Miahala ni Sha'hal t'Darrow
| Miahala ni Sha'hal t'Darrow | |
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| MEE-uh-hah-lah nee SHA-hahl t-DAH-row | |
| Created by | Bella |
| Portrayed by | Sara Lieving |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Captain-General of the Green Ajah |
| Affiliation | The Grey Tower |
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| Nationality | Saldaean |
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| OP Strength | 9.0 |
| Affinities | Air, Earth, Fire, Spirit, Water |
Miahala ni Sha'hal t'Darrow (born Miahala Sha'hal) is a Saldaean Green Aes Sedai and the current Captain-General of the Grey Tower.
Contents
Description
Miahala is on the tall side of average for a woman, and the word 'statuesque' is one that can be applied for many reasons, both for a full and strong figure born of heritage to a farming family and as a long time member of the Battle Ajah, but also for the almost ivory look her pale skin and face have taken on as the Aes Sedai agelessness sets in.
Her eyes are tilted strongly in the Saldaean heritage and are a blue-green shade. Her hair is auburn and beginning to show traces of grey and always kept long, to the small of her back, and always tied away from her face, which has a strong nose, high cheekbones and a full mouth as its most prominent features, once your gaze gets past the eyes, which are often the only clue anyone has to what she might be feeling behind the mask of ageless stoicism.
Biography
At the age of fifteen, Miahala Sha'hal ran away from her home in Saldaea. The reason for this was an altercation between her and her mother. The latter thought it improper of young women to dance in taverns with young men, or alone, or to be artists. Her mother had been from a farming and horse breeding/raising family, married and settled down to have six children, and expected no more than this for the lives of her sons and daughters. Mia, though, was different. She was born with a flair for both the things her mother abhorred and she sought them out. Eventually, she was caught and her mother's harsh punishment caused her to run away, with the help of her oldest brother, Dorant.
The two ran south and were traveling for days. Her brother, though, found that he wanted to settle down once they reached Baerlon. Mia kept going until she reached the Grey Tower and was tested. It was found that she could channel and she was added to the roster books as a Novice. It was a dramatic change in many ways. She had not the fear or loathing of Aes Sedai, but surely had not been around so many and never around men who could use the One Power! Work was just as hard, but she was able to draw and eventually go into the nearby town and dance.
Life progressed well. She was a quiet student, but studious and did well at her studies, without ever getting into as much trouble as her classmates. As an Accepted, at the age of seventeen, she met a young trainee named Ryne Machera and she fell in love, and he with her. They were Promised and engaged one year later. He was of the fallen land Malkier, and little did she know what loyalty that would hold over his life in years to come.
Before she took the Raising Test to become an Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah, as she had early on decided, an accident with the One Power caused the Tower to break. Many were lost, either to be found dead or never found at all. Mia survived and helped to rebuild it. Soon she was raised to Aes Sedai and made sitter soon after, for numbers were few. She was twenty years old at the time. Three years later, she would wed and bond Ryne, as he attained his Gaidin rank not long after she was raised to the shawl. Life continued to move along, and the Tower to be rebuilt. At the age of twenty-seven, she would give birth to a son, Ryne II. She would do it alone, for already Ryne's disappearances were lasting months, or over a year at a time, when he would return to Malkier and fight long dead battles.
When Ryne II, Rynny, was one year old, Miahala met an Asha'man named Darien. She fell in love with him. Although she was married, the loneliness and betrayal in her heart gave her little other choice than to fall for the gentle soul she found in the Blue Asha'man Darien Jolstraer. They bonded soon after. Four years later, she would give birth to a daughter, Sadira Rose Jolstraer. This year would also see her raised to the Head of the Green Ajah, which would be her greatest calling. Throughout these years, Ryne would return for weeks, disrupt her life and pass out of it again like wind or water. They tore her apart at first, and this faded in time.
One year after Sadira, Sadie, was born, two of Miahala's friends, Saraid Mahara-Nachiman Sedai and Kyelen Nachiman Asha'man, would die, leaving their young daughter, Chayla Jade. Miahala would adopt her and raise her for several years, as Sadie and Chayla were the same age. Chayla would eventually move on to her own paths. The sorrows did not stop, for one year after that news would come of Ryne's death, coupled with the breaking of the bond. Another of Mia's friends, Harmony Sedai, would die. Miahala was heartbroken, but life continued without pause. She was made Mistress of Novices and continued this and her duties as Green Ajah Head. She was thirty-four years old.
Over the years, she developed and bloomed as a Green Ajah member. She studied Battle Weaves frequently, utilizing them in many a mission abroad, from the time she was raised until this day. She has mastered all those to be known, secret or not, for she felt that if she were to lead the Channelers of the Battle Ajah, these were things she should know. She would develop the ability to lead, but did not feel comfortable in it. She always felt that her role was one of support. She mastered precision weaving. She was able to make bigger weaves if she had to, but they would never match in size or strength to that of other Channelers, yet she was no weakling in the Power... just specialized.
When she was thirty-six, Rynny chose to live with his uncle in Baerlon for some years. Miahala gave birth to twins, Tarvin Aaril and Tianna Raye. She nearly died in birthing the second, but stubborn and strong, she survived it. When Tianna was three, she would fall through a ter'angreal and cause her mother the most dreaded of fear and pain. She would return, safely, but aged fifteen years. The three-year-old was now eighteen. She had shown back up months before in Saldaea, already aged, and she fell in love. She would move back to Saldaea and wed Kel, the young farmer she'd fallen for. Tianna would continue the tradition of having a large family. She bred and raised horses, farmed, and loved her life.
Otherwise, things continued on. Miahala's eyes and ears network and her understanding of weaves and battle, as well as of the Shadow, grew. It was inevitable in her profession, but she sought it out. When she was forty-four, Rynny came back to the Tower and become a Drin'far'ji to follow in his father's footsteps. A year later, Mia's heart would be broken a second time with the death of Darien. Again, a husband and bond was broken a far distance away and there was nothing she could do. That same year, Sadie became a novice, choosing the blue, following her own father.
Life moved on. She would promise to two young trainees, but life would cut those short of bonding. She lost her best friend Joanna through a ter'angreal, only unlike Tianna, Jo did not return. At the age of forty-eight, she would feel a pull to the Borderlands and go into the Blight to see her husbands in the place where the spirit world meets our own. Before leaving, she resigned as Mistress of Novices. She fought hard battles in the Blight and earned herself scarring on her back that would force her to wear high necked dressed always. Her children's lives progressed as well, moving through the ranks or continuing growing families. Rynny and Sadie would eventually attain full rank and bond.
At the age of sixty-four, Miahala began moving into the phase of being an Aes Sedai when age ceases to matter, but she would still keep track of her life in terms of years, but also in terms of feelings and events. She fell in love again, bonding him as well. He was a Gaidin named Toseth Aseld. His youth and her experience proved well in the battles they faced against the Shadow, and they faced many. Though no one was her soul mate as Darien had been, or first love as Ryne, he made her happy and kept her safe, though she would not make it easy. She continued to grow and learn, her knowledge and powers increasing with time.
It would be another eleven years of chasing and fighting the Shadow, of loving and fighting, of life, before the edges of her hardening world would again be broken. After nearly dying in a battle with Shadowspawn, she bonded Caden Ives Gaidin - he had formerly been bonded to Mia's friend Leanna, but they had dissolved the bond. Caden and Mia both shared physical and emotional scars that allowed them a certain understanding, her having shared her story with him - twice into the Blight and twice scarred upon her back, one on the face to not be hidden - causing a bond of knowledge long before the one he gave her to save her life.
Although Toseth was not any more thrilled with this than Ryne had been on Darien so long ago, the two were able to function together and fight the Shadow together a while before Miahala's hardening inside led her away from them. She delved harder into her studies and missions to escape a hollowness in her heart that age was bringing. She was eighty-three when she resigned as Green Ajah Head. She had held the position for just over fifty years. Seven years later, the bonds to Caden and Toseth would be dissolved to allow them to go their separate ways. After thirty years of loyal service and love with Toseth, she felt she owed him the time to rest, and they had drifted apart. Caden returned to reclaim his family heritage.
However, the Green would call her back before long. Her experience and long worked upon knowledge would be called upon and at the age of ninety-three, she would again become Head (Captain-General) of the Green Ajah. She could not enumerate the missions she had been on and faced the Shadow, fought against impending darkness or helped the Light, in so many forms. It was a comfort to return to the position, where she thought that she could do the most good. She had spent years abroad on various missions for her quest, her Ajah and her Tower. Being Head did not stop her traveling, but gave her grounding and in this grounding, she began to fill in the hollow feeling and start to live again, even so much as occasionally sneaking to the Inn and acting less like a nearly century-old Aes Sedai.
Even after one hundred years of life, Mia would soon discover that she hadn't learned everything and could still be surprised.
While traveling near the Blight, Mia encountered a face from the past: Caden Ives. The man was surrounded by a group of brigands and Mia was glad to help. It would be the start, or perhaps the re-start, of her life. She'd had a mission, certainly, and all the things that kept her together and where she was, but starting that night she would again live. She and Caden bonded again, and then finally realized the feelings that had quietly begun those years ago and would become lovers. They would dare many things, after many moments of heartbreak for each, to be together. They would marry, and as if there wasn't anything left to be surprised, Mia would become pregnant. This would be her fifth child, and she was over a century in age.
Bearing this child to term would end up being a far greater test than expected when an old Black Ajah adversary kidnapped a gravid Miahala from the very halls of the Tower. She was tortured and pushed past the brink. It was Caden and Mia's close friend Saphire who would rescue her, but it would be weeks of near insanity before she could even start to recover from the mental wounds. Yet, she was strong and had the immense love of her husband and Warder to bind her to life. Her near death birthing Haeden Sha'hal Ives, her third son, would be the final fact to tip her back to health.
She is not quite the woman she used to be, but the new Mia is no lesser than the previous one. Mia still faces her issues, but she realizes what miracles she has in her grasp, in Caden and in Haeden. Her fight against the Shadow is stronger than ever and even more that she is not facing it alone and has even more reasons to fight the good fight.
Family
- Miahala ni Sha'hal t'Darrow
- Ravak t'Sha'hal Darrow, her husband and bondmate
- Ryne Machera II, her firstborn son with Ryne Machera
- Sadira Jolstraer, her firstborn daughter with Darien Jolstraer
- Tarvin Jolstraer, her secondborn son with Darien Jolstraer
- Tianna Jolstraer, her secondborn daughter with Darien Jolstraer
- Haeden Ives, her thirdborn son with Caden Ives
- Iain Ravak Darrow, her fourthborn son with Ravak t'Sha'hal Darrow
- Zarayne, Ravak's daughter and her stepdaughter
- Kaira Darrow, Ravak's daughter and her stepdaughter
Career History
- Novice (June 1999)
- Accepted
- Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah (1 November 1999)
- Mistress of Novices (4 May 2008)
- Captain-General of the Green Ajah (23 March 2010)
- Amyrlin Seat (31 August 2015)
- Captain-General of the Green Ajah (15 October 2016)
- Mistress of Novices (29 April 2018 - 20 March 2019)
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