Kerenelle

Description

You are War Healer Kerenelle Su'otsu of the Order of the Dragon Shield, a Human. You have an oval face, sparkling blue-green eyes and an upturned nose. Your golden brown-streaked brunette hair is very long and curly, and is worn tied back in an elegant chignon held in place by a lifelike Elven silver dolphin haircomb set with tiny sapphire chips. You have fair skin and a shapely figure. You are a bit over average height for a Human. You are an adult. You are in good shape.

You are wearing some silver wire-framed spectacles with streaky ocean-blue lenses, a snow white spidersilk robe embroidered with a golden-maned unicorn, a blighted gold ankle cuff, a silver parry stick embellished with undulating waves of pearls, a delicate wedding band of blued moonsilver set with an ocean's heart diamond, a silver filigree ring accented by geshi pearls to resemble a crashing wave and some deep blue windfish-scale sandals.

Early Life

Kere was raised in a country called Andovarr, the daughter of a man who was the second-in-command to the baron of a rustic province. Upon the return of the Baron's wife, who was sickly in health, to her family following the birth of the baron's first child, Kere's mother was pressed into service as the Lady of the Keep, where she proved to have an unexpected knack for running the household. With both of her parents busy in service to the Baron, young Kere had plenty of time to roam about the Keep, and she eventually happened upon the quarters of the Baron's Physician, an older man by the name of Senex, and while his first instinct might have been to send the child back to her mother, he observed her mixing a simple healing draught for an upset stomach and couldn't help but be curious. Asking the child what she was doing, Kere replied, "My dolly's tummy hurts and I'm making her medicine." Then asking why she chose to mix the particular herbs she had in the amounts she had, Senex was astonished to hear the reply, "I dunno. Just seemed right." When he told Kere's mother about the incident, she just laughed and said that it was probably the family gift, that there had always been at least one healer in every generation of her family, and although she herself didn't have the gift, her sister Kerennya had had it and now perhaps young Kerenelle had it as well. Senex then began training Kere, teaching her to recognize various healing herbs and where to find them, having her assist him in preparing them, and having her deliver various healing concoctions to those in the surrounding area who were ill. This proved to be a godsend for Kere, for it helped keep her out of the path of her father, who never spoke to her except to criticize her or order her around. By the time she was 12, she thoroughly despised and distrusted her father, for in addition to how poorly he treated her, there were rumors that both he and the Baron, a man by the name of Toblaron, were tied to the disappearance of various people in the province.

However, Kere's mother loved her truly, and Kere loved her as much as she despised her father. After a few years, it became apparent that Kere definitely had the family healing gift, and one day her mother handed her some journals. She told her that they had been written by Kere's Aunt Kerennya, who had died when Kere was a toddler, and that Kere might find them interesting, since Kerennya had also been a healer. It took Kere a few weeks to actually get around to cracking the first journal open, but once she did, she was hooked, for Kerennya had been a good writer, and had written of a big argument she had had with Kere's mother Luminara over her decision to marry Kere's father, and of her subsequent decision to leave her sister to her own devices for a while. Kerennya had then sailed to a place called Elanthia, and the journal contained vivid descriptions of the people and locale, her experiences, and the details of empathic healing. Kere was quite fascinated by this latter, and thought how much easier healing would be if you could just transfer wounds and sickness to yourself and then heal yourself at will. Feeling a kinship to her aunt beyond the fact that her own name was a combination of her aunt's name and that of her father's mother Nelle, Kere then determined that if the opportunity ever arose, she, too, would go to Elanthia one day.

One day when Kere was 12, Senex complained about not being able to harvest a fairly rare herb before it was past full potency. Having been invited to join the herb gatherers for the first time the autumn before, Kere had noted a spot where this particular herb was likely to be found in the spring, and, wanting to do Senex a favor as well as avoid her father's notice, she set out the following morning to find the herb, thinking she would surprise Senex by bringing it to him. After a good 3-hour hike, she eventually found and collected the herb, and as she began her way back to the Keep, bandits accosted her. However, before the bandits could finish binding her hands and ankles, an arrow whizzed out of nowhere and took one through the throat. The other two bandits immediately fled, for they had only been looking for easy prey, and within a few minutes, 3 men came out from hiding and demanded to know what she was doing in the forest alone. Kere's heart raced, uncertain as to whether these new men were friends or foes. The youngest of the 3 men, really more of an older youth, seemed to sense that she was frightened and began speaking to her with calm, soothing tones. Seeing kindness in his eyes, she haltingly told them that she was only gathering herbs for Senex, the Baron's Physician, and at this the three men shared a look. The youngest man then introduced himself as Darlton and told her that Senex was known to them and was considered a friend, and that he would take her as far as the main road that led into the Keep. On the walk back, Kere found him surprisingly easy to talk to and told him that she never traveled by the main road, since she preferred to avoid notice by the Baron's guards who were likely to report her presence there back to her father, and if he would let her take a different route she knew of, he could accompany her to within sight of the Keep. Raising an eyebrow in surprise at this, Darlton agreed and told her to tell Senex that Perdith and her son Darlton sent their greetings and to please send as many healing herbs as possible. When asked which herbs were needed and where they should be sent, Darlton simply replied that Senex would know. Kere made it back safely, and when she relayed Darlton's message, Senex merely nodded and then pressed her for the details of how they had met. When Kere told him, Senex told her that he would never let her harvest or deliver another herb ever again if she ever wandered off without telling him where she was going, that the reason he was not able to harvest the herb was that there had been reports of bandits in that area and that she could have been killed. Sobered, Kere took his lecture in silence.

Kere ran into Darlton again some 3 years later, this time when she was delivering some medicine to a widow who lived a half-day's walk from the Keep, though thankfully this time there were no bandits involved. She began to run into him more frequently on her trips for Senex, and by the time she was about 17, she and Darlton were deeply in love. Darlton came to the Keep to ask her father for her hand in marriage despite Kere's begging him not to, since she knew her father wanted her to marry for the Baron's political gain, and when Darlton made his request, he only just barely avoided being thrown in the dungeons. Her father threatened Darlton with death if he ever came to the Keep again and he forbade Kere from running any more errands outside of the walls of the Keep for Senex, no matter how urgent. Guards were posted at her door to keep her from leaving, and a maid was assigned to attend her at all times and even sleep in her quarters, reporting his daughter's activities and comings and goings 3 times a day to her father. Kere deeply resented her father's efforts to control her life, and even her mother, who felt her husband could be utterly unreasonable where their daughter was concerned and could normally coax her husband out of his more outrageous efforts to force Kere to do his bidding, had no lucking changing his mind. Kere had some ideas on how she might be able to get a message to Darlton, but with the maid always about, she couldn't act on any them. So at her mother's urging, she set about being the obedient daughter, hoping that if she seemed to be doing what her father wanted, he would eventually decide the maid was no longer necessary. After 4 months of mind-numbing boredom and delicately managing to deflect those would-be suitors her father forced her to interact with, her father finally decided she had learned her lesson and let the maid go. Kere then set her best plan into action, and within a week, she and Darlton were exchanging messages and making plans to leave the province on her 18th birthday to elope. However, fate intervened, for when she went to meet Darlton for their flight to the capital city where a family friend of Darlton's waited to marry them, he was not at the rendezvous point. His body turned up a few hours later, apparently dead of a swordthrust through the heart. Although she didn't have proof, Kere's heart told her even through her grief that at some level her father was involved in the death. A few hours after the funeral, she pulled Senex aside privately and asked if he thought it was possible her father could be responsible for Darlton's death. "Of course not," Senex growled, but that night he knocked on her door in the middle of the night and told her to get dressed for travel but to not pack anything, not even a cloak. When she complied, he motioned her to silence and then tugged her arm. He led her to a horse that he had tied, and handed her a saddlebag and a note. "Make for the capital city," he whispered to her, "and do not dawdle. Avoid the main roads until you reach the town of Greywall. Do not open the note until two full days have passed. I will tell your mother. Now go."

Bewildered, Kere did as Senex asked, knowing from past experience that he always had a reason for the things he asked her to do, no matter how strange they seemed. The saddlebag contained a cloak, some food for both herself and the horse, a pouch with some coins which she promptly put on her belt, and some notes about her route to the capital city, including which inns were safe to stay at and which should be avoided. The note he handed her was more sobering. In it, he told her that he would meet her at an inn called the Blue Dolphin that was located in the capital city near the harbor in about a month's time and that he hoped to have more to report to her at that time, but that he very much feared she was right about her father being behind her fiance's death.

Kere and Senex met according to Senex's instructions. He said that he did not have definite proof of her father's involvement in Darlton's death, just some additional leads to follow up on. He recommended that she not return to the family Keep, and rather strongly urged her to attend the Andovarr College healing program. He said he had called in some favors and she was already enrolled. He said she had too much talent as a healer not to hone her skills to the best they could be and that her school bills were already paid for. Taken aback at such generosity, Kere agreed, for she had a passion for healing. And so for the next four years, she studied healing formally, eventually graduating with honors. After that, she worked for a few years as an itinerant healer in the area just outside of the capital city. One day she received a message from her mother saying that she had something she urgently needed to tell Kere and asking her to come home, telling her that accommodations would be arranged for her away from the Keep. With trepidation, Kere made the arrangements and went home. While on her way to meet her mother, she received a message that her mother and possibly her father had been killed. Within a few hours, Senex met her and told her that she needed to leave the country and that she should not even stay for her mother's funeral. Her father's body had not been found, and his status was currently unknown. Kere refused, but the two eventually compromised on Kere telling her mother goodbye in private before the funeral and then leaving. Upon finishing the painful goodbye, her mother's personal maid slipped her two of her mother's journals as something to remember her mother by, items that to the current day are her most prized possessions. When she tried to pressure Senex into telling her what was going on, Senex said that he was also leaving the Keep, that he had a few things that HAD to be gathered, and that there just wasn't time right then. He said truly wanted to tell her, but that it would be better if she left before he did, and that he would do his best to try to meet her in the capital city, but he couldn't guarantee that he would be able to meet her before she left. Seeing actual fear in his eyes for her sake for the first time ever, she reluctantly did as he asked. Her initial plan was refuse to go anywhere once she reached the capital city until she had met with Senex and gotten a full explanation about what was going on, regardless of the danger, but when she got to the harbor in the capital city and asked about outgoing ships, there was a ship bound for Elanthia that was due to leave in 4 hours. She found out that it would be likely be at least 6 months before the next ship to Elanthia came, but it could be significantly longer than that. Of all of ships currently in the harbor, the one bound for Elanthia was the only one that really interested her, yet still she hesitated. Then something prompted her to look at one of her mother's journals. She knew her mother kept a single journal for each year, and the first one seemed to be the incomplete journal for the current year. She checked the final entry on that one, and it had been dated the morning of her mother's death. It only spoke of being anxious that an important meeting would not go well, which Kere took to mean the aborted meeting between herself and her mother. Another voice, perhaps her intuition, then prompted her to look at the second journal, which had been written during the year Kere had turned 6. Tucked inside the cover of the journal was a folded piece of parchment with her name on it. Hands trembling, Kere took the parchment and began to read:

Kere:

If you have found this note tucked into one of the journals I wrote while you were a child, I am most likely dead unexpectedly, although it is uncertain whether I died prematurely or was murdered. It is absolutely imperative that you get out of the country, and that you go as far as you can as quickly as you can. Even if it means that you have to go someplace that you don't want to go to, please go anyway - time is absolutely of the essence. Your father and Baron Toblaron have been involved in dark magic for many years, and they want to kill you to power one of their spells. Senex, who is quite a magician himself, knows more of the details of the spell they want to cast and can help you understand that part of it. When your beloved Darlton died so unexpectedly, I had Senex create a special protection spell for you that was bound to and powered by my life essence. As long as I lived, no dark magic could touch you, either to spy on you or to harm you. The cost of this spell is that it would slowly sap my life and strength. Know that Senex was vehemently opposed to casting this spell, but I insisted, and it has been my joy and delight to protect you in this way, for it feels as though I have finally redeemed the horrible mistake I made in marrying your father. There have been many days where it has been hard to keep going, but the knowledge that my life protected yours did much to keep me moving forward. Know too, my sweet daughter, that it has not been easy to keep this knowledge from you - Senex and I have had more than a few arguments about it, for he wanted me to tell you right after he cast the spell. But once your life was protected by mine, I saw no reason to worry you, given the heavy load of grief about losing Darlton that you were already carrying. I love you, Kerenelle, and I am so proud of you. I want you to go on and become the best healer you can be and marry a man you love and have a whole passel of children. It saddens me that I will most likely never be able to experience being a grandmother to your children, but if you are alive and happy and in a place where your father can't harm you, losing that is worth it. While you are welcome to read my journals, please wait to do so until you are far away from Andovarr.

I love you so much, sweet girl.

Mama

At that moment, Kere knew the choice she needed to make.

Kere's Arrival in Elanthia

How Kere came to Elanthia is a mystery that even she can't fully explain. After negotiating passage to Elanthia with the ship's captain and setting sail, she remembers being told to stay below deck for the next few weeks due to bad weather and that the trip took a few months. She also remembers being awakened in the middle of the night and told that she had arrived at her destination, a town called Riverhaven, and then being led to what she thought was an inn. Finally, she remembers waking the next day, her 25th birthday, at Aldamus House. With her background and training as a healer and basic understanding of empathic healing obtained from her aunt's journals, she immediately marched into the Empath's Guild and quietly told Nebela Mentrade that she wanted to join. It wasn't until about a year later when she was telling a friend how she had come to Elanthia that the friend told her that there is no such country as Andovarr in Elanthia.

Kere in Elanthia

Kere spent her first several circles up in Riverhaven, preferring the less crowded feel of that city to that of the Crossing. She made many friends hanging out outside of the Haven ranger tent, and eventually became an Estate Holder. When the time came, she purchased a cottage outside of Haven's North Gate.