Gwaedholon





Character Name: Gwaedholon



Name Meaning: Sindarin for, roughly, wind on the hill, or windy hill. Gwae (wind) dhol (knob of a hill, a rounded head – a hill without a sharp peak)


Age: 18 



Date of Birth: 2992 Third Age



Race: Man



Residence: Minas Tirith



Profession: restless young lady/seamstress



Appearance: willowy form; long, dark hair; grey eyes; pale skin; comely, but not a great beauty


Personality: Gwaedholon is typically a pert little miss, with too much curiosity and a restless heart. She is clever enough, and usually kind. But she is sometimes short tempered too, when she is feeling especially caged in and unsure about her future. She loves her adoptive family, having grown up to feel that Lairiel is her mother as much as Inanin was, and Lathron far more like a father than her real father – a ranger she very rarely sees. She dearly loves her cousins, whom she sees just like sisters, although, like any siblings, they can get on her nerves, of course (and she on theirs, as well). She is naïve, still, not having experienced much of life, which chafes and rankles. She feels she is old enough to become independent of her family, and wishes more than anything to know love and romance and a story book marriage to a handsome, brave, noble man. Now…if only she can get out of the house and shop long enough to find one.

Recently though, her world has been turned on its ear and once again she has lost a mother. An illness has stolen Lairiel from the family and Gwae feels the loss as keenly as her cousins. What is almost as terrible, if not equally so, is that her dearest cousin, Niphredil, has lost her hearing to the same illness. Gwae's heart is broken on her sweet cousin's behalf, and the whole house now seems drear and filled with sadness. Her longing to break free and be grown up and find a husband is now tempered by a layer of...obligation. Her uncle needs her quick, skilled fingers now more than ever. Yet though she feels she owes him everything, for having taken her into his family and raised her as how own, it also has created another undercurrent of...resentment, in her. She tries very hard not to feel that way and to remind herself constantly that life isn't all simply pursuing what you want for yourself. Lathron needs her. Niffy needs her. Her younger cousins need her too. Yet still her heart calls to be free, and to find true love...







Parents: Damrod, father, ranger of Ithilien, age 102, looks middle aged; Inanin, mother, deceased



Sibling(s): none



Spouse: none, unfortunately (from her point of view)


Children: none

Extended family, with whom she has lived most of her life: Lairiel, aunt (her mother's younger sister) recently deceased, from an illness; Lathron, uncle (Lairiel's husband/widower), 47; female cousins (Lairiel and Lathron’s daughters): Niphredil, 22, Haleth, 17, Eruli, 14, Rovain, 10



History:

Gwaedholon was an unplanned pregnancy, supposedly. Her mother’s family had lived in Minas Tirith since time out of mind. They were craftsmen, who wove the cloth others then styled and sewed into clothing. Inanin was a simple, soft spoken girl who wasn’t one to catch a man’s eye, nor seek to. In fact, when her younger sister, Lairiel, married first, and then had a child, Inanin despaired of ever finding a husband. But there was one man, a man who should never have found his way into her arms, and her bed, that she sought to claim as her own. In that, she failed, capturing only his essence. The father, Damrod, was already gone away from the city by the time she confirmed she carried his child. But Inanin waited patiently for his return, hopeful that the fact of a shared life created between the two of them would be enough to sway his conscience, if not his heart.

When Damrod learned of her situation, he did not offer to marry her. He had his reasons for this – reasons bound up in both his knowledge and his prescient belief in what lay ahead for him, and for all of them, in the years soon to come. He told her she should look to another for marital companionship and comfort. But he also pledged to always look after their child, as best he could, given his duties, which saw him away from the city almost constantly. He would be a father in what ways he could, which would be little enough.

Inanin gave birth to a girl, a daughter whom Damrod had asked be named after his dear, departed mother, Gwaedholon. Nicknamed Gwae by her mother’s family, she was a pretty little thing, and a lively baby. Thankfully, she was always in good health. When a fever swept through the city, the year she was four, she suffered only a minor illness. Sadly, the same could not be said of her poor mother. Inanin weakened and never recovered her strength, eventually passing after long weeks in her sickbed.

Damrod was away, as always, and so the little girl’s maternal family had no choice but to take her under their wing. Of course, there was never any fuss about that – they were good people and would never have abandoned her! Feeling that she would benefit from having other girls to be with, she was taken in and raised by Lairiel and Lathron, her husband. The couple was already blessed by their own little flock of chattering birds – three daughters, and no sons! One more little girl would hardly be noticed!

Gwae missed her mother terribly, but over time the pain receded. She was welcomed into her new family with open arms, and she had the type of temperament that quickly adjusted and thrived amidst the minor chaos of so many female children - there was yet one more to come along, when Gwae was eight. She did sometimes feel a slight sense of being the one who, really, was something of an outsider. Usually this didn’t bother her too much, though. She had a very close relationship especially with her cousin, Niphredil, her senior by four years. Gwae had a bit of hero worship going on – that of a younger child for an older sibling. They were truly just like sisters born, and if anyone could move Gwae’s sometimes willful heart, it was Niffy.

Under Lairiel’s tutelage, Gwae was taught the art of a seamstress. She had nimble fingers, and became both skillful and fast in her execution of orders. She most enjoyed interacting with their customers, for it gave her the opportunity to hear of what was going on beyond the four walls of their home and shop. Her father, her real father, had asked her aunt and uncle to keep a close eye on his child, seeing as he was never in a position to do so himself. Gwae often fumed about this, and felt it grossly unfair. She grew to harbor a good deal of resentment against this shadow parent who was never around but who felt like he could still dictate how her life should be.

Like most girls her age, when she reached her mid-teens she felt quite ready to launch herself as an adult, and in particular to seek, or be sought by, a husband. But her father’s instructions to her foster parents were explicit – no boys or men until he himself could be present to vet the prospective suitor’s background. Damrod felt he owed Inanin that much. Gwae felt like he was being hypocritical. He had never loved her mother, and he had never loved her (or so she thought). He only acted out of “duty.” Moreover, and more importantly, she had no idea when he’d ever be around long enough for this whole “I need to know who this man is” process to be accomplished.

In the wake of recent events, though, it seems her own desires must be put further onto the back burner. An illness that followed Niffy home struck fast and cruelly hard. Her aunt and foster mother, Lairiel, who was always somewhat weak after the birth of her last child, succumbed and the horrified family watched her pass out of this world with hearts rent with grief. As if that loss was not enough to try to bear, the fever also took her cousin's hearing - sweet Niffy, who played the harp so beautifully, and had such high hopes, had been left without the capacity to hear the notes she might never strike again. The family is still reeling, and for Gwae, it is yet another obstacle to her longed for freedom. Without his wife, her uncle has need of her skills with needle and thread. And having lost her hearing, her cousin has need of the support of all the family, for it seems she has in one stroke lost her dreams of a lifetime.

So, Gwae waits, and works, and frets, and fumes, and sometimes fusses. She is convinced she will die a spinster, forever poking her needle through cloth, with no more to life than the next stitch.