Description 

A lanky woman of slightly above-average height with hazel eyes, dark hair (often worn back in either a simple braid down her back or in a sloppy bun at the nape of her neck), and a “roman” nose with a scar over the topmost curve. Florence is in her mid-twenties but appears, at least visually, slightly older due to sun-damaged skin, natural undereye darkness, and a hunched posture. She is currently fairly thin, unhealthily so.

She often dresses simply and practically. Her go-to when out and about is a new-but-worn brown coat, a worn collared green shirt, brown pants worn over her scuffed boots, fingerless gloves, and simple brown suspenders. She wears a simple tan hat with a bullet hole near the top.

Her other scars are either small enough to ignore or hidden under her clothing. She has numerous scars from whittling clumsily on her hands, claw marks on her upper back from a cougar attack, and a bullet scar in her back left shoulder from an unfortunate situation about a month into her arrival in New Alexandria.

She speaks with a twang, and hesitantly. She’ll often approach all situations the same way: with a genuine desire to help. It’s helped and hurt her in the past, and she’s grown a little bit more jaded about it, but her natural inclination is to see the best in people. She’s naïve and desperate for companionship.

Early Life 

Florence was born to Cellach Tully and his wife Mabel just outside a small, unnamed settlement in Manitoba, Canada. Florence was the only child – or the only survivor. Her father was a man of incredibly few words that made his living as a hunter and, occasionally, as a worker in the lumber yards in the nearby towns. Her mother, on the other hand, was a talkative woman hailing from somewhere in the states – her answer would seemingly vary depending on the weather. Living out in a relatively isolated homestead with the nearest town a day’s ride away and depending on a mule for any sort of easy access to it, Florence grew up stuck between a father who really only spoke once every fortnight and a mother who never stopped talking.

As she grew older, Florence grew bored of her life and travelled beyond the borders of their homestead. It was at the age of twelve that she earned her facial scar after a nasty incident with a badger. Still, despite the scolding she received and the pain of her nose nearly being cleaved from her face by angry wildlife, Florence was hooked by the outside world. The experience of finally being able to explore past their fence line and be by herself was enough to overpower the pain and humiliation, and her father saw that. He began to take her out on hunting trips. There, Florence felt she was finally free to begin exploring her true self. With a bow in hand and a knife at her hip, she soaked in her father’s increasingly frequent words. He taught her where to aim, what arrow to use, how to move with the trees and the dappled sunlight. At home, her mother taught her how to skin their catch and how to throw a punch, for as she put it, sometimes a scavenger might try to steal her hard work away!

The sense of freedom wouldn’t last, however. The woods that had once felt so open and free were closing in on her. She knew this tree from the next, knew where the land sloped down to a trickling stream and where a deer might trap itself on a frozen river during the winter months. She yearned for more, and as her parents began to settle into old age, she took over riding into town for supplies. She’d pick up gossip there, too, and tales from the people there about their old lives. There in the shelter of the tiny saloon, she felt even more alone and cut-off, separated from everyone by a distance both physical and emotional. She was just the girl who they’d seen once or twice before this riding in with one of her parents, nothing more than an eager ear to hear stories they’d already told many times before.

After another couple of years, Florence’s opportunity to leave came. Her father passed in his sleep after a long and difficult illness during the harsh winter, and her mother packed up the home in silence before requesting a ride into town. Florence, confused by the sudden lack of chatter and worried for the future, rode to civilization. When they arrived, her mother took her things, kissed her on the forehead like she hadn’t done in years, and gifted her the mule – she wouldn’t need it anymore, and the homestead was no home anymore. That was the last time Florence ever saw her mother, for when she next came to town, she received vague news of her mother’s departure for places unknown.

Florence was unmoored. Fear and uncertainty battled with a sudden sense of exhilaration. Completely lost on what to do next, she did what came naturally: she returned home and hunkered down to wait out the remainder of the winter.

That spring, she headed east. She wound her way through towns of varying sizes and avoided the cities, intimidated by their size and scope. Toronto was the furthest east she’d gone before deciding to head south, having lived through enough cold winters to know she wanted a milder climate now. Her time on the road wasn’t easy; she was robbed blind multiple times, nearly lost the mule on a few occasions, and whatever friendly faces she did meet were either transient just like her or unwilling to trust a wanderer. She clung to whatever companionship she could find, but never felt like she was part of a whole – merely an extension, and not a necessary one. She felt easily forgotten, easily abandoned, and unworthy of the friendship she’d heard such great things about…but she still yearned for it.

She arrived in Blackwater in 1903. Having sold her mule to afford the ferry ticket, Florence had very little to lose and a lot to gain. She quickly made her way into the company Overwatch and learned she had, in some ways, a talent for security work: Florence was good mix of patient and observant, though she never had to test her mettle in a true fight. True connection came later, however, with her meeting Luca Santino and by extension, the rest of his group – Ash Smith, Anahi Shaw, Rasp (then known as Saffron), and the others. There, she finally felt that sense of belonging. Things were strange and she was constantly confused, feeling as if she’d just learned some new language, but these people wanted her around, and she’d do her best to prove their trust in her wasn’t misplaced.

It wouldn’t last, however. The Leones scattered to the winds, to betrayal and a slow, painfully quiet time spent drifting apart. She clung fiercely to those she still had left and departed that winter for New York with them for seemingly-greener pastures.

Present Life 

Having not found any semblance of peace in New York – and in fact, now feeling like she’d left something behind in New Alexandria – Florence returned to find the state not as she’d left it. It was a relief and a shockingly deep cut. The world moved on, and it felt like she was trapped. She’d been too soft, too gentle, too prone to absence when she’d had her people, rarely brought along on jobs for one reason or another…and now she was in the same situation, but without backup. Without support. There were kind people, of course, and folk she could recall, but no family.

She now roams, prone to bouts of weeks-long melancholy and listlessness most often spent in the wilderness where she feels the most at home. Her belief is that her lack of "proper" trauma – she never had to fight, or kill, everyone just left – battles with her all-encompassing sense that there’s unfinished business to tend to before she can rest. It results in quite a bit of dissonance and self-disgust. Her first real idea of what to do hits her one night in the wilds...

Affiliations 

Overwatch (1903)
The Leone Family (1903)

Quotes 

N/A

Trivia 

Florence speaks the way she does because of her mother being the prevalent influence on her speech patterns growing up. Because of this, she is commonly assumed to be American when she is, in fact, Canadian.

She affectionately calls her horse “Onion” despite his “legal name” being Orion.

Her favourite colours are dark green, dark red, and sky blue.

Florence knows how to read but struggles with larger words and will often struggle remembering how to spell people’s names. She’s thankful her own surname is short and easy to spell.

She’s generally bad at math. She can count to ten and can remember some higher numbers, but asking her to add anything beyond 10 + 10 is hard for her, and she often relies on others to do the math for her.

Florence’s favourite activities include anything to do with being in the dirt (farming, hunting), as well as whittling (though she isn’t very good at it).

Florence is a fan of scary stories and anything macabre. She finds spiders especially fascinating.

Florence has a strong and unexplained fear of caverns. Enclosed spaces are generally fine, but windowless rooms make her uneasy regardless.