Telcia Dyfelle

Name: Telcia Alianin-Nalemar (married name: Dyfelle)
Born: Bandar Eban at the Nalemar Estates, raised there as well.
Age: 210+ years old
Physical Description: Born half Domani & half Cairhienen she is short for a Cairhienen with coppery skin of the Domani. She has bright blue eyes that seem to turn steely cool when her ire is raised. She is not overly shapely, nor is she straight as a board, but her curves have become more noticeable since the birth of her twins. She has a distinctive button-style nose that many have dared called cute (in her younger years.)
= Character History =
== For what was: (Past History) ==
In these dark times, stories of inspiration are hard to come by, and tales of tragedy abound. If you’ve come to me today for a story about sweet and soft things; then I’m afraid you are about to be disappointed. Still, perhaps I have one that is both of which you ask, whose tale is not yet finished and in that… I suppose… there is some small hope.
I see across the plains of Andor a lone woman walking, not in silks or lace to which she was born… but in harsh tattered wools; not with the satisfied belly and coin purse of the noble she is… but hungry and poor both in body and in spirit. This demure form, walks meekly towards a fate and from a past which has hung about her like a heavy weight ever since she made this trip once a very long time ago. You see, the woman journeys now towards the White Tower of Tar Valon, the one place in the world she swore she would never again return to and while the journey itself is grates upon her heart and mind… more so does the reason and the one she’ll have to face when she arrives. With blank eyes of a dead woman, she continues forward fearing nothing left to lose or give away exists in her life. But she was not always this way, once, long ago she was a happy child in a perfect world of dreams…
Telcia was the child of two great Domani houses, born into the life of privilege. She was to be a leader in the merchant’s council and many whispered the wife of the King himself… betrothed since birth. But fair haired and diminutive Telcia had a secret even in her birth, not early born, but born out of a forbidden union of her mother and the man she truly loved… a man she could never have… Lord Skechid of Cairhien. This secret was carefully guarded from everyone, even herself, for many long years.
While in her teens Telcia knew love in the arms of a young caravan guard who traveled with her family… her own forbidden union. Sadly, Lance (her young lover) died in her arms after a grievous wound from the cross bow of a brigand; one meant for her own heart. Two years later, during another attack on her family’s wagons, Telcia used the One Power for the first time and in showing her talent became anathema to her own family, the Nalemars. Telcia ran as fast as she could to the White Tower, encountering all manner of dangers along the way. Once she arrived she found a friendly face in the Red Ajah, Murienn Alainin… her great aunt from her Mother’s side of the family. Murienn alone knew the truth of Telcia’s origins but kept these from her in hopes that it would not distract her from her studies.
Telcia’s mentor was a Green sister named Arie Tarou whom she first viewed as a flip skirt but came to respect as time went on. Telcia’s roommates were Jeleane and Melanie. Each girl had their own issues but one thing tied them tightly together, the lack of a real family. While Melanie was Arie’s little sister, neither of them had any family left in the world. And so the girls became each other's family. The three of them dragged Jeleane (an aspiring Yellow) into all manner of trouble; studying Tower Law extensively Telcia became a queen of avoiding punishment by loopholes in the written law. Sadly, Jeleane was not such a good student of rules and law… and during an incident where Jeleane was sent to a farm for practicing linking with another novice, Jeleane committed suicide by taking in too much of the power. The girl’s things were laid to rest in a quite ceremony near an oak tree in the graveyard of the White Tower. That day, Melanie and Telcia swore that if one died before the other that they’d ensure that all three of them would be laid together near the oak tree in eternal slumber, until the wheel called them back once again. Friends and family forever…
Still death was hardly something unknown to Telcia since arriving at the White Tower, this had been the second since her arrival. The first had been early one morning as she had the honor of bringing breakfast to the Amyrlin Seat Kathana in her private chambers. There, in her bed the young novice found the corpse of the woman she had always known to be the most powerful woman in all the world. In that discover the seeds of something that would haunt her always were laid. Seeds that would be watered and nurtured by what Telcia would see in her arches.
There are few who can say with certainty that they experienced anything in their arches near what Telcia had and while the event is harrowing in and of itself, it was made worse for the young girl because of an undiscovered talent which lay dormant inside her… the Foretelling. Not only was the repressed death of Lance brought forward in her mind but Telcia saw the coming of the Dragon Reborn, and something that has yet to prove true. Telcia saw herself wearing the stole of Amyrlin and being voted against to be stilled in the hall. Telcia was so scared by her fears that she swore to herself she wouldn’t go to the Red Ajah (her Ajah in the arches) and that she’d do everything possible to never be the leader of the Light’s forces in the Tower. Little did she know a more frightening event was just around the corner for her that would help the Wheel to weave a new course for her.
While in town shopping for gifts for her friends, which were to be given at a party that night where she’d announce what Ajah she aspired to (brown), she was kidnapped by an assassin who her father’s family had hired. Somehow the Nalemar’s had learned of her impending success at being Aes Sedai and decided she must be stopped. What the Nalemar’s didn’t count on, and which turned out to save Telcia’s life, was the fact that this hired hit-man had a pension for young beautiful noble women. His sating his lusts upon Telcia drove her to fear almost all men, but most of all the loss of control. Deranged and torn between wanting control (and power) so never to be helpless again… and fearing the fate she saw in the Arches, Telcia turned away from love again (with Estaban Diego) and the Brown Ajah and embraced the Red.
Shortly after being raised, Telcia’s life was shook to it’s core again as she was called to the Keeper’s (Arette, her good friend since her Accepted days) office one day and introduced to young Lord Sketched of Cairhein. Telcia ran to Muirenn with what had been ‘discovered’ hoping to find sympathy over having been lied to all her life… instead she found that her aunt had known too. Feeling betrayed and loathing the White Tower more and more everyday, Telcia agreed to take a break at the Skechid estates in order to get to know her family there. She stayed there for a long while, enjoying her half-brother’s hospitality and her father’s twilight hours… but after another assassination attempt by unknown assailants, Telcia returned home to the Tower.
Wanting to clear her mind, Telcia scared a hidden area of the Tower to sit in her, Melanie, and Jeleane’s favorite place, on the roof of the novice quarters. It was said, that no novice could leave the Tower… and so to hide from chores, watch warders training, and get sunshine; the three would go there and spend long lazy afternoons when chores were just too much to bear. Here Telcia spent her day until discovered by some Tower Guards (among them Con Stravos) was scolled and in return barked angry accusations of anyone speaking so disrespectfully to an Aes Sedai. After satisfying her rage on the Guards, she retired to her room.
That night was a stormy one. Lightening and thunder raged outside her window and she found herself unable to sleep. Leaving her room for a walk she found herself being run into by a scared novice who indicated she should go outside to help someone who’d been hurt. Racing outside she found, at the base of the novice tower, the broken body of Melanie Tarou in the mud. No one could explain the young accepted’s act… but Con Stravos certainly tried. He blamed Telcia… and Telcia blamed herself. Neither would learn what Arie and Arette came to suspect after their investigation, the Black Ajah was real and had struck. Worse was that neither would learn that it was Muirenn herself who had done the deed for fear that Melanie would tell Telcia of her involvement in the Black Ajah; which she’d unwittingly learned of a day prior.
A second friend buried beneath the oak and now Telcia feared no one would know to bury her there as well. Suicidal thoughts abounded with the woman but she trudged on, spending every day like the last… cold… emotionless… suffering. That all changed the day that Iussi Dyfelle stepped into her Etiquette Classroom.
Iussi was from Ebou Dar and his demeanor was like cool damp winds across the desert of Telcia’s heart. The boy reminded her about love and life and all things which she’d stopped caring about in her life. Telcia fell in love. But that love had to be put on hold as a letter came to Muirenn and the Tower that Telcia’s great-nephew Jared had been found to be a false dragon. Telcia, the Reds, and an army of Tower Guard went on the march. Iussi was still a trainee and so was left behind to wait, fearful that Telcia’s affections would wane and fade as she journeyed without him. She wrote him letters everyday but had no time to send them as the raced across the continent to Arad Doman. Iussi, with the help of his friends in the trainees, consoled himself in the arms of a tavern wench.
Across the world, Telcia faced her family across a battlefield and found herself confronting the horrors of war head on. She couldn’t save everyone, couldn’t heal them all… she could barely keep focus’d on fighting Jared. And then, when the Tower Guard was about to lose a large portion of their men beneath rolling earth and fire; Arie channeled far more of the Power than she should have to save them. She was successful… but burned herself out in the process. Arie fled the battlefield and was not seen amont Aes Sedai again. Many assumed she had died, but Telcia and Arie’s betrothed warder Daemon wouldn’t give up hope. Daemon’s bond was taken over and Telcia swore to put all her resources to finding Arie for him. For this hope alone, Daemon struggled onward and survived the pain of his bondholder’s loss.
Returning, Telcia found Iussi and gave him the letters. Ashamed he confessed his indiscretions and, in turn, was forgiven. In the middle of the night, Telcia and Iussi eloped and boarded a ship bound towards Tear and then on to Ebou Dar where she planned to meet her new husband’s family. One day out of Tar Valon, after consummating their union, they saw the smoke on the horizon of a marching army coming across the spine of the world. Turning the ship around, Telcia used the One Power to help the ship race back to port. The Tower had to be warned if they didn’t know already, and both she and Iussi had oaths they could not… would not… ignore. It seemed, so the young red learned, the Tower meant more to her than she cared to admit. Her oaths… they held true. Sadly, in the chaos of it all… Telcia never drank her tea which would have stopped the babies within her from growing and even as they set foot on the banks of Tar Valon; Telcia & Iussi’s children grew within her belly.
Telcia had warned the Amyrlin (Karana) and the Tower of the marching trollocs armies and then, still weary from her trip and all her channeling, she joined her sisters on the battlefield to protect Tar Valon. Iussi joined them, an act which would later earn him Tower Guard ranking, but there something wretched occurred… something Iussi couldn’t explain, something that left him unconscious and sick for days after. No one could explain it, until it happened again… the yellows had come to Telcia to tell her of her husband’s likely use of herbs and mixtures to augment his strength (perhaps in a desire to prove himself a worthy Guard) but Iussi knew better. He knew now that he was a channeler and he had to confess this to his wife… and she, to him of her pregnancy.
In secret both went to Arette, the Keeper, in the middle of the night. Telcia felt her old friend would help her where as her Sisters might not. Perhaps she feared this because it was her husband and they had been so angry and judgmental over her choice. After all, hadn’t they turned out to be right? She couldn’t deal with their pity and ‘I told you so’ glares. No… Arette would help her. Or so she told herself. In the end, Arette (who she found sleeping with Con Stravos that night) refused her and ordered Iussi taken into custody. Telcia begged, but it did no good. Arette claimed she had to be loyal to her office first and to Mother. It was then Telcia foretold something that made Arette’s blood run cold; the Dragon was not only reborn (as Arette and Mother had secretly known) but that because of her choices that she and Karana would lose their seats and Mother the One Power.
Luckily for Arette, Telcia couldn’t remember the powerful words she’d uttered, as it sometimes happened in powerful foretellings. Just the same the stage had been set for what would becoming the breaking of the world’s greatest institution as the Red Ajah marched to retrieve Iussi Dyfelle; the first victim of the new law instated by the Tower in the absence of the Red Sisters (during the False Dragon, Jared event) – all male channelers would be kept and studied instead of immediately gentled.
Weeks turned to months as Perine, an Accepted of the Tower, helped nurse Telcia (now a sitter of the reds, despite her actions) through her pregnancy in secret. Day after day the Reds tried to convene the Hall and argue for the release of Iussi… but each day they were shut down and Telcia’s heart began to fill with despair and hate once more. Now all the friends she thought she had, had betrayed her and her love… and her love was surely to rot and die… only her Red Sisters remained true. The Red Ajah, guardians of humanity, her friends and family… the one thing then and now that she had to live for. The only thing, always true.
As the pregnancy became too noticeable and whispers started, Telcia left the Tower under orders of the Amyrlin Seat. She accompanied Mandi of the Green Ajah to Camelyn where she would give birth. There, in a hotel room late one night while Mandi was gone… Telcia went into labor.
Downstairs members of a group she never suspected existed… a group Mandi had come to meet with… heard her cries and came to her rescue. Their leader, none other than her half-brother, Lord Skechid… a male channeler and powerful healer.
With her twins born she traveled to Cairhien, swearing not to speak of her brother and his men who had saved her life… but careful not to promise not to send people after the others she learned were somewhere in the nearby Andoran countryside. In Cairhien she found her old mentor Arie running an Inn called the Sursa Madi. She spent a long while there with Arie and her husband… Daemon, who had been released of his bond when it was learned Arie was alive. The reunion was a happy one but it made her realize all the more how much her family meant to her and so, boarding a ship once more she sailed towards Tar Valon.
Once more Telcia petitioned Karana and Arette (and the hall) to release her husband… this time with her children in tow. On their behalf she pleaded stating that not only would they represent something that could give Iussi will to live… but that the children needed a father as she had few marketable skills in the world such as farming. She needed him to survive as well. The Tower responded by issuing a continue allowance for her and her children and farmland. After this she promised her husband to wait for him… and so she set out to her farm, but not before having one final foretelling as to the conditions under which she and Arette would meet again and be friends once more. She would save Arette’s life and they would save each other somehow.
Sure enough, as Arette left Tar Valon on foot after having been taken out of her own seat… pregnant, Telcia found her and whisked her away to live with her and her own children on their farm. There they’ve been until recently… the start of the newest chapter in our story…
== For what is: (Present History) ==
Telcia and Arette lived on their farm in peace. In a stroke of small village politics Telcia had her “sister” Arette appointed village wisdom.
Between helping raise two sets of twins, running a farm, and now returning to a role of leadership … Arette’s thoughts of ending her life came to an end. Telcia and she had opened a one room school house to teach the villagers to read, write, and do basic arithmetic and when they weren’t busy with that they used the One Power (as they always wished they could have) like the people in the Age of Legends… in basic everyday life. Farming was much more successful, fishing… a breeze, birthing children, curing illness, and bringing comfort to the dying all were made easier by the One Power. It took some adjustment but time flew by.
As time passed and her toddlers could ask about daddy, Telcia began to fear the worst. Each night, at sunset, she stood at the edge of her farm watching the eastern horizon until it was too dark to see… and every night Iussi wasn’t there. Telcia began to give up hope and instead began to focus on her new life.
Winter came on and the nights came quicker until, if only because of the bitter cold and the lack of daylight, Telcia couldn’t waste time watching for a man who would likely never come back to her, she had children she had to focus on… she knew he would want it that way. The world now knew of the Dragon Reborn and the Tower would be fools to give up the only man they had to study on… and Telcia knew it. Tarmon Gaidon would come and if she was lucky, she’d see Iussi again before they all likely died in service to the Light.
They’d gone to bed, children all tucked in… fire crackling and burning low… when the noise came. Darkness seemed flood the room as if a creature moving through the air itself; and then while she couldn’t see, the children screamed. Telcia shouted at her twins to run and hide and darted for Arette’s infants who were too small to run anywhere.
Grabbing the twins she used the One Power to fill the room with light and quickly wished she hadn’t. Next to her Arette grabbed for the source and using air tore a hole through a window & wall into the snow outside. “Get them out!” She screamed. Telcia nodded and ran as fast as she could, screaming for her children to follow. “Jeleane, Jamal… come on!” She cried out, but there was no reply.
“Jeleane! Jamal!” Still nothing, frantic and holding screaming babies Telcia began to search but could find nothing. “JELEANE! JAMAL!!!!!” Tears streamed down her face as battle raged on behind her. Outside Telcia could see Trollocs, and leapt through the hole in the wall as Arette battled whatever it was behind her. Fearful they had her children she couldn’t risk using fire or lightening and so air would have to do. Frozen, three Trollocs lay across the field still stuck in mid-run. Across the village she could hear chaos but not the cries of the two children she yearned most to know were okay. If only she’d gone to them first… if only she’d kept her eyes on them… if only… if only…
Hiding Arette’s children in a barn she charged forward towards the Trollocs with gripping her marriage dagger and pulling it violently free from its sheath; death blazing in her icy eyes. But the Trollocs could only die… they didn’t have the children, nor did the other beasts they’d find before it was all done.
In the end, when it was over, there had only been a small group of Trollocs, a strange creature made of darkness… and more injuries and death than this middle of no-where Andoran village had ever seen; worst of all… where had they come from?!? It seemed impossible… all of it. Most impossible of all was the disappearance of her two children, Jeleane and Jamal.
The villagers lead by Arette and Telcia hunted the countryside for nearly a week before almost everyone had given up… and word of the incident at Dumai’s Wells reached them turning the world’s attention from one small tragedy to the fear of the world ending.
In Telcia’s mind, the world, and the Tower itself, had gone mad! By this point the village had given the children up for dead, only Arette and Telcia hung on to the rational that the Shadow wouldn’t have taken children just to kill them… they would have done so there in the house if that had been the goal; but both confessed neither had a certain idea of why this would happen or just who took them as no one saw anyone else but the shadows and the Trollocs. Still, one thing was clear… the children weren’t in the village and the few clues they did have seemed to make no sense at all. And so they resolved to a plan… Telcia would go to the Tower and tell the Amyrlin of what occurred, she’d tell Iussi too… and maybe if both pleaded his release (as Iussi hadn’t in the past) they could be free to seek out the children. In the meantime, Arette would leave the village to take up the search seeking allies where she could and knowledge where-ever it lay. They’d stay in touch and, if Iussi was already dead (as they guessed he might be) Telcia would remain at the Tower to use what resources she could muster there, to find the children and prepare for the final battle. After all, most of the knowledge they’d need was inside the walls of the one place Arette was banished from.
Entrusting her Sister to the greatest quest that anyone could be given… the last glimmering hope of a mother’s children… Telcia began towards the White Tower once more. She’d meet this new Amyrlin and her Keeper and she’d take the Tower by the horns to beg for Iussi’s life if she had to… burn them, she’d kidnap him if need be… if a bunch of fat lazy browns could break someone out, surely the reds could. And why not, it seemed the whole Tower was mad with law breaking lately, why not her!?!
Little did Telcia know… Iussi was already gone and gentled … out looking for her… in a village that was now less one frumpy little wisdom from Tar Valon named Arette and her exotic looking sister, Telcia.
= OP Score =
Air: 6
Earth: 5
Fire: 5
Spirit: 8
Water: 6
Strength: 32
Skill: 32+3
Potency: 67
Category:Biographies
Category:White Tower Bios
Category:Red Ajah Bios