Aethan Daiedin
| Aethan Daiedin | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Ceralyn A'Delin (player) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Soldier |
| Affiliation | The Grey Tower |
| Nationality | Mayener |
Aethan Daiedin is a Mayener Soldier of the Grey Tower.
Description
Aethan is a tall man for a Mayener, and has dark brown hair slightly lightened by sun, blending into darkened skin. There is nothing distinguishing about his appearance other than the brilliant icy blue eyes all the Daiedins have and his grace of movement, surprisingly agile for a man of his size. He appears diffident and unconcerned, rarely reacting to even the most suprising of news with anything more than a pointed look.
Biography
At her very first glance of Aethan Daiedin, his mother burst into tears. To the unsuspecting observer, they very well might have been tears of joy, but Aethan knew better. No woman wanted to see the child she had abandoned fifteen years earlier show up at her door when she had embarked on a new life. And a new life it was indeed.
The floor on which he stood was pale, yellow marble from Kandor, polished, if well worn, and reflected sparkles of the evening twilight onto the dark paneled wooden walls and the woven tapestries evenly spaced throughout the room. A large rug underfoot was of Tairen make, and the dark haired woman seated on the chair behind the polished wood table was wearing a burnished silk, embroidered with thread of gold and edged in lace. She was a sharp contrast to the man standing before her, tears and all.
Aethan stood firmly out of place, feet planted on the yellow marble amid small flecks of dirt that had fallen off his worn leather boots. Months of traveling had given his dark skin a hardened look only enhanced by the lack of emotions showing on that plain face. His clothes were sharply simple compared to that red silk, all shades of brown which blended right in with the rest of the man, darkened skin, leather boots and chestnut hair lightened by the sun. Even motionless, his grace of movement was evident.
"There is no need to cry. I have not come to ask for your money, and I do not wish to disturb your lifestyle," he said harshly, with a sharp glance around the room. In fact, Aethan was not really sure of why he had come the many miles to Mayene. Perhaps he needed to put this part of his life behind him. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps.
In his mind, a memory floated up of an eleven year old boy, weeping on the plank floor as a giant of a man stood over him with a gnarled branch. A woman in rough woolen sat in a creaking chair, holding a baby in her arms, watching without seeing as her eyes bored a hole into the rough-hewn planks of the walls. In the background, a young girl could be heard crying for food from the other room for a brief moment, but the sound of Aethan's tears ringing in his ears drowned her out.
In a way, he was glad his mother had escaped from that life, but to leave a daughter of twelve and a son of fourteen behind with that tyrant had been inexcusable in his mind. And here she was, resplendent in silks and lace without a care in her mind about what had happened to her other two children.
"Careiela is dead, in case you cared." A touch of emotion entered his cold voice at the mention of his sister. "I protected her as long as I could, but there came a time when I could no longer do that. But then, you never cared much for our protection, did you?" The woman had begun to cry again, he noted with a small part of his mind, but memories were floating to the surface, painful memories.
He and Careiela running through the woods, stumbling over roots and skinning their knees, yet running as though the Shadow itself was after them, while in the distance a man's deep voice could be heard, shouting their names through the dead of the night. The child dropped her bag, stumbling and his arms, strong and thick with muscle, scooped her and the bag up, fighting back tears as he tried to be strong for his sister.
A woman, dressed in simple silks of blue in sharp contrast to the drab striped outfits of the natives, long blond curls hanging down her back, stopping them in the streets of Cairhien, taking his sister from him, the girl, no longer a girl, but growing into a woman with a smooth face and a dainty step. Him following them to an inn despite the protests of the woman, listening in shock as she told him Cari must go to the White Tower, must train to become an Aes Sedai, must leave him.
He had not done so, had refused to leave his little sister, abandon her the way his mother had abandoned them. It was that heavy determination to be strong for his sister that had kept him at the White Tower, training under the Warders while she wore novice white, and through the period when her dress was banded, and until the very day when she was given the gray-fringed shawl of an Aes Sedai of the Gray Ajah. It was that day when the Warders had decided he himself was ready to become a Warder, and he had been given the fancloak.
"I spent every waking moment by her side before she went to the White Tower, while she trained there and when she was made Aes Sedai. I became her Warder, and I protected her every moment I could. Can you say the same, woman? Can you?" He refused to acknowledge her as his mother, though she had given birth to him. A mother was so much more than that, a friend, companion, teacher, protector, and she had been none of that for him, or Cari.
They had come to him in the early evening, two Aes Sedai brandishing gray-fringed shawls, and spoke in low tones of what they whisperingly termed 'the Accident'. It had been inexplicable, and sudden, they said, but Careiela had asked to be a part of the Arches ceremony for one particular novice she had been mentoring, and the Arches, the test for those novices wishing to become Accepted, had gone white, then black and when it returned to normal, Careiela and the other two women working it, as well as the novice, were lying dead on the floor. They had been sympathetic, understanding, speaking in hushed tones of the tragedy, that the life of such a young and promising Aes Sedai should be taken so suddenly, but the snapped bond in his mind, and that of his heart, was something no one could truly understand, empathetic or not.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but his harsh words were taken away by the entrance of a woman, clearly in the prime of her youth, and dressed in brilliant jade silk, cut in the slender, revealing Taraboner style, and embroidered in silver. Red glinted in her blond hair, but it was the bright emerald eyes that spoke to him of Careiela, and he knew in an instant that this was his sister, his younger sister. She looked so very much like Cari, aside from the red sheen in her blond tresses, that he almost felt something stir within his heart. Almost.
"Mother, is this man bothering you?" Caressing tones tingled at his ears, but he firmly reminded himself that no matter how much she looked like and sounded like Cari, she was not. "I will have him taken away; you need only say the word." The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Aethan cut her off. "I am your brother, woman, the one your mother abandoned fifteen years ago, when you were just a mewling child of a few summers. Or did she neglect to tell you that?" He turned back to his mother, face nearly twisted with his anger. "Was it easier to pretend we never existed, tell lies about your beginnings, pretend you were born to this finery?" His hand gestured broadly around the room, to the silks they wore, the marble on the floor, the tapestries on the wall.
His sister drew herself up firmly and ice entered her voice. "Whoever you are, sir, you will not speak to my mother in that manner. She deserves none of this from you." He gave her a regretful shake of his head; Careiela had never spoken so coldly to anyone - she was less like his beloved sister than he had hoped.
"Tiesiale, Aethan, please!" His mother's pleading voice cut through the anger of their glares, and upon seeing that they had ceased, she gave her son, her only son, a small hopeful smile. "I had hoped you would understand, Aethan, why I had to do what I did. I knew you could take care of your sister, and yourself; you were always strong enough for the both of you. But can't you see? You couldn't be strong for me too, and I couldn't be strong enough for you and Cari. I had no choice! I did what I did for my safety and for Tiesiale's safety."
Ice blue eyes stood out in the man of tan, some small shred of sympathy in them. She had not always been heartless towards her two oldest children; he could remember when she would bathe his wounds after a particularly harsh beating from his father, one in which he had taken the beating for both him and Cari - his father never beat his mother or the baby - and her rough hands gently rinsed away the pain with a healing ointment. He could remember when she would not eat so that he might have the strength to work with his father in the smithy the next day and avoid the inevitable beating that always came when he was weak from lack of nourishment and fell behind in his duties. He could remember when she had cared - why had she stopped? Why did it matter to him now, so many years later? Why?
"I don't know why I came here," he said regretfully. "I am glad to see that you are well, mother, and that you had provided well for Tiesiale. I will leave now." He turned sharply on his heel, and left, knowing there was nothing there for him any longer in the room of luxury, that his place lay elsewhere, where he had spent fifteen years protecting Careiela from the cruelties of the world in order that she might bring a little peace to it. But his sister was gone now, and he would, he must, find a new purpose; a purpose, however, that did not lie within these halls.
Behind him, his mother wept for the daughter she had lost, her favorite daughter, Careiela, and for the son whose anger shielded him from her love, who could not see the sacrifices she had made, the desperation with which she longed for his love in return for the love she held for him. Tiesiale watched the woman for a brief moment with those icy eyes the retreating man shared, though not in color, and thought to herself on how to use this turn of events to her advantage before turning gracefully in that green silk, her outward appearance hiding the ambition and eagerness within.
Career History
- Soldier
