Rohiriel

[Akilinia]

Name: Rohiriel

Age: 121

Race: Elf

Allegiance: None

Physical Description:

Rohiriel is very much the classic elf in her appearance. Her hair is comparable to snow in color. It is the lightest shade of blonde, and falls to her lower back in a sheer curtain. Although she spends most of her time in the grand library - reading books is hardly a task in which long hair would interfere- she prefers to keep it confined to one long braid. During an earlier time in her life having loose hair would have cost her life as it provides the perfect handhold for opponents and can blind one in the midst of a battle. The practice of braiding her hair is remnant from such a time, although she refrains from weaving stilettos in her hair as she would have then and has replaced them with ribbons of varying hues. The ribbons are her only adornments other than a small amber amulet set in delicate golden swirls that hangs around her neck on a gold chain. It was given to her by her mother long ago when she left for the city of Ellesmera for protection, love and luck, and a reminder that she always had a home to return to. She also uses the gem as a place to store magic. It is not as useful as a diamond, but she often finds herself reminding herself that she no longer has a need to have access to endless stores of magic.

The face her hair frames is elegant. Rohiriel's skin is pale ivory and unblemished. She has the high cheekbones of her kind, and the pointed ears, which are made all the more visible by the way she wears her hair. Her lips are light pink and full, but would be infinitely more appealing if they were not naturally shaped into a frown. It is not as if Rohiriel is reluctant to offer a smile when the rare person does speak with her, it is more out of habit that she maintains a facade of displeasure. A pleased assassin is either on the precipice of insanity or regarded as exceedingly dangerous. For what can please an assassin if not the death of their target? It was always better to be emotionless or unpleasant. Her eyes are probably the most unusual thing about her in the way of appearance. They are cat-like and slanted like the rest of her people, but they are such a pale blue they almost appear to be white. The irises of her eyes are barely discernable from the whites of them, and if it weren't for the black of her pupil, she would appear to be blind. This color is a change she made magically when she abandoned Ellesmera and her life as an assassin to come to the Grand Library of Ilirea. Her natural eye color is a very dark blue, similar in color to a sapphire. The appearance of blindness she conveys reminds her every time she looks in the mirror not to be blind to people's motivations as she was in the elven capital.

In addition to the color of her eyes, Rohiriel wears a scar across her collar bone as a reminder of her past in Ellesmera. The white hue of it stands out even against the paleness of her skin. It stretches from the point of one side of her collar bone to the edge of her right shoulder in an eerily straight line. She acquired it when an assassin sent after her by the noble she was working for in Ellesmera tried to kill her. It is a reminder, and a mark of the betrayal she felt. She prefers to keep it hidden by wearing high collared tunics.

Similar to others of her kind she is tall, reaching just over six feet, and willowy. However, despite her delicate build she is not without muscle. Her arms and legs are framed with lean ropes of muscle, and her stomach is taught. She moves not with the awkwardness one would expect of someone of her height, but with the loose, fluid motion of someone who knows how to use their body. Rohiriel often attempts to disguise the athletic way she moves by being clumsy in the presence of others or walking as if her legs are stiff from sitting on the stone floor of the library with her back propped up against one of the library's innumerable bookshelves with a scroll or novel spread in her lap.

To hide the muscles that still riddle her frame despite the inactive nature of her daily routine, she wears loose clothing. Most days, she wears loose silk leggings with a long tunic that falls to her knees and has slits up the sides to mid-thigh in order to give the wearer free movement. Although the loose clothing is to hide her muscles, it is also so she can carry a knife or two. Even if she has rejected her past, the instincts that she built during that time are not so easily dismissed. She knows that the likelihood of someone threatening her in Ilirea, let alone in the Grand Library, is highly improbable, but she is unable to feel secure without a weapon to defend herself with. If someone were to search her, they would find a long knife strapped flat to her spine at the very least, but more often than not they would also discover a spring loaded dagger no longer than her pinky strapped to the inside of her wrist or a boot knife on her upper thigh, accessible through a minute slit in her leggings. It depends on how secure she is feeling that day. Some days she is able to convince herself of her safety in the library and can leave her house with only the knife on her back, while other days she has two or three blades on her person.

Her prized possession is a young filly that she keeps at her small cottage at the edge of Ilirea. It is descended from the line her parents breed. The filly is a beautiful gray, just beginning to whiten. She has dapples on her flanks, shoulders and spread along the bottom of her barrel, and her mane and tail are a dark gray, just beginning to turn white at the ends. She is tall for a mare, reaching nearly seventeen hands at the young age of three. She is solidly built, but slim enough that she can run long distances without tiring. Her barrel is large to accommodate her lungs and her throat is open for easy breathing. Her legs are of solid bone, and her feet are large and sturdy. Her hair feels like silk, and her mane has been left to grow unchecked down her beautifully crested neck. Rohiriel often braids lilies into it. She calls the mare Datia, mists in the ancient language, for the bright white color her coat will be.

Personality:

Rohiriel's subconscious is of two minds; the assassin, and the elf who was raised by horse merchants and spends her days in the Grand Library. Although in most this would be a sign of insanity, she does not hear the voices of both. They are more instincts than conscious creatures. Although she was raised as a horse merchant's daughter, and should always be affected by that upbringing, being an assassin for so many years stains one's thoughts. It is like a disease, or a mask that will not come off. It starts off as a struggle to think like a killer, or to react without hesitation, or to act as if someone is always looking to avenge the murder of their brother or sister. Then it becomes a habit, and then an instinct. Assassins do not survive unless they are able to do their job without hesitation and as if it were a natural thing. That split second of hesitation can mean the escape of the target, or even being seen by someone other than the target which just turns that person into another target. Instincts like that do not just disappear because a person stops being an assassin. Rohiriel is forever watching her back and reacting to cues that no longer mean anything.

As a result of this, she is hesitant to trust herself in the presence of others. She always fears that she will react like an assassin would: with a knife that will result in the death of someone who only wanted to introduce themselves. Consequently, Rohiriel condemns herself to solitude in the library, and over the years she has become content only hearing the whisper of pages as she turns them or the soft footfalls of others in the Grand Library as they organize the books on their shelves. This does not mean that she does not yearn for the contact of others, but simply that more often than not she places their survival above her need for social interactions. She does not shy away from the odd person who feels brave enough to approach the sullen elf in the back of the library, but she avoids physical contact and rarely returns feelings of friendship. She holds the vagueness of "someday" before her like a shield, and promises that eventually she will be brave enough to risk friendship or even contact with another person.

It may not just be the threat of causing harm to others that prevents her from trusting. During her time in Du Weldenvarden she had her trust severely betrayed, and her talents were abused by a noble she had regarded as a friend. Although she may offer the possibility of harming someone as a reason not to get close, it is also that she is afraid any trust or friendship she offers will be betrayed as it was in Ellesmera.

It is most likely a result of her upbringing in the wilderness where it was necessary to be able to defend yourself, but Rohiriel has always loved fighting. Along with horseback riding, it is something she was a natural at. She often desires spar with other elves in Ilirea, but fears that such violence will stir the remnants of the assassin in her, and that all her years of solitude will be for naught. She cannot help but maintain her skills however, and often spends time at her cottage running through routines or shooting a target she hung from a tree. In addition to staying fit, Rohiriel's often rides her young filly, Datia, through the woods. She refuses to admit it to herself, but even though she may enjoy simply riding for pleasure, it is also a comforting reminder of home, a place she is ashamed to visit after the atrocities she committed in the elven capital. She also enjoys reading the texts in the Grand Library. She does not confine herself there solely as a punishment. Rohiriel loves escaping her own reality to visit the rich realms woven by the authors of the text, but she also reads to study the history of Alagaesia. She hopes to learn from the mistakes of others to avoid making more of her own.

Aside from her odd quirks, Rohiriel also harbors the elves' adoration for nature. Having been raised in the wilderness outside of Ellesméra as the daughter of a famed horse merchant, she appreciates the calm beauty of nature and has an adoration for horses that has persisted throughout her entire life. Even now, in her small cottage at the edge of Ilirea, Rohiriel has a beautiful filly descended from the original horse her parents gave her when she left their home.

History:

Rohiriel Aleandare was born to a small merchant family in the forest of Du Weldenvarden. They were famed for the quality of their horses and made trips to Ellesmera periodically to sell some of their stock. Rohiriel was a natural with horses. She was riding by the time she was big enough to stay on by herself, and as she got older, when she rode it was like she was a part of the horse. She loved living in the solitary of their small home, but as she grew older, she began to yearn for companions other than her own parents and the horses. She remembered the beauty of Ellesmera from their biannual visits to the elven capital with the adoration and majesty only a child is capable of. The beautiful way the houses were grown from the towering trees in the city, and the variety of people captivated her. She could not wait until she was old enough to go there on her own.

When she was of age, her parents sent her to Ilirea to learn to harness the magic she had been born with. She was moderately gifted, but never had much interest in magic. Despite her disinterest Rohiriel excelled at the art of illusion and camouflage. Her masters deduced that it was her upbringing in the forest that caused it. They believed that even though she was capable of blending physically with the forest, her subconscious wanted to blend more completely. Consequently, she spent her years in Ilirea learning the fine arts of illusion, and when she graduated, she had become quite adept at them. Shortly after her graduation, Rohiriel returned to her parents’ farm. She stayed there long enough to grow restless, and then announced that she would be going to the elven capital of Ellesmera. She had learned of the impending war in Ilirea and was convinced that her presence in the capital would make a difference. Her parents felt uneasy at the prospect of losing their innocent daughter among the intrigues of the capital, but when their attempts to dissuade her failed, they sent her off with their blessing. Her mother gave her an amber amulet to protect her, and her father gifted her with one of their best mares, extracting the promise to continue to breed her from his daughter’s lips.

When she arrived as Ellesmera, she was immediately befriended by a noble. The noble, used to the intricacies of court life, offered to help her make a difference in the capital. She agreed, and her life as an assassin began. The noble was of the mind that the quickest way to make a difference was to remove any obstacles in one’s way. He imparted this wisdom on Rohiriel, and in her naiveté, she believed him. He trained her to wield all kinds of weapons with deadly accuracy, and she learned to use the arts of illusion she excelled in to enhance what the noble taught her. Perhaps if she had not been so enthralled with the city itself, with the grandness that was a noble’s life, or if she had not liked fighting so much, she would have been able to avoid the situation entirely.

A few years after her arrival in the capital, the noble gave her first target to her. He was careful not to allow Rohiriel to see the target as a person. He portrayed the target as only an obstacle in the path to change, and having learned that philosophy from the noble upon her arrival in the city, she did not question her actions. She killed him. She never felt sorrow, only pleasure in knowing that she had made a difference. The next time the noble told her to kill, she did it without hesitation, and without regret or shame or any of the emotions her soul should have been feeling. The noble named her Lomiel to protect her identity from those who might wish to prevent her from killing again. It meant daughter of dusk or gloom, and she cloaked herself in her new identity like a mask. Lomiel was a killer. Even if Rohiriel might have eventually realized the enormity of her actions, Lomiel did not.

It was not until she was asked to kill a man who was skilled with a sword that she began to question her actions. As a result of his skill, which the noble failed to mention when he gave her the target, the man managed to prevent her from killing him immediately, or at least long enough to ask her why she killed people. Anything else he might have said was cut off by her blade, but that question remained lodged in the back of her mind. She began to question why she was killing, and what she planned to accomplish. She had killed too many people to count, originally because she believed that would free the way for change in Ellesmera, but years into it she had still not seen any change. Looking back on it she realized how foolish she had been to think such violence could change anything, especially among a race so old as the elves. Her people went centuries without changing. Why should the deaths of people she did not even know why she was killing change anything? She began to ask the noble questions, and soon realized that she had only been killing people who were interfering with the noble’s own goals. She also discovered that the noble did not intend to better Ellesmera, he was only concerned with rising in power in the court.

The noble began to become unsettled with the questions she was asking and he hired another assassin to kill her in his fear that she might turn against him. Having become more skilled in the art of killing and murder than the noble realized, she killed the assassin he sent after her, but she did not escape unscathed. The assassin managed to cut her across her collar bone in his attempt to slit her throat. He had only failed to cut her throat because of her quick reflexes. She decided to keep the scar and changed her eye color in order make them appear blind as a reminder to herself of what had transpired in Ellesmera. Over the next few days she pondered whether or not to kill the noble. Part of her wanted to just to get revenge on him for using her in such a despicable way, but another part of her was tired of killing and just wanted to leave Ellesmera. She finally decided to kill him, figuring that since she was responsible for helping such a corrupt being rise in court, it was her duty to end him.

After she had ended his life, Rohiriel felt the need to escape all that she had done in Ellesmera. She remembered the peace of her time in Ilirea and decided that such peace of mind was what she needed to begin to wash a decade of blood from her hands. She considered returning to her parents on their little farm, but was to ashamed of what she had become. Her parents had warned her of the dangers of Ellesmera, and like the adolescent she was, she ignored their wisdom. She could not make herself face the disappointment she knew would be in their eyes. She left for Ilirea as soon as possible and closed herself away in the Grand Library, determined to learn from the mistakes of others so she could avoid making more of her own.

Roleplaying Sample:

(This isn't a roleplaying sample, and it's a little old, but it's the only thing I have saved to my computer. It's a scene from a character study I was doing, but it should give you the basic idea of how I write.)

Frost crunched under my boots as I walked; the chill of winter was in the air and my breath billowed in visible clouds when I exhaled. It was shortly past midnight and a full moon floated in the clear sky casting a white light over the fields around me. Most of the crops had been harvested a few weeks prior as a result of predictions for early frost by the human seers. The ones that had not been collected in time littered the muddied ground beneath my feet as sprigs of wrinkled brown. They were the only decorations apart from a decaying wood fence I could see stretching across the vast fields whose covering of muck glittered subtly with frost as the moonlight washed over it. Although nothing could compare to the meadows in spring when crops were just beginning to flower, the plain earth had its own brand of appeal. Soil was the basis for life; what life sprouted from and what it returned to as it decayed when its time had expired.

Death; something familiar to me as plants and harvests were not. For although I had wandered the meadows at the base of the mountains for many years, I had never experienced a harvest first hand; never relished the blisters that layered my hands as rewards for a hard day’s work in my family’s fields attempting to secure sustenance for the winter months, or steadied a plow as my horse endeavored to loosen the hard packed ground in preparation for seeds. The life of a farmer and his family was not familiar to me; death was. I was born into a legacy; one of centuries old traditions, of the thrill of wind buoying me up by my wings, but also one of death and pain. Although my life was blessed with the magnificent second form of a dragon, it was also cursed, for it was expected that I use every ounce of power I possessed to protect my charge, the daughter of my Gætir, and I failed. I failed to protect her from the very people I should never have had to protect her from; my own family.

I knew my people to be guilty of many sins, but it never occurred to me that a race created for the purpose of guarding the world’s most precious treasures could ever be capable of feeling greed. The only excuse I have discovered for the new development is that our human forms are becoming more than simple disguises. Throughout the centuries we have remained the only race on our planet to be free of humanity’s emotional weakness. The Alatus are dragons that only bear the semblance of a human form for the purpose of camouflage. Humans were taking over, and the legends of the great winged-beasts that periodically lent their wisdom to lesser races and occasionally allocated pieces of priceless treasure to creatures in need of it were being forgotten. Tales of savage dragons abducting helpless damsels were already spreading and the ancestors thought it necessary to take precautions against such lies. They decided that in order to avoid a war with humans that could only end in slaughter for the scale-less beings, we needed to blend in. At that time, our species was notably more powerful than the Alatus of the current age, and after careful study, they fashioned human forms able to conceal our dragon ones when the need arose. It must have been then that the poisonous sin of greed tainted our race, and until my family’s betrayal I remained unaware.

It was not just any kind of greed that spurred my family to do what they did; it was the variety that created a need for power. The type that produced an unyielding need to do whatever necessary to sate the thirst for authority and influence even if it meant betraying people who were nearly family to them; their charges. My family was what the Alatus refer to as Vari. Vari are a select band of warriors with the sole responsibility of ensuring the safety of the Gætir, an Alatus elected by the council of elders to maintain the treasure, and his family even if it meant sacrificing their own lives so that their charges might live. My family members must have forgotten that while in the throes of their greed, or it never mattered to them in the beginning. Either way, there was no excuse capable of justifying their reasons for leading our enemies straight to the haven of our ancestors where the treasure was kept so the Gætir and his family could be slaughtered. Vari are supposed to be the only people the Gætir can trust entirely, because the bond connecting warrior to charge is composed of the oldest magic known to our race, but in the end, it was Vari who betrayed them; my family. And I was forced to stand there next to them as my childhood friend and charge was murdered.

The crunch of a well weathered leaf beneath my foot pulled me from my thoughts momentarily, and I stooped to pick it up, admiring its resilience. Most of its brethren had returned to Mother Nature shortly after the first frost, yet it remained, alone and battered, long after the time when it was expected to have given up. I lifted the leaf up until it caught the slight breeze playing across the barren countryside, and floated away into the night. I watched it until I could no longer see it bobbing steadily through the air before I resumed walking towards my destination; the forest a few miles ahead that was visible only as a dark smudge on the horizon. Although it appeared far away, I knew the distance to be deceiving. The trees it was composed of were centuries old and stretched hundreds of feet into the air. It was one of the oldest forests around, and one of my preferred places for mulling things over. Rumors circulated about it being haunted kept humans from traversing any deeper than necessary into the forest than for gathering lumber to fuel their fires, and the number of people who knew the tales to be fallacy was not enough to ruin the peaceful silence that enveloped the woods once out of hearing range of the human villages.

A sense of urgency overtook me; an overwhelming need to be surrounded by the familiar presence of the forest’s trees, and I launched myself into a sprint. Although the speed was nothing compared to that of my dragon half, I relished the powerful feel of my body as my strides lengthened to cover the frozen earth separating me from my haven. My worries slipped from my mind momentarily as the rush of adrenaline that results from physical exertion flooded through my veins, and before I knew it, I was airborne. Wings sprouted from my shoulders to catch the wind and carry my momentum upwards, and my body contorted into a shape only remembered in legends. Scales, amber in hue, stretched to cover a form with an elegant snout and long tail, and ivory spines sprouted from my back as I continued towards the forest, body lengthened and taut for maximum speed.

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