Adelais, Edoras' Healing Hands

Character Name: Adelais

Name Meaning: Noble, Kind Sort

Age: 26

Date of Birth: June 1st.

Race: Man

Residence: Edoras

Profession: Healer at the Hall.

Appearance: Adelais has a youthful appearance, and looks yet like she is a loquacious, energetic girl. This now is more of a façade than anything else. If you look close enough, you can see the red-rim to her eyes, and the rosy tinge to her cheeks that does not come from sun, lady’s paint, or blush.

She is tall and lithe, standing at 5’10 and sports honey-hued hair and willowy fingers. Her smile used to carry the brightness of a midsummer sun; now, though, it is but an empty husk of what it used to be, in much the way her laughter has turned wry.

Personality:

Adelais is a vibrant young woman, expressive, and observant. She has bright laughter often on her lips, and is never seen without her characteristic smile. She loves her work at the Hall, and holds devotion in her heart to her tasks, as well as those she holds dear.

Or, at least that is what she lets people see.

Truthfully, the brightest smile at the Hall is the most broken spirit, functioning in her day to day only because mead and brennevin can numb her pain long enough to survive. She is completely and utterly dependent on the liquid to leave the house, or to fake that smile she is known for. She is plagued by ghosts, and lives in a home that is more like a tomb than abode of comfort.

Adelais does hold fast to her only friend left, though. And is loyal to those she loves. She does not, however, add new people to her heart. It is closed, and if you were not kept dear before her twentieth name day, you are going to be without luck.



Parents:

Hjordis, mother. Deceased.
Father unknown.

Hlif, grandmother. Deceased.
Erlendr, grandfather. Deceased.

Sibling(s): None.

Spouse:

None, but was at one time happily promised to Faramund. His death before her seventeenth birthday halted those plans.

Children: None.

History:

Hjordis was a bright, vibrant shield-maiden of Rohan. She had a youthful, energetic air, and a laugh that could dim the sun in the sky. Or, at least that is what Adelais was told by her grandmother. The truth is that Adelais never got the chance to meet her.

When Hjordis was eighteen, she came to tell her parents that she was with child. Though they inquired what had happened, and where the father was, Hjordis never said a single word about him. Hlif imagined it was one of the young Eored men that her daughter had taken to training alongside, though even that truly did not narrow it down.

As with all things, Hjordis took to the sudden surprise with grace and met it with laughter and smiles. She was indeed glowing and thrilled, and that characteristic brightness filled that small house in Edoras with sunlight.

Hlif and Erlendr, while concerned for their daughter’s reputation in a way that parents are often, were also to meet the new member of the family. Then, on the first of June, they were given their chance.

Hjordis had taken to labor with no fear, though it ultimately proved to be too much. There was too much blood lost, and by the end of the sixteen hour affair, Adelais was the only living legacy left of Erlendr’s line.

Erlendr and Hlif were heartbroken, though Adelais proved to be a healthy and beautiful gift to help their hearts heal. She, like her mother, was a bright and vibrant girl, and her smile healed not only them, but many upon the streets of Edoras as well.

Dagny, a local swordswoman who had been partially responsible for Hjordis’ training in the way of sword and shield, offered to continue the training with Adelais, but Adelais had not yet voiced any interest in such skills, and Hlif and Erlendr decided it was best to not surround her with the lusty boys of the Eored. They did not wish for Adelais to follow so well in her mother’s footsteps, and so this time they listened to the words of Cynburga. No swords were allowed their precious Adelais, and instead she was funneled to apprentice at the Healing Hall when she was old enough.

Adelais never voiced complaint. She was a happy child, and while she perhaps had no large interest in swords herself, she did seem to gravitate toward people who did. It did not take long before one of the girls at the hall, Runa, was a friend of hers. The girl was deemed cold by many, but Adelais did not mind. There was a charm about the younger girl that thawed through Runa’s icy exterior.

Hlif was concerned at first that Runa would drag Adelais into the world of shield-maiden training, though when it became apparent that Adelais still had no intent to wield a blade, the woman relented.

When Adelais was fourteen, her grandfather took ill, and passed that autumn. She grieved his loss like that of a father, for indeed, she had loved him as one. Hlif, too, fell into despair; for a while, the house of sunlight became storm cloud grey.

That was when Runa invited Adelais to the training grounds for the first time. Runa’s friend had recently departed for Aldburg, and Adelais suspected that when he had the girl had found Edoras a far lonelier place. Since both of them were in need of company, Adelais agreed. And it was perhaps the best decision she ever made.

Despite the fact she did not practice with blades herself, Adelais watched Runa speak with a Captain Heruthain to join the training of the recruits on her days off. But her bright smile, and pleasant demeanor caught the eye of a sixteen-year-old recruit. Faramund, as he introduced himself.

The rest of her life was shaped by those first words exchanged with him, though at the time Adelais did not know such a thing would be the case.

Faramund was a bright young man, handsome and kind, gentle and strong at once. Adelais was the brightness he wanted. As soon as Adelais had turned sixteen, Faramund went straight to her grandmother.

“When she turns seventeen, I wish to marry her.” He had told them.

Hlif had been happy to accept, for she knew she was getting up in years, and would soon be following her husband into the Halls of their Fathers. She did not want Adelais left on her own.

Adelais was ecstatic.

The March before her seventeenth name day, as the world began to thaw to spring, Adelais’ world froze. Dunlendings had come upon Faramund’s Eored in the night, and while most men fared the attack well enough, Faramund was among the handful of fallen.

A fissure opened in Adelais’ heart that day, crying over Faramund’s wrapped, cold form—and it has not yet healed. It hurt, far worse than anything Adelais was certain she could ever experience, or more than any wound she had tended. Nothing could numb the pain, nothing could keep the wound from worsening and infecting as she continued to move about the city—their city, now filled with ghosts of him.

Runa was steadfast with her, standing by her side at the funeral and covering all of the extra shifts Adelais needed of her. Something that, Adelais was certain, she would never be able to repay.

And so it was her sunlight darkened, and her smile was broken, and Adelais learned what it was to wear a mask. People told her it would get better with time, that the pain would stop.

They were wrong.

Adelais took to using mead and brennevin in the evenings to help her sleep so she would not first lie awake and feel the emptiness. All this she did in secret, and her laughter turned wry the longer the months grew away from Faramund’s death, and her eyes lost their pure sparkle. Instead, now, she held a gleam of something different.

Adelais was one of the Healing Hall ladies that could see the way Runa and Ceolmund looked at each other before they could themselves see it. She grew impatient with Runa, always begging her to say something to Ceolmund and Runa shyly refusing. “You know, if he rides out one day and doesn’t come back, you’re going to wish he knew,” Adelais had told her.

Adelais’ grandmother Hlif passed on two years after Faramund, and that fissure that had formed grew in size, and the amount of drink it took to numb its pain grew tenfold. The house was now empty save for Adelais herself. She kept her small room, and small bed. The master bedroom remained unchanged, left precisely how her grandmother had kept it, and the young woman has not yet entered it again.

Her mask became harder to keep for those who knew her well. Runa began to fret and ask Adelais questions about her mead consumption, Adelais ignored her prying.

Bitterness grew in her when Ceolmund came home on verge of death, and Runa was able to somehow save him. And once again, her drinking worsened.

Once more she picked up the role of match maker, trying to get Runa to tell Ceolmund how she felt. ”The gods have given you another chance, Runa. Don’t mess it up.”

She was there, with a pain deep behind her smile, for her friend’s marriage to that man some two years later, though perhaps that was the only thing that’s changed; Adelais drinks now more than ever, and her hidden depths of problems are starting to seep out beyond the mask she tries to keep.