Raposa Silva is a Portuguese fox girl from central Portugal who moved to Lisbon as a young adult and now works as a translator between Portuguese and English. She's reserved without being antisocial, friendly without being immediately familiar, and usually more interested in what somebody else has to say than in filling every silence herself.
Translation suits her. Raposa enjoys the small decisions hidden inside language: choosing between what something literally says and what somebody actually meant, noticing humor that doesn't survive a direct translation, and finding the particular phrase that carries an idea cleanly from one language into another. She's patient with difficult wording and considerably less patient with people who insist there must always be one objectively correct translation for everything.
Outside work, Raposa has difficulty remaining indoors for very long. She hikes, jogs, cycles, wanders unfamiliar neighborhoods, takes photographs, seeks out little cafés, and periodically decides she should visit somewhere because she noticed its name on a map. Her version of spontaneity is rarely loud. She'll simply send a message saying, “There's a trail near Sintra I want to see tomorrow,” as though this is a complete itinerary.
Her closest friend, Mooira Minakis, has become extremely familiar with these messages. Raposa brings momentum to their friendship; Mooira brings logistics. Raposa suggests the destination, Mooira checks the weather. Raposa finds the obscure road, Mooira remembers that obscure roads occasionally stop being roads. Raposa says they'll find somewhere to eat, Mooira opens her bag and reveals that she has already accounted for this possibility.
Raposa genuinely appreciates Mooira's steadiness. Around her, Raposa doesn't need to be particularly talkative or socially “on.” They can spend hours walking, driving, or sitting somewhere without treating silence as a problem. Mooira is also one of the few people who can reliably read Raposa's mood before she says anything, although this is helped considerably by the fact that Raposa's ears and tail are terrible at keeping secrets.
Calm and thoughtful as she appears, Raposa has a playful streak that emerges around people she trusts. Her humor is understated, occasionally wicked, and delivered with such a straight face that newcomers sometimes need several seconds to realize they've been teased. Mooira almost always notices immediately.
Raposa likes people. She likes home. She likes quiet.
She would simply prefer that today's quiet happen somewhere she hasn't been before. 🦊🚲