Spoiler: 1,730 words of more character background
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Solanin "Sol" Tyelion
The first thing you notice about this thin, angular woman, with her loosely pulled-back hair and weather-beaten clothing, is her intricately fashioned silver brooch in the shape of a dragon, with a gem in place of its eye. The next is that she's slightly unnerving. Perhaps it's because of her mismatched eyes--the left blue and the right brown--and distant gaze. Or perhaps it's something else entirely, something beyond her...
Though nominally serious, Solanin is only slightly less conversational-- but rather more inquisitive, especially if the subject in question is related to metalworking--than the average young woman. At times, however, she can seem detached due to the Voice calling her, and often struggles with doubts because of this. She's determined to prove that she's not like her monstrous mother, and, while not exactly outgoing, generally tries to be friendly or at least helpful to others. She's quite interested in the way complex devices work, and has spent some time exploring old ruins, trying to reverse-engineer the various apparati that seem to be common there.
* * *
In times long past, the minor Noble House of Tyelion was renowned--renowned in the sense, however, that it was completely unremarkable. Its elves dutifully rose up and trained and fought, but never accomplished anything particularly noteworthy. As time wore on, perhaps even its own members became tired of this repetition, and one of them turned to the craft of the smith. This marked the start of another, different, period of renown for House Tyelion--that of a House famous for its fine metalwork, in particular the work of its silversmiths. Over the years, its smiths became more and more zealous in their art, and less and less concerned with the affairs of the Heartlands, so much so that many moved to the mountain cities of the Stonewardens, in an attempt to learn more from the Dwarves and their cunning with stone and metal.
This was to be their downfall. For, living so close to that which was beyond, the House became discontent. Taking advantage of those friendships and connections they had formed, a number of Tyelions tried to force their way outside of the mountains. The Stonewardens, however, did their duty all to well. House Tyelion, already quite small, was decimated; a few members only surviving because they had never moved to the mountains in the first place. This remainder soon left the elven realms, whether of exile imposed by the Council or by their own pride, to scatter among the other cities of the Heartlands, with many abandoning what they saw as the destruction of their House--metalworking--in an effort to distance themselves as far from it as possible. Their efforts succeeded, and soon House Tyelion was lost in the waves of time. To most, that is. One elf continued in her path as a silversmith, passing her knowledge both of the craft and of the House down to her descendants. The latest in this long line is currently living in one of the larger Human settlements, Wayfeld, plying his trade as a silversmith, and listening to the tales of various wanderers of the Heartlands...
* * *
Ethas Tyelion carefully returned his saw back into its leather pouch and placed it alongside his sets of tools. The shapes and sheets of silver were stacked on his workbench, ready for him to return the next day. Rising and turning, he saw that Arin was still bent over her work, meticulously linking together tiny metal rings for some noblewomans' necklace. He was about quip about her devotion to it when a wail rent the air. Probably another human child, scared by some shadows or roughed up a bit from falling. Just yesterday a little boy had come screaming that there was a monster nearby. But one never knows...
Sighing, he headed to the door and pulled it open--and there, bizarrely enough, was a baby, wrapped in some dirty cloths and now letting out a cry almost as punctually as a clock. It was strangely gaunt--not from hunger, as it seemed lively enough--and stranger still was its mismatched eyes--one blue as a gem and the other a dark brown, now gazing into his own as he lifted up the child. There was no one visible in the gently falling dusk, when usually the children where rushing home to their parents. Strange. Sighing again, he looked at the baby in his arms. "Poor child...without a name or a family. Or a past. Almost like ourselves, you see. But at least we can give you a name." Arin was probably too absorbed in her work to scold him for talking to himself. But she would be quite interested by this...
* * *
Solanin grew up a normal child. Well, as normal as a child dropped off on the doorstep of an elven couple living in a mostly human settlement could be. Her parents made no secret of the circumstances of her arrival, but Solanin, for the most part, was perfectly happy with her adopted family, constantly romping about with the neighboring children. Assuming, at first, that her odd eyes were simply an oddity of nature, she considered herself mostly human. Or elven, as her parents noted, because of her slightly pointed ears. But all that didn't matter, just yet anyway.
From the time that she could walk, Sol showed an odd propensity towards her parents' trades, fascinated by the chains and jewels and cuffs her mother fashioned, and the silver works of her father. As she grew older, she learned all that should could from them, and spent much of her remaining free time visiting the smithy in a nearby section of the town. For metal held a wondrous mystery for her; it could be fashioned into designs intricate beyond the imagination and blades keener than a dragon's fang and colder than the ice of the mountains, and yet serve in simple yet extremely useful roles as the humble cooking-pot or hammer. And there was still so much more...
And so Sol lived a relatively carefree and curious life--until the year she turned thirteen. It was subtle at first. At times, especially when she lay awake in bed, trying to figure out how thin she could hammer a sheet of silver, the Voice tugged at her. It was only her tired mind, she told herself, and tried hard to ignore it. But it grew gradually stronger, whispering and entreating and calling her to go and come into her own, to discover her heritage and the power that awaited her. Again and again she told it, NO! I am myself. This is my family, and my home. Sol began noticing small mishaps, that maybe they had always happened before, but she was just becoming aware of them now: small filings shifting and spilling off the workbench, strange noises when no one was around, breezes blowing her notes and patterns away--when she was in the dead calm of her room. And she realized that perhaps she was not quite as human or elven as she had thought...
She began travelling with her parents to famous libraries and temples, in the hopes of finding a "cure." What they found instead was an old loremaster, who upon hearing of Sol's plight--and seeing her mismatched eyes and gaunt frame--shook his head and pronounced a diagnosis. Sol was a changeling, a half-hag. Her world came crashing down. She was part monster, a horror. She wanted to scream and rage against the world, her previously carefree life, the Voice, that cause of all her troubles. Even now it was laughing at her, and calling, calling, calling, laughing. It was the laughing that drove her over. She might have accepted it, run away from the society that she was sure would hate her. But the laughing. She would NOT. She would prove the Voice wrong. Her saddened yet loving parents reassuring her, Sol returned home to Wayfeld.
Though with the years she moved past the initial trauma, the Voice was still there. While not as strong as before, it surfaced particularly during times of doubt, always urging her--or was it mocking her? Sol tried her best to keep on with whatever she was doing, determined to make her own fate. She became even more focused on the trades of metal, learning with zealousness what little left her parents could teach her, drawn perhaps out of desperation, perhaps out of her own will more than ever to its allure. Soon she left home, with the blessing of her parents, and began journeying to places renowned for their metalwork--be it blades or armor or chalices or automatons. Her wanderings soon took her back to the old loremaster Alcarin, and after some conversation, he suggested she examine some ancient ruins in the western Heartlands--rumors told that many marvelous devices, ages old and yet able to smoothly run like new, could be found there. And rumors like these, the old loremaster knew, more than often had a grain of truth to them.
And so Sol set out on the latest stage of her life. Traveling across the wide lands, she met many strange and remarkable characters, many of whom for the most part were not as entranced by metal as she or the others she had previously met were. She again took up the guise of her childhood, telling any who asked that she was a half-elf--which could quite possibly be true, after all. Someday she would try to find who her biological father had been. Perhaps someday, but not now. The ruins were quite intriguing, and the rumors did hold more than a bit of truth: unfortunately, however, the marvelous and perfectly-working devices had turned out to be deadly traps, and while intriguing, were a bit beyond her. For now. If she ever wanted to reach that level of knowledge, she'd have to stay alive, and the ruins were not exactly helpful in ensuring this. With the Voice laughing in her head, she hastily retreated. She' come back, someday.
Sol is currently heading to Ragnarok's Den, on the account that the largest city in the Heartlands must contain some fine metal-workers or smiths. And, having never been there before, she's also very intrigued by the city itself...