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 a coarse gargoyle-hide cowl sealed with protective wax, some silver wire-framed spectacles with streaky ocean-blue lenses, a beautifully draped Elven wool cloak edged with delicately crafted cream-colored horses, a snow white spidersilk robe embroidered with a golden-maned unicorn, a blighted gold ankle cuff, a black targe bearing a rearing stallion encircled by a bronze laurel vine, 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 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, 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 he 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 Kere 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 potions and draughts 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 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 was 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 sailed to a place called Elanthia, and the journal contained vivid descriptions of the people and locale, 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 to yourself and then heal yourself at will. Feeling a kinship to her aunt and knowing that her own name was a combination of her aunt's name and 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 was complaining about not being able to harvest a fairly rare herb before it was past potency. Having been invited to join the herb gatherers for the first time the year before, Kere had noted a spot where this particular herb was likely to be found, 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. After a good 2-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 men were friends or foes. The youngest of the 3 men 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 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 while his friends would not be able to escort her all the way back to the Keep and even he himself would not be able to take her that far, 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 her route, 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 where the herbs 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 again, 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 him 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 could normally coax her husband out of his more outrageous efforts to force Kere to do his bidding and who wanted Kere to marry for love, 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 she set about being the obedient little girl, 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 and 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, 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 dusk two days from now. 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 on her route to the capital city and 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 and that he also feared her father might try to kill her as well.

Kere's Arrival in Elanthia

How Kere came to Elanthia is a mystery that even she can't fully explain. Fleeing in fear of her life following the suspected murder of her mother by her father when was 24, she remembered her desire to travel to Elanthia, and so she booked passage, and set 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 told in the middle of the night that she had arrived at her destination, a town called Riverhaven, and waking the next day, her 25th birthday, at Aldamus House. With her background as a healer and basic knowledge of empathic healing obtained from her aunt's journals, she 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 was no such country as Andovarr 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 came, she purchased a cottage outside of Haven's North Gate.