Wings of Fury 2

Name: Caulind Raithahir

Species: Elf (High elf, Tereen)

Song: Third Song - Mentale remains his specialty. Retains an ability of Attiser but at the cost of losing the ability of Frein.
Picked up Esprit over first time skip.
Worked on Vie over second time skip.

Age: 79

Origin: Vasara of Cestra of Alma. Or at least, that's where his mom left him before bouncing for Dad to raise him.

Home: A mountainous island in the Nedakean ocean, that has a white-stone stronghold of the Bright Tree on it. Rarely tends to be more than a 100 people at once on the island running things. Trains new song users there and sends them out to keep contacts and be a force of good in the world and in general opinion, trim away at evil in the hearts of mortals.

Appearance: Pale blue eyes, gentle and dim like a winter pond's shade. Dark night skin with a more nightish faint blueish hue, and more pitch black ebony hair, a few freckled splotches over the place. A bit stockier looking than your average elf and softer features, carries himself more like a graceful, tall human. Animalistic features, cat fangs, eyes with dilating pupils like felines except ice-white pupils and a tail underneath his robes, slightly more talonish long fingers and nails.

6' 2'' in height, walks lightly and with smooth motions rather than suddenness. Looks more like he keeps in reasonable shape in terms of build. Pierced ears with different loops of metal, and a nose piercing too. No scars oddly enough. Short, fine hair that's a little stiff, and a trimmed beard around his face.

His fashion sense has three styles. Simple traveler that keeps himself well garbed in simple blues and blacks where he's used silver thread to sew in patterns or a mixture of stars and branches. His garbed up uniform where he decks out, face and features more hidden away and covered. Then when, if possible, at royal events decked and blinged out in jewelry where things are very, very extra.

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Personality: Caulind wears that aura of old beyond his appearance some elves pick up. Maybe it's that he's had very little to do with elf culture or relationships, or just the life he's led. Despite being youngish for an elf, there's a gentle melancholy weariness tied to a look of experiences he hasn't quite come to terms with yet. 

Thankfully he's good at hiding that deep part of himself, mostly. Keeps up an amiable atmosphere, the kind of smile that seems to bubble out. When Caulind shows emotions, they seem to roil out of him. When he's excited, there's an energy in his entire body like he wants to hug the whole world. When he's sad, he cries and his whole body shakes with the grief of it. When he's angry, he shows a cold, almost cruel in it's rigidness, absence of any signs of joy or forgiveness or lenience.

Thankfully he's, at his heart, someone that wants everyone to get along and for things to work out well. And he believes if he can roll up his sleeves, he can see it happen. Generally speaking. He has to see it that way because the failures behind him haunt him, and he has trouble letting go of regrets and mistakes. So the only way he can get past that is the hope that he can make the future better regardless.

Will try anything once, will hear anybody out at least, will offer anyone a chance more than they deserve.

Biography:

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So. It all begins with... an elf princess, and a human prince. Princess Astorbain Raithahir and Prince Thatch Silefui. He was a young royal of a small human country out in the back end of things, who would one day be king but not any time soon hopefully. She was a high elf princess set to be married out to have one final big ass f***ing party out in the realm of Alma and with lower standards than she'd claim. He was funny, charming and got her more than she expected some young human to figure out. She also thought he was cute, for a human. Not like anyone was ever going to know. No one she cared about anyway.

Except...well, nature took it's course which was fine and fun for all involved, and then those certain herbs and medicines that were meant to stop nature taking it's course any further kinda dropped the ball which was a little less fine and fun for all involved although Caulind would say he's okay with how things turned out overall. One pretty irresponsible pregnancy later where Astorbain showed very little care for changing her behaviour from the party mode she was now extending for another few extra months, Caulind was popped out and promptly dumped on Thatch's hands as she passed back through his region. Toodles dear!

Things were a little... awkward after that. Thatch the first had already been set up to be married to a very fine noblewoman, Cristine, from Marre that he was honestly getting along with already. Thankfully he managed to smooth things out with her, promising that A. This was just a one night stand thing that had happened with a lot of wine before he'd met her and B. Caulind obviously wasn't going to be like, the crown prince or anything. This point was bickered over a bit, she wanted their, by which she meant definitely also her, children to be the ones to inherit, and thankfully a sage at the court made the suggestion of granting the bastard son to another organisation rather than kept around court where, you know, politics could theoretically happen and make things tense.

And that was how little baby Caulind's life was decided. He was kept around a while, until he was a little over 10. There was a little trouble conceiving between the King and Queen and yes, he was an elf bastard from some random high elf, but, Cristine warmed up well enough to Caulind thankfully despite keeping a practical political eye on the situation. Rather than being treated like shit and ostracised or anything, he was given a proper education for one of royal blood even though the title of prince had an asterix next to it, and Cristine found herself okay with forming a slightly distant and wary, but still motherly relationship with Caulind. It really went as well as it could have, Caulind having a fairly happy early childhood, up until his brother Kirk was born, the true heir.

It was with some difficulty but, Caulind was technically a political threat now and despite his parents knowing it would probably be fine to keep him around still, they decided to follow through with the agreement they'd made a decade ago when the Bright Tree organisation came calling, the conditions for claiming Caulind now in place. There was obviously some crying and frustration, and little 10 year old Caulind not understanding why he couldn't stay with his family and friends, and not able to be placated by the promise of adventure and magic and scared of the strange elf in white robes that would take him away. It wasn't until Cristine told him that he'd be able to learn how to protect Kirk with what he learnt that he calmed at all. That was something a little more concrete, that helped form a sense of responsibility in Caulind. If that hadn't been said to him, if he'd had to be forcefully dragged away, maybe the youngling's emotions would have turned to jealously and hate rather than a willingness to help and care after others.

So he left. He was allowed to return home to visit at times. When Thatch the II was born, some royal events, etc. The organisation of the Bright Tree were hard trainers with practical minds, but not so cold and calculating that they thought it better to sever their members from where they'd come from rather than remember the world they were a part of. Besides, such contacts as Caulind's could be useful obviously. They're not as insanely authorative as say, the jedi. [[shots fired]].

The Bright Tree were... something like problem solvers? Ambassadors? Their independent goals tended to be the destruction or imprisonment of immortal beings of malicious intent and nature. Not that they wouldn't accept calls for aid from other situations at time to time, understanding both the value of good PR, sending out specialised squads to collect information, foster good will and stability, and keep an eye on the world and the plates generally spinning, willing to use calls for help as opportunities to nip future potential disasters in the bud. But on paper, the brass tacks, what was explained first to their students and the one concrete fact known to the outside world, they killed immortals. Beings too powerful and too malevolent to be left for merely their victims to stand up against and counter, squads of the Bright Tree could be expected to if not fight themselves, level the playing field at least against them.

Caulind's aptitude for the third song was found and fostered, forming an early relationship in his teens with Mella, Varney and Rourke. A halfling, urkadi and a human respectively. Mella was the analysist and scientific scholar, breaking things into numbers and how most logically to proceed as well as sharing necessary practical information needed. Varney was the general muscle, power and practical member of the group as well as the medic and cook, taking care of the group physically. Rourke was the philosopher, specialised muscle (assassin) and expert on immortals in general, as well as the one who could help justify and make moral calls when needed. Caulind kept the group working together as a team and greased the wheels with talking to outside people in the world and worked to make sure everyone was happy and emotionally balanced.

Their first big job, they were sent to because of Caulind. King Volgud Selefui of Ralane had been suspected of suspicious behaviour for a while. These confirmations were confirmed by the request of aid from his exiled daughter, princess Kida Selefui. Tales of villages left empty of peasantry, collected in windowless carts by grim-faced knights. Of blood rituals and terrible songs sang out in the capital city. The word vampire muttered by the scholars of the Bright Tree brought a heavy mood to the leader's thoughts, as well as the consideration of such corruption in a position of power. It had to be stood against, if for no other reason than for any other being of sufficient resources deciding that such evils weren't even worth it if they were going to get murdered for it anyway.

Blah-blah-blah, civil war, adventure, shenanigans. It took a couple of years for the guerrilla forces of Princess Kida to grow into a full rebellion force that stormed the capital. Cultists were butchered, wicked nobles and their crimes dragged out and held accountable to, and King Volgud destroyed by the combined forces of Mella, Varney, Caulind and Rourke. Mella helped with reorganising things after that, Varney with reconstruction, Caulind and Kida got married and got to work on holding who needed to be held to account and fixing the aristocracy and business of making sure the country could run again whilst Rourke dealt with the clean up of dangerous information and purging out cultists and whomever had given Volgud the knowledge and aid to get like this in the first place.

That was the beginning of things going down hill, looking back.

Caulind was distracted with his new duties to his wife and getting back into royal politics, paying back the aid his brother Kirk and the kingdom of Cestra had offered during this rebellion and smoothing relationships between Cestra and Ralane. He didn't really have time to help with the next mission his squad went on. A brutal plague, known as the "Bloody Death" sweeped through the cities of the Tumbay jungle that outright killed most it passed through but for some reason left those humans afflicted by it as merely suffering pain-ridden victims that tore madly at blotched-red swollen skin as the blood vessels seemed to erupt and burst within yet didn't outright kill them. Those human sufferers seemed to be even more infectious than those victims that just died outright, and things turned violent and barbaric and cruel. The non-humans suffering from the disease found that certain fruit could be used to mitigate the effects to non-lethal levels and the disease passed through their systems swiftly, but all it did for the humans was ease the effects also without actually curing it and there was only so much of the fruit to go around and each time it seemed to be isolated and brought under control in one city, another eruption of cases began somewhere else and the cities began to turn on each other.

A mad fey from the jungle was eventually hunted down and slain, believing she was blessing the mortals with her gift of singing blood and that such beautiful new dreaming trees would bloom from their corpses. This... obviously had a lasting effect on the squad and Caulind was commanded to get his ass in gear and make sure his team was okay after that. It had been a worse mission morale wise than the Bright Tree had expected considering what it had done to the relations between humans and non-humans and handled worse than even most outbreaks of plague in terms of brutal actions taken to handle it.

Caulind tried to keep things chipper on the next missions, but there was a sense of something fractured. That he hadn't been there for what they'd seen. Rourke and Varney drew into each other's company a little further and Mella became a little colder, but things seemed to slowly improve over time, or at least, Caulind wrote it off as just the group maturing and changing, it happened. And then... Well... Rourke went fucking evil and insane. Long story fucking short and got turned into a statue of himself screaming whilst parts of Varney's now stone form too constrained and fused into him. An attempt to fuse himself and Varney into an immortal singular being, had been, if not outright stopped, then turned into a song to contain him, all four voices of four once friends tied into a ritual of souls and thoughts and matter and binding. Since the only way they'd been able to interrupt and subvert the purpose of Rourke's ritual had been to create a mental link between them all, they'd all felt each other's final moments. Rourke's hidden madness and ffragments of heretical wisdom learnt from the Dark Tree, Varney's horror and grief at the twisted form their love had turned into. Mella's utter revulsion and the death of any remaining whimsey in herself at this. Caulind felt and remembers it all still.

That was the end of their group. Mella and Caulind have barely spoken since.

Caulind's final mission was with a fresher squad, overseeing them as they investigated an entity in the forest of mirrors. This... didn't go great. There was a demon, Surmir, just, tearing people's minds open into worshiping it and making cruel deals and offers in exchange for power over them that escalated and escalated until they were utter thralls, their minds existing purely to serve what the demon wanted. This thing had... a lot more juice than Caulind had expected.

Thankfully, a resident fey being was mildly offended by all this unpleasantness going on in her forest, now that it was Summer of course. If the winter beings of the territory were okay with such things, very well, but Sírclaer had higher tastes of things. With Sírclaer's aid, a deal was struck. Thankfully Surmir was pretty young in it's power and got screwed to the fucking wall by Sírclaer on Caulind's behalf, since Surmir had had no idea that one of the members of Caulind's group was a hidden fey. The downside to things was... a mild double-cross. Surmir found itself unable to expand it's power beyond that already collected since, he found himself locked into having to feed on Caulind before he could feed on anyone else. And he couldn't broker a deal with Caulind because Caulind lost his ability to read in a separate deal with Sírclaer. Fey bullshit, it's weird, fucking confusing business, but it made sense to Sírclaer which apparently was the important thing for this shenanigan working. Buuuuut she decided she liked Caulind so helped him "escape" the immediate wrath of Surmir by turning him into a cat and keeping him for 20 years.

Or was it just a single summer season? That's what it was for everyone else at least, when Caulind escaped from the forest by just being the utter worst housepet during a very important meeting between fey of the woods and Sírclaer deciding he'd outstayed his welcome. Though he was left with some changes to remember his stay with her by. Aka, cat ears, tail, etc.

He doesn't quite remember everything she dragged him into in the forest of mirrors. Strange impossible fey adventures, things that still don't make sense to his conscious mind but the buried memories of it touch his dreams still, the sense of them making more truth and comprehensible.

Caulind found his control over the third song, the power of it in his voice already waning from the trauma of missions so far, further lost to him and multiple medative techniques were taught to him on behest of the Bright Tree organisation to stop himself aggravating mental traumas in other nearby beings his mind brushed against when he slept.

This was after he'd instead headed home for a while, just wanting to see his wife and children again. A whole half-year without seeing your family is bad, but if it's multiple decades for you... Well. He remained on sabbatical for a while, claiming that he could handle what had happened and just needed a break. Maybe if he'd gotten help needed first things wouldn't have... hmm. Kida and Caulind found themselves bickering more and more. Stress around the palace seemed to sky rocked despite Caulind getting stuck in to try and help and be there for his family and the kingdom of Ralane as much as he could, with the more he tried and tried, pushing himself, the worse everything seemed to get. It wasn't until a particularly raucous night of drinking turned into a bloody brawl that another third song user began to suspect what was happening, and mentioned it to Queen Kida. A few nights later of conscious study, seeing Prince Caulind's restlessness in his sleep effecting those nearby that the whole thing spilled out.

He had to go. In this state not only was he a danger to people's emotional wellbeing, even if he had control of his abilities fully, she was just... Caulind wasn't the same man she'd married, she wasn't the same princess he'd married and the relationship, him staying here all the time, wasn't working either. So Kida made the hard call on the situation that he wanted to work through, and told him to leave.

That obviously, sucked. It was heartbreaking. They both knew it was. Caulind and Kida were aware of each other's emotions keenly, even without the link they shared from Caulind's third song exposure between them.

Caulind has been mostly just... wandering since then, for the last decade or so since the divorce, picking himself together and working more as an observer and wanderer for the Bright Tree. Since he's an elf and nobility, they're a little more easy going about him coming back in the future, and he's not really necessary for anything noble related so... Yeah. He's recently found himself in the city of Marray and heard something about a dragon. Could be something to see of interest certainly?

Important Skills: Staff fighting and unarmed fighting in terms of combat skills. Mild skill at medicine. Good at dancing. Very handy at sewing and with needles. Good at lying and reading emotions. Business. Knowledgeable of bureaucracy, law and royal matters.

Important People: Ex-Wife: Kida Silefui, human. - Queen of Ralane. Short, loud and charismatic, late 40s. Minor fourth song user related to necromancy and resilience. Helped lead the coup against her father King Volgud with Caulind's aid. Volgud had been delving into fourth song immortality and blood rituals to regain youth and vigor, stopping him before he became a vampire. After that mini civil war, it took a couple of years where she was exiled and had to forment rebellion and collect contacts, she took over and married Caulind who she'd bonded with over the event.
Daughter: Cree Silefui, Human. - Early 20s. Has no time for song shit. Intelligent and driven and purposeful. Only flaw is that she tends to steam roll over people a bit and relies too much on her own capabilities and management skills.
Son: Kash Silefui, Human. - Mid teens. Training to be first song user - divination. Thoughtful and quiet and watchful, willing to assist his sister loyally in her rule and make use of his affinity for divination to help with this.
Dad: King Thatch Silefui of Cestra, Human. - Dead. Banged Astorbain in his very early 20s, was a pretty hot-headed and not the most scholarly king but balanced it with a high emotional intelligence. Had two other sons, Kirk and Thatch. Kirk took over rulership briefly but never had any children. A very serious man with a poor personality. Had no wish for children or a spouse and viewed it as his right to allow himself to be spared such things since his brother Thatch II had a family.
Step-Mom: Queen Cristine Silefui, Human. - Dead. From the queendom of Marre. A quick temper that thankfully chilled just as rapidly as it burst out. A nasty skill at being able to suddenly remember things from decades ago and a sharpness of wit and mind hidden behind a constant easy chattery sociability.
Half-brother: Thatch Silefui, Human. - In his late 60s, royalty of Cestra. Pretty chill dude, minor second song user of air. Used it to be able to fly and shoot super well with archery.
Nephew: King Milo Silefui of Cestra. Early 30s, minorly attuned to fourth song. Something of a warrior-er and combative mind, but more just wished he had an excuse for a good and noble war he could make a legend out of rather than just starting one for war's sake.

Half-sister: Arbrethil Raithahir, Elf. - Never met her.
Mom: Astorbain Raithahir, Elf. - Just the worst. Banged his dad during basically... a party before she was about to get married. Got pregnant, extended her stay, dumped him, went back home. Third song user. Early 100s

Mella Gaetan - First song user - Abjuris specialist, Halfling. Still alive, works as a mentor at the Alma hold of the Bright Tree. Grim, serious, critical of people. A born trouble-shooter.
Varney Dubar - Second song user - Di specialist, Urkadi. Was in mutual love with Rourke. Didn't work out well towards the end. Valued nature and soil, wanted to retire to a farm one day and make statues.
Rourke Boen- Fourth song user - Soul expert. Was a pretty light-hearted guy, or tried to be anyway. Most of his family died from a plague when he was young which left a mark on him. Rourke was corrupted by the Dark Tree organisation, or just by reading lore upon them, Mella and Caulind were never sure. Tried to pull some ritual where he promised to bind Varney's soul into his to become some sort of immortal Rebus. Mella and Caulind were able to work together with Varney to bind him away, although in the process of doing so Varney died, her soul vanishing in the usage of the binding. The result of the mess of a ritual is a dark statue of Rourke screaming as white stone is layered around him, trapping his still, stone body. They're unsure of whether Varney's soul is fused with his in there, if it's what is restraining him or passed on.

Sírclaer - Had him as a cat for a few decades, helped screw a demon out of a deal. Some being of the summer woods. Took away his ability to read as part of the process too and if he gets it back, then the demon can enforce the contract and come gunning for his soul. She herself is normally nice though dangerously capricious, but since she keeps her sphere of interest to a particular set of woods and only seems to be active for half the year, and also is willing to be useful to the Bright Tree organisation and other beings, isn't considered a serious threat overall.

Inventory: An amulet of the Bright Tree.

A quarterstaff hardened by a second song user.

A set of rings on his right hand that open to show engravings of his son and daughter on them, pinky and middle finger. His index finger has the emblem of his royal family. Ring finger is empty.

A set of bracers for arms and legs, gauntlets, a chain shirt and helm. Lighter than they should be. Blue base with gold ornamentation and filigree of leaves over them.

A sewing kit, explorers clothing, a backpack, a dagger, a compass, some maps, a book of words in different tongues and a blank book with a quill and ink.

Other notes

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Theme playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...yFfOocWptm

Name stuff
caul n. “great burden, affliction”
caun¹ n. “prince, chief, head”
caun² n. “outcry, clamour”

raitha- v. “to try, strive”

#lost adj. “empty”
linn n. “song, chant” see lind¹
linna- v. “to sing, chant”
linnod n. “type of poem, (lit.) ?seven-chant”
lind¹ n. “song, chant, singing; singer”
#lind² adj. “fair”

în² pron. “his, *reflexive possessive = his own”
ind n. “some particular purpose or intention of an individual; heart”

innas n. “*will”

Silivrenêl
silef n. and adj. “crystal (white)”
silevren adj. “like silef (crystal)” see silivren
silivren adj. “(white) glittering”
êl n. “star”
elanor n. “a golden star-shaped flower, (lit.) sun-star”
†Eledh n. “Elf”
†Elen n. “Elf” see †Eledh
†elen n. “star” see êl

sír n. “*today, this day” sîr n. “river, stream”
laer¹ n. “summer” laer² n. “song”
Caulind