Fiachra, Mistress of Crebain

Character Name: Fiachra (Fee-ahk-ra), “Fi” for short.

Name Meaning: Raven

Age: 19

Date of Birth: July 3rd

Race: Man, Dunlending

Residence: The Wilds, though returns home to Dunland in between her missions.

Profession: Scout, spymaster, bird tamer.

Appearance: Pale skin, fiery hair, cut short to hang about her chin. Fi prefers this because it keeps it manageable when sleeping on the ground. She has a round, prominent nose, delicate lips, and thin eyebrows over emerald eyes. She is lithe and on the smaller side of her tall people, standing at around 5’6”, which Fiachra prefers. Roaming the wilds, she wears a hood that often casts long shadow over her eyes,

Often she is covered in dirt or grass, lying upon the ground and sleeping in the open for weeks at a time. Her armor is light, mostly leather and thick cloth, and she has a quiver of black-fletched arrows and a longbow with her at all times.

Personality: Fiachra is a young woman who is fueled by vengeance, and as such has a cold, dismissive attitude toward the lives of the Rohirrim that now pollute the lands that are rightfully hers and her peoples’. She loathes that she has needed to grow up in the mountains, barely able to scrape by on the lands they are confined to.

She is driven, she is ruthless. Fiachra is not above blood if it means her people are provided for. She loves the crebain of Dunland, though in particular her Ceallach, the creban she rescued when she was younger.



Parents:

Odhran, father. Killed by Eored.
Saraid, mother. Kidnapped by goblins. Assumed deceased.

Sibling(s): None.

Spouse: None.

Children: Ceallach, her obsidian-winged creban. Stands nearly a foot tall, and is trained to respond to her whistles.

History:

Fiachra was born on a hot day in the mountains, and the musing is that the sun seeped into her blood and not only turned her hair red but gave her the fire she harbors in her blood.

She, like all Dunlendings, was raised well-drowned in the stories and repetitions of how those of Rohan, and those of Gondor, took their land. They drove them from the graves of their ancestors, left them with little land but the rocky, unwelcoming mountains they now struggled to eke living from. Not only were the grounds inhospitable, but the caverns under the hills were home to foul sorts.

Goblins were a frequent issue, and it seemed almost monthly there were raids during the night. When she was small, barely five winters old, there came a raid that changed her home forever. Her mother was taken while her father was out on raid, and Fiachra sat and cried as the beasts were beaten back, and her mother’s cries echoed through the stone back down to her. If you ask her now, she can tell the story without flinching. She does not remember much of her mother; in fact, she finds the woman’s death to be little more than a milestone, for that was when things began to change.

Her father, unwilling to abandon the fight for their land, began to include his young daughter in as much of the trainings and excursions as he could manage. As such, the girl became proficient upon the frontlines long before the boys her age, developing and using an archery skill to offer cover to the men as they rushed in for their raids and burning.

Fiachra grew not only desensitized to warfare and the carnage that was left by axe and sword, but grew to be a master of painting the ground red herself. By the time she was fourteen, she was working as a full fledged scout for her father and his men; it was her job to move ahead, find signs of the Eored and their passing, locate villages ripe for the raiding, and report back to the men.

It was a job she not only excelled at, it was one she enjoyed. Bringing the usurpers of Rohan to their knees, ridding the world of their evil and returning her kin to their ancestors became her life dream. Her obsession. Her heart’s greatest desire. She carried out the tasks given her with zeal and for a time she was content to serve as a scout. Life continued in a somewhat normal pattern. She moved across the Riddermark, scouting, and helping raid the hapless citizens of Theoden’s rule, taking back glory for Dunland one life at a time.

When she was seventeen, an Eored came through their camp, and Fiachra rose to the sound of terror, and calls for arms.

The next moments were a blur.

The horses trampled through. The screams of her people, the heroes of Dunland, became a tomb, and they were left to stain the grasses with their blood. Fiachra barely managed to escape with her own life, narrowly missing the hooves of a mighty black mare and the sword of the giant astride her. Her father was slain, however, along with nearly all of her kin. Some were cut as they fled the field, for the Rohirrim praised their cowards and gave them positions of might. She managed to perch amongst the hills and rocks and outlast them; none knew to look for her, and she could hold her own for many days.

The Eored left, the large man with the black mare at their head, and naught but ghosts were left of the men she had traveled with. That was when she saw the Crebain descend from the mountains to scavenge their meal from the dead. She began to descend, seeking to discover the true fate of her father. It took her a long time to find him amidst the carnage, and the wounds she had taken slowed her movement. Only a few of the Dunlending men were left to help sift through the bodies and belongings. Her father had been cut down, the sight gruesome.

Even now, years later, she dreams of the scene and the way her father’s eyes were frozen open, stab wound straight through his neck.

For a time, Fiarchra was lost.

She continued to serve, though her zeal was replaced now with fury and want for vengeance. She spoke often of the man astride the black horse, and her dreams were horror-filled dances of visions of that day. Her work suffered, for she was alone, haunted by the fact that her father was not buried in the lands of his fathers. 

This fog persisted for a time, until she discovered a creban egg in a nest. She had been sent to scout ahead, and was hoping for a meal; something to tide her over until she could find the game she was hunting in the parched places of Dunland. Something told her, though, that the egg in her hand was not for food.

The egg hatched in her hand.

The small, strange looking hatchling immediately took to her, and Fiachra found purpose renewed in feeding and caring for the baby bird. Ceallach, she named it. A friend for her, and one that aided in her cause.

Ceallach is now an extra pair of eyes when she is on her scouts. While Fiachra no longer fights alongside her father, she carries the banner of Dunland still and brings pain and arrows for those of Rohan or Gondor that cross her path; she will not stand for the usurpers to remain. 

“We are the last. Never again shall we submit.”