Calen Liador Yvresse

Character Name: Calen Liador Yvresse
Place of Birth/Raising: Cairhien
Description: Standing at 5'8" Calen would have been considered short amongst the Malkieri but among the people of Cairhien he is considered tall for a lad his age (15 years). Most consider his face and features to be an eerie reminder of fallen Malkier. His eyes are a pale blue, a common colour for one of Malkieri decent although his hold an uncommon zealousness about them as well as a calculating depth of intelligence. He has a head of wild hair like spun gold which falls almost to his waist and has yet to be cut since his birth and will, according to Malkieri tradition, remain uncut until he meets his carniera. Despite his features Calen speaks very much like a Cairhienin with clear enunciation on each word and uses many of the Cairhienin idioms and adages.
= Character History =
Calen's up bringing was not quite the norm for a Cairhien youth. His mother, Inara, was a young woman raised in proper Malkieri fashion by her parents, who fled the dying Borderland country before its fall to the Shadow. His father, Marcel, is a very wealthy, upper class Cairhien merchant and a very adept player in the Game of Houses. Despite their clashing cultures Marcel and Inara were very much in love with one and other. When their young son, Calen, was born they decided he would learn the traditions of both his mother's proud but lost Borderland home and father's more politically minded but just as noble heritage of the city and nation of Cairhien.
At first Calen's schooling was a joy to him. His teacher, Aldan, was a kindly Andoran who, while getting on in his years, maintained a sharp mind and encouraged free but respectful thought in his young student. As Calen grew older his mixed heritage began to trouble him. He found it hard to adhere to both his ancestries, the Malkieri had a strong emphasis in honour and never breaking an oath once given while the Cairhienin with the heavy influence of Daes Dae'mar seemed to believe that there were times that honour could be set aside, times when the Great Game called for an oath to be broken. These questions of honour, oaths and the Game of Houses were far too complex for the young mind of Aldan's pupil. With no clear right answer in sight Calen began to look to other places apart from his blood for the answers he needed. He began to look to the Light. The now graying Aldan provided the much needed intellectual forum for young Calen to air his troubled thoughts and as such they would often argue long into the night, the old Andoran scholar often amazed by the depths of his young golden haired student's mind at other times fearing the conviction of Calen's beliefs, particularly in the defense of the teachings of the long since deceased Lothair Mantelar.
As Calen's mind was shaping itself and his fervent, almost zealous, beliefs were still forming his world was up heaved as his proud Malkieri mother was struck by a wasting illness. The disease took hold and within weeks what was left of the once exuberant Inara was naught but skin and bones. Calen stayed at his mother's side for the duration of her illness. Praying with all his passion and conviction that the Light would ease his mother's passing. It still remains in the Calen's mind, his last memory of his mother.
As though her son's tearful pleading with the Creator had been granted, the pain had seemed to lift from Inara's racked frame and she had beckoned the kneeling young man to her side. As she looked into the icy blue eyes bordered by the wild golden hair of her son Inara had smiled up at Calen, pressing a braided leather cord into his hand she whispered to him with what little strength she still had "Always walk in the Light, my young lion." With one last smile she added "You are now a man."
When Calen had finally let go of her hand and held the brown leather cord up to his eyes he recognized it instantly, the Hadori, the cord given to a young Malkieri male to symbolize the end of his journey to manhood. Still so unsure of himself Calen had not been able to bring himself to tie the Hadori round his brow as it should be worn; instead he had tucked it neatly into his pocket.
After Inara's death Calen's father, Marcel, became cold, distant and threw himself vigorously into his work. He could no longer look his son in the eye, those pale blue eyes reminded him too much of the love he had lost. Marcel's business as a merchant was the perfect reason for him to send his young son, as well as his old mentor, out into the world. Calen and Aldan accompanied many of Marcel's wagon trains on the many different trade routes they took. The traveling had little effect on Aldan's teachings, they were still as intense as always and Calen still read and zealously supported "The Way of Light", the book chronicling Lothair Mantelar's own beliefs. Calen also began to learn more of the world while traveling, learning to tell a Tairen from an Altaran; he learnt to imitate, fairly well, the lilting Murandian accent. The world began to open for him and under Aldan's supervision he could pursue most of his heart's desires. He saw lions in the Aiel Waste. He visited the fabled Tarwin's Gap in Shienar, the passage into the lost home of his Malkieri heritage. But there was still one place he had yet to go that he desired most of all, the Fortress of the Light in Amadicia. To stand in the Dome of Truth and know that he did truly walk in the Light was his deepest passion.
Calen would have gone sooner to Amadicia but it seemed that his closest friend, his wise mentor's, health was finally fading. Aldan, the foundation upon which most of young Calen's life had been built, was finally crumbling and Calen could not go to highest place of the Light knowing that he had abandoned his truest friend to get there. And so it was that Calen accompanied the ailing Aldan to the mountains of Andor, to the little village that was once the home of the wizened scholar and it was there that teacher and pupil parted ways. Their parting was tearful but happy, Aldan looking forward to an easy retirement saying that he would enjoying revisiting all his old childhood fishing holes before assuring the young man, who was the son he never had, that if he ever needed a safe place to stay he need look no further then this very village.
Before Calen left on the road to Amadicia he prayed that the Light would guide and look after old Aldan and that he hoped his dear mother had found peace and love in the Creator's palm. It was at the age of fourteen that Calen arrived in Amador, the capital of Amadicia and the home of the Children of the Light. Upon being sworn into the Children of the Light, Calen was selected for a special assignment. He would under go one years' hard training with the Children as well as being trained at espionage as he was to be sent to Tar Valon, where he would eventually join the Tower Guard to watch over the witches of the White Tower, providing the Spymaster of the Children a valuable asset in the city of Darkfriends.
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