Legends of Belariath
Aeria Nighthawk
History:
Aeria was born into a rather small and rural clan of torians, known as the Sparia clan. Its population was only a little over 400 in total and was very isolated; dwelling within a remote forest at the edge of a mountain range. Her parents were nothing special within the clan, simple fledgers, though the clan was very close knit, each torian simply using his or her talents to best provide for the community as a whole. As such when Aeria’s mother became pregnant everyone knew about it and when it came time for her to birth her child every family had at least one representative present. In the Sparia clan, two names were chosen by the parents before the birth of the child and depending on the sex of the child at birth the appropriate name was chosen. The female name the two of them chose for the child was Aeria. But her birth was not met with the usual cries of delight and celebration that normally followed a new addition to the clan. The first words she would hear were soft wards against evil followed by a tense silence as she was inspected. She was a perfectly normal torian female in every way… except for her wings. Her feathers were black, the tips of which were stained with red. Unlucky colors, cursed colors. And to add to the confusion her eyes were the bright silver that was the key physical trait of the clan. What could this possibly mean? The Elder and Council were called in and it was determined that Aeria was a curse place upon them by the deities Sazera and Maedel for an unknown offense. Her parents were not at fault, it was the clan as a whole who was to blame for angering them. Though the source of their displeasure would forever remain unknown. The question was raised if the girl should be killed and after many hours of discussion it was finally decided that she would not. By living with the curse they hoped to appease the god and goddesses’ anger. It would be their penance for their unknown trespass.
Life for the young girl was rather harsh for obvious reasons. Being named a curse made most of the villagers treat her as an outcast, a plague to be avoided at all costs. Her parents were the worst offenders of this, though they grudgingly allowed her to partake of their meals as long as she remained silent and left immediately after she had eaten. Silence and pain were truly the only words to describe her early existence. She did learn to speak though she was never taught to; she simply observed the villagers and practiced when she was alone. She was never taught to fly, and being one of the most joyful things a torian was capable of doing, was not allowed to. Whenever she appeared to be happy, sad or even show any emotion at all she was regularly hit. She was blamed for every misfortune and as such why should she be allowed to be happy when all she brought was misery, why should she be allowed to be sad when she robbed others of their happiness? The only things that truly kept her alive were the edicts passed by the Elder and Council. She was not to be killed and she was not to have her blood spilt. Of course that latter one was pushed to the very limits on a regular basis. It did not take Aeria long to realize she was unwanted and became a phantom scapegoat, rarely seen except to come into her parents home to eat and then vanishing as silently as she had come. She learned to equate large groups of people with suffering and misery, enclosed places like houses to be traps, inhibiting her ability to flee. These fears would haunt her subconscious from then on.
Her parents were soon to have another child to make up for their shame. It turned out to be a male, with magnificent golden wings and he was named Leon. Many of the torians in the Sparia clan believed that he would be the one to break Aeria’s curse and as he grew older the bad luck would cease to be. This however never came to pass. When he was five and Aeria was seven he snuck out of their parent’s home for a night flight. It was a bitterly cold eve and he in his anxiousness to take to the air did nothing to loosen his muscles, stiff from sleep. As he flew higher and higher the air got colder and it was not long into his flight that he suffered a cramp. A cramp at 100 feet above the ground is lethal and it took many hours after the alarm was raised for them to find his body. Like everything else Aeria was blamed, but this was different. She had claimed a life and their hope to be free of their deities’ curse. It was just too much for the clan to swallow. She was dragged into the center of the community to be dealt with like any other murderer, her sin presented before her. By the time the Elder had arrived she had already been beaten to within an inch of her life by a few of the more enraged torians, her father amongst them. The Elder believed her death would only make things worse and prevented further harm from befalling her and instead sentenced her, then and there, to exile. She was healed to the level that she would be able to move and with an incantation the Elder teleported the bruised seven year old many miles away from the clan with the explicit promise that if she returned she would be killed. They all figured that if her life was claimed by nature the blame could not fall on them.
Aeria stumbled along for days with little rest, finding what she could to eat and drink, following the setting sun away from the mountains she knew to be the location of her clan. Never having been taught to fly she was forced to walk each mile, her body still battered and bruised from the clan’s treatment of her before her exile. But finally the days without adequate amounts of food, water and sleep caught up with her and she finally collapsed at the bank of a small stream. Blackness took her and for many blissful hours she was free of the pain her body and mind suffered. When she awoke, a surprise all in itself, she was in what appeared to be a small hut. She looked around and saw someone kneeling over a fire, his back to her. But it didn’t have wings! None at all. She had no idea what this creature was, where she was or anything else for that matter. She panicked and tried to run past him, only to have her arm caught in a firm yet gentle grip several foreign words coming from his mouth. Not understanding him and caught she retaliated in a swarm of biting, scratching and feathers, till at last she didn’t have the strength to move anymore. The man lifted her and placed her back on the cot she had been lying on and placed a hand over her head. Once more blackness took her, but this one was more peaceful than her last one, healing in its nature. The next time she awoke she was still frightened, but not to the level that she panicked like the last time she awoke. Her injuries had been treated with a sweet smelling paste and she was lightly bandaged over most of her form. It was the first act of true kindness she had ever received. In a hesitant voice she asked him where she was and who he was, but he clearly did not understand her. She had no knowledge of the common language, but in his soft words she heard the hint of safety and care as well as the word human. That at least she recognized from her spying in on the education sessions of the other young torians of her clan. So this was one of the ground crawlers who looked like them, but were not blessed, well cursed in her case, with wings.
She recovered quickly under the druid’s care. She taught him to speak torian and he taught her to speak common and after about a month she had a grasp of the language to the point that she could hold basic conversations with him. She found out that his name was Panjalea and that he was a druid who had found her collapsed and took her to his home for rest and healing. It was slow work on his part though to get anything from her. Despite his kindness, his treatment and his own openness she was simply not trusting. How could she be? She had never had the opportunity to develop trust. But slowly and surely he found the cracks in her defenses and learned more of her life. He learned her name, her clan and why she had been so gravely injured when he found her. Past that he had the difficult task of convincing her of her clan’s mistake. She was not a curse, her wing color did not matter. Soon these conversations lead to their religions and she was introduced to the goddess Gaea. In no time at all a year had passed, Aeria now about 8 or nine years old. She truly did not know so he simply set her birthday to the day he had found her and that she was 8 on that day. She was perfectly content with that, naming him her new father and clan all to herself. But Panjalea was an erratic druid, staying in one place for long simply didn’t fit him. So one morning he abruptly left, promising to return in a few months and giving her directions to a nearby human settlement.
Aeria lived essentially alone for that time. Though she did trust her new father, the thought of meeting more people terrified her. Panjalea had taught her basic ranger skills and for a few months she was able to manage to supply for herself. But at last winter came and she was forced to seek shelter elsewhere, venturing to the human settlement. Just as she had never seen a human before they had never seen a torian before. At first she was believed to be a demon and as she entered was attacked. Her shoulder was cut and her leg was pierced by an arrow. The village healer heard the commotion and rushed over. She had heard of torian’s and rushed to the girl’s aid. Aeria spent the winter with her, though she refused to allow her to treat her with magic. She didn’t trust the healer enough for that. As winter passed Panjalea returned. He reprimanded the villagers for hurting his foster daughter and took her back to his cabin where her lessons once again resumed. She learned ranger skills, speaking skills and about Gaea from him and when he left for months on end she lived alone, occasionally going into town with various broken bones and injuries she sustained teaching herself to fly. The villagers learned to accept her presence, though she was so foreign that few besides the healer took time to interact with her. During the worst of the winter months she would find a family willing to share their home with her and come spring would do something to repay the favor. Her life continued like this for about twelve years, her skills improving and by the time she was 15 was entirely self reliant, besides the occasional trip to visit the healer. It became a joke that a generation of the village’s healers had been trained by working on the injured torian.
But one day her foster father up and left. He gave few words to explain his decision besides that she no longer had anything to learn from him. He gave a surname, Nighthawk, to replace the loss of her clan identity and vanished. She waited for nearly half a year before the fact truly sank in that he would never return. She understood his reasons for leaving. He was her tie to this place and had hinted that he wanted her to experience the wider world, but as long as he remained so would she. So he cut that tie, pushing her out of the proverbial nest. But understanding his reasons did little to cure the sense of betrayal left behind. She quickly left the valley that she had called home for nearly twelve years, too many happy memories turned bitter haunting her, and flew west for many days carrying little and living off of what she could catch. On the fifth day of her flight she came to a place called Nanthalion and landed in front of the Lonely Inn. Whether she would settle here or move on remained to be seen.