Mella

Like most other sea elves, Mella is an isolationist by nature but values a good alliance when needed. She can seem distant and cautious towards others upon first introduction but can always be relied on to come to an ally's aid even if she isn't usually the first to leap into battle. Raised beneath the waves, she is drawn towards exploring the unknown and deeply curious about her surroundings. Having grown up in a mostly self-sufficient community, she learned how to take care of herself from a young age without needing anyone else's help, but her many years on ships and boats also taught her the importance of a crew and how sometimes you're better off not being alone.
Mella grew up in a small underwater community a fair distance away from a coastal area. She loved nothing more than being exposed to the different seafolk races who lived nearby and was enthralled by the strange human fishermen who sometimes wandered in too far off from their routes. While most people in her insular community were distrustful of these surface-dwelling strangers and kept limited interactions with them if possible, ever since she was a young elf, Mella found herself gravitating towards the shallow waters in an effort to cross paths with boats and ships or at the very least study them from a safe distance away. It was in this manner that she first saw Aden, a beautiful raven-haired half elf.
After many observations, Mella couldn't resist venturing closer, eventually swimming right up to the stern of the boat Aden was perched on as she serenely looked out at the sea froth spewing from the boat's margins as it cut a path across the water. The pair became fast friends, much to Mella's delight since she had very few close connections beyond her immediate family clan. Aden was the daughter of a human fisherman and an elven mother who she had no memories of, only stories her father had told her of what her mother was like before she had left them.
Her father had raised Aden by himself on the seas ever since she was a very young child. Aden told Mella stories of her father's hometown of Redstone by the ice coast and all of the far-flung places they had traveled to between here and there. Mella looked forward to every summer season because that was when the human boats that carried Aden would return on their routes. The two of them spent every sun-soaked day together, imagining all that existed beyond what they knew and how one day they would explore it all together. Mella was fascinated by the surface and adored her new living encyclopedia of all things strange and foreign. Aden and Mella's relationship soon became romantic as they spent more time together over the years. On one fateful day, the contingent of seafaring fishermen that Aden's father was part of cast their nets beyond their normal reaches and ended up entangling a few merfolk and sea elves to a disasterous deadly end.
The sea elves and merfolk in this region formed a temporary alliance and together they fought the fishermen away from their waters in retaliation. The fishermen admitted defeat and agreed to change their boating routes and never return to this part of the sea. Faced with the thought of never seeing Aden again, Mella steeled herself to leave her little community behind and followed the path of her lover's fishing boat as they set off on their new routes. Mella's own family was astounded to watch as she chose this outsider over her own kinfolk. But young, dumb, and fully in love, Mella swam onward, driven to keep her promise to Aden that nothing would keep them apart. The other human fishermen were still battle-hungry and feeling vengeful from their defeat and loss in numbers. Aden explained that the humans would not give a warm welcome to Mella if she was spotted in the waters. Aden implored Mella to keep her distance from the boats until temperaments cooled. The following night, however, a terrible storm raged on the seas, spitting up boats haphazardly like sparks on a piece of flint. Mella was forced to dive deeper underwater to avoid the deadly thrash of the waves and soon lost track of where Aden's boat was. When she surfaced after the storm finally calmed, not a single boat was in sight. No fragments or splinters, not a soul was on the waters except for Mella. Aden was seemingly lost to her. Mella searched the sea for weeks for boat remains and any sign of her beloved, but the ocean was too vast. The humans and boats had seemingly disappeared into thin air. There was no turning back in Mella's mind, so she decided to set off for the one place she thought Aden might be if she had somehow miraculously survived the storm, Redstone.
Mella spent the next few years stopping at every port along the way to inquire about Aden. Mella picked up work gigs on ships to talk to the crew and further investigate and quickly became an experienced fisher and boater. She eventually reached the icy ports of Redstone. When she got there, there was no one who knew anything that could help ease her deepening dread that Aden was truly dead after all. It was actually worse to have no answers than to know that Aden was gone for good because this meant no peace would ever come to Mella. She would look for Aden in every swell of the sea.
Many years later, her broken heart only slightly mended by time, Mella still lingered in Redstone working in the port areas and picking up random gigs whenever she could. She had decided early on that she couldn't go home to the family she had abandoned and that this would have to be her home now. She was alone. Mella ended up re-devoting herself to nature and still had a lasting love for the sea despite all it had taken from her. She helped all the sea creatures she could and only took gigs that involved hunting one of her race's hated foes, sharks. It was while shark hunting that she crossed paths with a solitary, old human druid named Theo, who for a short while became her mentor and taught her everything he knew about how to revere and honor the natural world and showed her how to harness her affinity for nature for good. Nowadays, she spent most of her time honing her newly acquired skills.
Mella was still determined, however, to learn more about the surface world beyond and what it held. She was restless and looking for a new purpose in life. No matter where Mella went or would go though, there was always this quiet hope she carried that maybe her long-lost love wasn't gone after all. That morning, she found herself sitting among a group of strangers at the local tavern. There was no longer anything or anyone anchoring her to Redstone anymore and she had finally started to accept that. Mella felt boundless and at the same time, deeply lost to herself as she set off on a new adventure, ready to accept any challenges that came along if it meant it might help her find her way and place in the world again.

Species

Subrace: Sea Elves