This thread is awesome!
Requesting dorfing as a reader.
Dwarf:
"Bees"
Bees' mother was an unassuming beekeeper in a small outpost. She was an average dwarf, did her job well, brewed passable mead in her spare time. On the day of Bees' birth she was working in the hives, splitting a colony like normal, when she was shocked to notice a newborn baby appearing on the ground below her (as dwarven mothers often are). She tripped backwards and fell onto an open hive.
The first thing Bees ever saw was his mother being stung to death by an angry swarm.
There weren't many dwarves living at the outpost, and no one had much time to worry about a wayward orphan, so Bees had to fend for himself. He spent most of his time around the hives, tottering about making buzzing noises, sticking his head into open colonies and giggling. He was constantly covered in beestings.
As time went on he started to take care of the hives. When he was three he started filling up stone jugs with honey; when he was five he was deftly swapping huge balls of bees from one colony to the next, buzzing as he went. The other dwarves slowly ceded all of their beekeeping duties to him. Nobody really liked the work, and he was happy as could be, they decided; where was the harm in it?
Privately, they were glad they could get away from him. He was always in the hive room, and there was something ever so slightly unsettling about him, his unblinking eyes, his swollen eight-year-old face. He only ever said one word: "Bees." (Or "bzzz", depending on who you asked.)
By the time he was twelve the other dwarves were avoiding him entirely. He still only said "bees", but now he did little jigs as he buzzed, wiggling his hips and making insectile, twitchy movements with his arms and face. He licked the hives as he worked and occasionally, for no reason the other workers could discern, slammed his head against walls, leaving cracks and faint smears of blood.
One day the fortress overseer and the broker were walking along a hallway, discussing caravans and agriculture and fortress downsizing, when they rounded a corner and saw Bees making a rough engraving on the wall. It was a line of text, crudely lettered, a single word written over and over: "beesbeesbeesbeesbees...". They stopped to watch, and the broker commented that perhaps they should close down the fortress' hive production. Mead and honey didn't sell for much, he reasoned, and they could use the space for other things. The overseer nodded his assent and they continued walking, leaving Bees behind, apparently oblivious to their conversation.
They found the broker the next day.
He had been nailed to a wall in the apiary. His belly had been cut open and a fresh colony of bees had been installed inside, nesting around his xXDwarven IntestinesXx. His skin was covered in stings and the word "bees" had been carved into his forehead.
He was still alive.
And so it was that Bees was clapped in chains and shipped off to the Queen's prisons (where he kept to himself), and eventually sent to the burgeoning penal colony of Steelhold.
...that came out more horrifying than I expected
So, anyway, yeah, male dwarf named Bees, hopefully with beekeeping (and maybe engraving). I also might be interested in taking a turn as overseer later, although I'm not sure how I'll RP it- five pages full of the word "bees", anyone?
