Gwyndolin The Silent

Gwyndolin the Silent is an auxiliary: a permanent non-Elven resident of Aravia accorded a citizenship status close to that of trueborn High Elves, yet treated as a social inferior whose presence is contingent upon obedient service. Gwyndolin, however, was once herself a High Elf. After her Skinwalker transformation, she chose to remain in Aravia rather than leave in shame as many High Elven Skinwalkers do. Perhaps this was because Gwyndolin always had some solidarity with the auxiliaries, and cultivated a rapport with them as a child. In adolescence Gwyndolin was sent to tour Felwin's Wall as part of her general education. The trip changed her forever, though her memory is fragmented and official accounts cannot agree on what really happened to her there. She admits sneaking out to see the top of the Wall and speak to its guards by night. It is agreed she vanished shortly after arriving. Gwyndolin said that while she was peering into the gloom toward Durham Forest, a massive snowy owl swooped noiselessly out of the darkness, wings as broad as a house and eyes aglint with strange luminescence. It enveloped her in darkness and she saw only brief, delirious glimpses of distant lights, like cities at night glimpsed from afar. Then, after a time unknowable to her, she was released. She fell toward treetops, and she spread out her wings and glided to slow her fall - she did not realize she had wings, but she did, and they were helping her. But she still could only tumble and crash through the dense branches of the canopy, and was knocked unconscious. Searchers from the Wall found a battered Skinwalker whose form echoed that of a snowy owl, lying amid leaves and broken branches in a grove some five minutes walk from where Gwyndolin had disappeared. Under guard, she recuperated, and since the incident had taken place on the Wall, during a time of heightened tensions and high danger of subversive activity, the Aravian security apparatus swooped in to take charge of Gwyndolin and her exceptional case. A stern, masked envoy of the state came to give her a weighty ultimatum. As far as the envoy investigators were concerned, Gwyndolin story was, at the very least, not actionable intelligence. Consensus held that what Gwyndolin remembered was a scrambled distortion of something else, a delusion or repression of the truth. It was the opinion of the monarchs deputies that Gwyndolin had been abducted, but not by a supernatural beast. They blamed a conspiracy of subversive Elves who sought to breach the Wall, humiliate its guardians, and de-legitimize it in the eyes of the people. Various reports of Winged Elves were attributed to the region of the Wall where the incident took place, and different theories of Fae, Skinwalker cults, and unorthodox magic were being debated. Gwyndolin was now more a liability than a potential good citizen, so said the envoy - unless she submitted to close scrutiny and lifelong state control, in which she would perform spycraft and counterintelligence against whoever or whatever is behind the Winged Elves and other recent intrigues that threatened to fracture the realm. In essence, it was the same choice that every High Elf Aravian who becomes a Skinwalker must face: abject loss of freedom, or exile and even greater shame. Shocked, intimidated, and mindful of the negative consequences a refusal would have for her whole family, Gwyndolin felt she had no choice but to agree to the terms and leave everything behind. Gwyndolin was trained in the necessary skills of subterfuge and combat, and trusted Skinwalker auxiliaries taught her how to best cope, adapt, and exploit her new body. She tried to remain stoic, and buried her lonely sorrow deep in her psyche, becoming cold, withdrawn, and taciturn. Her reticence of speech matched the incredible stealth her training and discipline enabled her to achieve, and Gwyndolin became known as the Silent. Her handlers gradually inured her to ever-greater danger and violence, escalating her missions from surveillance, to infiltration, to assassination. Wielding twinned talon-like blades, the only sounds she created in her missions were the slash and rip of fabric and flesh and the patter of spilled blood. Pitted often against the impoverished and oppressed, often fellow Skinwalkers, Gwyndolin hardened her heart and held her tongue. Her only solace was a feeling of martyrdom for her family sake, and hope of discovering the truth of her abduction. Her deployments against subversive non-Elves in Aravia have resulted in many minor successes, but no major progress in unmasking the forces behind the Winged Elves, the treachery of Elenaril, or, most infuriatingly for Gwyndolin, the true nature of her disappearance and transformation. With tempestuous war and upheaval sweeping across Anhelt, Gwyndolin is being pushed near to breaking point by her assignments. How long can Gwyndolin the Silent contain her sorrowful anger?