Aelia, the Scion of Asheria's Vengeance

Aelia was born Aelia D’Berewald, born and raised at the city-state of The Principality of Asheria , third scion of a loyalist noble family. She was groomed to be a knight and agent for her house, ultimately meant as a diplomat, spy, and enforcer for her sovereign. From a young age she learned the tricks of the trade of both the courtier and the markswoman, in a very strict regime or schooling and apprenticeship. Due to her early life, she developed a taste for crossbow marksmanship (contrary to the expected, more “noble” pursue of archery), mechanical and siege engineering, owl husbandry, and once she develop the proper balance and skills she would try to sneak by everywhere and found pleasure in trying to get the jump on people. Aelia is a diehard loyalist, and was meant to marry with the noble scion of another important house. They were childhood colleagues and while she wasn’t smitten to him she had the very aristocratic and “proper” view that noble love naturally develops with time, if possible, but that duty comes first. She would eventually take apprenticeship with the Royal Huntsmarshall, and got her feelings mixed between attaining that position or that of the Royal Spymaster. She decided she wanted to be both.   During the city's fall to Soreine, the Dominion of Might , her loyalist family was hit hard on the conflict.The only battle she took part was when parts of the city were breached, and she helped the household guards to protect the noncombatants. She was sent away with other nobles from different families, most of them underage, elders or clergy. She protested but the head of the household guard convinced her that as the highest ranking noble there and with the best training, it was her noblesse oblige to not only survive, but put her crossbow to use protecting the others and the commonfolk.   gruelingShe was eventually put under the care of Quinton with his younger daughter Anika as the dwindling groups further divided to better escape notice. Aelia took on the older daughter persona, but she resented her new life. During the first few months she had many squabbles with Quinton over hiding instead of being out there helping others. It took many months for him to convince her to “let go”, and while on the outside she did “let go” in truth she just took the mental path of less resistance and kept her views secret.   Aelia would finish her training under Quinton while posing as his older daughter. Her status as former noble is a life or death secret. She passes her noble high education and demeanor as simply being a well-educated Asherian with military apprenticeship. Aelia in general tries to pass the persona of a far less able person, and acts very humble and down to earth as part of this persona. She helps as a stable hand along with Anika but also tracking and capturing horses. She also does small-game hunting to bring extra meat to the table and to trade on some furs and pelts. She uses the chances to roam the wilderness to improve her scouting and marksmanship skills. Aelia tries to hide from Quinton exactly how much she improved over the past few years.     In the past few years in Fellbright, Aelia has taken a change. She has come to terms with this idea, and is much calmer now, learning as much as she can, being a disciplined, better daughter and sister, and generally tying up loose ends. Somebody training in psychology could understand that her behavior is not unlike the one demonstrated by a suicidal person who finally commits to the act, of “finishing things up”. She disguises it as “growing up”. Aelia has adopted a new persona, and became another person. She now sees herself as the three-eyed-owl themed avenging angel, the arrow in the night that swoops down on evildoers. To her “Aelia, daughter of Quinton” is the useful masquerade that she weaves and molds as needed to fit in with the world of unsuspecting victims.      Right now she is stalling; she tells herself that she is leaving in the next coming months, as soon as the “finishes stuff up” because it would be “unfair” to her foster family and they “wouldn’t understand”. The truth is that a part of her doesn’t want to leave, and she is lying to herself on that for the past 10 months. Aelia has managed to scrounge up the few remaining Asherins copper coins that she had (a very dangerous act if found out), and hides them as her most prized possession. She plans on using those as her “calling card” once she delivers divine vengeance upon her tormentors.