past this bright, yet somewhat humorless, young feline, who was likely to simply shrug off what she believed to be nonsensical opinions and attitudes, and simply walk away without comment.

Needless to say, she had few friends, spending most of her time either alone with her head in a book, or alone in a crowd, studying the people who swirled about her. This is not to say that she was lonely. In fact, she seldom noticed that she was alone, feeling deeply involved in the lives of all those around her, even though they didn't consider her part of their lives.

As she approached her teens, her attitude toward what she considered to be silly led to a fairly self-absorbing rebelliousness that was well on its way to becoming "if you don't agree with me, you're a fool!" These were her unhappy years, because instead of leaving her to her own thoughts, those around her became hostile, resulting in violent arguments and lasting recriminations. Her peers thought her cold, her teachers complained that she was simply stubborn and closed of mind, and to her family, she was the black sheep (as pure white as she was!).

She was 16 when she began the realization that her ideas and beliefs were focusing on the selfish attitudes she perceived among the society of her parents and fellow students. She started hanging around with the wilder, less privileged element in Hardonas. At first she experienced an emotional thrill at the attitudes which to her seemed more visceral and focused, but she soon found that being poor was decidedly less pleasant than being rich!

One event had a singular effect on Muette. That was meeting Aethon Blyc, Count of Hardonas, who spoke to a racially mixed group of young Hardonians on the occasion of a particularly ugly incident where two catling youngsters were seriously injured by a mob of feline teens out looking for trouble. Count Blyc happened to be close by when the incident occurred, and personally took charge, leaving his entourage staring. He was so very ingratiating with both sides of the dispute, he left everyone feeling that there was more to life than fighting with one another. Although he did not directly speak to Muette, who had been on the sidelines observing the who affair, she was reduced almost to tears, and convinced herself on the spot that this man held the key to what life should be about, the first adult to exhibit a real interest in the lives of those around her. For two years, she learned everything she could about him, much to the concern of her wary parents. While they were happy to see their wayward daughter taking an interest in governmental affairs, Blyc was not their favorite leader ... he was not of their "kind", though they grudgingly accepted the authority he represented.

It was at this point in her life that Muette found a "cause", that of the living conditions of the poor, especially the poor of minority races, in Hardonas. She began serious study of various cultures, and began to learn a variety of languages. It was in a language class where she became acquainted with a young half-elf named Kjekk, 8 years her junior, who attended the classes with his elder brother. It was actually the rather handsome brother who had caught Muette's eye, but she soon found out he was a bit of an oaf and that he reminded her fairly strongly of her father, but the 11-year-old younger brother had such an amazing mind for language that Muette was astonished. Invited to meet the family by the elder brother, Muette soon found that this Hyysian family with a very different slant on the affairs of government and the world actually suited well her own temperament and beliefs. She began to spend more and more of her spare time with the family who had settled temporarily in Hardonas while the father pursued extended business interests.

Muette's friendship with this family, probably the first for the standoffish young feline, lasted for a full year, but the day came when Kjekk's father announced that the family was soon to return to Hyys. To her surprise, he asked Muette if she would be willing to accompany the family and take a position with his firm of leather merchants. Also to her surprise, she agreed! She was ready to leave Hardonas, jump-start her life in a different direction, and she had actually grown to respect and truly enjoy this family. Her family was yet again disappointed, but by this point, neither surprised nor all that angry that Muette would be leaving.

HYYS

Expecting that her position would be clerical in nature, Muette was immediately surprised at the level of responsibility given her in her new position. She was to represent the firm among the majority feline population of Hyys, who often seemed to distrust the elven partners, but who could relate well to the beautiful and reserved young feline. Her powers of observation made her a natural seller of goods, realizing very quickly what most interested her clients. She was successful beyond anything she expected, and soon found what she believed to be the more "relaxed social attitudes" in Hyys suited her far more than "stuffy" Hardonas where too many of the people she knew wore her fathers' face!

She had been in Hyys for nearly 3 years when she was introduced to an adventuresome 19-year-old feline named Minet. His 17-year-old friend, Plaisantin, had befriended 15-year-old Kjekk in a series of sporting contests, and had visited the household on a number of occasions. The four discovered that they had a great deal in common, including an intense interest to see the world. They often spent evenings speaking of places they would like to visit, and led by young Kjekk, they played around much with languages, composing multilingual stories and songs, and developed a surprisingly refreshing humor based on words and language. This was also a first for Muette, who turned out to have a much more pleasant sense of humor, albeit a touch cynical, that would have ever been guessed by her parents.

But it took a fifth person to jar this little group of armchair voyageurs into action. She was 19 years old, a very close friend and classmate of Minet's twin sister, Dryade, and had spent her early life traveling the length of Felinio with her merchant family, until she became enamored with the South, and stayed behind for studies. This was Eike Eventyr, a tiny, jet black, enthusiastic, and energetic young feline who grew up far to the North on the borders of the Qitlan Wastes. As the four spoke of their adventures, Eike laughed at them, and taunted them that the four softlings would never know the joys of true adventure. It was she that dared them to point their feet where their tongues wagged, and join her on an extended walking tour wherever their fancy should take them. The four rose to the bait, and decided to spend a summer in travel, none realizing how long a summer was in store for them.

Their first trip took them through Hardonas, much to Muette's discomfort, and she rushed them through the city, fearing that she would encounter some of her parents' friends, and be berated for not visiting her family. And they were the last people on earth she wanted to see. From there they traveled northeast to Kolko. For the most part, they stayed pretty closely to the main roads, but frequently diverted into small towns and settlements that they encountered on the way. The trip was characteristically peaceful, and Minet, especially, learned just how much he enjoyed children and teaching. The group spent many hours that summer sitting around campfires and in small villages surrounded by enthralled youngsters of all the races, along with more than a few fascinated family members, teaching the basic alphabet and arithmetic, telling stories of life in Hyys and elsewhere, and learning, in return, the oral tales and songs from the lips of the children's grandparents. And all the while, Minet was writing in his journal, which he called his "diary" then.

Their visit to Kolko was short. Knowing nobody that they could contact, and not particularly fond of the attitudes they encountered in the city, they decided within a week to travel on. Knowing that they no longer had time to return to Hyys before hard winter set in, they wondered where they could go next. It was young Kjekk who had an answer for that. He had close relatives in Kedoran, to the north, and they could stay there for as long as they wanted. And if they wished, they could "hitch a ride" on one of the many trade ships familiar with Kjekk's and Eike's family businesses. They had sufficient clothing to comfortably survive the moderate winters in this region, and they could travel from Kedoran to Felinio City then return to Hyys next year. It was a grand tour for the young adventurers, and rather an ambitious schedule. As it would turn out, they would spend four years traveling from place to place, earning their keep as itinerant teachers.

It was not until the summer of 534 that the wandering foursome stepped off a boat onto the Hyys docks. Not all of their adventures had been peaceful, and they were no longer naive students, but had acquired a background that was the envy of their peers. The summer and ensuing winter were spent renewing old relationships, and spending many hours talking over what they had learned over tankards of ale in their favorite pub.

But after six months of talking, frankly, they became totally bored. How often could you tell the same tale? Eike started talking of traveling to Rygan to see if she could catch on as a sailor, and suddenly the glint returned to the eyes of all of them. It was a new direction, a new goal!

Knowing that where they were headed was far harsher than the temperate climates they had encountered on their earlier trip, they prepared with far more attention to detail. They were also going to ride, not walk, so they did not have to depend on others for transportation. Hitchhiking was for the young!

They left in early Spring, with traces of snow still on the ground. This time, they also packed teaching supplies, including copies of some simple children's books, and some of the tools and survival gear they wished they had thought of on their earlier trip. They had obtained 5 fine horses from a family friend who owed Minet money and a favor.

Their trip was by no means direct. As before, they detoured at every turn, visiting small communities that weren't even documented on the most detailed map. At one point in their travel, they passed within 50 miles of the site where Muette would soon return to spend the rest of her life.

It was very nearly two years before the itinerant teachers reached their destination. Arriving at Rygan, the group made contact with some of Eike's relatives, employees of her parents' trading company, and renewed acquaintanceships with several of Dryade's old friends who were still living in the city. With connections in the shipping community, it was a natural thing to gravitate toward the families of sailors, and the group began to build a reasonably respected reputation in that community. It was about this time that they made the acquaintance of Strev Utrykk, a factory supervisor who lived in the dockside area. Learning of their interest in the importance of literacy for adults as well as children, they were invited to a meeting of a social club that Utrykk has formed for workers and sailors, where there was much interest in literacy and learning. That meeting led to several others, including the meeting of the Golden Lynx workers' club, during which Muette and Utrykk argued far into the night about the need for a place where displaced workers and their families could start life anew, utilizing the many skills they had at their command.

At the time of that meeting, the 5 friends had already made arrangements to travel back to Hyys, and they left within the week. This would be the last adventure for their entire group. Muette had found her cause, and would soon return to Rygan with a friend she would meet soon after her return. Kjekk would take a position with his father's leather firm, and return to Felinio City, the place, more than any other that they visited on their travels, where he felt that he truly belonged.

The remaining three adventurers, Minet, Eike, and jovial Plaisantin would take one more three year trip, but it would end disastrously, with Eike's near death, and permanent disabling. Despite the loss of her hand and eye, Eike would go on to control a significant portion of her family's shipping empire. Plaisantin would settle down in Hyys, marry Dryade, Minet's twin sister, raise a fine family, and the two of them would found and manage a school in Minet's name.

Only Minet would retain the wanderlust, and travel around the country for much of the remainder of his life, although always considering Rygan, Hyys, Felinio City, and Yalicia as his bases of operation.