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[b]Name:[/b] Elara Rennway
[b]Nickname/Alias/Title:[/b] No nicknames as of yet
[b]Sex:[/b] Female
[b]Age:[/b] 24
[b]Race:[/b] Human
[b]Occupation:[/b] Sailing Master of the [i]Aleph Null[/i]

[b]Past:[/b] Elara grew up in Greenglass, a small, colorful port city known for its lively streets and bustling trade. The Rennway family were spice merchants, and had been for as long as any in the family could remember. They lived comfortably among the middle class, and had a reputation for being fine spice merchants. In other groups, they had a reputation for being excellent smugglers, a profession the family had been continuing for just as long. As a child, Elara was expected to act like other young girls her age, wearing dresses and learning to sew. Her mother, despite being married into a family of smugglers, was very committed to her ideas of propriety and would have taught Elara to be a proper young lady, if the headstrong little girl had not had other plans. Elara was much more interested in her father’s trade. 

Elara’s father, Verrin Rennway had a respectable number of ships he commanded for his trade, legal or otherwise, and while he originally worked by seafaring vessels like every Rennway who had come before him, Verrin had been one of the first merchants in the area to begin using airships as they became more popular. He currently was captain and sailing master of the [i]Bluebird[/i], an airship he had purchased the year Elara had been born. Elara was fascinated with the airships in Greenglass port, and when she wasn’t looking after her two younger sisters or doing her chores, she’d wander around the docks just to watch the ships come and go. Her father had already begun teaching the trade to Jacind, the eldest child of the family and seven years Elara’s senior, when he was a child, and Elara listened in on his lessons whenever she could. 

Elara’s father did not have the same ideas of propriety as his wife did, and when he realized that his daughter had an aptitude for airships and the like, he began to teach her as well. He taught her how to read maps and star charts, how to plot courses, and how the airships worked. She eagerly absorbed everything she could get her hands on, and smuggled the maps into her room, where she stayed up late into the night planning voyages she would take one day when she had her own ship. Her mother eventually gave up on teaching Elara things like sewing and dancing, and watched with a somewhat exasperated look as her daughter ran through the house trailing maps and charts behind her. 

Elara was seven when her father first took her aboard the [i]Bluebird[/i]. She had never experienced anything like it before. He was just beginning to show her how to pilot the airship, as he had with her brother before her. To Elara it seemed as natural as breathing. Being up in the air seemed right to her. It was as if she could feel the wind moving against the sails. She was standing at the bow of the ship leaning against the rails when she saw another ship in the distance. She leaned farther over to get a better look, when a piece of rotting wood in the rail gave way and she began to fall forward with a yelp. Out of instinct she put her hands in front of herself and was suddenly thrown back onto the ship’s deck by a gust of wind that had seemingly come out of nowhere. Her father, who had begun to run toward her the moment she started to fall, saw her manipulate the air around her, and understood what his daughter did not. Her mother’s side of the family had a talent for aeurgy, a talent that had apparently been passed down to Elara. 

From that day forward Elara spent her morning studying sailing and navigation, and her afternoons at the local spellcrafter’s guild in Greenglass, learning to control stannum. As she got older, she learned more and more about airships. When her brother left home to join the army, she became more involved with helping her father with the family business. She had a talent for flying airships, and her control of caith only added to that. She soon began sailing ships for her father, and had hopes of taking over the family business. While she was rather indifferent to both spice trading and smuggling, she knew she belonged on an airship, and her father could certainly use the help. 
When her brother returned home, however, Elara’s father declared that he would be handing the family business down to Jacind. With him home, Elara was suddenly less involved in the business affairs, and was sent sailing less and less. This increasingly became a source of conflict within the family, and when the spellcaster’s guild offered her an opportunity to leave the city as one of the urgists on an expedition, she accepted. 

She left Greenglass at age nineteen, and spent the next year working with the guild on various jobs, but the work was too structured, and the rules too rigid for Elara. Being so young and a female, it was difficult to find anyone willing to let her control their ships. The jobs she could find were often on ships in terrible condition or under ridiculous captains. At age twenty-two she found herself in Barberry, planning her next step. She was considering stealing a smaller ship and running her own little smuggling operation. Growing up in the Rennway family, she had a rather innate disregard for the law. When she heard that Captain Wilton Grady was at the Barberry docks and in need of a new sailing master, she found a chance she very much wanted to take. It wasn’t easy to convince the captain let her aboard in the first place, but due to the lack of other options and a job that needed to be done within a rather small time limit, she was able to get aboard with a deal that was supposed to be very temporary. When she got the ship through one hell of a storm with a considerable amount of skill and finesse, she was able to prove herself and earned her place on the ship for good.

[b]Present:[/b] Elara Rennway has been the sailing master of the [i]Aleph Null[/i] for just two years, but the ship is extremely important to her. Having grown up taking care of two younger sisters, Elara has a rather protective nature, and is now fiercely protective of the Aleph Null and its crew. Elara is very intelligent and mature. She enjoys reading, especially if the subject is history or exploration. She loves adventure and sailing more than anything, and is very meticulous in her planning. She can spend days with her maps and charts, planning out a course with a focus that is hard to shake her out of. If she has her head in a map, one might have to call her name several times loudly to get her attention. Despite this, she can change her plans in a moment, and thinks very quick on her feet. In general, she has a rather ambiguous moral compass, but considers loyalty to be extremely important, and she is very loyal to the captain and the [i]Aleph Null[/i]. She has no time for nonsense, and can become impatient very quickly; she has a bit of a temper. She communicates with her family from time to time with letters, but her relationship with them is not the best.

Elara is slightly above average in height, standing at 5’8” with a thin build and lean muscles. She has a light tan and long, waving, dark brown hair that she often keeps tied back. She usually wears brown trousers tucked into tall, leather boots, a white shirt under a simple blue corset, and a long black coat with brass buttons. 

[b]Future:[/b] Elara is simply happy to finally have a good position as a sailing master. She has big plans for voyages she longs to take one day, and wants to experience adventure and travel the world.

[b]Skills[/b]: Elara is a powerful aeurgist, and has been trained in the manipulation of caith from a young age. Her skills are strong, but her powers lack in finesse. She is able to control strong gusts of wind, but has never been able to use stannum to play a flute, like she often saw other aeurgists doing at the guild. Her abilities suit her well though and are quite useful when it comes to sailing airships, though they can also be quite useful in a fight. Elara also knows the ins and outs of airships, and has been sailing them since she was quite young. She has a natural talent for it, and has been known to proudly claim that she’s one of the best sailing masters in the skies. She skilled at using star charts, maps, and navigation tools, and is a navigation expert. 

[b]Strengths:[/b] [Intelligence, Perception] Elara is very clever and quick-witted, and between her father and the guild she has been well-educated in a variety of subjects. Elara can feel the slightest changes in the weather and wind, and is extremely observant. The downside of this is that she can become so focused on one thing that she misses another.
[b]Weaknesses:[/b] [Attack, Charisma] Elara is a powerful aeurgist and can give out very effective punches with gusts of wind, but she’s more suited to defense than attack, and isn’t extremely talented when it comes to physical fighting. When it comes to people skills, Elara can be very friendly and sociable, she can become frustrated with people very easily, and becomes blunt and sarcastic. She doesn’t like wasting her time with fools, and may be vocal about it.
[b]Equipment:[/b] Elara carries a pair of leather gloves and a dagger her brother gave her on her belt, along with a variety of tools, most of which are related to navigation, such as her compass or her sextant. She keeps another knife in her boot as well.