Katarina Ried

Katarina is an indentured servant to Beltic Taylor, the tailor of Diagon Alley.

Appearance
While Katarina is not someone who would be described as 'beauty without compare', she is what some might call plainly pretty. Nothing remarkable but not homely either. Standing only 5'4 1/2" in height, she looks like a frail thing, though is strong for her size thanks to all the hard work she's put through at the shop. What many would discribe as her best feature would be her flaming red, curly hair.  Her skin has a creamy complexion and her eyes are a pale, pale grey - an almost white grey - that some find unnerving and consider them an unlucky sign.  What Katarina considers her worst feature would be her hands without question.  They are discolored from dying clothes and callused and cracked from working the loom.  Her hands are an embarrassment to her and a dead give away of her status in life.  Whenever she can get away with it, she wears gloves when going out, through most of the people in Diagon Alley already know she's nothing more than an indentured servant anyway, so it really doesn't matter anymore.

Personality
Katarina is a fighter and a survivor. While she isn't particularly skilled in combat, she fights for her survival. She's a scrapper and, probably the most unusual quality for someone in her position, she's a dreamer. She often looses herself in fantasies of a high class nobleman being taken by her great beauty and taking her as wife or mistress, giving her money and power so that she could kick back at the people who had kicked at her her entire life. Katarina is very vengeful. She longs to strike back at those who strike her but has learned the hard way that this will only get her beaten harder for her trouble. She has learned, however, how to gain her revenge in smaller ways such as letting the dog lick her master's bread before serving him dinner. He might not know what's going in his mouth, but she certainly does. These little things give her pleasure.

Some might not find her moral with some of the things she does with her master, but Katarina dreams of leaving a life of leisure someday where someone would be serving her instead of someone else. If being 'kind' to Beltic got her this position, than so be it.

History
Katarina is the youngest of seven kids born to Irish Argyle and Brielle O'Doherty. Well, she was the youngest last she checked, but since she hadn't seen her parents in oh say five years now, its really hard to tell.

Her mother had been a weak willed simpleton in Katarina's opinion but she'd been her mother, as sickly muggle of a woman as she'd been. Her wizard father was a no-good gambler and thief. He often ran up his tabs at local bars with booze and gambling and more than once left the pubs butt naked because of it. It also left his family starving and living in a filthy little Havel that could hardly be called a home.

Katarina along with her brothers and sisters, often slept huddled together on the dirt floor for warmth. It was one particularly harsh winter that her brother, Tormey, died of the cold. Katarina doesn't remember much of this, she'd only been three and he seven.

This also lead Argyle to sell his children. More than one of his kids ended up Indentured Servants (which Katarina though was just a nice way of saying slave) to pay off Argyle's debt.

Katarina herself was sold when she was twelve. She was actually surprised it'd taken so long. Maybe because she was eight when he started selling them off. Katarina's services were sold to that of Betlic Taylor, who owned a tailor's shop in Diagon Alley for witches and wizards to buy his fine clothing.

It was shortly after this that the girl was given a new, Irish surname of Reid meaning Red Hair which the Taylor's felt suited her more than O'Doherty.

Katarina never learned if the shop had a name or not. It was only called the tailor's and the sign outside held not words, many couldn't read, but a wood carving of a shirt with a needle pulling thread from a spool through it. The sign let others know that clothes could be found here.

At Betlic's shop, she was given all the jobs no one else wanted to do. In other words: at some point in her servitude here, she'd done everything. It was hard, painful work but work she was now very apt at.

Katarina can mix dyes, pull thread, weave clothe, as fine as her master. She thinks her work might even be superior but she could never be sure since Betlic had taken all credit for her work. Because of the work, her hands were all but ruined. Discolored from dye, chapped from cold, cracked from weaving and threading, and callused from the loom.

At seventeen, she has worked five of her seven years of service to Betlic, sleeping in a dormitory with three other girls who are in servitude to him. The nice thing about it all are the guaranteed meals and the bed, which might not be as soft as some but was definitely softer and warmer than a dirt floor in winter.

One of the main problems of working for Betlic Taylor was he did get a bit handsy with the girls, sometimes liking them to do things unbecoming of ladies. Even though his wife, Aerlene kept the girls under lock and key at night, during the day, sometimes Betlic would make his move on the girls.

There was not a whole lot they could do about these situations accept try to avoid them. They were all of marrying age after all, though none of them could marry before the debts were paid, and Betlic who had married a rather homely and old wife seemed particularly keen on the young flesh who worked in his back rooms.

As much as Katarina did not like these moments, as she grew older she did learn that if she did not fight Betlic, if she pretended to enjoy his advances and smile coyly to him from time to time, she would be given small treats: a coin here, a sweet there and for a girl who grew up scraping for everything she ever had, she felt this was a fair trade. No one would believe a girl coming from the Taylor's services was anything but lily white when it came time for marriage, not with the seemingly fierce way his wife protected the girls.

It was in Katarina's hope that by showing Beltic this kind willingness that when her servitude was over, despite her advanced age of 19 years when the time came, he would introduce her to a man of leisure to be, if not his wife, his mistress. She did not mind as long as she was well taken care of.

When Beltic was not looking for 'kindness' or 'gratitude', as he called it, he could be a rat bastard along with his wife. They seemed to truly enjoy making the girls work so hard while they took the credit and gold for it. If a girl got lippy or wasn't working hard enough or fast enough, both seemed to take pleasure in seeing how black and blue they could make the girl's backs. There were some nights that Katarina could not even lay upon her back for the bruises.

On nights like this she dreams of running away or of turning that cane upon her masters. She never acts on this though. She knows well what its like outside the shop where she lives and she'd rather take the abuse here with a meal and a bed than out there with nothing.

She just keeps repeating to herself: Only two more years. Just two more years....

Addendum
Katarina's knowledge of magic is very limited. Her father didn't teach her much and so its almost exclusively tailoring magic.

Also, Indentured Servitude, at least the title, was not around back in these days but the job itself was. It was just easier to say Indentured Servant than Slave because it sounds better. Slave was a bit over dramatic for her job since things could have been a lot worst.

Katarina is a bit naive to the workings of her job even after all this time. She thinks she's going to be free after two years. This is likely not true. With an Indentured Servant, especially with owners like the Taylors, ever little thing that a girl gets is added to her tab: The price of her bed, the price of a bath, the price of her wand (which would take her a year alone to pay for with the 'salary' they give her), the price of her food. It all gets tacked on. Their goal is so that she never catches up, that none of the girls do because its extremely cheap labor (just the price to keep them alive and clothed).

So that's why things are pretty nice for her in her opinion and why she has a wand.