Player Name: Rowan

AIM Contact: Alderwitch

Yahoo! Contact: Kioreaeryn

Character Name: Inez Rodriguez

Date & Place of Birth: 27 January 1978, Santa Monica, California

Character Type: Rodere

Character Occupation & Skills: Inez has worked at the same ER in the same hospital since she first arrived in New Orleans just about ten years ago. She is a dedicated nurse, hard working and compassionate. She is well enough liked by her supervisors that the charge nurse overlooks the scheduling change around every full moon.

As for Inez, she loves her job and only the demands of the Horde and her position take precedence over her career. As a nurse, Inez has quite a bit of medical knowledge, especially when it comes to trauma and triage.

Inez is fully fluent in both Spanish and English. Her command of Persian is better than Mahmoud's grasp of Spanish but her accent in the language is terrible. As it's the first time she has tried to learn a language that she did not grow up speaking, it has been something of a trial for her. Inez continues to plug away with a rather endearing determination if little to no skill.

Abilities: Inez falls somewhere in the solid middle of the Horde in terms of raw physical ability. Except for a jogging regime that's mostly designed to keep her butt in her skinny jeans, Inez has no physical training.

Control of her beast is where Inez's alpha abilities start to come into play. Surrounded by blood and pain, with adrenaline running high, Inez has never lost control. Not once.

Besides her exemplary control, Inez has one truly supernatural ability that marks her as an alpha, she can use her beast to heal. Healing for Inez is not like the lukoi that she's heard rumor of who have similar abilities. There is no physical pleasure in the act for either party. For Inez the process is exhausting, for the rat -- and her ability has only been tested and tried with the rodere -- it is excrutiating.

Inez flatly refuses to use her ability for all but the most dire of cases unless it is an order from the King. The process leaves her exhausted for hours and it leaves the rodere in worse shape longer still. It is simply quicker to use more conventional medicine and the rodere's own ability to mend.

Appearance: Inez doesn't deliberately play up how opposite she is from her king, but it's hard to miss. Inez is not a short woman at 5'7" and she tends to curves. She is in a constant quest to squeeze her butt in her skinny jeans. It is a losing battle. She jogs regularly but is too much a nurse to go in for anything but healthy balanced meals.

Inez has an expressive face and a truly brilliant smile. While she's no fashion plate, her warmth and personality shine through transforming her from plain to charming. Her mouth is a touch too wide, her features just a bit too sharp to be anything but pretty at best. Her hair is a dark brown that is somewhere between wavy and straight. She keeps it cut short but not too short to be pulled back from her face which can lend her a severe look when she frowns. Thanks to the hours of jogging, she’s a bit more lean than she really ought to be for her build. She would honestly look better with a few more pounds as she can look a little gawky especially as Inez tends to move quickly. The closest she's ever gotten to accidentally outing herself are the bursts of speed in her movements.

She favors bright colors and wrist bangles that chime when she gestures. She laughs and smiles often, punctuating each story or speech with quick movements of her hands. Inez is aware that she's no beauty and while at one point in her life was self-conscious of it, age and the love of the rat king have gone a long way to adding self-confidence.

As a rat, Inez is mostly a soft gray with white paws and nose. She's about the size of a medium sized dog. Her eyes are dark and intelligent in her face. Her rat-man mid form is slight, standing only a little over five and a half feet with the same markings. Inez is remarkably good with her hands in her half form and is able to accomplish just about any task she can with her human hands. She has wryly stated that only a God with a sense of humor would add insult to injury for her youthful vanity by giving her a pretty rat form.

Personality & History: Born to a Cuban immigrant father and a half-Mexican American, half-European mutt mother, Inez grew up speaking both Spanish and English. The middle girl of the family, Inez was born only a year and a half after her older brother and three years before the twins. They were a close knit family who went to each other’s sporting events and attended church on every Sunday in their best. These days, Inez remains a lapsed Catholic, attending intermittent services and always alone.

Both of Inez's parents worked and worked hard to provide a better life for their children. Although all of the Rodriguez children attended public school, they were all heavily involved in various after school activities of one sort or another. Inez favored track and scholastic programs while her older brother was clearly the jock of the family. He was constantly in one sporting activity or another. There was some favoritism from Inez's father to her brother but as Inez spent her childhood ghosting after her own mother that rarely bothered her.

Inez studied hard and worked even harder, graduating early. She'd had her life planned, a nurse like the mother she idolized and eventually a whole brood of children. Those plans were irrevocably changed one night when she was bitten while on shift at the hospital. It was the first time she broke hospital regulations. For Inez, who had always been a straight arrow, the realization that she'd look after her own best interests rather than the hospital's was jarring. This is really the moment that her faith began to be tested. It was easy to be a devout Catholic when there were no hard choices. Inez knew from his chart that he'd tested positive for the strain of lycanthropy just as she knew there would be no career, no future for her if she tested positive. Of course, Inez knew the hospital policies and procedures in and out, so it was frighteningly easy to bypass them and hide the wound. Instead she ran the test on her own blood. When it was positive, Inez -– who had never lived outside of her parents' house -- was out of Texas within the week.

Her parents, to this day, are unaware of the reason for her sudden flight. In that one moment she was pegged as the family rebel. Her younger sister took her place as her mother's golden child. Inez has some very hidden resentment that her close knit family would close ranks on her. Intellectually, she knows that their actions come out of concern; however, she can't ever seem to react intellectually when she talks on the phone to her mother. Instead they usually devolve into rapid arguments in Spanish.

It was pure luck that she found the Horde. Within days of arriving in New Orleans, she was enfolded in the life of the rodere. Her medical skills were a useful asset and a few connections within the Horde helped her enroll to finish out her RN. Inez had only been with the Horde for a matter of months when Mahmoud joined their ranks. Inez had never had much time or interest in dating before but she found herself drawn to the quiet, intense man. And the rest, as they say, is history.

These days the Horde have become Inez's surrogate family. Going home to see her actual blood relations grows more painful every year as she knows she will likely never add to the brood of Rodriguez grandchildren. She stays in contact with them, usually her mother. Of all of her family now, she is closest to her youngest brother who has always been the most laid back of her siblings. Her father is at the furthest end of the spectrum, they talk exactly twice a year, once on Christmas and once on Inez's birthday and it is her responsibility to call.

Inez still turns to the church when she's troubled although there is little peace of mind to find within its halls and she usually leaves with more discontent than she arrived in. There's nothing quite like having to ask forgiveness for turning furry once a month which Inez doesn't feel is a sin, personally, but she goes through the motions because, well, she's a lapsed Catholic.

Inez turns that maternal affection that has always been so much a part of her to the Horde instead. She takes her duties Mahmoud's Queen with that same inclusive warmth that is so much a part of her personality and defends them with the ferocity of a mother protecting her young, at least to any outside threats. Inez is a rather mercurial personality and is quick to anger and just as quick to forgive for the small slights. When it comes to betrayal, Inez's issues with her family tend to get involved and leaves her cold at best to those she feels have turned their back on her personally. Between Mahmoud, who she loves fiercely and the rodere of the Horde, she manages to fill much of the lingering loneliness, most of the time.