Returning BT Bio - Dalinarius Traachanshield - No CC

[Arath Faringal]

DM Handle: Jask

Character Count: 1

 

Character Name: Dalinarius Traachanshield

Nationality: Shienaran

Age: 28

Physical Description: Roughly 6’3 with a lean, slightly lanky, hard build. Mousey brown hair falls in a slightly foppish Hugh Grant style around his face. Pale grey-blue eyes in true Borderlander style. Carries a quarterstaff of bone-white wood near his height with leather binding that was once a midnight blue but has been stained near black with years of use and sweat.

 

Dalinarius Traachanshield grew up in the Borderland keep-town of Fal Dara, in far north eastern Shienar. His mother was a house-wife, and intermittently child-minder for other women around the keep with larger families to manage. His father was a soldier, and like most men in the town, Dalinar was expected to follow in his warrior's footsteps.

 

From a young age, however, Dalinar showed an aversion to the brutality of the sword, and it was obvious that he would not live out the typical Shienaran life as a warrior. Eventually he settled into his calling as a Healer, apprenticing for some years to the keep’s master in that art, even as he continued martial studies under his uncle in hand-to-hand and the quarterstaff. He was a fair student in the fighting arts, and progressed well, but nowhere near as well as he did under the tutelage of the keep's wisened Master Healer. Within a matter of years he had surpassed his ailing and frail mentor's skill, and replaced him as Fal Dara's Healer.

 

At the age of 21 or 22, a summons came from Fal Moran, from King Easar. The missive was short, to the point, and direct. "Make all haste,” it demanded, so make all haste he did.

 

It wasn’t long before the reason for the summoning became clear. The King’s Aes Sedai advisor had taken ill, but refused to send to Tar Valon for assistance. Brianna Sedai, of the Blue Ajah, had a congenital heart disease that would take her to an early grave despite any miracle the Aes Sedai of the current age could try to save her. But her ending would be slow, though inexorable, and over this time the King insisted Dalinar tend her daily and cater her every need. Over this period they grew close until, finally and perhaps in a moment of near-death delirium, Brianna bonded Dalinar to her as her Warder.

 

Brianna, like some Aes Sedai, had a fascination for things of prophecy and the Dragon. She had in her younger travelled extensively across the lands and was fascinated with parallels in different cultures and their beliefs around the Dragon’s Rebirth.

 

Much of this she shared with Dali in their time together, though surely only a fraction of the wealth of knowledge at her fingertips.

 

They returned to Tar Valon together then, Brianna having made some brief recovery, enough to survive the journey, and there life was less stressful for her, though surely more so for Dalinar, who was taken into Warder training immediately. Despite endless pressure from his many mentors, he would never touch a sword save to pass it to another or pick it up to hand back to a defeated opponent. His training focused primarily in the quarterstaff and hand-to-hand.

 

Brianna and Dali shared a few precious years together before the Wheel’s weavings caught up with her and surely snipped her thread from the Pattern at last.

 

Dalinar was distraught, having spent those last weeks almost constantly at her side. Her dying wish was that he seek out the banner of the Dragon that had been raised in Ghealdan and attempt to determine the man’s supposed authenticity. Her dying wish was all that gave him life and purpose.

 

Find him he did, eventually. A curiously charismatic man named Dramon Calgar, gathering people to him like moths to a flame. He gained private audience with the man, and questioned him closely.

 

Dramon demonstrated his ability to channel to Dali in this first meeting, and in so doing discovered that Dalinar too could learn to touch the True Source, with the proper guidance and training. Dramon had a Farm, he said, where men could learn to channel together, safely. Although reluctant (and terrified of the prospect of a group of men channeling, together!) Brianna’s dying wish pulled at the back of Dali’s mind, and before he knew it he was learning to channel.

 

Dramon and Dalinar became close, until Dalinar was virtually Dramon’s right hand man. An attack on the Tower left Dramon in a coma which he could not be roused from, even with Dalinar’s finest efforts (and an ability to Heal that had not been seen since the Age of Legends, a Talent which left a bitter taste in his mouth whenever memories of Brianna haunted him).

 

Dalinar replaced Dramon as the leader of the Farm. A new Dragon had arisen before Dramon’s death, and the Farm had sworn fealty to this man at Dalinar’s insistence and persuasion when the signs became all too clear that he was fulfilling the prophecies that Brianna had once spoken of to him. When Tear fell, the men of the Black Tower, were there fighting by the Lord Dragon’s side.

 

Dalinar had ever had sentiment for Aes Sedai, though he spoke of his close connection to them in his past with noone, fearing retribution from many of those in the Tower who had only disdain or even hatred for those who would hunt them down and gentle them given half a chance. When Aes Sedai approached the Tower, Dali would have met them with peaceful offerings and open arms. Conflict arose, from both within the Black Tower and without, and a particular man of extraordinary strength in the Power who had risen to the rank of Storm Leader (Brent Enios), turned on Dali and sought to strip him of his leadership – by force – believe Dali was too soft on the Aes Sedai.

 

Dalinar, though exceptionally skilled in the Power, was no match for the formidable strength that was flung against him by the mutinous Storm Leader. With the last of the strength that he could draw on, he fled the scene via a Gate that opened into a place that Dalinar and his Spymaster (Skechid Aran Teobon) had once agreed upon in case of this very sort of coup.

 

As Dalinar fled, his feet finding purchase on the far side of the Gate, the Storm Leader Brent flung a final weave of the Power at him. As it struck Dali, unprepared, the Gateway that had hung in the air a moment before melted out of existence.

 

Dalinar collapsed to the ground on the far side, his breathing hoarse, his wounds sapping the strength and lifeblood from him. He reached for saidin, hoping it might fortify him even as it sought to destroy him… and came up short. He reached again, coughing out blood and clutching his sides as his innards ripped with pain. Again, saidin evaded him. And again. Just out of sight, just within reach, but as far away as the sun itself.

 

Oh Light… It’s gone.

 

A tear crept down the side of his face, mingling with sweat and dirt, and Dalinar didn’t know if it was for the pain of the wounds which were surely killing him, or the emptiness and loss he felt. The loss of saidin. Not even losing Brianna had felt like this.