Ahleema (prime)
Appearance
You see Ahleema, a youthful Vaalorian Elf. She is average height and has a well-toned frame. She has silver-flecked emerald green eyes and soft, creamy white skin. She has very long, cascading strawberry blonde hair worn in two ponytails. She has a delicate face and high cheekbones. She has a sculpted silver orchid earcap encircled by thin black diamond leaves attached to her ear.
She has a narrow band of angular earth sigils on her finger, and a trio of laje rings dangling a black diamond half-moon in the upper ridge of her left ear.
She is wearing a set of layered leather pauldrons banded with hammered bronze channels, a deeply hooded black sea silk cloak with a jade nightwillow closure, a mithril crescent moon armband, a deep green chainsil bodice laced with braided spidersilk, a compact leather herbalist's satchel, a black leather backpack clasped with a moonstone crescent, a pristine black leather bag edged with lunar phase stitching, a black willow scabbard hung from a length of argent silk, a leather-cornered black willow case, a hip-slung black leather skirt with tiny jade nightwillow buttons, and a pair of oiled dark leather boots with vaalorn buckles.
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Backstory
Born along the outer edges of Vaalor, where the forest thins and stone begins to show through root and soil, Ahleema was raised in a household defined by service. For generations, her kin guarded border paths and seldom traveled roads, and from childhood she learned that Vaalor’s beauty endured only through constant watch and sacrifice. Duty was not taught as virtue, but as expectation.
She was always most at ease at night. As a child, she lingered beneath moonlit canopies, finding comfort in the steady passage of light across the sky. Night patrols with her family became familiar long before she bore a weapon, teaching her to move by moonlight and to read shadows in the dark. She learned early that clarity often emerges in the smallest details, most often in darkness and stillness.
Her early years were shaped by routine and restraint. She learned to move quietly, to observe before acting, and to carry responsibility without complaint. Her first lessons were not magical, but physical, focused on endurance, awareness, and patience. She hauled water, cleaned blades, and studied the training yards, repeating tasks until they were done correctly. She was taught that magic alone does not hold a line; steel does. Peace, she learned, is maintained, never assumed.
It was during these years that she began to understand the value of the ground itself. Long hours standing watch taught her how footing mattered, how stone and soil could steady or betray, how a firm stance could mean survival. She learned to trust the weight beneath her boots, to feel vibration through the earth, to draw confidence from what did not shift. Where others looked upward for inspiration, she learned to look down and know where she stood.
Drawn to the weight and balance of two-handed weapons, she favored deliberate strength over flourish. Each strike demanded commitment, each mistake felt immediately. There was no room for error in judgment. Over time, resolve became strength, and discipline settled into instinct. Only after she proved herself with steel was she permitted to study the arcane.
It was then that she learned magic did not replace the blade, but sharpened its purpose. Of all the elements, earth came most naturally to her ~ not as power, but as principle. She learned to anchor herself, to reinforce her stance, to endure rather than overwhelm. Magic was woven between strikes to steady footing, sharpen focus, and break an enemy’s resolve through control rather than excess. Spells were tools of endurance and restraint, never indulgence. Her training emphasized patience as much as power. She learned when not to cast, when waiting mattered more than display. Walking the narrow path between martial and arcane traditions, fully belonging to neither, she accepted the weight of responsibility that came with decisive action. The war mage tradition suited her ~ disciplined, deliberate, and unshowy.
Her affinity for the moon was never born of reverence or ritual. She simply trained best after dusk, favored the balance of waxing and waning light, and endured long watches observing how the moon passed across the night sky. Where others faltered in darkness, she found focus. The moon became a constant—quiet, reliable, unmoved by chaos ~ its pale light revealing what others might miss.
Now, she marks time by lunar phases and prepares beneath open sky when she can, feet planted firmly on familiar ground. She does not speak of the moon or the earth as power, yet those who know her understand that both steady her resolve—one above, one beneath.
At her core, she remains a Vaalorian sentinel. Steel is her voice in battle. Magic follows, precise and restrained. The earth holds her fast, the moon keeps watch, and between the two she stands unmoved.
The Story of Notch
I found him where most things go unnoticed, peeking out of a fallen hollow log where patrols passed often and nothing lingers long.
It was during a border rotation, early morning, when the sky still held a piece of the night.
I stopped to mark a trail that had shifted after rain, cutting a small notch into a fallen limb to signal the change. When I straightened, he was there, close enough to see the pale striping along his back, still as a knot in the wood, yet he did not flee. Instead, the tiny chipmunk just intently watched me, as if taking note to my smallest of details.
Over the next few days, he appeared again and again in the strangest of places. Places where trails split, edges where decisions are made. He never ran from me and never seemed to lingered once I began to move on.
He seemed interested in the marks I made, where the ground was altered, where something had passed, where a choice had been made and recorded.
Once, I watched him sit beside a fresh cut in a branch and run his claws along it, as if gleaning some deeper understanding of the mark than even I knew was there.
I did not name him then since I do believe names can imply ownership, judgement, and expectation.
After that, he kept pace, never in the way, never far. He learned my routes faster than I expected and always knew where to wait. When I stopped to mark a path, he was already there, perched near the crossing, patient and still.
I named him Notch because that is what he notices, the small marks that carry meaning. Signs and warnings so slight others pass them by. Not the tree. Not the trail. The place where a decision leaves its impact and its aftermath.
The Story of Ash
I did not set out to find him.
It was after a hunt, one that ran longer than it should have. The work was done, the ground quiet again, and I had taken a seat on a fallen trunk to clean my blade. I lit a cigar, never out of habit, but because it marked the end of things. When the smoke rose, the forest stayed still. Too still.
That is when I noticed him.
He was perched above me, on a dead branch stripped bare by weather. A raven, larger than most, feathers dull with age. He did not call out. Did not shift. Just watched. I assumed he would move on once the smoke drifted his way but he did not.
When I finished and ground the ember out, I heard the wings, one beat, then another, and he dropped lower, landing a short distance off. Close enough to see the scar along one wing, where the feathers never quite grew back right. Close enough to know he was not there for scraps.
I stood. He stayed.
That happened again the next night. And the one after. Sometimes he watched from above. Sometimes from the ground. Never close when I smoked. Always closer when I did not. Ravens are smarter than people give them credit for.
They notice patterns. So do I.
Eventually, I started leaving space for him. Not food, he found his own, but time. When I stopped moving, he settled. When I moved on, he followed. Not always visible. Always there.
He earned his name when I realized that although he stays with me on the hunt, he never strikes. He has no interest in the fury itself, only in what remains after. He watches the ground, the signs, the outcome. He learns what works and what does not and in his own way, shows me.
Smoking a cigar after one particular hunt, with the ground quiet again, I studied the ember and watched the tobacco curl grey in its wake. His name came then. Ash.
He does not perch on my shoulder. He keeps his distance when it suits him. That is fine. Companions do not need cages. They need understanding.
He watches when I cannot. And when the work is done, he is always there to remind me of it.
The Story of The Katana
I glance down at the silvery katana and take in the details I have learned not to ignore. The balance is precise, the polish deliberate, every line shaped by masterfully skilled hands that understood restraint as well as craft. The earth runes are etched cleanly into the steel, not for display, but for purpose. Written upon it, in flowing Erithian script, is the name ~ "Vilthulko".
The story of the blade endured among my kin as a warning.
Back in 5112, an Erithian group calling themselves the Children of Ink, accompanied by their leader Vilthulko, attacked the Order of Voln in the Landing. They fought without weapons, just punches and kicks. People had not seen this fighting style before and no one was prepared for it. Magic did nothing to quell the threat and swords alone failed. The Order struggled until another Erithian, Master Benkueh, arrived. He knew their style, but he fought with more discipline, and he helped the local militia there push Vilthulko and his group, out of the Landing.
They didn’t stop there.
Word came that the Children of Ink were heading toward a monastery near Vaalor, and Benkueh asked for fighters to follow him east.
My kin were already on patrol when they crossed paths and joined him, along with others from the militia. Before the final fight, Benkueh shared what he knew of that fighting style. It was just enough to give the militia the edge they needed.
After an intense battle, Vilthulko fell, the rest scattered, and that was the end of it.
One of my kin took his sword, not as a trophy, but as a reminder. The story was always told to us to make one thing clear, not every threat looks familiar, and relying on magic and blades alone invites failure.