Name: A'Rillia (*Ah-Rill-Ee-Ah*) or Arri
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 150 lbs
Build: A bit on the muscular side, if curvy
Hair: Strawberry blonde (*To base of ribcage, usually in a braid
or or ponytail; slightly wavy*)
Eyes: Extremely pale yellowish-green, with gold flecks
Age: 27 (*Joined at 21*)
Inter/Intra-personal Skills:
Telekinetic and mundane Healing (*Herbals, mostly*)
Ollave-level bard (*Harp, flute, voice... also Old Tongue*)
Telepathic (*Largely repressed due to her past... between humans, only with
other Telepaths or in times of extreme emotional stress; usually occurs
in relation to her Healing skills; unconciously...*)
Slight mind-control/compulsion (*Unconscious; only when she is performing
to a crowd or Healing; might more properly be called Empathy*)
Affinity for animals; esp. birds, cats
Excellent cook (*will help in kitchen occasionally*)
Physical Skills:
Excellent hand-to-hand unarmed combat
Long and short bows
Throwing knives (*short to medium*)
Sling
Long-distance running
Outdoor survival/herbalism
Personal History:
(Falagand Warrenfolk... Junior Queenrider under WarrenLady B'nair and
Queen Teraichen [Ter-ay-'ch'-en .. 'ch' as in Loch Ness])
Originally from Oakenhold (*East of Keldarra*)
Family:
Mother: Tegra... Healer, Herbalist, Maidwife
Father: Bedin... Master level Bard; flute, harp, voice, drums
Brother: J'Nar... Killed in sparring accident 5 years ago; had chosen no
craft (*45 at time of death*) (**She has no contact with her family; they
disowned her when she Joined with Dae and she has not seen them since...**)
Birth Name: Maeglin Sage (*changed her name after Joining*)
Friend: K'Chain... Fellow Bard... he is currently performing
his Master's cycle and as such is seldom seen by Arri. They have a light
telepathic bond. He is the only person she has confided her past in....
Like a brother to her
Spiritual persuasion: Through her affinity with the land and the
creatures that live on it, she considers the Lands themselves to be sacred
and representative of all of the facets of nature and divinity, male and
female. As such, she follows what might, on the Outside of the Lands, be
called Wicca, but keeps it to herself as she fears persecution (*It was
frowned upon in her Hold*) Always wearing a silver sickle moon and star
pendant, but never talks about it.
Usual attire: Riding: Black leather leggings, silver shirt, purple
or hunter green vest, black leather riding jacket (*for warmth*)
Performance: Floor-length purple velvet ballgown, black leather
cape with silver lining (*Sometimes hunter green dress instead*)
Daily wear: Black or gray leggings, green or purple shirt, often
a silver scarf, black leather cloak
HISTORY:
A'Rillia was the younger of the two children in her family. After her
elder brother had turned out to be something of a ne'er do-well; being refused
for Searches because of his vindictive nature, and showing no proclivity
for any particular Craft, her parents had rested high hopes on her. They
were thrilled when she showed real talent in two different skill sets, neither
of which had anything to do with the Warrenfolk, who looked down on the
land-born and were generally seen as being rather stuck-up by the general
populace.
Arri's training in the Healing arts, both physical and psychic, began
at her mother's knee. With Tegra being the area's midwife, Arri learned
quickly the care of children, of wounds, colds, flu, bone-setting and scar
poulticing. Living in a relatively out of the way area, skills in plant
identification were essential and Arri took well to the memorization and
planning, out of a genuine desire to help people.
When she turned six, her father sponsored her into the bardic Collegiate
for training two days a week. She moved easily through the lessons in the
old Tongue and music theory and by the time she was eight had begun work
on her first instrunment, the floor harp. As her singing practise became
more important, she took to travelling with her mother to Falagand to help
the dragonrider's healers deal with the wake of a Wraithing. She soon discovered
that if she sang while she was working, the patients seemed to heal faster,
and so the soft sound of her voice became a fixture in the infirmary.
She enjoyed the company of the Riders and the dragons, but kept her feelings
to herself, as she knew her parents would not approve, and knew that after
her brother had been passed over so many times, she would never be chosen
for a Searching. So she contended herself with tending them, and with riding
her russet gelding out into the hills for weekends at a time, to escape
the bustle of the world and listen to the birds. After her tenth birthday,
these disappearances became more frequent.
Her teen years were somewhat tomboyish; sparring with short knives with
the boys at the College, hiking through the hills, and dressing in boys
clothing. Her closest friend and confidant, her long-time classmate K'Chain
went with her sometimes, when he could get away, and the two of them would
sit in the forest and talk until dawn of their dreams. At her coming-of-age
ceremony when she was 16, she took the flute as her second instrunment,
to remind her of the keening cry of the falcons that were accompaniment
to those dreamy conversations.
The day of Arri's 21st birthday *should* have been her Master's Examination
for the bardic collegiate, (after which she would have left on a one-year
internship before coming back to take the Robe) but there was a wild dragon
attack at Falagand, and so her practise time was taken up with the more
mundane concerns of infection and blood and pain. She tried to warm up her
voice by singing as she worked; first on the Riders, and then on the dragons,
soothing frazzled nerves. After the third or fourth set of scar-streaked
wings, she realized that she was not singing alone... that there was a voice
in accompaniment with hers somewhere nearby. It wasn't K'Chain, because
it was definitely a *female* voice, and her mother did not sing.
Finishing the bandaging with a sigh, she set out to find the source of
the sound, as she had decided that someone was making fun of her. Before
long, having never been beyond the infirmary alone, she was hopelessly lost
in the warren's tunnels, following the voice like a beacon. When she stepped
out onto the sand of the Hatching Ground, she panicked and tried to turn
around, as she was land-bound and not one of the chosen...
Because of the attack on Falagand Warren, the dragons had been to preoccupied
with mourning their losses and trying to salvage the Warren to provide the
usual fanfare, and so the hatching of the new clutch went largely unnoticed
by the overworked medics, including a now very frightened and confused Arri.
As she turned to go, the singing suddenly became a trumpeting scream
and she dropped to her knees, whimpering in pain. She lifted her face into
eyes the color of a spring sunset and was overwhelmed by concern, love,
and a name... Daetyn... meaning Shadowsparkle in the Old Tongue. Weeping,
she took her new dragonet into her arms.
The other Searchers were understandably somewhat confused, and a few
were more than a little bitter about a commoner being Chosen... and by a
Queen yet! However, there was little that could be done about it, and so
DragonLady Rhina took her under her wing, leading her out of the hatching
grounds and getting Dae her first meal.
A few hours later, a dazed Arri brought Dae back to the house to share
her accomplishment with her family; she had been granted the boon that had
been denied her brother. Her father was both frightened and angry, and her
brother bitter and covetous - not at all the reaction she had expected.
Bedin disowned Arri on the spot for betraying her family by becoming a DragonRider,
and threw her out of the household with nothing but the clothes on her back.
With no Sponsor at the College, she could not complete her Mastership, and
so she trudged back to the Warren with Dae in despair. It was then that
she made the decision to change her name; from Maeglin Sage, the name of
her birth and her first Craft, to A'Rillia, Child of Gold... her parting
farewell to her Mother, whom she never saw again, and to the life and dreams
that could no longer be hers.
Robbed in a single stroke of her Craft, her family, her heritage and
her identity, Arri split her time training as Tertiary Queenrider between
musical practise and healing, acting as a Healer in the same medical Division
where she trained as a girl. During the arduous six month task of getting
to know her Dragon, Arri would practise singing and composition with Dae
in the hopes that one day she could return and take up her Masters.
Arri, even as Tertiary, was a very solitary person, and spent as much
of her time as possible on her own or with Dae. There was a lot of resentment
in the Warren, since it seemed that being landbound *and* Unchosen, she
had *stolen* a dragon. K'Chain tried to be there for her as much as he could,
but not being a Rider, and being away so much, there was really very little
he could do to ease her pain, since he simply could not understand. Since
she could not follow her dreams, she launched herself into the Rider's training
with the same voraciousness she had applied to her Bardic training, in order
to retain a sense of purpose.
She still left to sit in the forest for several days at a time, claiming
it was for herbals, except now she took Dae with her instead of the gelding
of her childhood, and Dae would sing to her in the woods and lakes of the
beautiful countryside. She really used the time to get away from the Warren
and it's bustle and forcefulness and sexual proclivities, which all made
the country girl rather uncomfortable.
About six months before Dae's second birthday, shortly before the dragon's
first planned mating flight, Arri's brother J'Nar was killed in a violent
sparring accident with an enemy of his. A week later, Arri began having
trouble sleeping, being disturbed by violent and painful dreams. The lack
of sleep began to tell on her, and she escaped with Dae into the hills on
the weekend of the planned Mating, pleading illness. When Dae's heat came
upon her, a floodgate opened inside Arri's mind, and horrible memories of
a violent rape filled her, with her brother's face hanging in her eyes.
Dae realized what had happened and forcibly stayed with Arri, despite the
effort this cost her, out of fear for the safety of the screaming, weeping
Human. In a few hours, the first wave passed, and it became easier to bear...and
far more real of a problem. Dae explained to Arri what the other Dragons
had told her; that if a Dragon mates, the Riders are forced to mate themselves
because of the telepathic bond between them. Arri panicked and began to
scream, planning to kill herself and let Dae find someone who wasn't ruined
before she would let anyone touch her. She finally calmed down enough to
really talk to Dae, and the two of them came to a decision, and a temporary
solution.
At the end of the weekend, the two of them went back, behaving as if
nothing had happened. But every six months, when Dae came to heat time,
they would disappear, for anywhere from a day to a week. There was some
concern among the Warrenfolk that Dae was barren, but the Second was clutching
nicely, so there was no *real* harm done in allowing the thought to stay.
When K'Chain next travelled through the Warren, she told him of the experience,
and he did his best to help her piece together the shattered bits of her
soul, and fostering the rumors of barrenness on her behalf. The disappearances
went largely unnoticed at any rate, as she was not very social with the
other Riders to begin with, being shy.
After Rhina's tragic suicide, Arri ended up as Junior to B'Nair, with
whom she had always been a little strained, and B'Nair began to pressure
Arri and Dae to start "behaving like Queens" and producing hatchlings
instead of "singing to yourself and playing at doctor down in Medic
with your plant friends."
The Wraithing at Marrid was going to change all of that.
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