Faye Leenita-Nún

**Faye Leenita-Nún** was a **Mír-Hínan** of **Ethuílmen** of the **Heroes of Azuríl** and High Lady (*Ar Híril* in Hínas) and founder of the Mír-Hínan Egalías. She was known for her incredible talent in the Arcane Arts, particularly when it came to using them for Stealth.

## History

### Early life in Ethuílmen

Faye was raised under the tutelage of her parents - whom both sat the council of Mir-Hinan Dominion. Dälían Leenita-Nún and Laénála Leenita-Nún. She groomed to one day join the nobles and sit the dias alongside them. Born to the noble, Leenita High Elf dynasty, which are known to harbour great affinity for extreme arcane abilities. It explains Faye’s uncanny art for magic. The Mir-Hinan govern the laws and constitutions of the Miriantra which is a set of laws all high Elves must obey and live their lives by. Breaking any of these rules would mean disgracing their bloodline, or suffering great punishment resulting in exile or death.

She shared the silvery hair of a high-elf and had a likeliness for her mother’s beautiful features but had her fathers, cold and dark eyes. Void of colour even in the sun. The Mir-Hinan govern the laws and constitutions of the Miriantra which is a set of laws all high Elves must obey and live their lives by. Breaking any of these rules would mean disgracing their bloodline, or suffering great punishment resulting in exile or death. She shared the silvery hair of a high-elf and had a likeliness for her mother’s beautiful features but had her father’s cold and dark eyes, which were void of colour even in sunlight.

Faye was a well-behaved child - she was very aware of her parent's power in their community and the prestige in which she been bestowed upon by her birth. The only daughter, and heir to the Leenita-Nun lineage - she spent much of her youth studying the many heavily bound books inside the Great Archive in Ethuilmen upon the Lunar Isles. She had few friends, her parents were very particular about the types of children she was able to befriend. They refused any that did not belong the pure-blooded families. There was one boy, however, that Faye was extremely close with. His name was Iveos, and he was the child of a fellow councilor. Iveos was tall with long lemon-colored hair and handsome in a warm way her father wasn't, who had sharp, pointed features. He indulged Faye's every whim and he made her laugh. The two shared their woe of an unfair life, and the envy of watching other, lesser children playing among the floral and lush meadows that filled the Lunar Isles. They longed to venture outside into the fresh air, to collect flowers and chase each other through the fields of grass. One could perhaps call their bond love, beyond friendship. They would often sneak out to star-gaze, and talk of their lives beyond the shores of the Lunar Isles.

### Iveos and the change of idealism

As Faye grew out of her childhood and into her adolescence, her and Iveos began to challenge their parents strict teachings. Faye and Iveos would often argue about who came up with the idea in the first place, but at night they would talk about the Mir-Hinan. Who decided who said who? Who was right from wrong? Why was it their parents who governed the land of Lunar Isles and not others?

At first, their conversations were just that, simply conversations - strewn around ideas and nonsense. Faye never thought anything they said would come to fruition. Faye assumed that as they grew, and Iveos came into manhood from a child, that their ideas would fade to nothing but silly childhood games. She knew her destiny was predetermined - she would marry a man her parents determined to be of pure-blood and would carry on the legacy of Leenita-Nun, perhaps sit the council or go on to teach in the Citadel. Faye was busy with her teachings when she first learned that Iveos had in fact not grown out of his ideas. Whispering students flocked to empty classrooms, rumors of a secret meeting where Iveos was giving speeches to young Elves, enlightening them. Iveos was always more vocal about such things, and even went as far as to mention such ideas to his parents, which ended in harsh lectures - but usually, went unpunished.

It wasn't until Iveos expressed such lucrative ideas in front of the Council, in front of Iveos' parents and Faye's. Faye felt the color leave her cheeks and the air empty of her lungs. She was frozen in horror. These ideas, these personal stories Iveos and her shared no longer belonged to her, they were laid bare for all to see... and she felt the guilt radiate off her. Before Iveos or Faye could intercept - Faye's father rose from his seat upon the council and looked down at Iveos. Her father drew his cold, empty gaze to Iveos' own father.

"Punish this defiler, this blood-traitor." Dälían said.

Iveos' father shrinks back. His wife clung to his hand. Neither wants to punish their own son. Neither wants to see him exiled, or killed. But Faye's father's stare is piercing. Unrelenting. Other Elves that sit the Mir-Hinan turn their dark gaze to Iveos' father, a small man with a squirmish smile and quietly spoken.

"Punish him." Dälían repeats. He spoke with cold, icy malice. There is no warmth to him. "How dare you defy the Miriantra. How dare you try to defile the very grounds in which we are all built upon. You spoil the blood of your fore-fathers, you spread lies and rumors and stand as a false idol to manipulate our youth."

Iveos' mother, a mouse of a woman, quietly wept. "Why have you forsaken us?" She whimpered. "Why?"

Iveos is silent. Defiant in his words and stuck-fast, unmoving. Faye is frozen to her seat and feels sick to her stomach. She wants so desperately to speak out. Sensing that Faye might say something, her mother's hand closed tightly against her own. To the point where her knuckle turns bone-white and pinch with pain. Faye remains silent. Iveos turns his green eyes her, for the first time since knowing him, he looks disappointed in her. Ashamed.

"You understand what you have done..." Iveos' father began to speak. His voice is slow to thicken, to enact authority. He appears small in the shadow of Dälían - who stands tall like a totem, for all to admire, and to see. "You must face the consequences of your actions."

When Faye was a girl she can remember a similar situation. She cannot recall the Elf’s name, but he had done an unspeakable crime. Made to walk the long trail up Mt. Anorras, a pointed mountain that played as the picturesque backdrop to the Elven city of Ethulimen. Elves from all across the Lunar Isles lined the road up the mountain to the peak. Watching on with blank faces. When he reached the top of the mountain, he turned to face the crowd of Elves. There was no hope for him. When he searched their faces for reassurance, for hope - he saw nothing but empty eyes. His fate was sealed when his Lifelight was drawn from his Elessar Stone and torn from his neck. A crystal necklace that holds the essence of  High Elf immortality. Faye buried her face within her mother’s robes, and she cannot remember what happened next. But she would soon see it.

“You have brought disrepute on your family and their name.” Iveos’ father rose from his seat.

Faye searched the faces of the other young elves stood inside the cavernous Council chamber. They did not return her stare, their eyes down-cast, ashamed, frightened. Faye knew if they all spoke out, they could not punish them all, not at the risk of ending any hope of continuing the blood-lines, leading the High Elves into eventual extinction. But Faye was frozen in fear. Crippling fear. She could not force the thoughts in her mind to translate into words in her mouth, and she was left swallowing empty breaths.

“On the morrow you walk the path of Mt. Anorras and be cast from this life. Your Lifelight will be taken from you, and you will face the fate of a mortal.” An elder Elf on the council condemned Iveos in a single sentence. He is led away in chains to a cell, where he will spend a restless night. Faye falls to pieces once alone in her solar… the guilt weighed her down like stones, sinking into despair.

### Iveos' Execution

The morning of Iveos’ execution came fast. Elven families left their homes and walked the road to Mt. Anorras. Shops lay abandoned, the citadel was empty. Faye had been brought to the very top of the mountain and stood quietly beside her parents. Although they did not talk of Iveos’ crimes against the Míríantra - Faye had a sense her father knew. He always knew. He stood beside her, a hand firmly gripping the nape of her neck. Ensuring she remained facing Iveos as he was cast from their world. Iveos walked in silence as he made his way up the mountain. Dressed in a simple white smock - he had been previously stripped of his noble robes. All that was left on him was his Elfstone. The pale glowing crystal. Ivoes’ kept his chin raised in a final act of defiance. He wouldn’t let them break his spirit. He was lead into the inner circle of the Mír-Hínan Dominion. A group of pure-blooded high elves. Both of Iveos and Fayes parents sat the council. And both would determine Iveos’ faith.

Faye’s father began to speak. “Iveos Cadheall-Nun, you stand accused of breaking several sacred laws of the Míríantra. You have disrespected the wishes of the Mír-Hínan Dominion. You have conspired against the Mír-Hínan Dominion, commiting treason. You have abandoned your destiny and ignored the wishes of the Council. All are punishable by exile and a mortal-death.”

Iveos’ mother clung to her husband for stability. She was pale faced and gaunt, grieving the loss of her son before he had even left their realm. He offered no comfort and could barely stand himself. Faye felt she might be sick. She hadn’t eaten in two days, and so only stomach bile threatened to spill forth. She clenched her jaw tightly and remained wire-tight. She watched in silent horror as an Elder Elven woman crossed the paved mountain top, and approached Iveos. Raising a hand above his chest, where his crystal glinted lightly in the sunlight, she mutters a prayer.

“For your desecration of our Míríantra and your disregard for the wishes of the Mír-Hínan Dominion, you are taken from this immortal life. You will not enter our Bright Veils with your poisoned heart. You will not rest with those who have earned their peace.” With a violent jerk, the old woman tore Iveos’ Elfstone from his neck. The chain snaps and the crystal’s light fades, lifeless and empty. It bleeds the immortal life and leaves Iveos mortal. No longer protecting him, he is vulnerable.

Eyes turn to the chasm beyond the ledge of the mountain top. Clouds cover what lies beneath, but Faye knows it is nothing but death. There is no eternal rest or hope of reincarnation for Iveos. Without his Elfstone, he is cast from the Elven world in life and death. Faye joins the crowd as they follow him to ledge of the mountain. Elven guards stand with sharpened weapons, ready to force him off the edge if he dare try to resist. But Iveos shows no signs of escaping. It appears as though he is at peace with his actions and his punishment. He doesn’t beg for mercy, he doesn’t break down on his knees and plead for his mother’s hug. Instead, he remains tall, stoic. In the quiet moments that pass, Iveos’ green eyes find Faye’s. She feels them prick with tears and she tries to blink away, but does not. He gifts a smile. Forgiveness. Before Faye can smile back, he falls backward.

Wind ripples his white clothing like wings, and he falls back into the empty air - plummeting through the clouds to the depths at the bottom of the chasm. Gone.

Life resumes. For those who didn’t know Iveos like she did, they fall back into the life they had known before. No one mentions his name. No one talks about his ideas. It is as though he didn’t exist. Iveos’ parents are removed from the council. Their name tarnished by Iveos’ actions. They are quickly replaced by another family. Faye cannot move on. His death left a hole. A hole she tried to fill with books, with learning, with lectures from her father and the idea of marrying. But Iveos’ death had lifted the facade of her life, the glossy varnish scratched off. Her parents, whom she once regarded as Godlike… filled with wisdom and knowledge that Faye couldn’t fathom, were lies. They had sent a young man to die for his thoughts. They had acted in malice and contempt. They gave no trial, no freedom for him to share his side. They took every ounce of freedom from him and sent it off the mountain with him. It left Faye full of resentment. Bitter. If her parents had been cold to her in the past, she would return the favour.

She did not attend her lessons, her absence is noted during council meetings. She locked herself away in her solar and was rarely sighted. Her parents arrange several meetings between potential husbands, she does attend any. Faye closes herself off entirely to her family. Sealing herself tightly. It begins her path to becoming a Rogue, and eventually a seasoned criminal.

### Absconding from Ethuílmen

Whilst Ethulimen is a great and wealthy city, it imports resources not found on the Lunar Isles. The harbour was small, ordelry. Ran smoothly under the strict guide of the  Míríantra. But at night, when most had returned to their homes to meditate, Faye slinked down to the docks under the cloak of night. She befriended many sailors, drunks and gamblers. Here she spent her time. Drinking, playing games and enjoying the stories that the sailors told. She had dreamt as a girl of leaving the Lunar Isles, to explore Terazan, but like many things, she never thought it would really happen. But this was before Iveos had been thrown off the mountain. Sent to perish for a crime they were all guilty of. The idea of escaping grew on the daily and before she realised she was planning, plotting her route out of the Isles.

One evening, the waters surrounding the Isle were still and a cargo ship was docked in the harbour. The jovial crew were drinking down by the waters edge, gambling and singing. Faye devised a plan. She would steal what gold she could find from her parents, and bribe her way on board. It helped that the captain was a fat, greedy man even hungrier for gold than he was for food. When Faye took the heavy gold purse that night, she did not expect to see her father waiting for her. He stood, cast in the ethereal spotlight of the full moon. He said nothing, just stared at Faye she crept from their study. She left without so much as a word.

Smuggled away on the ship, Faye watched her childhood home melt away into early morning fog as they sailed for Anchor Point. With a hand tightly closed over her Elfstone, she thought of Iveos. She was doing this for him. Leaving to explore the world for him, in his name. She did not expect the reality of Terazan. Many nights she spent thinking her parents were right. The mortals here were … like barbarians. Fights, bloodshed, mud. Not to mention the stench of human cities. Everyone stared at her, her long pointed ears, her beautiful features. She did all she could to ignore the many leering men, their wandering hands.

### Becomming a Rogue

Walking the long winding road from Anchor Point one evening, Faye was sprung by highwaymen, cut-throats whom demanded her money and her weapons, of which she had none. She was starving, thirsty and coinless. With the agility of a cat, Faye slipped from the mains grasp and into the shadows.

The man, who had a rough voice, with the face of a weathered traveller, spoke in the dark.

“You’re good at hiding missy… ever considered a career in it?”

Faye had not. She considered criminals beneath her, but now, far from home, things appeared differently.  Had she not defied her parents? Committing several criminal acts against the Míríantra? Out here, she was no different to them. Thus began her training. The man she met that night came to be a teacher to her. His name was Flint, he was a human man, but had the gift of sleight-of-hand. Like magic, he stole keys, food and coin in the blink of an eye. Together, they traveled across the continent, hustling drunk Dwarves out of their gold and swindling Innkeepers out of their savings.

It was during the night, some moons later, did their karma catch up with them. They had underestimated their target, who appeared to be an oaf, a brainless Half-orc, who had carelessly gambled away over 200 coins to Faye and Flint. Faye, unsuspecting of the easiness, drank herself into a stupor. Flint however, was all to obvious at the game the Half-orc had played. In the night, while Faye stared up at the stars, hands caressing her Elfstone quietly, Flint went off into the woods to relieve himself. She was jolted upright by a strangled scream. Stumbling blindly into the wood after the sound, she saw Flint hung from a tree, his stomach split from his sternum to his hip, his entrails dangled grotesquely over him. The way butchers displayed their meat. The half-orc bared his teeth at Faye and advanced toward her. She saw Flint’s rapier propped against the tree. She grabbed for it and began to run, leaving their campsite, and Flint’s dead body behind.

Again. She had lost a friend. After the death of Flint, Faye began to travel alone. She used her mouth less and her fist more. Becoming handy in her rapier and robbing victims blind. She took everything, and left them naked more often than not. It was traveling across the continent, taking what she wanted, caring only for herself, where she received the first vision, which lead her to the others.