Approved WT Bio for Sial - Aiel CCed

[Lavinya]

Email: lupe_of_doom@hotmail.co.uk

 

Character name: Sial Daemoa

 

Gender: Female

 

Division: White Tower

 

Age: 18 years, 11 months

 

Place of birth: Maerone, Cairhein

 

Height: Around 5’4”

 

Weight: around 60 kg

 

Eyes: Dark. Her eyes are slightly hooded and her eyebrows and eyelashes are

black

 

Hair: Dark, elbow length, straight and shiny but with a tendancy toward

flyaway. She pays very little attention to it and only rarely leaves it

loose

 

Skin: fair, leans more to olive than rose in tone

 

Physical Description: As a cairheinin woman, Sial would be classed as short

to most of the world although she doesn’t see herself as such. Her medium

build and vague curviness stops her from looking too much like a child,

though her features are youthful and she could pass as a 16 year old quite

easily. Her face is oval, with a straight nose and high cheekbones and there

are very faint freckles across her nose that only someone very close up or

with strong eyes would notice. Though Sial and her known family are Cairhein

born and bred, there is something vaguely Tairen about their colouring. She

is not exactly beautiful but her face is somewhere between striking and

pretty when she isnt grinning like a street urchin or glaring. Her accent

has the typical pronounciation of most Cairheinin which, with her low voice,

often comes across as sophisticated until commoner slang and cursing finds

its way into whatever she is saying.

 

Fashion: Having spent a good deal of her childhood climbing chimneys, Sials

clothes are, consciously or not, generally adapted to suit that occupation.

She favours dark colours, as these hide dirt and soot more easily, and has a

tendancy toward garments with as little sleeve as possible and divided

skirts to make climbing less cumbersome. Like many cairheinens, she prefers

high necked modestly cut clothing. She is unused to buttons or finery and

more often than not will walk barefoot indoors.

 

Character History:

Sial was born the eldest child of a chimney sweep and a barmaid, in the

small town of Maerone. Her family were far from rich, as the numerous inns

in the town competed hard by slashing prices (and by extension, wages) and

though her father and uncles had no trade competition, a job as a sweep did

not pay well. By four she and her younger brother were working part time

with their father and uncles, as their size allowed them to clean where

adults could not reach. Despite her usefulness, Sials father had a strong

sense of propriety and refused to let his children work a whole day non

stop. As such, Sial had considerable free time to play in the Maerone dirt

streets with other commoner children.

 

Unuasually for one of her status, Sial learned to read, though this was more

through luck than judgement. At 7 years old, she overheard a conversation

between merchants about the Tanchico market for peppers whilst stealing said

peppers from a ratty Cairheinin merchants wagon. The ratty merchant caught

her stealing, but when she parroted the conversation back to him in an

attempt to save herself from punishment, the wily merchant saw her as a tool

for spying on his competitors. He taught her letters so that she could spy

on his competitors in return for pennies; who would suspect a child? This

went on until Sials uncles found out; they did not take kindly to their

neice being used as a tool in a merchants version of Daes Dae’mar and the

ratty pepper merchant left town very quickly.

 

At 12, Sial rescued a kitten from a weavers chimney and nursed it back to

health. While this was unremarkable by itself, from that point onward, there

always seemed to be cats in the Daemoa

cottage for reasons no one could explain-Sial insistend that she didn’t

encourage them. A year later, her father decided that while child sweeps

were perfectly acceptable, a young woman of 13 sweeping chimneys was

improper and bad for business. He continued to allow her brother to work but

insisted Sial stopped sweeping and started working at the Dancing Bear Inn

with her mother.

 

Sial started work at the Dancing Bear as an errand girl. She proved to be

hopeless with helping in the kitchen in any way; her cooking tasted edible

until it was thrown up again and she dropped meals with a frightening

frequency. When she was 15 she was allowed to serve as a barmaid with her

mother, for better wages. This provided her with eavesdropping opportunities

and she started weaselling out information and selling it on to merchants.

When her mother found out, despite the extra money, she suggested Sial

stopped working at the Dancing Bear, fearing her daughter would get swept

under in merchant politics and end up in an alley with her throat cut. That

and the fact that Sial had an enmity with the innkeepers daughter.

 

Sial got herself a job as a general errand girl for the town Reader. She was

mildly interested in learning how to fix people but was more interested at

the position of influence a Reader had. Even so, her younger brother still

got to work in the family business and Sial still strongly resented it…

***

 

Light and laughter flowed out of the inn windows but the scowling young

woman sitting on at barrel outside did not look in. Sial fiddled with a hole

in the tatty skirts of her dress, glaring at it. From the noise, you would

think it was the Feast of Light rather than a small family celebration of

her brothers age. They had never made that much fuss when she had turned 16.

Not that she was jealous, of course. At least she had some decorum. Light,

you’d think her uncles were Tairen pirates from the amount of wine and ale

they had sloshed down their throats! Still, it was her brothers day. She

sighed and kicked her heels back against the barrel as she stood up and

pushed open the inn door.

 

A group of people sat around one round table, goblets in hand and jostling

each other in the rough good natured way only families could manage. No one

noticed her come back in. She doubted they had noticed she had gone out in

the first place. Her father thumped his tankard down on the table three

times, then stood on his chair. “Settle down, I want to say something!” His

voice was a touch too loud, betraying the amount of wine he had consumed. It

was a good job he stood on his chair. He wasn’t tall by Cairheinin standards

and there were enough foreigners standing that he needed the extra height of

the chair to see over heads. One of her uncles made a joke to much laughing

but after that a hush settled over the inn.

 

“As you all know, my son has come of age-” Sial repressed the urge to roll

her eyes as that simple phrase caused what seemed like half the inn to clap

her brother on the back and ruffle his hair “-he has come of age and as a

gift, my brothers and myself would like to make him an offer. He may be

young but he is adapt at his job and mature beyond his years and, well-”

 

“Get to the point, bro!” One of Sials uncles called out with a grin.

 

“Dami, my son, myself and your uncles would like to formally welcome you

into Daemoa Sweeps as an equal partner. And in celebration, drinks all

round!”

 

There were cheers and more clapping on backs, for her father and uncles as

well as her brother this time. She saw her mother dabbing at her eyes with a

sleeve and huggin her brother, who looked delighted if slightly overwhelmed.

A fiddler picked up a brisk tune as the inn patrons crowded toward the bar,

calling out their orders. It was all Sial could do not to scream.

 

She wasn’t jealous, of course she wasn’t, not of her brother at any rate. He

was tall by Cairheinin standards and bashfully handsome, with scruffy dark

hair in her own shade of brown and river blue eyes. He was good natured too.

Nobody ever disliked her little brother and many trusted him, which

considering their nationality, was derfinatly something. The same wasn’t

quite true for Sial herself. Not that that mattered. It was just so unfair!

She was the eldest. If she had been a boy, she would be a partner in the

business by now rather than being patted on the head and patronised. Chimney

sweeps did not make a lot of money in Maerone but as a partner, her brother

could extend the business, perhaps move to the capital, maybe even go to

different countries. What could she do? Assistant to a bloody Reader in a

bloody little trading town-no one was going to take she seriously. Perhaps

her father and uncles had deliberately promoted her brother to show her what

she could never be.

 

Sial slipped back outside before her anger showed on her face. She didn’t

want her family to guess what she was thinking and didn’t trust herself to

keep a suitable expression for such a happy occasion. Sitting with a thump

back on the barrel, she tried to distract herself with thoughts of what she

could do with her life . A stray cat came and settled itself on her lap

despite her obvious grumpiness. Cats seemed to like her for some reason. She

watched people go past. Despite the dark, there were a lot of people walking

the streets. Here a weavers wife, there a merchant. A nobles servant in a

dark outfit with a coat of arms on the sleeves hurried past with a package.

None of them gave her a second glance. Even strangers obviously thought she

was below notice. An evident foreigner stalked past in a dangerous manner

that made Sial look twice. Or perhaps it was his cloak-in the darkness it

appeared to be shifting colours. Now where had she heard of colour shifting

cloaks before?

 

A cloaked woman swept after the foreigner and Sial’s eyes widened in

realisation. Of course. Aes Sedai. She froze where she sat with the stray in

her lap, all sulky musing forgotten. Who was more respected than Aes Sedai?

Or more feared? Even in her stunned mind, a corner of her brain whispered

‘people would pay to know where to find an Aes Sedai…”

 

Stupid as it was, Sial nudged the cat off her lap and followed…

 

[Ghaul]

  This lady is ready for the Tower. Now, I hope the Tower is ready for her ;)

[Siemba]

Hoaray! Approvage! Thanks Lavinya :)

[Taei]

*bumping back in order*