How She Acts

When you first meet Maris, she always curtsies, just like the governess taught her at Aston's behest. She tries to appear proper and graceful so that you don't think less of Aston who you'd know very well as to having arranged Maris's education. She smiles and waves -- smoothly, again, as the governess taught -- and wants you to feel welcomed. As of right now, she has no opinion of you except that you look nice and are interesting. Maris generally thinks the best of people and only supposes the worst when its that much more obvious by you doing something terrible. Because of her mutism, she's able to listen to you talk without any worry of interruption -- and she's a good listener, too. She always holds eye contact with whomever is speaking to her and while the cannot be said of her for when she "talks" with her pantomiming, she does give you her full attention, and if you cannot return the favor, she is a touch put out, but certainly won't hold it against you. Maris sees social interaction as a process, and because of her pantomiming, she understands that people are easily bothered, though some do try to understand and return communication. She strives to do the same for other people -- whether it's telling a wild story to Aston in pantomime, or dancing for him in order to raise his spirits, letting people know she cares about them.

She's rarely angry -- and when she is, it's usually because Aston's father won't visit him -- and is commonly annoyed when the servants fuss far too much over her. Though Maris does want people to be happy, she can get a little tired of being mollycoddled, especially by people who think she's helpless. Excuse them -- she is mute, not an invalid, and though having people do things for her is nice, Maris likes doing things herself much more, finding freedom in moving about the manor and the local town on her own two feet all in the Duke's name (which in turn, is also Aston's name).