About Elia AoineAppearance: Elia Aoine is a stout woman, arms and chest corded with muscle and a fierce look in her eyes beyond even that typical of the nomadic tribe she was born into. Her hair is dark and bristly, refusing to lie down flat no matter what she attempts (up to and including coating it in a liberal helping of bear grease). As such, she keeps it (rather inexpertly) cut short, its unkempt look adding to the sense of wildness that she exudes. When she smiles, she exposes teeth just slightly too rounded and heavy to look natural; when she frowns, her snub nose and narrow lips curl contemptuously, and the effect is unsettling, like a predator ready to pounce. Background: The moment that changed Elia's life forever was her first hunt with her uncle after she came of age. Until then, she'd shown no sign of her deeply buried lycanthropic heritage, but as the hunt continued, the thrill of it worked deep into her spirit. When she finally closed the distance on the elk she'd been tracking, her face erupted forward into a short muzzle, her teeth lengthened so quickly they cut into her lower lip, and she fell forward onto hands that had shrunk into paws, the nails turning into sharp claws with which she pinned the beast down as she tore into its veins. A witchwolf had been born into the clan, it seemed, and stories of her kind had only too prominent a place as horror stories told around the fire. At first, her mother and father told her to simply ignore her urge to transform; she faithfully attempted to heed her parents' advice, but before long her face was beginning to lengthen at even the slightest provocation. When she found herself an inch away from snapping her jaws on a friend's throat after losing a heated round of spear-tossing, her parents had had enough. She was sent on her way with only the barest survival equipment the next day, forced to make her way on her own. Distraught at being separated from her "pack", Elia let herself slip deep into her animalistic instincts. For two years, she survived by hunting, gorging herself when she succeeded at getting a kill and letting hunger gnaw at her when she didn't. One day, she was preparing to leap at a huge badger hunched beneath an overhanging of pine branches when it let out a grunting scream; from the branches' shadow emerged a woman in soft green robes. Far from being fearful, though, the woman merely smiled. Aelis was a druidess, in tune with the magic of the natural world, and to her, Elia was just another creature caught in nature's cycles. With time, Aelis began to teach Elia how to keep her violent instincts in check and control her shapeshifting. The moon was the driver of her transformations, Elia learned, and only by heeding its patterns could she achieve full control. Aelis also reminded Elia that wolves are social creatures - her human and wolf sides both needed a pack to thrive, and being a "lone wolf" would lead her to ruin. Aelis helped Elia to raise and train a wolf cub found abandoned, but it just wasn't enough to satisfy her need to belong. What helped more was the conversation, a balm after so much loneliness. The bracelet, grown by Aelis from living vine to curl around Elia's forearm. And the ceremony on the lakeside, where the two swore to honor and protect one another through all seasons as their canine "child" Ifanna stood witness. For a time, the three traveled together, roaming the lands for the sheer thrill of it - a strange family, but no less loyal for that strangeness. Then, however, the first few began to get sick in the infirmaries of Khel Zhad. Just an ordinary illness, the dwarven sages had said, but a potent one nonetheless. There was no stopping Aelis from tending to the ill - and soon she was one of the ill, with the disease leaving her exhausted and out of breath even three moons after it had first begun. It fell to Elia and Ifanna to make forays into the woods for the reagents and herbs that Aelis needed...and bone reed, one of the most critical ingredients in a remedy for the plague's lingering weakness, could only be found in the White Downs, two hundred miles away. Bone reed is a difficult herb to find, and this year's winter comes swiftly. The snow begins to fall, and Elia finds herself miles away from the dwarven city and her other half. The rivers begin to freeze, which makes boat travel impossible, and orcs and worse roam the road to Khel Zhad... ---------- Elia Aoine
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