Makenna Grenaldi

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Makenna Grenaldi
Makenna Grenaldi
MAH-ken-nah GREH-nahl-dee
Created by Bree
Portrayed by Geraldine Brooks
Information
Gender Female
Occupation Accepted
Affiliation
  • The Grey Tower
  • The Shadow
Nationality Altaran (Ebou Dar)
Attributes
Talents
Weapon Skills
  • Unarmed ✦
OP Strength 6.3
Affinities Spirit, Water, Fire, Air/Earth

Makenna Grenaldi is an Altaran Accepted of the Grey Tower.

Description

Makenna is in her late thirties. She is a mother of two grown children and never cared to learn if she could channel until later in life. She is patient and kind and wise in a way that comes from surviving a hasty and reckless youth. She is intelligent and has great common sense but she is fairly uneducated, drawing mostly on life experience rather than formal education. Since deciding to come to the Grey Tower, she has felt the stirrings of her youthful fire and sometimes catches herself reverting to reckless thoughts. No grey has touched her yet and the few wrinkles around her eyes are from years of laughing with her children as they grew. She rarely smiles now. New furrows are beginning to form in her forehead from worry and a quietly fed anger that motivates her. She was widowed when her children were still young and has run her little seamstress shop on her own since then. She wears a modest northern Ebou Dari style with fewer petticoats and a wide belt. The long knife that she wears in the small of her back from her belt and the marriage knife that she still wears at her breast are all the adornment she has ever sought. She was a woman of note in her village, organizing the other mothers into a support group that exchanged child care and other services when needed. The core group of five including Makenna became her best friends and tried desperately to talk her out of traveling to the tower. She cut off all of their protests when she challenged them to support her or be forever banned from her life. Two of the group sent her off with care packages and the promise to look after her son and his family while she was away. They earned her undying love and appreciation that day.

Biography

Makenna’s oldest child, her son, had been married almost a year now and already had a baby on the way. Her youngest child, her beautiful and talented daughter was to be married the next day. That night, they were putting the finishing touches on her wedding gown and visiting with friends. They shared wine and stories of their own weddings and wedding nights. They offered advice and made jokes. They were just saying good night and going to their own homes when a loud shriek pierced the night. In a flurry of chaos, there were suddenly flying creatures with men on their backs and an army of insect-men charging through the streets. Women wearing collars leashed to the bracelets on the arms of other women stood in the streets and stared at men and women and buildings. Buildings erupted into flames. People went suddenly unconscious.

Makenna shoved her friends and her daughter back into the house. Her daughter fought and struggled. She wanted to find her fiance. Makenna couldn’t hold her back. She shrieked as she watched her beautiful girl in her wedding dress run into the horror of that night.

The next day, Makenna and everyone in the village was pushed into the village square. The great arbor that had been erected for her daughter’s wedding was nothing but smoldering ash now. The men and women were separated and the women were made to line up. Makenna saw her daughter and made her way to her side. The wedding dress was blood stained and torn. The girl had been sobbing and her hair was disheveled but her face was blank now and her eyes were stone. Not even looking as her mother wrapped her arms around her the girl said in a scratchy voice, “He’s dead.”

Makenna held her daughter, the girl’s body rigid and unresponsive. She watched as a half dozen women wearing those bracelets tried the collar around each village woman’s neck. Two were led away, the collars not removed before one of them stepped up to fit the collar on Makenna’s neck. Staring back defiantly, Makenna let them put the collar on her and then spat in the other woman’s face. A guard wearing that insect-like helmet punched her hard in the face with his fist. Makenna fell to her knees, her vision exploding in glaring silvery splinters. She felt the collar being removed from her and she looked up.

The woman fitted the collar around her daughter’s neck. Then she nodded and tugged on the leash. Her daughter’s eyes had popped open wide when the collar had closed and now she began to wail. The other woman pressed her lips together tightly and Makenna’s daughter fell to her knees writhing. A moment later, she was panting and struggling to stand. Makenna finally gathered her own strength and threw herself at the woman holding the leash. The hard punch to the other woman’s jaw produced an audible and satisfying popping sound but it was Makenna’s daughter who screamed loudest.

Before Makenna could understand what was happening, another guard had grabbed her and was holding her back. All she could do was scream and struggle as she watched them lead her baby girl away by a leash.

A week later and the village seemed to be going on as if nothing had ever happened. Makenna knew now who these people were and what had happened to her daughter. She sat in the home of one of her friends, all of them gathered together, and glared at them as they tried to convince her to mourn her baby and let it go. “You can either help me or get out of my way. If you try to stop me, I will kill you. I’m leaving.”

Only two of the group came to her home that afternoon. They helped her pack and brought her supplies from their own homes. No one had a horse anymore but Makenna had two good strong legs and she knew where she was going. She hugged both of her friends fiercely, taking comfort and strength from them. Then she left. She took the road north. At the Grey Tower, she would learn one way or the other what she needed to get her child back.

Career History

  • Novice (18 January 2015)
  • Accepted (12 July 2015)
  • Aspirant of the Black Ajah (21 October 2015)