Approved Tar Valon WT Bio for Elara Adnan - CC'd by The Alliance

[Taymist]

N.B. Seaine has my permission for the spark inborn given Elara has not yet channeled and therefore has no block / is not a Wilder. ~Tay~ @Cass

- OP Scores to be assigned.

 

DM Handle: Seaine's eyebrows

Character Name: Elara Adnan

Returning Character: No

Total PSW Character Count: 1

 

RP Section: Tar Valon

RP Group: White Tower

Character Rank: Novice

Traditional or Salidar Novice: Traditional

 

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Place of Birth/Raising: Ebou Dar

Physical Description: Average height and build. Thick black wavy hair sitting just above her shoulders. Almost-black eyes. Thick black eyebrows and lashes. Olive complexion. Pretty. Scar across right forearm.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Fierce and bold, typical for an Ebou Dari woman, though she does have a gentle side she keeps well hidden from most. Very polite. Brave. Fussy and particular, tends to like things just so. Likes fashion and fine clothes, enjoys embroidery. Struggling to figure out how she fits into the world outside Ebou Dar, with her very Ebou Dari sense of honour.

 

Character History: Eldest of five children, daughter of a successful Ebou Dari banker and his wife (a forceful woman originally from the Rahad). Typical (for Ebou Dar) upper-class upbringing. Fought her first duel at 13, has fought two in total. Both duels were fought over disparaging remarks made about her mother. Never wanted anything more for herself than to sew for a living and to accept a marriage knife from a worthy man, but was born with the spark and discovered by a Green sister, sent to Tar Valon not long after (is not a wilder).

 

 

The morning was already stiflingly humid by the time Roselle Nuran reached Zerinde Kostama’s shop, though of course, the tall Mayener woman was affected by it not at all. Not a drop of sweat beaded on her lip, nor a wisp of hair clung to her brow. She was Aes Sedai, and Aes Sedai were not bothered by mere trivialities such as the humid heat of an Ebou Dari summer.

 

Smoothing her skirts and patting hair back into place that did not need patting back into place, the Aes Sedai entered the seamstress’s shop. Her bright blue eyes swept the room, alighting on a pretty young girl stocking shelves with bolts of pale silk. She appeared no different to any of the other young women in the room busying themselves with their work, but the Aes Sedai could tell immediately that she was indeed different. Her eyes continued on however, until they landed upon a seemingly-older woman rushing forward with a smile upon her face.

 

“Roselle!” The other woman, Zerinde, clasped Roselle’s hands and squeezed affectionately. “What a lovely surprise! I was just thinking of you not the day before yesterday. Davisa!” A short brown-haired woman fussing with a pile of lace nearby hurried over. “Bring some refreshments, please. We are graced with the presence of Roselle Nuran Aes Sedai!” As the young woman in question dropped a startled curtsey and scurried off, the seamstress glanced over Roselle’s shoulder towards the street. “Is Ardelam on his way? Oh but where are my manners, please, come sit down.”

 

She showed the Aes Sedai to a pair of chairs set beneath a round window, a small table between them, and waited for Roselle to sit before taking a seat herself. Roselle noticed the remaining young women, including the one who stood out to her, stealing quick glances at her while trying their hardest to appear as if they weren’t. Too polite to watch me openly.

 

“He is around the corner, cousin, at Nariene’s Honor. With Jaril.” Roselle’s blue eyes gleamed as she spoke the man’s name. “Yes, I have bonded another since last we spoke. Jaril is Arafellin, young and sweet and brave. He will be a fine Warder with a little more seasoning, and the Light knows Ardelam is up to the task. But let us talk of—” The Aes Sedai cut off as the young woman called Davisa returned with tea and little spicy cakes, continuing once the girl had moved out of earshot. “But let us talk of that later. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and it seems I have been brought here today for a specific purpose.” She took a sip of tea, inclining her head to the young woman stacking the shelves with silk. “That one there, the pretty one with all that black hair. She has the ability, cousin. She will need to go to Tar Valon for training, otherwise I am afraid she may not live to see twenty.”

 

Zerinde’s blue eyes widened and she blinked slowly, turning to glance at the girl in question. When she turned back, her brow was furrowed. “You mean Elara? Elara Adnan is by far my best apprentice, cousin. She has such a tidy hand with her stitches, and an eye for colour. And she enjoys it. Her embroidery work is fine enough that I have just begun allowing her to assist me, though she can be fussy with it at times and would rather unpick the lot and start again than present me with something she wasn’t completely happy with. She does seem to have a stronger sense of honour than most girls this side of the Eldar, but her mother is from the Rahad after all. And she is polite to a fault, though they all are, really.”

 

Reaching for a small cake, Zerinde nibbled absently. It was a measure of her trust in her cousin, and the many years she had lived among the painfully polite Ebou Dari people, that she did not even think to question how Roselle knew, or even if she was sure. Roselle said it, so Zerinde believed it. “So she can channel, you say. And she will die if she isn’t trained? Is she to leave immediately? It will take me a little time to find a new girl, at least a decent girl. I cannot say I’ll be happy to let her go,” she added, “but if her life is in danger, I would be a poor mistress to think only of how this affects me.”

 

Roselle shook her head slightly. “She cannot channel, cousin. Not yet. The ability was born in her, but that simply means that she will channel eventually; she has no choice in it. Left by herself to fumble through, only one in every four women who has the spark inborn survives channelling unaided.” It was a horrible truth, and the Aes Sedai sent silent thanks that she had been able to save this one from such a fate. “And she need not leave for the Tower immediately. We are not in Tear, to bundle the girl off before the setting of the sun.” While Roselle’s face remained calm, Zerinde’s mouth twisted in enough distaste for the both of them. There was no love lost between Mayene and Tear. “Most importantly however, she is not yet close to her first touching. But it would not be prudent for her to dally. Her life is at risk until she reaches the safety of the Shining Walls, and the Shining Walls are far from Ebou Dar.”

 

 “Yes of course,” Zerinde nodded, frowning slightly. “Of course.” She glanced back at the young woman once more, as if seeing the girl in a new light. Elara had been watching them, but at Zerinde’s look, her dark eyes glazed over and she made a show of peering at the door, as if she had been looking outside at someone who was about to come in, and not at the two women sitting sipping tea. Then she very obviously did not look their way as she went back to her bolts of silk.

 

Roselle smiled into her teacup as Zerinde turned back. “Well, the Wheel weaves,” the seamstress said, a note of finality in her voice. “As I said before, I cannot say I’m happy, but better this than the alternative. So, my dear cousin, shall we finish our tea and cakes before we tell the poor girl her life is about to change? There is something about having multiple Warders I have often wondered…….”

 

*

 

“Is that… I think that’s…… Oh Light I can see it!”

 

Elara Adnan gripped the ship’s railing tightly and leaned forward, squinting hard into the wind that streamed past her. Loose strands of ebony hair danced around her face, large golden hoops bobbed in her ears, and her skirts and petticoats billowed around her legs, but she paid them no mind. Her eyes were transfixed. Upriver, far upriver, almost obscured by haze and distance, almost not there at all, sparkled the very peak of the White Tower itself. My new home. Light, my new home!

 

A laugh escaped her lips, and she let go of the railing, dropping back to the deck lightly. Finally, after many long weeks of travel, the end was in sight! It would be a relief to be back on solid ground again, back to a routine, back to normalcy. Or the new norm, rather. For Elara Adnan had left Ebou Dar as a seamstress’s apprentice, but would arrive in Tar Valon ready to be written into the novice book of the White Tower.

 

“Aye, the White Tower,” came a gravelly response. “You are almost home, young mistress.” Elara turned to the grizzled man standing impassively at her side. Masic was her father’s oldest and most trusted friend, having worked at her father’s banking house as a footman since before she was even born. He had been her chaperone from the beginning of the long journey, as the Black Albatross had skirted the coast from Ebou Dar to Tear, and then onto The Three Geese and its long climb up the Erinin.

 

“Almost,” she echoed, a wry grin on her sun-darkened face. “And without your guidance, I wouldn’t have made it past Illian. Who would have thought people could be so strange outside of Ebou Dar?” She made a face, turning her back on the ever-approaching Tower and leaning against the railing. Her fingers danced over the long curved duelling knife thrust through her belt. “The world is full of rude men who know nothing of manners or honour.”

 

Masic snorted. “And that is a fine opinion for Elara Adnan, seamstress’s apprentice from Ebou Dar, to have. But you will soon be Elara Adnan, novice of the White Tower. Maybe even one day Elara Adnan Aes Sedai. May I lean back, young mistress?” She nodded her assent for him to speak his mind without fear of her taking offense, and he continued gently. “You will end up deader than a cheating husband if you allow yourself to take offense at everything you would have taken offense at back home. Most people in the world are not Ebou Dari, lass, and if they aren’t Ebou Dari, they don’t share the same code of honour. So where is the honour in fighting them?”

 

It was Elara’s turn to snort at that. “So, you’re basically telling me that I cannot be me. As well tell a fish to jump, or a cat to bark. ‘Don’t take offense at things’, pah.” She sighed, scuffing a toe on the deck, and her tone softened. “How would I even do that Masic, even if I wanted to?”

 

The older man raised a scarred hand. “That’s not for me to say, young one. You are fierce, and brave, and proud. All fine traits in an Ebou Dari woman, and I know how proud your father is of you. But we are approaching Tar Valon, not Ebou Dar. Things are very different outside of Ebou Dar. And you were made for bigger things.”

 

Elara nodded slowly, tears filming her almost-black eyes at the man’s words. With a sniff she turned her head, not wanting him to see her weakness. But the wind betrayed her, gently teasing the tears out of the corners of her eyes, and she angrily scrubbed them away. Everything is so different. Everything, and everyone I've met. Roselle Sedai said this would be harder than anything I had ever done. I thought she was talking about the novice training. But now I think she meant everything from the moment I left Ebou Dar.

 

“Thank you Masic,” she said, when she could trust her voice wouldn’t shake. “The world might be full of dishonourable men, but I would never count you among them.” He inclined his head towards her graciously, and she grinned. “Will you kindly escort me below decks? I am going below to pack my things." She glanced upriver again, squinting hard at that shining white gleam in the distance, and shivered all over. "The White Tower is waiting for me.”

[Cass]

Beautifully written, CC'd.

 

Great to have you and Elara along,  @Seaine's eyebrows!

[Cass]

( @Taymist I still don't have the edit option to change the title to approved,  but see above ?)

[Taymist]

Thanks, lovely. That's super.  

 

I'll sort out your SBA score in a bit, Seaine.