Character Bio
Full name: Hadley Silla
Age: Early twenties
Gender: Female
Nationality: Qaimian
Place of birth: Qaim
Current Residence: The White Tower
Female Channeler
Strength in the One Power: unknown, probably low
Element Weakness: all of them?
Relationships
Spouse: None
Father: Jintae Silla
Mother: Maerun Silla
Siblings: 1 Brother
Children: None
Mentor: Hopefully someone
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5' 2
Weight: Between 11 and 12 stones
Hair color: Dark Brown
Eye color: Dark Brown
Skin color: Brown
Behavior
Bad Habits: Binge eating
Hobbies: Surviving
Mental Characteristics
Fears: Alleys at night
Life Goals (next 5 years): Maintain a safe place to sleep
Self-Confidence: mediocre
Background:
Born on the island of Qaim to a shipwright mother and ceramicist father, Hadley dreamed as a young girl, as children often do, of a life more adventurous than the ones her parents led. Watching the great ships sail by and occasionally dock, she imagined trading with the landborne, riding the storms, and narrowly escaping the clutches of various sea monsters.
Hadley’s parents had always been complete satisfactory by most common estimates, she did not lack support or affection. They were neither perfect nor deeply flawed, yet they were people, with hopes and expectations that often exceeded reality. They were, however, unable to hide their disappointment when Hadley discovered, on a lark involving a fishing skiff, that she suffered from violent seasickness.
Who can say whether the idea of a larger ship was misguided or not, but when her parents requested passage to Illian, the request was, by custom, granted without question. They explained that the rolling motion of the larger ship would be easier to manage. They were even compassionate as they scrubbed the deck, at their own insistence, of the breakfast she had retched up at the first swell. They could not hide their shame, and the sailors did not bother to hide their disgust.
At an apothecary’s in Illian, while her parents haggled over a willow bark concoction for the voyage home, Hadley decided in her decade or so of wisdom, that her family, and the seafolk entirely, would be better off without her. They sought her frantically, and had they gone to some other city, perhaps Hadley’s bronze skin would have stood out enough to track her down. As it was, she was as filthy and hungry as the other street children within days. The Atha’an Miere vessel eventually departed and Hadley’s hunger-driven inner debate around whether she should show herself was concluded for her.
The years that followed Hadley survived by luck, by adapting to malnutrition, and, at times, succumbing to the horrors that people will inflict upon each other and coming out of it by simply not being worth the effort of killing.
While racing the twilit streets away from the harbor, Hadley turned a corner out of an alley and saw two well-dressed women speaking atop their horses. She dodged around them and lost as her footing as one of the women began to glow in the dim light. Hadley, eyes wide and mouth agape, fell hard on the cobblestones, staring at the glowing woman all the while.
As she picked herself up she heard “Look at me, girl.” The woman was standing over her. Hadley glanced back toward the alley. A man she had not seen, and still was not sure she was seeing, held a blade across the mouth of the alley. The three drunks chasing Hadley were now backing slowly down the dark lane.
Hadley discovered she was also the victim of riversickness, if that was a thing, as she was bundled onto a barge heading north toward the White Tower.