Elirin/Entertainer/Seagazer

Name: Elirin

Gender: Female

Age: 212 years (33 in human years by learning, 26 by appearance)

Race: Elf

Tribe: Meladrhim

Occupation: Traveling performer

Title: Seagazer
Ever since Elirin was a small child, whenever the tribe would stay by the seaside she would spend hours just sitting and staring at it. Now as a performer, her mission as it were is to inspire dreams, which the sea symbolizes among the Meladrhim.

Appearance:

Height: 2 peds, 8 nailsbreadths

Weight: 1 pygge, 8 hebs, 1 od, 4 mut

Hair colour: Pale Ithild

Eye Colour: Barsa dusk

Physical Appearance:
Elirin has a fairly broad, muscular build with enough paunch to hide most of it. Her hands and fingers are unusually long, her nose narrow and almost beaklike, and her eyebrows fairly thick for a woman. She has a tattoo of interlocking lines in grey ink between her shoulder blades as all the other women in her tribe do and her hands and arms are laced with thin white scars from an earlier trauma (more information below). Her nails are kept short and unadorned to allow her to play instruments.

Clothing: Elirin generally wears a fairly simple wool or cotton tunic, depending on the weather, undyed but with bright, multicolored ribbon a few inches up from the cuffs or reinforcing around her elbows, a trick she learned in the city to repair stained or torn clothing cheaply. She has appliquéd or dyed interlocking rings and lines onto some, but not all of her clothes because of how time-consuming the designs are. However, her cloak and leather vest are the same ones she left the tribe with and thus dyed with the patterns, as are her wool and leather boots.

Personality:
Elirin acts fairly cynical most of the time, especially among strangers. Among friends, however, she reveals a rather more idealistic and philosophical side, sometimes spending hours noodling on her instruments and contemplating the mysteries of the world. Elirin’s sense of humor is dark and rather morbid wherever she is, generally either in sarcasm or irony. She loves her music and poetry and will read or listen to nearly any story you show her. She will also often read research books, both about her art and about crafts that Elirin has no further interest in, such as pottery. Strangely for her kind, Elirin will sometimes get so caught up in her own thirst for learning or other purpose that she fails to notice the opinions and feelings of those around her and can easily hurt their feelings, never realize, and thus never apologize. This tendency has gotten Elirin into messes before.
Strengths and Weaknesses:

   Strengths:
      Proficient on multiple instruments:
      A performer by trade, this is instrumental in Elirin’s life in the city. Her primary instruments are the lyra de braccio (a predecessor to the violin with an extra string, slightly wider and proportionately shallower body, and two sympathetic strings running underneath) and the doumbek (a middle eastern hand drum that can produce a variety of sounds).

      Good at memorization:
      Again, this is a skill that is necessary for Elirin’s trade. As a Meladrhim elf, memorizing comes easily to her and she uses it not only to learn musical scores, but also the tales and poetry of her people and others.

   Skilled with the bow and the dagger:
      Basic self-defense skills are something every Meladrhim learns from a fairly young age. When Elirin left the tribe, she traded her longbow for a short recurve bow as it was easier to store, but continued to carry her two daggers with her everywhere. These are emblazoned with the pattern of interlocking lines on the pommel, as are the tips and the grip of her bow. Elirin’s daggers each have a 2-palmspan long blade, her bow has a 1 ped, 6 nailsbreadth draw length and pulls 3 hebs, 9 mut.
   Weaknesses:

      Highly claustrophobic:
      As a child, Elirin once got trapped while exploring alone in a cave that started collapsing behind her. By the time the tribe found her and managed to move enough of the rockslide to let her crawl out, Elirin had been there for hours and the air was starting to go bad. Ever since, she hates being in small rooms, always left any windows or doors open that she possibly can, and avoids entering buildings at all if possible. Fortunately, time’s passage has soothed her enough that Elirin is willing to enter confined spaces if she has a quick way outside, though coaxing her into a truly small or windowless room is difficult.

      Stutter:
      Strangely enough, Elirin has always stuttered when she speaks, though not when performing. This often takes people by surprise and makes it difficult for her to hold down a good job since many people assume that she’s incompetent or stupid because of the stutter.

      Nyctophobia:
      Before the aforementioned cave incident, Elirin loved the darkness. She could sit in bed for hours, sometimes, imagining strange people and creatures living out impossible lives in the shadows of night. But while she was trapped in the cave, Elirin tried to hide within her daydreams, but found that as she grew more and more anxious, the creatures she imagined in the darkness turned nastier and crueler. For several years afterward, the dark held nothing but secret terrors until an older friend in the tribe learned of it and taught Elirin how to control her fear and her thoughts. Now Elirin can be alone in the dark only if she has something to focus on that lets her keep herself together or if she can block out the world entirely. She sleeps with a candle every night that she possibly can.

History:

Elirin was born to the Meladrhim and took to the lifestyle almost immediately. She grew up with her parents and siblings, but the entire tribe acted as a family to Elirin, as tends to happen in such a tight-knit group. When she was younger, a teenager by knowledge, Elirin was out hunting with a dear friend named Ranir in the foothills of the Prominent Mountains. She had spotted a deer and was getting into position to shoot it when she heard a yell. Ranir. Elirin ran toward the sound, frightening the deer, and broke into a clearing where she saw a great bear with red-tinted fur. It was up on its hind legs and as Elirin watched, the blood bear swiped at her friend, eyes burning karikrimson. She yelled in anger, drawing her bow even though Elirin knew that such a light weapon would be unlikely to pierce the bear’s thick hide. The arrow Elirin loosed flew toward the beast and somehow managed to stick in its hide. The bear turned. Ranir glanced at Elirin in shock which quickly transformed into horror as the bear walked heavily to Elirin. As Elirin watched, paralyzed, her friend threw himself at the bear, tackling it from behind. It roared and turned again, disemboweling him with a swipe of a claw. Elirin ran.
Unfortunately, bears are one of the fastest land animals alive. It caught up with the elf in a few strides. Elirin wheeled and panicked, spinning around as a sudden fury came over her.
“You killed him,” she whispered hoarsely. Elirin made a fist as her rational mind hid in a corner, stopped, and punched the bear in the teeth. It growled, and Elirin punched again, this time with her other hand. Just as the bear was about to strike Elirin at last, another arrow pierced its shoulder, this one fletched with blue. The other hunters must have heard and come to help, Elirin realized in a daze. A pair of leather-gloved hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her away, back toward the camp.
Elirin stared blankly at the fire while it crackled and danced. Her hands were wrapped in bandages that smelled of bitter disinfecting herbs and a cloak hung haphazardly over her shoulders. Everyone else had gone to bed but merely entering the tent where she slept had made Elirin feel as if the space it was so small as to be suffocating. She began listing her injuries to herself. Six finger bones: Broken. One wrist: Broken. One heart: Broken.

Weapons:
2 daggers with a 2-palmspan double-edged blade, a gift from her mother.
1 short recurve bow with a draw length of 1 ped, 6 nailsbreadths that pulls 3 hebs, 9 mut. Fletching is two feathers of whatever she can find and one black feather.

Belongings:

Clothing
1 long grey cloak with Meladrhim motif
1 ceramic doumbek with leather head
1 lira de braccio and bow
10 extra lira strings, gut
24 arrows in a wooden quiver
15 peds of strong rope
Eating utensils
1 bundle of 20 candles
Matches/firestarter

Familiars:
A small tabby Brendolian Cat named Siru that follows Elirin around wherever she goes and has done so since he was a kitten. Elirin has long since taken to feeding him and he has proved fairly useful since then. His short fur runs from pale cinnabar to greyish allia in color and his eyes are herne green.