Alagoniel Dagnir Drauga of the North
Apr 18, 2018 10:16:28 GMT -5
Post by Alagoniel on Apr 18, 2018 10:16:28 GMT -5
.The Facade.
Character Name: Alagoniel Dagnir Drauga, often called “Goni” or “Drauga”.
Name Meaning:
Alagoniel – “Daughter of a Windstorm”
Dagnir Drauga – An appellation earned that means “Wolf’s Bane”.
Age: 32, ~25 equivalent for Dunedain.
Date of Birth: August 30th.
Race: Man, Dunedain of the North.
Residence: Goni is quite at home in the wilds, though considers “home” the Angle south of Rivendell.
Profession: Ranger, tracker, hunter, wolf-feller.
Appearance: Alagoniel is relatively taller than the women of the “middle men”, yet not greater in stature than those of the Faithful. She is lithe without being overly slender, with eyes like grey skies in winter. She has black hair, well kept despite her often-outdoors circumstances.
She wears dark colors exclusively, finding the secrecy they grant her in the shadows preferable to beauty and style. They were worn, as is to be expected for one who spends so much time upon the wide roads of Middle-Earth, seeking ever to reclaim the home of her fore-fathers from darkness and desolation.
Goni carries her share of scars. Along her jaw and behind her left ear she has the remnants of deep punctures from the bite of a warg, and while few see them, she is also heavily scarred upon her back where the same beast’s claws nearly eviscerated her. They can be garish in sight, for the wounds themselves were nearly fatal to her. As such she takes special care to keep her hair down to hide the ones about her face as best as she can.
Personality: Alagoniel was born during a windstorm with great lightning and booming thunder; this same hurricane is in her blood. She was, even from youth, spirited and forceful, looking ahead in years and never contented to be where and when she was. “When I’m older” peppered much of what the girl said in her youth, and great were her dreams.
In the Angle, south of Rivendell, she was raised to be keen of nature, and quick of wit. These things she yet carries, finding the land equally as homey as cities or villages, and perhaps moreso. She held confidence in herself for her skill, finding fulfillment in her blade work and coming service to the Dunedain. Never vain, she hardly acknowledged that to some she would have been considered lovely, for she was always rougher in nature than some of the women of the tribe and when set next to the lovely, delicate elves of Rivendell she frequented with her family, came across near as a man.
Now, her face is hard and frowning, cold flame in her eyes like storms. Goni will avoid all contact with others if possible, skirting around pleasantries to directly handle business, and perhaps could be described as outright hostile. Despite the decay of her talents and body, Alagoniel is yet spirited, and it comes across like raging dragon's fire. She is desperate to present a mask of surety and competence where none now exists, and looks upon the coming days with fear she will not speak on to any.
Her confidence is battered and gone, and though she did not consider beauty a true asset, she now considers it often and not necessarily willingly. She has grown embittered to the elves for their grace and ever-lingering beauty, for Goni knows that the elves steal often the eyes of men, and make one as tattered as she of no desire. For the nerve damage in her back from where the claws have sunk, when it is cold she is in great pain and often even shorter of temper.
She lies now, claiming she is traveling on mission of her people when the truth is she was meant instead to travel no more as a Ranger of the North and retire peaceably to Rivendell for safety, for she is unable to stomach the thought of a long life now yet ahead of her where she is but a useless, pained husk of the dreams she once had.
.The Blood.
Parents:
Laegion, father. 99. Son of Sharp One.
Othien, mother. 90. Daughter of a dim shade/spirit.
Sibling(s):
Ahadir, brother 55. Avenger man.
Norothion, brother. 49. Son of a giant.
Húldir, brother. 44. Battle cry.
Spouse: None.
Children: None.
History:
Othien and Laegion met while on assignment, and the whole of the company could see the attraction they held for each other. It was only a matter of time—something that was more plentiful for the Dunedain—before they were wed, and some time after they sought to carry on their people’s dying legacy. So it was their family began; first born to them were three sons, large in stature and powerful in presence. Then came to them a girl. Alagoniel she was named, for she was born in the wake of the fiercest squall of the year. She came healthy, and with light in her eye and face.
She was fair in appearance, though no less powerful and mighty than her brothers, and as she grew she flourished in her training as many of the Dunedain did. She frequented Rivendell, though counted the Angle to the south her home, for it was land that only her kin kept for it was as close as they had come for many a long count of years to having a kingdom of their own. Goni always felt connected to her people, chatting with them easily and learning their spirits as well as their names. Alagoniel wanted nothing more than to join hands with her people and bare her blade to help reclaim her home.
It was with great joy and pride in her breast that she set out upon her first venture with the Rangers proper, the gleam in her silver-grey eyes alight in all manner of excitement. Her brothers and her parents gathered in Rivendell to see her off, as well as those of her friends that were not yet ready to make such travels themselves. Well wishes were given to her, for it was no secret that the road ahead of her and her meager party was dangerous; such was the task and calling of a ranger. Goni had assured them she would be fine, and turned to leave with the party of seven Rangers to make for Ithilien. It was to be the first spot of her first assignment; a year at the Henneth Annûn, serving amongst those who had long kept those lands safe under a watchful eye.
However, as it turned, fate meant for Alagoniel to never get there.
When first they crossed into the borders of the land known as Ithilien, long abandoned by the people of Gondor who kept the lands because of its ever growing and deepening danger, Alagoniel and her small party attracted more attention than they would have liked. Orc of Mordor were there in numbers, smelling the small group of them upwind before any of the seasoned Dunedain men were able to divine their presence in return.
When they attacked, Goni and her party were overwhelmed. At their flank their came a great host of wargs, the wolves of Mordor, bearing upon their backs riders. She fought valiantly, though was ultimately felled. The claws turned her flesh to ribbons, the pain of the bite at her jaw and neck white-hot and searing. She could not move away from the fray, though she managed yet to use her sword and slay the assailing creature from behind.
She blacked out from the pain shortly after, surviving only because she looked dead herself and was hidden beneath the body of the dead carcass, and recalls little of the days following.
As it is told, a small retinue dispatched from Henneth Annûn went looking for the missing company, at their head Aragorn himself. Goni only survived her wounds because Strider was able to stabilize her well enough for some of her kin to cart her into Minas Tirith for a long stint in the Houses of Healing there. It was nearly six months before she was deemed well enough to leave the care of the Warden, though by such a time Goni had lost much of what she was. She could walk, though her gait had changed for the long weeks of disuse, and all trace of smile was gone from her eye. Dagnir Drauga they called her now, with reverence, for she had lasted and slain wolves when the others had fallen.
She was returned to Rivendell, where she was urged to continue therapy, retraining her body and muscles and learning her new limitations. Alagoniel worked hard; she rose each morning fighting the pain that seemed permanently etched upon her nerves and trained longer than any asked her to. A year and a half removed from her injury, she felt as whole as she was ever to feel again, and so she approached one of the captains to plead for another mission. Goni had dreamt all her life of serving the Dunedain, and was not willing to let her service fade without first ever beginning.
The captain was reluctant, though said if she could prove her body was whole enough to do a series of physical tasks, he would allow her to rejoin the forces in the east. Alagoniel was confident, for she had made strides beyond what anyone had thought she would accomplish; she did not think her life had lead her to this moment to fail.
Yet, fail she did. She could not climb the rocks the captain asked her to unto the peaks, she could not swim up stream, neither could she best a single person in spar. It seemed for all her training and all her devotion, Goni was stripped of what once had made her full, and she was heartbroken.
"You can yet serve, though perhaps it is here. To help our legacy continue," the captain told her once she had fallen short on the last of her trials. Alagoniel was forbidden from venturing with the rangers, a weak link where they could not afford one and it was only then Goni realized that he had meant settling with children when she came of age and living quietly in the Angle or in Rivendell. Alagoniel was stricken to her very spirit, and as she looked around and realized she did not have the personality to attract love, nor indeed any longer the beauty and grace to do so in the shadow of the elven maids of Imladris, she fell into despair that showed itself in bitterness and frowns. For a few weeks she wallowed, finding the darkness of her own quarters the full extent of her world. She barely ate, she hardly slept; Alagoniel felt as if the world was sundered, and she adrift with it.
That was when she overheard voices. Aragorn had called for the rangers to seek out the creature called Gollum; it was a task of great import, and imperative to something far greater than even the Dunedain's own purpose. It was then Alagoniel snapped from her despair, for her heart whispered to her.
She could track. She could go and find this creature, she could bring it to the Woodland Realm; if she did, she would prove once more she was not a dead limb of their clan's tree. And so it was, under dark of night, Alagoniel slipped from Rivendell and the Angle south, taking once more to the wilds. She walks now in hopes to buy once more her life's dream, though she harbors now shadow of doubt whether she will ever be able to do that or if this truly is her end.
Still, if it is to be her end, she wishes to make such an end as to be worthy of remembrance.