Aquila

## Appearance and Character

Unlike many who live out their early life behind temple walls, Aquila is unmarked by her faith; she has no tattoos, and her hidden platinum hair is bereft of dye. Coupled with crystal clear blue eyes, even in the absence of an accent one would be hard pressed not to identify her as some sort of Flameseed.

Calm, collected and outwardly empathetic, she is all one would expect from a woman charged with the proliferation of the Red Faith while passionate, fiery words are tempered by a silver tongue that always seek to make themselves into what the recipient wishes to hear.

Much of her history has been obscured by time, effort, and the turbulent upheaval ongoing in Vakar during her upbringing. However one thing that is known is she was found in the basement of a brothel in the arms of an unnamed corpse by Soot she was then taken back and the lord said one thing to Soot when he presented the girl in front of the flames, 'Aquila' and as such that became her name.

In time, Aquila has become a figure as subtle and strange as her childhood origins; her true origins lay in the Red Temple in Vakar initially led by Miriam before being led by High Priestess Ash.

A simple childhood in Miriam's temple saw her sealed away from the violence that accompanied major political changes in Vakar over the war; the reformation of the Kingdoms and, later, the ascendancy of Vaenarr Vakerian. As the latter was underway, She was sent from Vakar to Iarran and there began her training to serve the Red God truly.

A quick and able student, throughout her training Aquila heard much of the bloody political bedlam that still consumed her home, and had spread rapidly to the Foreign Isles and threatening every common born life that may still be trying to live in peace.

Dragonriders were always people of particular interest, but none more so than those that brought chaos. No more so than those that bore the name Vakerian, and were reputed to rule the continent atop the great beasts in more than mere handfuls. It seemed odd that they possessed a thing lost even to the first child of the gods; where were the dragons of Iarran?

When the Red Priest Soot returned from his pilgrimage, his stay in the temple saw them forge a bond of friendship. He sought visions in the flames, and until he found one, Aquila was a shadow that darkened every door he passed. There was something grand in the stories he brought back, from what occurred in the War of Three Dragons to tales of Vakar. Already she had caught the eye of several other, elder priests for her devotion even from so young an age. No matter how the fire faded in others, or how it struggled to ignite, when only embers remained it was they that stoked the fire anew is what both she and Soot whole heartedly believed in.

When her tutelage came to an end, there were some few who were quick to prescribe the word 'zealot' to a woman now grown. Where some saw a negative force, the High Priestess saw only an enthusiasm prime for the wielding. Sent back from whence she came, Aquila was charged as a Red Priest for the Red Faith in the Crownlands and the Midlands. Primarily around Vakar and Ruizar, where she experienced the greatest success integrating herself with the people who welcomed her as one of their own returned, but later spread her travels to further and smaller places.