Cween grew up in a small house in Combe with her parents and three brothers. Her caring father doted upon her.  The youngest of his off-spring and the only girl, she was the apple of his eye. He worked in the lumber mill and often brought her home wooden trinkets he had carved. Her mother worked in the house of a well-off gentleman as a cook. She was a large jolly woman and sang like a lark.

A happy girl Cween worked about the house carrying out all the domestic chores as well as tending to a small plot of land her family had managed to purchase. The two younger brothers worked at the mill alongside her doting father, though it was her eldest brother Alf who she doted upon. He was a hunter of sorts, and a bit of a lad about town. Always in and out of trouble, often on poaching charges, he had regular run-ins with the local guards.

After many years of happy normality the shadows from the south began to spread further north. Brigands from the south moved into the forests and hunted the lands. It was them who slaughtered Alf, it was thought he went to close to one of their encampments or was simply hunting the same quarry.

Devastated Cween was unsure how to react to such a brutal attack. The girl however, was in possession of eternally positive attitude. This was no bitter ending it was a beginning, a start to her honouring her brother. She remembered the guards that her brother had been so involved with. Though he had not always been on the right side of the law they had always done their best for him, never put him in the stocks for longer than he deserved, and often got him home after he had spent too long in the Comb and Wattle.

Cween had made up her mind; she was off to join the guard.

Being a Town Guard was not what Cween had expected. Although what that was she would be hard pressed to tell you. What she did find was discipline, and she loved it. Drill was hard work, she often found herself panting after press-ups and combat training had her battered and bruised. She would not have had it any other way.

Cween was a recruit, and that did not mean breaking up fights in the middle of town and cuffing offenders dragging them off to the jail like the fully qualified guards. It meant reports and it meant duties, she patrolled http://laurelinarchives.org/node/5579|the roads of Bree-Land. Sometimes she travelled far into unknown lands like the Old Forest, or up to the North Downs. However, she also kept a http://laurelinarchives.org/node/5554|watch over the forests near her home in Combe. She enjoyed meeting people, getting to talk to them about this and that. Ensuring that everything was okay, offering any help she could, being part of the community. She also provided what she could for the guard. As a recruit it was her job to get the materials they needed for weapons and armour. Marching through the lands gathering http://laurelinarchives.org/node/5254|lumber and http://laurelinarchives.org/node/5259|ore was tough work but satisfying.

She hoped her time in the guard would never end.

Things in this world are forever moving. Shifting sands, flowing waters and ever-changing characters. Without warning one of the sudden upheavals that life can bring hit Cween, the guard were changing. The Master-in-Arms was going elsewhere and he would take all those willing with him. Cween took the plunge tentatively into new waters to be part of the Volunteer Militia