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Mairi Fairbairn is a widow left with her husband’s farm. Instead of leaving Dornie and heading back to her family in Shielbridge, she has stubbornly stayed with the farm, worked the land, and tended to the animals herself. Her magic, which allows her to sense the weather and understand when plants or animals are sick, helps her in her quest to be (mostly) independent.
Info
Full Name: Mairi Fairbairn (née Innes)
Age: 30
Hair: Red
Eyes: Brown
Status: Alive
Occupation: Farmer
Origin: Shielbridge, Scotland
Allegiance: Undecided
First Seen: A Lucky Guy
Last Seen:
Description: Standing at about 5’5”, Mairi Fairbairn is not as plain as you might expect a farmer to be. She has the hallmarks of someone accustomed to hard work—her fair skin freckles when the sun warms the land, her body is firm and muscular, and her hands are calloused. Her eyes are nothing special, a plain brown, but they are the most expressive part of her face in spite of their dull hue. Her light red hair is usually left free for the wind to tousle, and it never seems to bother her much.
It’s rare to find Mairi wearing brighter colors or something out of a neutral palette. She sticks to clothes in browns, blacks, and greys—things that won’t look out of place should she be working in dirt or mud or something far worse. She prefers to wear aprons and skirts when she can, but for some of the harder work she can occasionally be found in trousers. When away from her farm, however, she dresses in skirts or dresses and occasionally adds a little blue or light red to her outfits.
Family:
- Ian Fairbairn † - husband
- Aoife Innes - mother
- Lennox Innes - father
- Calum Innes - brother
- Finlay Innes - brother
Portrayed by: Isla Fisher
History
Born Mairi Innes, Mairi was the third child and only daughter of a farming family. Her father worked, her mother cooked and helped manage whatever farm-hands might have been hired for the season, and her two elder brothers learned the trade from her father. While Mairi was pushed to stay attached to the apron-strings of her mother, she quickly proved at a young age she preferred being outside and was eager to prove herself and work alongside her older brothers.
For the first few years of her life, Mairi was a very untalkative child. Her family worried that perhaps there was something wrong with her because she was so quiet and withdrawn, but one day she just suddenly brightened up and was as cheerful as anyone could have asked for in a daughter. Her parents were entirely perplexed by her change and could not find anything to attribute it to.
Mairi, however, had opened up as her magic began to blossom. A kestrel named Stalwart came around and encouraged her, and the formerly shy and self-conscious Mairi finally felt confident enough to come out of her shell. She followed her brothers and father around whenever she could sneak away from her mother’s kitchen and asked them about everything they were doing. She was eager to learn and her father soon noticed that she was incredibly sharp when it came to tending to the farm. She learned quick and seemed to have a sense for how the land worked. Reluctantly, her mother allowed Mairi to follow in her father’s work.
Mairi blossomed quickly with the freedom to do what she enjoyed. Her magic aided her in her work and her brothers and father marvelled at her knack of knowing when to plant and when to harvest. She even had a strange knack with the animals and was quick to alert them when she believed something was wrong with them. She was an asset to her family and one they were a little reluctant to lose when she came of age.
Hard-working and kind, Mairi was more than happy to travel into town and aid with delivery of goods and trade. She was friendly and knew people in their community by name. She would stubbornly try to do things herself, though she was smart enough to be aware of what she could and couldn’t handle—it was other people underestimating her that bothered her most. So when Ian Fairbairn, a farmer from Dornie, arrived in Shielbridge to do some trading, he found that most of the villagers were more than happy to talk about the red-cheeked, red-haired young woman who he saw working in the fields alongside her brothers.
Ian was bewildered by the strength of character (and body) of the girl and how cheerfully she went about her hard work. He came, year after year as Mairi got older, visiting the farm and befriending Mairi. Her father knew what he was doing from the start, but he grew to admire Ian and consider him a good man for his daughter. When Ian asked for her hand, both Mairi and her father were happy to offer it.
Mairi moved to Dornie with her new husband and quickly took to her new surroundings. Dornie was small enough that she still felt a sense of community that she had in Shielbridge, but it was a little larger and there was much more in the way of trade. It was her husband that rounded out her skills for farming, as his farm was much smaller than her father’s and they only rarely got farm hands to help with their work. It left most of the work to Ian and Mairi, but Ian soon found that there were more to Mairi’s abilities than he had originally realized.
While Ian never found out just why Mairi was aware of when a storm might be coming or that one of the cows had become sick, he had his suspicions. He wasn’t a terribly religious man, but he was enough to not question why Mairi could do what she did, nor why there was often a kestrel perched on the fence or the roof, watching over the farm. He simply took it as a blessing and was thankful for it. However, he was suspicious enough to worry about Mairi if he couldn’t be around to protect her. He taught her how to shoot and defend herself if she needed, just in case he wasn’t around when trouble might come her way.
He had no idea that he wouldn’t be around for much longer. They had been married seven years when Mairi warned him of a coming storm. Stubbornly, Ian refused to listen to her warnings, as they would set back a delivery that he was to make. He left anyway out into the snow and didn’t return. A fortnight later, they found his body, frozen to death in the snow and all his goods stolen away by thieves who left his body where they found him.
With no children and Ian having no living family, Mairi was left with the farm. Her mother wrote to her and urged her to return to her family and to sell Ian’s farm, but Mairi stubbornly refused. She had worked the land and Dornie was now her home. She was determined to prove she could handle the work herself and continue the farm without her husband. It certainly wasn’t easy for Mairi to do it on her own, but she got by, occasionally hiring farm hands to aid in the work she couldn’t do herself. And still, she thrived.
Personality
Being stubborn is one of Mairi’s defining traits. She’s never been one to give up and she enjoys proving to others that she can be more than what they expect of her. When she undertakes a task, she steadfastly sticks to the task and sees it through to completion. Honesty is a big deal for her—her word is her bond and she does not stand for those who lie to her. While she is mostly forgiving, being dishonest is something she almost never forgives for. She is willing to trust someone so long as they come across as honest, but there’s only one chance when it comes to being dishonest.
Mairi has a will that won’t quit. Somehow, even in the midst of tragedy, she continues onward and picks herself up by her bootstraps. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel pain or withdraw from time to time, but there’s no rest for Mairi. She cannot stand not to be working or doing something. It’s not that she’s a workaholic, more that she can’t sit still. She enjoys her work and she genuinely enjoys people.
When it comes to dealing with other people, she’s kind and helpful. While she doesn’t share too much about herself, it’s mostly because she doesn’t consider herself interesting enough to talk about. She’s always got a willing ear to listen and will even offer advice if asked, but she’s mostly interested in allowing others to get out what they might need to. On a deeper level of things, Mairi is kindhearted but private. She doesn’t talk about personal things with strangers, nor about herself much and to see her cry is nigh impossible. When she needs to be sensitive, she talks to Stalwart.
Magic
Mairi’s magic resides in the realm of wild magic. She has an innate connection to the changes in nature and this allows her to “sense” certain things within it. She can usually predict what the weather will be a day or two ahead of time, and when the weather or wind is going to be particularly strong or tumultuous, she can sense it coming nearly a week in advance.
While not empathetic with plants or animals, Mairi is still keenly aware of nature and its changes. While some may catch signs of crops failing or an animal that has become sick by careful attention and study, Mairi is able to simply sense these things. While she might not exactly know the nature of it or be able to fix it, she is able to tell that something is off. While she could tell you that your horse is sick, she doesn’t have a veterinarian's knowledge of animals to be able to tell what exactly is wrong with it. For her own work on the farm, because she has worked with particular types of animals and crops, she is more likely to be able to discern what might be “wrong” with a plant or animal in a combination of her magical ability and her knowledge.
While not able to control the nature around her, when push comes to shove, Mairi can influence nature. If she were to do a ritual, for example, she might be able to make it rain, or encourage a struggling plant to grow. There might be more potential in this, but it’s not something Mairi particularly pays much attention to or strives for.
Her familiar, Stalwart, prefers the form of a kestrel and is never very far from her side.
For more, see: Character Notes for Mairi Fairbairn
For logs in which Mairi appears, see: Logs for Mairi Fairbairn
