Chael
Drow - Healer, Heretic, Honest

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Backstory

Chael was born beneath the cold rocky ceilings of the Underdark. Born into a minor noble house where worship is law and cruelty is doctrine. House Zauthe was a minor matron clan known more for its obedience than its power. While others waged wars for favor beneath the Spider Queen’s gaze, Zauthe perfected subservience, offering sacrifices and submission as coin.

Her earliest memories were of the fanatics screaming prayers, of slaves being whipped, and the quiet sounds of the subservient crying. Her hands were trained to hold blades, to pour poisons, to draw runes in blood. Her older sister, Nirena, was marked for priesthood early, favored by their Matron and chosen by Lolth. Chael, was smaller and silent, she was overlooked. And to the house, she was a disappointment.

As a child she always hesitated at the sight of violence. She could never understand why. She never joined any of the battles, and her hands always trembled when they held a blade.

Instead, she would do things in secret.. she would tend to the wounds of the beaten thralls, she would crush herbs into a healing salve instead of venom. When soldiers bled in training, she slipped them cloth. Her hands moved in shadows, learning the ways of poultices and pressure, not prayers. She was punished more than once, kindness in the Underdark was dissent, a rebellion.

One night, a ritual sacrificed was held. The priestesses called upon Lolth, and the cavern trembled, but nothing came. To the drow, it was a sign of divine displeasure. In desperation, to appease the spider queen they turned to violence. Nirena led the purge that followed. Chael, witnessing her sister kill in the name of an absent god, finally understood...

The gods were not cruel.
They were empty.
And in their silence, mortals made cruelty holy.

A war between three houses would soon surface and House Zauthe would become a tomb. When it finally fell, Chael was the only one to walk away. She had unknowingly saved the life of a rival houses daughter during the bloodbath, sealing a wound with silk and poultices. That mercy earned her exile instead of death.

They walked her to the edge of the Underdark and from there she would make her way to the surface.

Upon the surface, she expected to be killed, she knew drow were unwelcome, but the truth? She was simply ignored.

Wherever she went, people feared her. She would hear villagers whisper of curses and demons while she was near. Even when she saved a child from a viper's bite, the family fled with the child in tow telling her to stay away.

There was only one person who not turn her away.

An elderly herbalist named Adelaide, half blind and half mad, found Chael collapsed in the woods. She brought her back to her village and nursed her back to health with her knowledge and soon after Chael would find herself learning. The different names of plants, pressure points, salves, antidotes, potions, how the body worked. Adelaide spoke of balance and care, and also shared the same sentiment about the divine. "They take more than they give," she would mutter, "But dirt, water, and time? They always give back."

Chael stayed with her for three years.

It happened in a blur on that autumn day, raiders came for tribute, seeking resources and slaves. And when Adelaide refused to give up the children in the village, they slaughtered her. Chael tried to fight when it happened, but she was too slow, and too late. She could only try and save what was left. She found three children and led them to safety on bloodstained shoulders into the forest. In the aftermath she found Adelaide's body and buried her underneath a sycamore tree. She left a stone atop her grave and with it a note, "You healed me when no one else would... for you... for the world, I will do the same, until my hands fail me."

Years later, she heard about a ship in passing. A crew of people that took in the unwanted, or at least they would say.

By chance, or perhaps by fate, she happened upon them. They were preparing to leave, but there had been a young deckhand who had been crushed beneath a cargo crate, his breaths shallow, and his ribs shattered.

Chael stepped forward through wind and rain, with eyes like molten coins.

"Move," she said.

The people around the boy did.

She worked in silence, splitting wood for splints, tying ribs, breathing into the boy's lungs with her own. When she finished, the boy was breathing, weak, but alive.

She turned to leave.

Arden called after her, rain pouring off his shoulders, "Hold on." Chael paused, as the rain dripped off of her hood. "You got someplace you're headed?"

She turned slightly, just enough for one eye to peer over her shoulder, "Does it matter?"

He shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not... but I've got a ship... a ship full of broken things that didn't die when we were supposed to, but we could use hands like yours."

She paused for a long moment, "I don't heal for coin."

Arden nodded, "Then don't. Heal for whatever you're still running from, or whoever you couldn't save... just stay."

She turned to face him fully, silent, and studying his face. The weight of years flashing between them. "I don't kneel... I don't pray... and I don't make oaths."

Arden met her gaze, "Good, I've had enough of liars who do."

After a moment, and a long breath, she walked passed him towards the Emberwake.

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Life on the Emberwake

Chael doesn’t speak much. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t sing, and she doesn’t laugh at Dax's jokes, though once, she did smirk when he fell off the galley shelf trying to prove a point. She walks the deck like someone who’s always listening, always noticing. She knows when a limp begins, when a bruise turns, when a fever first whispers under the skin. Most of the crew doesn’t even realize they’ve been seen, until she appears at their side with a poultice, a balm, or a wordless hand guiding them to sit.

She’s awake early before most of the others and sleeps after the last soul has turned in, usually with her back to a post and a flask of herbs steeping beside her. No one ever hears her complain, but if someone listens closely, they might hear her hum beneath her breath, slow, soft melodies in a language none of them recognize. Galli says they sound like sorrow made gentle.

On the rare days when the sea is kind and the wind feels a little warmer, Chael dries herbs on the rails and teaches Lorelai how to grind them. She lets Phoebe braid her hair when there's down time. And Zugzug leaves her strange offerings, feathers, bones, once even a piece of driftwood shaped like a screaming face. She doesn't mention it, but keeps them all in a satchel stitched together from old sailcloth.

During battle, she stays back, until the fightings over. Then she’s the first at your side. Blood doesn’t faze her, and screaming doesn’t shake her. When Celu broke her arm in three places, Chael set it before anyone else even noticed she was hurt. When Grahm collapsed from a surge that nearly burned out his mind, it was Chael who brought him back with cold water, salt, and a hand on his chest.

There are coins hanging from her bunk. One for each person she couldn’t save. Every once in a while, she adds a new one. She never explains, but the crew has stopped asking. They just nod, and sometimes, late at night, someone else adds a coin beside hers.

She never claims to belong, but she’s there in every quiet moment, when Thalion sprains his wrist trying to fix a sail, when Garm returns limping after a hunt, when Rogier wakes sweating from another dream he won’t talk about.

She is not a priest, nor is she a savior.
But she is the reason they wake up with fewer scars than they should.
She is the hand you didn't notice hold yours through the night, the warmth on your brow when the world went cold, the gentle guardian that watched over you until you got better.

And although she may never believe in the gods again, everyone aboard knows this much to be true... they believe in her.

“I don’t stop the bleeding because I believe in miracles. I stop it because someone, somewhere, is waiting for them to come home.” - To Arden on why she heals

“The world teaches us to bleed and call it destiny. I learned to bandage wounds and call it defiance.” - On destiny