[b]Name:[/b] Elayne Ashing.

[b]Age:[/b] 25.

[b]Gender:[/b] Female.

[b]Race:[/b] Breton.

[b]Appearance:[/b] Elayne's appearance is one typical of a young woman from the green and pleasant lands of Glenumbra. She has long, light brown hair that is kept in a pony-tail when she's travelling or exploring, but is allowed to flow freely when she finds herself in a comfortable settlement. Elayne's emerald green eyes can often be found to be scanning her surroundings, both for potential dangers and items of either magical interest or material worth, an example of her perceptive and astute nature. Elayne is fair-skinned, but not quite pale, and her features are soft and her build light; all three are consequences of her Breton heritage, as are her slightly pointed ears and high cheekbones. Elayne is not especially vain, but nonetheless takes some effort into making herself presentable, perhaps even attractive depending on one's tastes. This is more so to present an air of professionalism and confidence than to woo her contemporaries, however. Elayne bares no scars or other disfigurements, but she does have a tattoo—the Ehlnofex word 'Var'—written in the Aldmeri script on the inside of her left forearm.

[b]Personality:[/b] Clever, self-confident and cautiously optimistic of those around her. She finds the faults in herself and others more easily than the blessings, but views these faults constructively, either as obstacles to be become or the raw material from which something positive can later be crafted. Elayne's intellect is considerable, and not accidental. She is an intimately curious person, eager to learn all that she can learn and uncover all that there is to be uncovered. The possibility in adventuring of solving historical mysteries and uncovering the accomplishments of ancient civilizations appeals to her more than the gold does. The loot, to her, is seen as the means to unlock even greater discoveries in the future, rather than the actual end goal of adventuring. That is not to say that she will neglect in taking the fair share of said loot owed to her, of course.

Somewhere in the lighter half of the moral shades of grey, Elayne is a fundamentally good person, but is not averse to making sacrifices for an ultimate greater good. She has a peculiarly strong detest for theft and banditry, however, having had one too many headaches in her past life with her family caravan to have any patience for the double-think professed by criminals of that stripe. Neither entirely selfless nor entirely selfish, Elayne is content with her fair share of the pie, but is distasteful, and fairly so, of being denied what is rightfully hers. She will neither cheat nor be cheated, and steal nor be stolen from. Neither will she abide observing others being stolen from or cheated, less out of moral obligation and more so as a consequence of her personal vendetta against ne'er-do-wells.

[b]History:[/b] Born to a merchant family in Camlorn, in the south-west of High Rock, Elayne grew up in the middle-class of Breton society, having neither squalor nor splendour. The life of her family—including her mother Senna, father Uthard, Roland, her elder brother by several years, and Jakben, her twin brother—was ever-so-slightly less quaint than most of their contemporaries'. The nature of the family business meant that the Ashings travelled often, all together as a family, Uthard not being comfortable with the prospect of being away from his kin on business for such long stretches of time. This meant that Elayne had already seen most of High Rock, from Daggerfall to Farrun, before she reached adolescence. This state of constant exploration and discovery in her early years might have been what sparked Elayne's innate curiosity and wandering spirit, leading her on the road to a life wrought with adventure. It was what happened slightly later, though, when she had reached her adolescence, that tuned her moral compass.

Over the course of Elayne's childhood, the Ashing Caravan Company became more and more successful. Uthard proved himself a man of spectacular business acumen, and by the time his son Roland was joining his father in the family trade, the Ashings could count themselves as wealthy as many of High Rock's lesser nobility. This wealth naturally attracted attention. The positive kind, like prospective business partners, but also the negative kind: namely kidnappers. On the family's return to Camlorn one day, when Elayne was fifteen, the company's caravan was struck by a group of bandits. Prideful Uthard refused to give up the gold that his family was returning home with, and he and and Roland, along with their hired protection of two Redguard mercenaries, decided to fight. They were greatly outnumbered, however, by no less than a dozen of the cut-throats. The company had slain four of the attackers, with only one of their mercenaries fallen, but when Uthard turned to make sure none of the bandits had gotten to his wife Senna or his two young children, the remainder of the group had made off with a wounded Roland. Uthard pursued the fleeing highwaymen, but was wounded himself, his leg cut deeply by a sword. He survived, and would luckily be able to walk again, but for him it was all in vain: the bandits had made off with his son. To his surprise, a few days after the family had returned home, they received an anonymous letter, a ransom note, demanding an exuberant sum in exchange for Roland's life. Uthard, fully prepared to pay as much it took for his first born son, attended the meeting as directed by the note, and with the demanded sum. He was cheated, however. At the venue, a cave far outside of the city, a still-limping Uthard arrived with a bag of gold, expecting to leave with his son and put the whole horrible affair behind him. He would indeed leave, his life spared by the bandits, but not with his son. Roland had already died before the ransom note had been written, and the bandits had only Roland's body to offer in exchange for the gold—which they of course took in full regardless, leaving the wounded father in the cave alone to grieve his son.

Her older brother Roland's death had a profound effect on Elayne's family, and in turn on herself. Uthard now relegated his still successful merchant enterprise to underlings, becoming too depressed to travel and rarely leaving his home in Camlorn. Elayne and her twin brother Jakben took over Roland's old job, when the time came, assisting Uthard in managing the enterprise. The twins had a natural talent for the way of the merchant, but this did not interest or impress their father. In the years following Roland's death, nothing did, and Uthard was so crushed by his failure to defend his family that only a year into Elayne's joining the Ashing Caravan, he committed suicide. This represented the end of Elayne's involvement in the family business; Jakben took over the Ashing Caravan Company, and Elayne determined to leave High Rock altogether, to forge a new life for herself and leave the trauma behind. Living the life of a wanderer for a few short months, she eventually decided to follow in her mother's footsteps, rather than her fallen father's, and so set off for Winterhold.

Elayne's mother, Senna, had been an alumni of the College of Winterhold before meeting Uthard, and had taught her daughter some of the basics of magic in their travelling days. When Elayne arrived at the bridge to the College, on the day before her seventeenth birthday, she had neither staff nor robe and knew only the basic sort of spells needed to be given admission. She would go on to spend four years within the College, gaining proficiency in the Restoration and Alteration schools, supplemented with some forays into the school of Destruction, for self-defence; Elayne favours frost spells, taking after her mother.

It was shortly after her 21st birthday that Elayne chose to end her involvement with the College of Winterhold. The arrival of an unsavoury character from the Thalmor, as well as the constant feuding between her contemporaries and the growingly chaotic state of Skyrim was enough to convince her to continue her studies on her own. She travelled to Windhelm and disembarked from Skyrim for her home town of Camlorn in High Rock, eager to visit her family after such a prolonged absence. She had kept up with them in letters, but meeting her mother and brother again in person was nonetheless a pleasant experience for the now adult Elayne. The Ashing Caravan Company had taken off even better than Jakben had modestly claimed in his correspondence, and Senna was still doing well, keeping herself busy and staying healthy. It was not without a tinge of regret that Elayne set off again after a few short weeks living in her home town with her family, this time determined to make a name for herself in the magic community in the Imperial Heartland of Cyrodiil.

Upon arrival in the Imperial City, Elayne was thoroughly disappointed. Everything nasty that she'd heard about the Synod and the College of Whispers from her classmates and teachers in Winterhold was true; the College of Whispers was a bunch of necromantic fanatics, and the Synod were just clowns, using magic to entertain the Emperor until he threw coin at their feet. Both hoarded their meagre knowledge jealously, and neither had any significant amount of competent members. Deciding that the best option was to continue practising alone, Elayne purchased a home in the Imperial countryside with coin loaned from Jakben and began her self-education in earnest. 

In relatively short order, though, Elayne found herself desiring real-life practice—use of magic against real, living opponents that could actually harm her. There was only so much a woman could learn from firing ice shards at fake dumbies. In search of some real dumbies, the kind that breathed through their filthy mouths, Elayne took up the life of an adventurer. The prospect of honing her magical talents whilst at the same time acquiring riches to support herself independently and knowledge to share with the world was too good of an opportunity to miss, and the Ayelid ruins of Cyrodiil had all that she needed to do this and more. After a few years practice, and more than a few excursions outside Cyrodiil, Elayne ran into a few like-minded adventure types in Cheydinhal. The idea came up of tackling a few adventures together, and Elayne, always eager to test out something new, eagerly obliged.

[b]Skills:[/b] Elayne is proficient and possesses formal schooling in both the Restoration and Alteration schools of magic, and has several years experience honing her Destruction talents in the Imperial Province's many Ayelid ruins. She is also a capable merchant, able to barter effectively and sway those of lesser wit to look at things in a way favourable to her. Elayne has no experience and little interest in melee weapons, and is almost completely defenceless without her magic. She is fit in so far as she is agile, but possess little raw strength; she might beat you in a footrace, but certainly not in arm wrestling.

[u][b]Equipment[/b][/u]

-Apprentice Robes, complete with hood, boots and gloves. Robes contain pouches for small potion vials, which she refills between excursions.
-Small leather satchel, for carrying valuables such as gemstones looted from dungeons.
-Large leather book pouch, able to accommodate multiple tomes. Intended for both practical study and recreation.

[b]Birthsign:[/b] The Lady.

[b]Miscellaneous:[/b] Marne.

[b][u]First Impressions[/u][/b]

[i]Hector Sibassius;[/i] Elayne's perception of Hector is largely congruent with her perception of the Empire he used to serve. Both are strong, but grizzled, and bare the scars of conflicts long since passed that nonetheless have left their permanent toll on both fighting ability and fighting spirit. Elayne sees Hector as a potential ally, but one with self-interest of considerable heft, and that is therefore not to be trusted too quickly. She believes his is a character that warrants further investigation before judgements can be duly made.

[i]Blackbird;[/i] History has made Elayne distrustful of all members of the criminal underworld, and from what she has seen and heard of him, Blackbird is no exception. The only member of the group that the young Breton mage had heard of before Cheydinhal, Elayne was actually disappointed to find Blackbird in Cheydinhal, for it meant that he was still alive. The criminal's infamy in the merchant's circle of northern Tamriel is considerable, and Elayne had hoped that all those bands of Nord bandits that had sprung up from the chaos of Skyrim's Civil War had long since been executed. For this reason, Elayne was instantly distrustful of Blackbird, and with each of his charming smiles furthering her distaste, it is unlikely the two will get along.

[i]Balen;[/i] A judgemental librarian. Balen is, thus far in Elayne's eyes, a figure not unlike the magic societies of Cyrodiil: possessing tome after tome of useful information, and having neither the desire nor skill to put it to real world use. Elayne hopes that she can convince Balen to more actively apply his knowledge of magic, and perhaps learn something herself from the Dunmer's repertoire—something which she would then actually use at some point.

[i]Merci;[/i] Merci is, to Elayne, herself, put through the experience of an entirely different life. Each time she sees Merci it is as if Elayne is divining the consequence of an alternate life for herself, one including a great many unwise decisions and an excess of wrongdoing. Elayne's natural distaste for the criminality that pervades Tamriel is present in her first impression of Merci, but dampened. It is Elayne's hope that she can have a positive impact on Merci, setting the woman back towards the right path and imparting unto her all of the knowledge and skill that the best of Winterhold had to offer.

[i]Azriel Telvayn;[/i] A reasonable man with a reasonable approach to life. Elayne finds Azriel altogether personable, and hopes that the journeys across Tamriel that all adventurers of his sort have to talk about can impart something interesting and helpful. Elayne's perception of Azriel is altogether positive, thus far.

[i]Aenyarin;[/i] Elayne would rather Aenyarin and her kind not exist on this continent at all, and is loath to the prospect of her journeys in Cyrodiil including an escort from the most vile band of murderous pig-heads to ever infest Nirn. The woman herself seems... tolerable, at the very least preferable to Ancano, but her connection to Alinor and the unending arrogance that pervades her race cannot be easily compensated, even by so admirable a trait as curiosity. For all of her distaste towards Aenyarian and her kind, however, Elayne knows better than to intentionally ignite conflict with the woman that is likely the most powerful of her new band of travelling companions. The long lives and natural aptitudes of the Altmer make their magical capabilities legendary, and Elayne would rather have such an attune mage on her side than not. Elayne is more likely to stay her tongue against Aenyarian's supremacism than, for example, an intimation of the underworld from Blackbird.

[i]Baladas;[/i] A Dunmer wizard who literally has the word 'Telvanni' carved into his staff. For what little Elayne knows of the man himself, she knows a great deal about House Telvanni, especially their recent state of affairs, and for this reason she treats Baladas with perhaps undue pity. The trials of the Dunmer of Morrowind seem without end as of late, and Elayne would like to avoid becoming yet another. She treats Baladas with respect and relative esteem, and finds his personality and manner nonabrasive, perhaps even enjoyable.

[i]Ungimros;[/i] The Bosmer have always struck Elayne as a highly strange race, even more so than the exotic Dunmer, or the beastfolk. For this reason, Elayne's constant quest for knowledge places her at somewhat of a disadvantage in communicating with Ungimros; she sees him as more of a case study to examine than a real person, and for this reason treats him somewhat awkwardly.