I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."

David Whyte, "Self Portrait "

Eyes of caramel and rose petal lips would nearly be enough to distract anyone greeting Belesama from the swordsman's callouses on her hands. Of average height amoung the Alfari, she walks with the grace befitting a dancer. Her lithe muscles and flowing motion give no hint that she's dangerous, and yet she served as a bodyguard successfully for some years before she journeyed through the Veil. She gives no warning of any of that in her smiles or her nature. She seems quite attuned to the joy of life.

Of course, she wears her short swords and vambrances whenever it's not horribly inappropriate, and one gets the feeling she'd never be without them, if she could avoid offense. Her time away has given her a taste for the less fine things, but there is a simplicity to the way she puts herself together, day after day.

Born to warriors under the Banner of the House of the Keep, and so there claimed, she belongs. Her first toys were spongy swords and throwing games. She has never feared passion, seeing it as the foundation of her parents' love, but she has yet to find anyone her own burns fiercely enough for to claim. It must be fierce.

Gifted, but searching for a method uniquely her, Belesama passed through the Veils years past, and has only now returned. With three quarters of a century behind her, she has matured from an impetuous, headstrong and heedless girl into and impetuous, headstrong, and slightly more cautious woman. She is young enough to remember how life's unfairness used to sting, but old enough to know when to stop pushing. Her song is full of joy, empathy for those who cannot find any, and her bright silver blades and scuffed vambrances flow through the background of the melody. Harmony is balanced, yet has bursts of near dissonance, and a searching, still unfulfilled.

I am here calling the wind
I am here calling your name
I am here calling you back
return to me
return to me

October Project, "Return To Me"

It was said by a man never crossed that Blythe was as fair as her mother. With dark hair like the black walnut, blue eyes akin to the day sky melding with the night and a form both womanly and strong, Blythe was an unusual beauty. She belongs to the wild and calls it home. She is stronger there and more sure.

A changeling found by the King’s Word, Blythe was reunited with her true mother, Muireann of the Winds, some seven summers ago. The creature with knotted hair, protruding bones and a wary gaze soon grew amongst the sway of Alfar’s mighty trees. But clean flesh and filled-out form did not ease the wariness in her blue eyes. Only the wild and her mother’s hand brought her peace in those first years.

Her song hints at an unthinkable love and a spirit uncertain as to her place amidst the Alfar. But there is hope in her song, a faint promise of seeking and returning, finding and uniting.

Status, New Years, 2007

Game Day 5

But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point, this single flame,
This single haunted memory of your face....

Sting, "A Thousand Years"

Dagnir is well over six feet tall, with a ropey build that seems unremarkable when cloaked in tunic or armor, but speaks of strength born of hard work when bare. At rest, his hair is the black of a moonless night and his eyes the pale gray of a winter sky before a gentle snow. Moved by concern for a friend (or a woman's eye), these colors bleed and change. A comrade seeking counsel in love or sympathy in mourning might find him with pleasant freckles, cozy brown hair and eyes of sympathetic blue, while a soldier seeking vengeance might see a face of demon ebony framed by flame curls and set with eyes of fire's amber. Many a pretty face has caught his attention across the room, and a moment later looked again to see him as she would wish a man to look.

He is old enough to have pursued all the arts of his house save one - knight, bodyguard, farmer, and doctor, yes; but teacher seems beyond his wisdom - yet young enough to have been forgiven several forays beyond the Veil for 'fools errands of the heart.' He has married twice, both times against Seer's advice and the wishes of his noble father... both times to mortal women. Those pairings ended even more quickly than one expects from mayflies, but he mourns them still.

A beneficial pairing was in the Cards for him, once upon a time, but his refusal drove his Alfar would-be-bride into the arms of another.

Many voices fill with pity behind his passing, despite his outward cheer and valor.

But man learns
Houndlike devotion to a universe
Whose evil is not measured, and whose careless
Unhoped-for love
Only dark patience earns.

Babette Deutsch, "Solstice"

Long limbs, graceful and lithe, whisper of subdued elegance, of courts and courtiers, though the strength of those limbs and the calluses on her hands give lie to that song. Raven-haired Eséld, she of the sea-storm eyes and burnished ivory skin is more often to be found in the forge, or on the road, than in company of nobles. And so one may find her, weaving songs of beauty and blessing with metals and gem, wood and ivory, the glory of her movements wreathed in smoke and fire, her perfect profile something out of legend until she turns to face you fully, and the rest is revealed. For at her making, the Powers who give form and function to all who are given life dragged their fingers lightly across one sculpted cheek, past her beautiful lash-shadowed eye, over one side of her marble brow; Eséld was ill-made, her radiance disfigured by fate, her physical flaws a counterpoint to the perfection of those around her, and a counterpoint to herself. She has taken to wearing a half-mask of her own making when she leaves the forge, for curiosity is a lighter burden to bear than disgust and revulsion.

Known as Eséld the Smith, or Eséld the Artificer, this woman, born to high rank in the House of the Lily and given over, unceremoniously, to the House of the Maid for her physical flaws, has a history known to many in Alfar for she is a wanderer by choice and an artisan by nature. Unsuited by temperament to fulfill the more traditional roles of the Maid, she found her calling in the House's forge where she learned the essentials of smithing weapons and the crafting of smaller, more mundane items. After her apprenticeship, she was taught the jeweler's craft, and thus a felicitous marriage of knowledge, innate aesthetics and skill came into being.

For a handful years, Eséld crafted and created only for the House of The Maid, though her reputation for artistry was carried beyond those borders. In time, her skills were granted as a boon to those the Maid wished to court, and she happily traveled where she was sent. A few years ago she was given in marriage, as a political arrangement, but her husband was so often flagrantly unfaithful, and she was so obviously unhappy, that the marriage was recently annulled. The Smith was then granted leave to travel Alfar, taking commissions as she was wont, to represent her house, to learn and to serve.

Nevermore the furious glory of your mind at work
stitching luminous tapestries of revelation and grace.
Laugh loud, my summer-poem darling, and sing now too,
for insanity’s bright kiss shines blessings divine
upon angels so wondrous and tortured as you.

Aberjhani, "Bright Kiss of Insanity"

Willowy. Lithe. Frolicksome. Wayward.

Born of a union that transcends convention, Muirne is the picture of her mother: cascading ebony hair with bright azure eyes. Hers was a life spent learning all things sensual: a life shared between the Houses of the Lily and the Door.

The youngest to enter the the tutelege of the Tower, Muirne had been tapped for her talents to see multiple realities. Strong-willed and difficult at times, Muirne proved to have great potential as a Seer focused in her studies. Muirne approaches life with a laissez-faire and almost reckless abandon. More than once she's been cautioned against her lack of personal regard; but for her, life without risk is a no life at all.

Foolish. Strong. Brave. Compassionate.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, "The Invitation"

Toireann's features are distinctive, with ashen skin that reminds one of soft colored clay and a black mane of hair that looks like midnight. His eyes are the color of twilight, both a vibrant yet deep blue, and within them (if one were to approach) can be seen silver flecks like so many stars upon the evening sky. In youth these features added to his awkwardness, but now they set him apart and he wears them well, wild and handsome in appearance. He has a well toned physique and the kind of long ropey musculature that speaks of quick movement hidden behind his stillness. He has the look about him of a man who has lived in the saddle and run with the beasts, the look of a predator and of a survivor.

Once the lanky and gaunt youth known as a Ward in the House of the Winds, Toireann has newly returned from across the Veils where he had departed so long ago on his first journey out as a Squire of only fifteen summers; a mission that was lost when it had been expected to return shortly.

His gear is black leather worn soft with long use, and within it are sown plates of armour. Upon his back is a strange sheath, not flat but more in the shape of a diamond perhaps, with a long and intricate black haft protruding from it of some alien design.

Toireann's eyes speak of things unsaid, of thing seen, and a stirring of something wild and passionate, of unknown energy, somewhere in the center of his stillness.

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the
Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What
the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth . . .
the Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream - he
awoke and found it truth.

John Keats

Truncheon is a rusty brown-haired, brown-eyed, obese man of about 50 years. Reports are that he has only been in Alfar for a few years, but he was claimed by the Serpent. He is a connoisseur of exotic pleasures and often visits The House of The Lily for dinner, all-day feasts, or any number of drug induced experiences, to name a few. He particularly enjoys the company of artists and eccentrics.

He is often seen with his traveling companion, Maiev. She is a young, extremely fit, dark-haired human woman. She appears to serve as both bodyguard and servant.

Truncheon enjoys the forest, and often takes strolls and picnics along prescribed paths around Alfar. He is also a conjurer, and is particularly interested in exploring its theoretical possibilities.

To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
The bushes they were bells;
I could not find a privacy
From Nature's sentinels.

Emily Dickenson, "To my quick ear the leaves conferred;"

Nimairafel is a young Alfari woman of the House of the Lily. Her frame is slender and she appears taller than her true five feet and seven inches of height, aided in this by a straight and proud posture. She moves with the ease and flexibility of someone used to physical exertion, but also with a deliberate caution. Her pale-blond hair is long and the locks near her face are often braided intricately, keeping her usually steady gaze free of obstruction.

Nimairafel's father is of the House of the Green and her mother is of the House of the Lily. A match between the two was strongly undesired by both of their families, as a prophecy held that descendents of theirs, both from different matches, would produce a brilliant warrior. This prophecy would not come to be if the two went against it. The two did go against it, and married in spite of vehement protest. They were shunned.

Shunned, that is, until her mother became pregnant and the unborn child was named a potential Keeper of the Cards. The couple was reluctantly accepted back into society, when their daughter, Nimairafel, was sent off to the school of the Keepers.

Nimairafel, however, had a different plan for her own life, and left Alfar for nearly a century in search of her true calling.

Now Nimairafel's song plays upon her skill with the bow -- both the mundane instrument of tourneys and the hunt and the extraordinary, magical bow she brought back from her travels in the distant edges of Alfar. It is said a Master of unmatched skill was her teacher in the distant reaches of the world. Since her return, she has won the archery division of several tourneys, and, like Heath, below, has earned the right to sit in the Master's stands of any contest in which she is not competing.

Heath has only recently come to his birthright in the House of the Bracken, as his father and mother, along with their retainers and a few other soldiers were cut off from the realm of the Alfar during one of the more devastating battles against the Line of the Lion almost 450 years ago, long before Heath was born. Further, more time than that seems to have passed in the foreign realm to which they had been banished. Having been raised in that strange place, Heath himself finally travelled to Alfar about 20 years ago with his father's signet and sword -- and the right story -- and was somewhat grudgingly accepted into House Bracken.

Since coming to Alfar, Heath has acquitted himself very well among the Knights, winning several tournaments. His brusque and forthright manner have not endeared him to all of Alfari society, however.

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

Anne Sexton, "The Truth the Dead Know"

A handsome man, of modest height and well-proportioned, olive-skinned with dark curly hair, full lips and a graceful manner, Deoradhan had the misfortune to have been stolen from out of his mother's womb and given to a human woman. He is a "changeling", therefore, and spent many years wandering the human realm, lost from his family. Since he has been restored to his house and line, he has tried very hard to become a respectable member of his new society, and has achieved some success, or at least tolerance, as a sculptor.

He is known for his quiet intensity, the mystery his past is shrouded in, his occasionally "human" outbursts of passionate emotion, and his alarming charm. He lives alone, by choice, in some apartments in a tower by the river.

Deoradhan is publicly known for a few sculptural works which have gained fame, or perhaps notoriety, for flirting with the edges of the public's taste. His tendency to allow his own "artistic interpretation" to enter into his representations is viewed as interesting, yet somehow... coarse by the traditional tastes of the Alfari.

And all about and through the gloom
Breaths from the golden clime
Are wafted like a sweet perfume
From some most ancient time.

George William Russell, "The Seer"

Eithne is a seer, famed for her skill with all the subtle forecasting tools including card reading, divining, and even fortune-telling. She has her own property outside of her House's holdings, with her own staff maintaining a grand folly and manse. It is decorated with ornaments and artwork from the most distant reaches of Alfar and perhaps beyond. Her apprentice, a young woman from the House of the Winds, shows much promise.

...Don't try to fix me,
I'm not broken.
Hello, I'm the lie
living so you can hide.

Evanescence, "Hello" from the album Fallen

Though his life has been long in the history of Alfar, King's Knight Kiervha's song has only one tale yet: his epic quest for the mystical circlet that would heal the injuries his sister sustained in a battle between Cian's forces and the Line of the Lion. After centuries, he returned with the circlet and went to take up his duties for the king once again, only to find Cian remote, and inaccessible, isolated in his great Tower.

Lady Cliodhna has gained reknown as a mistress of the glamours. Her subtle workings have been widely admired, and her ability to draw forth the images of desire of her subjects seems unmatched. Of late, her empathic abilities have almost surpassed her magical arts, so that where one ends and the other begins is difficult to say.