Eragona's Full Profile

[Eragona Ticklepaws]

Name: Eragona Ticklepaws

Species: Squirrel

Gender: Female

Dibbun Weapon: Slingshot and pebbles

Adult Weapon: Bow and arrows

Appearance: As a dibbun, Eragona has reddish fur that is always fluffed up, giving her a plumper look. She is average height, her ears and tail making her seem a bit taller than she actually is. She always stands straight, perched on her toes, like she’s about to take off on her next great adventure. Her eyes are brown, her eyelids usually half closed. She’s sharp, though, always watching. She wears a teal sleeveless tunic with a belt that’s been wrapped around her waist twice. On the pouch rests a bag full of either pebbles or candied chestnuts and her handy slingshot. Around her neck is a thin wooden pendant carved to look like a flower that usually rests under her collar. Around her wrists can be found daisy chains in the summer months, woven twigs in the winter ones. Her paws are calloused.
As she gains a few years, she grows into the belt. The pouch remains, but a quiver and bow joins it. With the daisy chains are bandages wrapped around her forearms. Her long fingers often twitch, practicing with something to keep them nimble and strong. The callouses are smooth, as much a part of her as her red fur which has lost a bit of its fluff. In later years, a small gold hoop is pierced through one of her ears. Long after that, the earring is gone, ripped out by one vagrant or another. Her eyelashes are long, but her body is rock-solid, sacrificing soft curves for hard muscle. She still stands on her toes, ready to fly into a tree at a moment’s notice.
As both dibbun and adult, Eragona has a crooked smile that strikes concern in the heart of her badgermum and fear in the hearts of her enemies. And a sweet, usually candied chestnuts, can always be found somewhere on her person. And she never wears shoes. Not even when it snows.

Personality: As a dibbun, Eragona is daring, determined and clever. When the abbey brothers and sisters tried to force her to wear sandals, Eragona would hide them and insist that they had been lost. After the third pair could not be found, they gave up, and let her go around in her bare paws. She has a knack for sneaking candied chestnuts from under the Friar’s nose, but refuses to tell anyone her secret, giving a creative lie instead. As should be said, Eragona is a terrible liar. She can never pass a falsehood as a truth. So she doesn’t even try. That doesn’t stop her from lying- just from trying to convince you that she’s telling the truth.
She is a friendly, open-hearted squirrel maid, willing to share with everyone around her. When making daisy chains, she gives one to every creature she meets. When making new friends, she invites them on every adventure she embarks on- even if it’s difficult or impossible for them. Like, say, she makes friends with a mole then wants to climb trees. She will invite the mole, forgetting that not everyone is a squirrel.
This is a trait she outgrows, of course, becoming better at recognizing the needs of others. While always being quick to laugh, the adult Eragona is a bit more serious than the younger. More willing to temper her wild ideas to reasonable ones.

History: Eragona was born in Redwall and left there in the care of an aunt, Sister Pine, by her mother, Rowana. Having neither inclination to care for children nor the time to, Sister Pine left Eragona with the badgermum and the other dibbuns. The only explanation Eragona could ever receive from her aunt on why her mother left her is that Rowana thought that her kind of lifestyle would be too dangerous for a dibbun, which Pine agreed with. What kind of life style that was, Eragona never knew though she did know that it must’ve been daring because whenever Eragona got into the worst trouble for doing something dangerous, Sister Pine would turn red and proclaim the child just like her mother. Pine protested when Eragona started to go by the name Ticklepaws, which just made the squirrel maid cling to the self-proclaimed surname even harder.
And Eragona would often get into trouble. A restless spirit, as Eragona got older it became clearer and clearer to all that watched her that the squirrel maid was not meant for the habit and peaceful life. Instead, she would leave the abbey to travel far and wide across Mossflower. She lends her skill with a bow to any good creature in need against bad. For some seasons she trains as a marksman and acrobatic with a travelling group of performers. This is when she gets the earring. At another time, she roams with a Long Patrol unit.
She always returns to Redwall every few seasons to share her stories with the dibbunhood friends that had remained. Sister Pine would never admit to being happy to see her wayward niece, and neither would Eragona. They would nod at each other across the room and sometimes Eragona would have a present for Pine.
It is after losing the earring, with more than a little gray in her red fur, when Eragona returned to Redwall for the last time. Pine had passed away a few seasons before and Eragona had finally lost her need to wander. She helps in the kitchen, giving the Friar a few recipes she had learned. During an autumn’s harvest she meets Gael Graytail, a traveler who was stopping by Redwall. Realizing they had met many of the same creatures and seen many of the same places, they became fast friends. Gael stuck around Redwall for the winter. By summertime the two were married. Too old for dibbuns of their own, they liked to take care of the little ones around the abbey instead. Eragona spends the rest of her life happily with Gael, cooking in the kitchens she once plundered from, showing young ones how to weave daisy chains and keeping them out of too much trouble. (Though she wouldn’t hesitate to turn a turn a blind eye to a dibbun with his fist in the candied chestnut jar.)