Legends of Belariath

Cymorill

Since her childhood, Cymorill had always been a rebel. The daughter of Jaclau, elder of the Sheykan desert tribe, she was granted great privilege among her people, and was highly sought after among the other men of the tribe. They looked forward to the day she would come of age in hopes to convince her father the were worthy of his daughter's hand.

That day came quickly, and the elder's daughter dreaded that milestone of a birthday. On that day, she was to begin her training to become a woman, a mentor chosen for her to take her out of the public eye and teach her until he deemed her suitable material for a husband of the elder's choosing.

Cymorill hated the whole idea, and rebelled against nearly every tradition of her people. Her hair was unbraided, combed straight and hung at her shoulder, though she was forced to wear her mask when out in public, even though there had been times she'd escaped past the borders of her village and walked around freely without it.

At sunset that day, her father led Cymorill toward the center of town to the large firepit where the celebration was ready to get underway. The elder's daughter was to be presented to the tribe through a great celebration of a feast and dancing; a way to show of his daughter to possible prospects that would attempt to coerce the elder that they were the proper one for her to marry once her training had completed.

The fire was already blazing in the center of the village as they approached and several had already gathered to get a glimpse at the elder's daughter. That Sheykan mask worn over her face, hiding her features from the onlookers, who turned their heads as the pair came into view. Cymorill was forced to have her hair braided this night; her father wanted her to have a proper ceremony.

"My people..." he called out to the crowd, bringing the masked girl to stand in front of him. "Tonight, my daughter celebrates her transition into womanhood." He tells the crowd, Cymorill standing rail-straight in nervousness before him. "I ask you to look upon my daughter tonight and consider her for courtship. I present to you... my Cymorill." And in that moment, her Sheykan mask is removed, the young woman revealed to the tribe, violet gaze flicking about as they all look upon her face for the first time, causing a soft chatter to rumble through the crowd.

"This transition is an important one... one that is not taken lightly, especially when it comes to my daughter. And it is for that reason that I have chosen Valardghast to lead my daughter on this journey... to be the one to determine when she has finally reached adulthood." His hand gestures toward the man chosen, and the entire crowd looks in that direction, a hush falling over them in jealousy. There was some hesitance from the middle-aged man, but that duty was accepted.

Cymorill was not a willing participant during those months of training with Valardghast. She was taught to serve a man, to please him properly, though many of those lessons had to be forced upon her. Valardghast had reconsidered the position given to him by the elder several times over those months. But the young woman's spirit was unable to be broken or tamed, even sneaking out from the trainer's home in the dead of night and running past the borders of her village to rendezvous with her secret love, a young man, a human her age. She knew she could not bear to live her life with a man chosen for her; she wanted him.

Despite it all, the day came when Valardghast presented her to her father in front of the rest of the tribe, claiming her journey to womanhood was complete, and it was then that her father presented the man he had chosen for Cymorill to marry. He stepped out of the crowd toward her, a warrior of the tribe, strong and noble, but he was not the man that she could love.

"Father... I cannot marry this man." Cymorill told the elder, and a gasp came over the crowd, the onlookers wide-eyed, not to mention Valardghast and the one chosen to be her future husband. "I love another man."

It was then her father grew stern, a narrow of his eyes, and there was suddenly a rumble through those gathered as that young human, pale fleshed and handsome, stepped through the crowd and toward Cymorill, and her father. "This is the man I love." She tells her father, hoping he would understand, that he would put his daughter's desires before his own. But instead, that anger surged within him, and as the human came to take Cymorill's arm pridefully, the elder pointed at him. "Kill him."

Cymorill screamed, desperately trying to hang onto her lover's arm as he was dragged from her, watching as a group of men took him away. "No!" She screamed, trying to run after him, but her father and Valardghast held her back, watching in horror as the mob drags him off into the distance. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at her father in horror. How could he do such a thing?

But it would not end there. Now heartbroken and disillusioned by her people's culture, she continued to refuse the hand of the warrior chosen for her, eventually leading to her banishment from the tribe. She was told to leave and never return; outcasted from both her family and her tribe. The Sheyka had become a disgrace, an embarrassment to the elder, and was no longer considered a part of those that helped to raise and nuture her.

That journey was long, and Cymorill eventually stumbled into The Lonely Inn one night in desperate need of food and shelter. It would eventually become her new home, and the Sheyka found herself able to finally learn her true self in Belariath.

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