Songlight

Age: 20 (m02/d05)

Position: Herald

Gifts: Strong Mindspeech, Bardic Performance Gift

Appearance: The first thing everyone notices about Song is her eyes. Wide and dark, they should have been innocent, but they are haunted, and look older than they should be. Song has seen too much to be innocent, and this knowledge shows in her eyes. Most people notice secondly that Songlight is mute.
Song has waist length, strawberry blond hair, which matches her dark, emerald-green eyes and fair complexion. She usually keeps her hair in a long braid running down her back, especially if she's practicing. Her body is very slim and looks delicate- although Song has bested older students in the salle time and again, using her wiry strength and speed. She's deceptively fast. She may look fragile and easy to hurt, but she's sworn never to let anyone unwanted get his hands on her again, and she means it.

Personality: Songlight can barely remember the days before her parents died, but she knows she was happy then. Happier than she's ever been since. She can, if she tries really hard, recall her mother's embrace and her father's laugh. But those are days long past and gone into the mists of time. Her other days were filled with darkness, and her experiences have affected her profoundly. These days, she's very quiet and withdrawn with those who are not Heralds. She won't even Mindspeak them unless it's absolutely necessary. There is rarely any joy in her eyes, although there is often an intensity to her gaze that even full Heralds find disconcerting. It's because she seems to know everything you're thinking with a glance. Which is entirely possible, given the strength of that Gift. She also has a strong Bardic Gift, hence her love of music.

Song can become very angry when she sees cruelty and suffering. It echoes inside her and awakens the Herald in her. If she spots anyone doing something that hurts another living being, she'll go up to them, fury blazing in her eyes, and beleaguer the aggressor with her Mindspeech. It is a cause like this that makes her speak out. In her mind, no one has any right to take unfair advantage of anyone else. On the other hand, she is very kind to the victim. She might not be able to speak to them, to give them verbal reassurance, but her eyes, ages older than they should be, tell them that she knows how they feel, what they feel, because she's been down that road. She knows the meaning of despair.

Short Life Story: Before she was Songlight, she was Cori, the child of poor parents in the murkier parts of Haven. Her mother and her father died of fever when she was five, and she spent a miserable three years slaving for her uncle. Then her life took a turn for the worst. Her uncle sold her to a dealer, who sold her to a whorehouse. There she worked for nearly six years. She caught the eye of a merchant with perverse tastes, and he bought her. He kept her in the cellar, never to see the light of day. There came a day when she overheard him talking about a plot against the Crown. He heard her gasp, and savagely attacked her, trying to strangle her. Unable to call for help physically, she did it mentally.
Her Companion-to-be, Ilian, heard her and saved her from certain death. But she had lost her voice. It was a hard blow to her, for she had the Bardic Gift, and had loved to sing. If a Bard had ever come across her before Jorgen got his hands on her, she would have been safe. As it is, she can no longer speak with anything but her mind, but that is enough.
She took a new name after she got away from the Healers, so that she could leave her past behind her. The Healers called her the `song and light girl,' because, at first, she'd tried over and over again to sing with her silent voice. And to this day she cannot bear to be in the darkness without a light. The memories of that dark cellar remain.

Companion: Ilian, stallion