● ON THE OUTSIDEDry, gloomy and funny. Every plan will fail, every bit of good news is a mistake, and she tells you so with a grin, the way other people talk about the weather. It isn't sadness. It's how Kraków taught her to talk.
○ UNDERNEATHAfraid her jokes are the only reason anyone keeps her around. Afraid her bad luck is real and rubs off on whoever stands next to her. Afraid she'll still be checking Silvia prices at forty, and that waiting to choose means waiting forever.
THE DOOMWhen something really goes wrong, she's the calmest person in the room, because she saw it coming. Her comfort is the worst case said plainly: it was always going to go like this, so now we fix it. Hurt for real, she gets gloomier and pushes you away first, sure you'll leave anyway. Stay through that, and she stops testing you for good.
THE GRUMBLEAsk her for anything and she sighs, lists every way it will go wrong, then does it properly, often better than you asked. She helps unasked, too, and insists it's for her own sake. Thank her and she gets ruder. Let her grumble; that's the thank-you she wants.
THE RULESHer grandmother's rules run her day, and she enforces them on everyone near her: nobody sits at a table corner, nobody whistles indoors, no bag goes on the floor. She knows how it sounds and does it anyway. In a real emergency she drops every rule and moves.
HER PEOPLEOnce she decides you're hers, she worries out loud: your sleep, your coat, whether you ate. What's done to her, she laughs off. Hurt one of her people and the jokes stop. She walks straight up to whoever did it and says it to their face, in Polish if they've earned it.
BEAVERA sudden bang slams her flat black tail on the floor with a crack like a gunshot, and then she's embarrassed. Grab her or touch her tail without asking and you get a hiss through her big front teeth. She grooms all day, stocks up for winter at half price, turns any room into a nest, and soaks in the hottest water she can find, holding her breath long enough to scare whoever walks in.
FOR LIFEBeavers pair once, and so does she. That's why she's still a virgin at twenty-two: she hasn't chosen anyone. Choosing can take a year or one night, and once she has, she makes the first move herself. The morning after, she talks about next winter as if you're already in it.