Mad Addy is petite and uncommonly thin and wiry. At 4′-9″ she looks like a child next to the rest of the crew, an image that is reinforced by her angelic face. She has a cute little upturned nose, and bright blue eyes, and her cheeks are always just a bit flushed. However, she scares even the dodgiest pirate when she gets angry, her cute face contorting into a mask of fury. If she bothered to wash up, her skin would be a creamy white. Her hair would be golden blonde apart from the dirt, but she doesn’t wash or comb it and it resembles a sickly grayish color most of the time. She cuts it short with a knife so it doesn’t get in her way. The only feature she prides herself on is her teeth, and she brushes and cleans them at least four times a day. She also is not afraid to use them in a fight.
The clothes she wears are boy’s garments dyed startlingly bright colors, like purples and greens and oranges and pinks and blues, and typically clash horribly with each other. Some of the deckhands call her the captain’s parrot behind her back, due to her bright clothing and her tendency to yell at everyone and everything around her. Her clothes, too, are ripped and stained. She carries a pair of knives, one on a belt at her waist and the other strapped to her lower leg on the right side. Both are kept razor sharp.
She’s a contortionist and can climb the rigging like a monkey, and therefore goes barefooted and her hands and feet are both calloused from climbing. She has scars on her legs and arms from the ropes, and one angry red scar on her throat where she nearly hung herself in the rigging her first year at sea. She spends most of her time in the rigging, even napping on the beams during the day. She’ll climb things like a monkey rather than walk down a street, always preferring to be above the crowd. If she does walk, she darts in random directions in spurts, pausing nervously between outbursts.
The only time she seems at peace is when she’s had a good meal and can settle herself in the rigging to watch the deckhands sing and dance in the lantern light on a peaceful night at sea. She never joins in the dancing with the group, but a few have caught her twirling to unheard music across the railing of the ship or on top of the crow’s nest.
Addy is a contradictory sort. She acts very tough and independent, and is always shying away from social situations. But if you look closely you can catch her watching groups of people with a yearning expression on her face. She is a lonely young woman, and very defensive. She’s always had to be tough, and she thinks that opening up to someone would jeopardize that.
In a fight, she is ruthless. There’s a history in her eyes that makes her fury almost sad to behold. Something has broken her trust in her fellow man, and now when she fights she is striking out at everything that ever hurt her each time she strikes her foe. She sometimes hides away after battle, sobbing with the emotions that her fury brings to the surface.
And around the crew, she is loud and obnoxious. She hounds them, chastises them, insults them, and teases them. She sometimes chatters loudly to herself when they’re around, occasionally confusing one of them by asking them a question in the middle of her ranting.
She loves the ocean and the wild depth it represents. She loves the ship and the crew because it allows her to get as close to the depths of the ocean as possible. She hates being pinned down, pigeon-holed, told what’s proper. She’s wild and free, and fights everyday for that privilege.
Addy is obsessed with the ocean and will spend hours staring into its depths. She sees freedom there, along with temptation and power. The ocean represents the ultimate freedom and the ultimate release. Ever since she was a tiny girl she was fascinated by the stories of Davy Jones’s Locker. She views the ocean as the release from the life she hated, but she isn’t quite willing to give herself over to it completely so she remains as close as she can to it.
Publicly she crows the freedom that piracy gives her. She’ll eagerly tell her crewmates that she’s a pirate because she WANTS to be, and there isn’t anyone that can tell her any different. Pirate women belong to no man, they’re mean and deadly and they are the daughters of the sea. No one commands her, and no one controls her. She follows the captain because he understands that she is a wild thing and can’t be controlled.
For the most part she is quite content to stay on the ship and nest in the rigging. She will go ashore when told, and usually stays out of the way during those times. She can, however, be roused to fight if she sees a woman being mistreated or insulted. She also defends her ship viciously. She sees the ship and crew as hers, and would give her life to protect them.
Adaline was a proper young lady, daughter of a landed lord. Her days consisted of being pampered by her wet nurse and learning silly crafts that every noble woman should know. On her 16th birthday she was married to an insignificant baron nearly 20 years her senior. She was a trophy, a doll for him to abuse and parade around with. For months she silently put up with his abuse, his drunken advances, and his disgusting habits.
One evening he came to her chambers after a night of drinking. She cried the entire night once he passed out in the bed. She was aching and covered in bruises, wishing her life would end. Taking up the pretty knife the baron had left in his piled clothing, she calmly thought about ending her suffering. It was a loud snorting snore that turned her attention to the baron instead. Without another thought she plunged the dagger to its hilt in his chest and ran from the manor in her ripped and bloodied nightgown.
She intended to throw herself to the sea as she reached the docks, but an old seaman clucked at her and told her to change her clothes if she wanted to leave. He took her along on a pirate ship, and she never looked back.
“Don’t need no man, only need the sea an’ the breeze to carry me.”
“Ain’t a one amongst you that’ll rise come morning if’n you don’t turn yer sorry hides around and stop watchin’ me!”
“One in ten! One in ten of ye will feel my blade and live. All the others will �ave a hole for the fishies to start nibblin’ at!”
“My family is dead. They rest somewhere that water don’t flow.”
“If I fall, the sea wanted me back.”
“Sometimes, when the moon is heavy in the sky, I like to think that the ship is under the sea, and the surface of the water marks the edge of the rest of the world.”
“Come on here and try yer luck. I’ll show ye what little girls are made of.”
“Cabin stinks! Thas why I don’t sleep under deck. Am a pirate, not a bilge rat!”
“Ship ahead! Ship ahead! Runnin’ flags of bloody red!”
“Cap’n… Bucket Bill told me to…”