Appearance

Mentality

Personal history

Xanaphia found a fierceness in Forsdere she had liked enough to love him and give him a child. Unlike Forsdere's previous wife, Xanaphia seemed to be his equal in spirit, and if he bruised her in a domestic squabble, he might come away equally injured with a chipped tooth, a black eye, or a knot on the head after she knocked him out cold. While some men might cast such a woman from them, Forsdere felt as if destiny had brought them together, and of all his wives, he felt he had loved none better.

When she bore a girl, she named her Swillow. When the brewer wasn't drunk, Forsdere doted on both his children. He loved the cooing of his new "little bird" so much that, on a whim during festival, he bought her a doll in the likeness of Cajusta, “The Mocking Jester,” God of Comedy, Festivals and Mischief.

One night while he was deep in his cups, Xanaphia asked Forsdere if he loved her enough that he would follow her anywhere. He said yes.

She responded, "You're not that brave, my love."

Forsdere frowned and would have hit her, but darkness filled his vision, and she seemed to distort in a frightening manner as if she were not his wife, but some sort of spider-woman. He toppled into the well of unconsciousness.

In the morning she was gone, and Forsdere was too comfortable in his life in Ironhill to go after her. He did not know what he would do if he were to take his two children out into the world and away from his livelihood in order to seek their mom. Forsdere's life seemed to become more problematic with the more women who entered it and the more children they bore him.

Still, as a brewer, he prospered, and he tried to do what he could for his children. Swillow loved her Cajusta doll enough that, when she was older, she sang while playing with it, taking him with her on her adventures. Seeing her mother in her, Forsdere remembered his occasional tenderness toward the wife he loved best, and he wanted to have her in his sight more often.

Her singing was popular, not only with her family who loved her, but with all patrons of Forsdere's Inn of the Burly Brewer, and Forsdere continued to rake in more wealth. He continued to dote on his daughter, trying to keep his love for Xanaphia alive through his affection for her girl, buying Swillow a dulcimer and lessons.

Swillow felt that something was missing from her life, so she asked her father for more somber instruments. First a viol. Then bagpipes.

One evening when Forsdere was in a black mood from drink, sad and keening notes of her bagpipes filling air where the only people still in the common room were sleeping off their drunkenness, he grabbed Swillow hard by her long blonde hair, shouting at her. "You're going to prove faithless to me like your mother, aren't you?"

He smacked her in the face with his other hand, leaving a red hand-shaped welt on her sallow skin. Bawling, Swillow fled out into the dark.

Autumn moonlight found her shivering and cold upon the High Downs, playing her bagpipes, not just unhappy for herself, but for who her father was becoming.

A strange, cloaked figure emerged from shadows.

While frightened, Swillow was also filled with wonder when hood was drawn back to reveal features older and wiser that resembled her own. She knew it to be her mother, Xanaphia. Swillow's heart swelled with joy, and she stopped playing. The hurt from her father seemed now a lesser thing in a larger world.

Xanaphia drew Swillow’s face up in her palm. Her eyes flared as she looked over Forsdere's flushed handprint on her daughter's skin. "So your father drives you away to me finally."

"He's not always this bad," Swillow said in his defense.

"Oh, he can actually be and do much worse," Xanaphia replied, “and you're going to show him what that will get him in the end. Come with me now, for I have much to tell you before dawn and your return to your waking world." Swillow followed her mother to the burrow of her long-time forest gnome friend, Nyx Scheppen.

“That’s Nyx with a capitol N,” Nyx said upon making Swillow’s acquaintaince, “and you can call me ‘Cap’N’ like your mom does.” Nyx seemed to Swillow to be about her mom’s age, yet was lively rather than subdued, talkative rather than demure.

As fascinating as the gnome was, more intriguing still were the number of books lining stone shelves, many more than Swillow’s fingers and toes, and probably all of those of her brothers and sisters too.

“Oh, you like these, do you?” Cap’N asked, turning and stretching her arms as if she wanted to embrace her whole home. “I’m glad because Xani here wants me to be your tutor.”

“That’s for morning,” Xanaphia said. “Cap’N will not only make sure you make it back home in one piece, she’ll also make arrangements with your father to tutor you despite any objection he might have. She’s very persuasive, which is how she became my friend.”

Swillow saw her mother looking at Cap’N with fondness and realized that there was something more between the pair than just friendship. It was an odd thing to realize, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

Cap’N reached out and squeezed Xanaphia’s hand. “Well, if you want to be back among your people before dawn, I’d better let you get started. I see that your girl is nodding off, so I’ll make us some strong tea.”

Straightening up in her chair, Swillow could not believe how tired she was, and she had traveled with her mom for some while to these woods. She realized she felt safe now in a way she had not before, especially as often as her father was angry and mean to her and her siblings. She felt like she was dreaming rather than awake and reached up to touch the hurt in her cheek to confirm she wasn’t sleeping.

“Swillow, my girl, soon to be a woman,” Xanaphia addressed her. “There are so many things that you’re only now old enough to hear, for you’re entering the age of doing, when you can act upon decisions that carry consequences. So those who raised me told me, and now I in turn am going to share with you who you truly are.”

Despite being awake, Swillow soon found herself lost in a waking dream, for her mother’s words were magical with their weight. Xanaphia had been raised among the Gray Elves of the Emerald Mountains, “Gora Harmyth.” She asked her parents why she looked so different than they and others in the kingdom, their skin so pale while hers was as nightfall. Someday they would tell her, they said, when the time was right.

Years passed, and her parents seemed content to allow Xanaphia to follow her desires, which often included reading a great number of books. She was fascinated by all the history of the elven people, how far they had come, from another plane known as Alfheim. Soon, she realized that part of the answer to who she was lay in the reading, for in there she saw mention of the drow, and the elven authors spoke with great fascination of their mysterious kin.

And, as she continued to read, she knew it was time for truth. “I am drow,” she told her parents. “How is it I live among you?” And that was when they addressed Xanaphia as she had addressed Swillow at the start of this story.

Xanaphia’s mother, Vicondrala, arrived in Gora Harmyth in a bad way. She and her lover had fled their homes in the drow city of Vilik Strad when their houses were set against each other in one of the latest machinations carried out by the court of House Nightweave. They had come to Gora Harmyth intending to find sanctuary until they could seek passage to eastern Akados, where they had knowledge of a portal within the Stoneheart Forest that led to a hidden city of drow that might welcome news of their distant kin.

On the way into the Emerald Mountains, however, they were attacked as if they were spies that had been sent by Queen Arabella Nightweave herself. Xanaphia and her lover Riardon split up with his intent being to lead their pursuers away while she, pregnant with child, continued into the mountains at mercy of the elements and the wilderness.

Fortunately, Vicondrala made it safely into Gora Harmyth and delivered her daughter. Riardon never arrived, and Vicondrala left her with the family of gray elves who had rescued her on the mountain pass since she knew that traveling the wilderness with her girl while looking for her mate would likely bring about the death of them both. She never returned.

When Xanaphia learned that one or both of her true parents might be alive in the great wide world, she decided to set out to find them. Her foster parents, however, told her that, if she were to succeed in her search, then she must do much more to prepare. She trained as the gray elves did, in weapons and wands.

When Xanaphia set out, they warned her not to seek her parents in Vilik Strad, for only death awaited her there. Instead, they suggested that she seek aid from her people in the Stoneheart Forest, far off in eastern Akados, and that, if anyone could help her know her parents’ fate, it would be them.

Xanaphia spoke of her journey eastward, how she had tarried for a time in Ironhill so she could consult with the wizened gnomes of the High Downs about their knowledge of the lands to the east. It was there she met not only Cap’N, who was a student of ancient histories and more, but during her stay at Inn of the Burly Brewer, she had met her husband-soon-to-be, handsome and cruel Forsdere. As much as a mother could, she loved her daughter Swillow that she had given him, and still, when Cap’N helped her determine where in the Stoneheart Forest she must go to look for the portal, she knew she had to leave Swillow behind with full intention of returning to have her join with the drow when the time was right, “for there’s much we do there that changes our path forever.”

Like all true stories must, this one ended before every question could be answered. Willow found that her eyelids resisted remaining open despite sipping Cap’N’s bold tea. As the pain in her cheek subsided, she had one final concern to raise with her mother. “I don’t see how Cap’N is going to convince father that she is to be my tutor.”

Xanaphia smiled. “She’s hardly a stranger to him, my dear. Where do you think he acquired your musical instruments? No, he treats Cap’N with a grave respect because he knows that she is the one person who could find me if he asked.”

“Then why hasn’t he asked where you are? He still talks of you, even despite the objections of every mother who has succeeded you there.”

“Because he can’t control his fear of whom I will become, even as he himself diminishes. Deep inside, he knows he has only a small part to play in the larger picture of destiny, and rather than try to reach for greater than his station, he would sooner remain a brewer, safe at home from all but sickness and old age.”

Swillow remembered her mother saying more, but it was lost in a twilight haze as sleep overcame her. When she awoke, she found herself lying in her own bed, wondering if last night had just been a lucid dream.

While she was afraid to ask after the night’s events from her family, the answer came when she entered the inn’s common room. For there by the fire, a pile of books opened all over the table, was Cap’N.

“Oh, there you are! And high time too! Come get your first lesson along with breakfast,” the gnome said. Her face cracked into a large smile.

Cap’N taught Swillow for some time before her father awoke, hungover and grim.

“What are you doing here, Nyx?” he asked.

“Ensuring that your daughter knows a lot more than music, Forsdere! I’m going to be teaching her topics that even you know but little.”

“I’m not about to pay for anything that won’t benefit business,” Forsdere replied.

The smile disappeared from Cap’N’s face. “It’s her mother’s wish that she learn these things.”

Forsdere looked down at his feet. His fists clenched multiple times before giving up on an internal struggle. “Okay then,” he said, “but it’s not going to get in the way of her performing and her other work here.”

He turned to his daughter, his eyes wide with suppressed rage. His expression softened when he saw the bruise upon her cheek and remembered what he had done. “Swillow, I forbid you from playing any more morose music around here unless someone calls for it. You’ll have to practice those pieces elsewhere. Nyx, can’t you give her something more cheery for play? Like a pan flute?”

The gnome beamed once more. “Absolutely, Forsdere, my dear, and now that you’re going to be my main customer, I’ll charge you what I would anyone else!”

The brewer said not a word and turned on his heel. A couple minutes later he returned, shoving his latest wife, holding a bag of coin, through the door. Her clothing was torn and disheveled, and her hair fell in disarray.

He pointed to where Swillow sat with Cap’N. “You’ll be in charge of running the inn today, Marla. You can start by paying that gnome over there!” He took an apron off the wall, threw it at his raven-haired wife, and then stomped off through the kitchen, most likely off to the cellar to brew.

And probably drink, Swillow thought. Still, morning was going better than expected, judging by her stepmom only having torn clothing and no visible bruises.

Swillow’s learning proceeded through that day and many days to follow, often in Cap’N’s bright burrow. Swillow’s interest in the world beyond Ironhill bloomed as Cap’N taught her of all manner of arcana, encouraged her to read various perspectives on historical events and of places far beyond any she knew, and at her mother’s behest, on holy days showed her illuminated folios about diverse religions, including some that might be deemed peculiar or even frowned upon by most in Ironhill.

Times at home became more troubled with the cycle of each new wife and subsequent child. While there were plenty of siblings around to handle the work of their inn and brewery, and profits had increased as Swillow’s songs became ever more ethereal and her tales by the common room’s fireside all the richer through her reading, not only did many of them grow to resent her, knowing that she trained to perform while they were stuck drudging day in and day out, her father also fattened into a frog of a man. His temper was rarely in check, even when he was sober, and more often than not, everyone tried to stay out of sight or risk his wrath and rebuke, even if there was nothing at fault.

She did have one half-brother, Smoldure, who, when he was around, stood up to their dad on her behalf and took the occasional punch upon himself that had been aimed for her. Not only did Smoldure approve of her, but he often suggested that she was the one who might become free of the hellhole that their home had become for them.

But Smoldure, Forsdere’s oldest, strained to hold his temper around their father, Swillow could see by his clenching fists, not at all different from the mannerism of their dad. And oftentimes, Smoldure would stomp off and might not return until a day or two later, and when he did return, he sometimes reeked of alcohol, vomit and perfume. She had no idea where he got coin to go out and carouse either because it was not like Forsdere paid his children.

Then there came a day when Smoldure was absent and never came back. No one had any idea where he had gone.

Swillow’s life got much worse then, as if bile that Forsdere reserved for his eldest son now found its way to her. Her father was generally all smiles in front of patrons. In their own quarters, however, torrents of Forsdere’s verbal abuse spewed over her just about every day, no matter how she performed or regardless of patron praise.

Swillow soon understood very well why Smoldure had left and had not returned, and in that recognition, she resented that her brother had left her to deal with the ever increasing weight of her father’s swelling ire at the lot that life had dealt him. A lot where his end was pregnant with wives who abandoned their children to his care and, while the older children could take on some of that responsibility, none could replace his youth and vigor that were fading within his limbs.

Late one evening, Swillow’s breaking point arrived. She played her dulcimer softly in her room, intent on a piece she played to be lost in her quiet sobbing. She wandered darkened downs in her mind, beneath the full moon that shone through the window like the hope that her mother had provided for her future. Suddenly her song was swept away when her father’s form lunged from the doorway and was grabbing her, smothering her neck with kisses and groping at her form.

While surprised, Swillow was not without weapon. While her father clumsily tried to hold her down, but before he could pin her, Swillow struck him in the eye with the hammer she had been using to play her dulcimer. Forsdere rolled off her, clutching his eye, howling and swearing after her as she ran in her night dress out into darkness.

She made it to Cap’N’s barrow barefoot, her feet bloodied from her flight. When she told her gnome mentor what had happened, she saw Cap’N frown for the first time. “We’ll make sure that your father gets what’s coming to him, Swillow. But for now, you’re going to have to become as strong as your mother and me since we have to ensure that you stay safe away from that man.”

And after Cap’N saw to her feet and gave her a warm cloak, the gnome ushered her out and away into that wondrous yet dangerous world for which Xanaphia and Cap’N had been preparing her.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Experience Points: 375

Personality

Social

Birthplace

Ironhill