THE BASICS
Name: Grace Callihan

Nickname: Rae

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Gender: Female

Age: 29

Hair: A dirty blonde, mostly shades of honey and flax with a muddy undercurrent

Eyes: A stormy and bottomless blue

Distinguishing Marks: An ugly (and hidden to most of the world) couple of scars on her left thigh. She has a lovely figure that she tends to bury under loose and billowy clothing, a sort of hidden treat for those who get to see her without those layers. Rae has a slight lisp but it's noticeable all the same to anyone with an attentive ear.

General Appearance: You're likely to see Grace in one of a handful of sets of attire. In general, she walks with a relaxed posture flirting with languidity, though one never approaching a sloppy bearing. She has a ready and quick laugh, bright and flowery and without a hint of pretension. Rae's eyes are bright and quick and give little away, though the rest of her features paint her emotions and feelings quite clearly. This can be a bit jarring for people who pay attention to these details.

She has a noticeable lisp but not an overbearing one. It gets worse when she drinks. Otherwise she has a few Appalachian-borne phrases in her speech patterns that make her stick out as an east coaster. She has a sashay in her hips when she walks that she can't quite control and is one of the key identifiers that she is, indeed, a woman, even when she's wearing her "disguises".

Grace's eyes are sensitive to the desert sun and she is almost always wearing a hat, a rotating half-dozen straw hats. Her hands aren't overly calloused or too soft; she has a nice middling that might be described as strong but yielding. She almost always carries a Cold Army Revolver somewhere on her person, readily reached but in a non-descript spot.

Grace has little appreciation for anything foul-smelling. Contrary to the generally unpleasant and, largely, non-existent hygiene of the west, Grace pays special attention to her cleanliness and to her teeth and breath. She takes ample efforts to bathe regularly (daily if she can) and wears powdered lavender and rosemary to conjure a pleasant aroma around her person, always noticeable and striking.

The Worker: She wears simple, durable canvas shirts and denim or canvas legs. They're all of modest quality and are clearly well-worn. Her boots are comfortable and hardly fashionable; from afar she could be mistaken for a slight man at work, but the closer one gets the more apparent it is that she is indeed a woman. Her face is often dirty and smudged with dust and dirt.

Her personality while at work changes and she is "one of the guys", and the staff of the livery are all comfortable with her and have little need to treat her like a lady.

The Frontiersman: Her brother taught her the importance of wearing the right gear for the right job, so at least he taught Grace one thing right. She wears strong but breathable canvas leggings, well-fitted boots and a durable poncho over canvas shirts. She will sport a scarf to protect herself from the worst of the sun and blowing dust, and to conceal her identity. She has a pack for all of the essentials not only for a day in the desert but for several days; Rae also carries a map detailing safe locations to get potable water.

She carries either a Winchester rifle or a double-barreled shotgun, and sometimes both.

The Lady: The events are few and far between, but Rae can clean up and look like a proper lady, albeit one with some sun-stained skin and coquettish grin. She has a handful of dresses that are more or less in style, and enough of her mother's old makeup and hairclips to pass as a proper lady. It becomes clear rather quickly that she's uncomfortable in this attire and it shows plainly on her face (just not in her eyes).

Grace Callihan at home: Rae has a rule; loose and billowy at home, if anything at all. She enjoys the comfort and freedom of living at home alone. Her form in the nude is very appealing, well-shaped and generously proportioned. Freckles are sprayed across her back and arms as if stars in the night sky.


HISTORY
Occupation: Current owner of Callihan's Livery. Grace takes an active role in the day-to-day operations of the livery but favors physical jobs over menial ones. Callihan's is a family business; two of Grace's cousins work here and handle the books. Her brother Robert was the actual owner, but he left control of the company in Grace's name before he left for the war. It is worth noting that none of the Callihan family misses Robert.

Personality: Rae is at once confident and flirty in her manners. She pays lip service to her role in the societal weave as a woman but is rebellious and pushes or breaks rules at every opportunity.

Grace's mind works quickly. She possesses a quick wit and can act (and react) quickly in stressful situations, but that quicksilver mind also makes her impatient and easily irritated. She works hard daily to dull that sense of constant annoyance by exhausting herself with physical labor. Her favorite activity is a strenuous, rigorous hike and being alone doing it, so she's often donning her frontier gear and heading off into the desert to scout out new terrain and explore the narrow paths of the canyons. She will often disguise herself as a man to avoid unnecessary attention; albeit, a slim and oddly curvaceous man.

By default she's also soft and kind, and has a difficult time voicing her frustrations from fear of upsetting the people around her, so she stubbornly suffers the stress and annoyance in private. Besides laborious activity, Rae is not-quite-secretly a hedonist. She finds that whiskey, tobacco, and physical pleasure just as alleviating as physical punishment. Rae is a vigorous and generous lover and desires the same in a partner so that they might swap roles, but is not shy of being the dominant partner.

Get on her good side by taking her dancing somewhere not very fancy (a drunken hoedown in the desert is perfect), offering her a drink or a smoke, or complimenting how clean and tidy the livery is. She responds positively to warm people, kindness, and generosity. On the other hand she can enjoy "playing mean" with those who take on a mock attitude of bullying.

Want to upset her? Bring up her minor lisp (that's why she prefers the name 'Rae' to 'Grace'), and be cruel in any way. You could also doubt her physical strength, suggest she has a weak and simple, womanly mind, and suppose that she's better off wearing a corset than a pair of trousers.

Sexual Preferences: Open to anything and anyone. Rae enjoys the hard and firm lines of a man's masculine form as much as the curves and selective padding of a woman. She has no strong preference one way or the other and is an eager, hungry lover. Rae has an exhibitionist streak in her, though it's difficult to handle that with public decency laws and the like. Still, she's always eager to try something daring.

About Your character: Grace was born and raised in the Appalachians north of Philadelphia. Her youth was warm summers, bitter winters, and endless acres of cool green forest. Her father Jonathon was a renown horse whisperer, a skill he successfully taught to Grace (but, notably, not her older brother Robert). Jonathon was a veteran of the Mexican-American War and suffered severe PTSD, a condition only alleviated by his work with equines. Still, though he suffered unspeakable horrors in the southwest, he developed a strong love for the area, and decided it was time to transplant his family there when the Civil War encroached to the north.

Grace's brother Robert was a bully, outright mean and abusive to his little sister and their cousins. Jonathon believed his son would grow out of it in time, and their mother Lindsay didn't have much to say about it; she was secretly an opiate addict and barely aware most of the day.

The family moved west during the first battles of the Civil War in an attempt to put distance between themselves and the politics and battles threatening to conquer the east. They landed in Sweetwater and immediately opened up a livery. Almost as quickly as they'd arrived, Jonathon became sick from a wound gone septic. He died, but not before passing ownership of the livery to his eldest child, Robert. Lindsay died shortly afterward from an overdose of her medication, likely an intentional one.

This left Robert and Grace alone, so they mailed some cousins back east to come out to Sweetwater and help with the livery. Robert and Grace maintained their same abusive relationship, Robert bullying and belittling her and Grace taking it in quiet submissiveness. When the cousins John and David arrived, they too experienced the awful abuse Robert put them through.

They stuck around mostly because Robert paid them very well, one of the conditions of Jonathon's will (Robert was a bastard, but he was an honorable bastard).

A few years ago, Robert received a letter indicating he'd been drafted into the Union army. He took off without much hesitation, figuring the war would be over by the time he arrived. He left controlling ownership of the livery to his sister, and bore into her how important it was to maintain the livery in excellent condition for his return.

That was years ago, and all contact from Robert has ceased. Rae believes her brother died, and she is not upset about it. The livery is still running at peak efficiency, with Rae, John, and David taking active roles in the work to be done (John handles the books and David is the 'face' of the company, they hire others from Sweetwater to handle the physical work).

Rae is happily running the business, working with the abused and the "unworkable" horses and feeling deep satisfaction in her place in life.