Legends of Belariath
Morvian
If one asked Morvian what was the pivotal moment of her life, she might very well answer that it was the morning when her maid Ellya awakened her, eyes too wide and glistening with suppressed tears. She had stuttered out an apology for awakening her Mistress and sat, holding the perplexed young girl's hand as she explained that there had been an accident in her Mother's alchemy lab and that her Father had already been sent for.
Morvian was so shocked she couldn't even cry. Her Mother was gone? She had shook her dark wavy locks, refusing to believe it. Sliding from the bed, in her silken nightclothes she ran, skidding to a halt on the polished marble floor and nearly falling as she stopped so abruptly. The surface of the door was scorched, blackened about the edges and seeming warped...hanging half-way off its hinges where someone had broken it down to get inside.
As though looking through eyes not her own, she would step closer, small fingers outstretched, but she never saw what lay beyond as Ellya caught up to her and snatched the girl away.
Morvian had lost consciousness and when she awoke, back in her own bed, she learned of what had happened after those awful few moments. It was said that she turned on her maid in a fury for having been kept from the room where her Mother had perished and she had beaten the woman severely with delicate clenched fists. With her Father's arrival, the maid was dismissed from Morvian's service...it was said later that a healer had been employed to cure the damage the young Firnodel had done to her. It was all hushed rumors that Morvian placed away in a part of her mind for later.
Yes, that day had been a defining moment, one of many to come, that would shape the Elf and lead her on a path to whom she was today. She became fascinated with magic and what it could do and nobody seemed to think it odd when she was up at all hours with her nose stuffed into an alchemy tome.
She had always had a great interest in how things worked and now she would seek answers on an arcane level. It mightn't been she just wanted to understand how her Mother had been taken from her, but it became more than that. Nearing an obsession, she began to learn how to effect others through the words and gestures of power. She attained mastery of her environment with this new-found knowledge and no one told her what to do and how to be, anymore. Everyone except her Father.
When he was present, he demanded much of his daughter and she learned something else. She found if she was the sweet and compliant girl her Father wished her to be, he would allow her whatever she wanted and not look too closely at anything she might be up to. She twisted the Elf Lord about her tiny pinkie finger and he was puppet to her wishes though her never knew it.
Morvian's childhood innocence had vanished long before it should have in the wake of the tragedy of her Mother's loss and that would always define her. She sank into reading things best not delved into by one not yet a woman, but she devoured every word and with every day she grew more poised and assertive, demanding in her own right.
She began to manage the estate in Lord Firnodel's many absences and the servants were ruled with an iron glove wrapped in velvet. They all adored their Mistress and would lay down their lives for her, but never dared speak against her to anyone, including her Father.
They turned a blind eye to her activities with the village boy that Lord Firnodel took in. They made excuses for her when she ran in the woods with Q`haen and came back looking like a wild thing instead of a proper lady. Morvian had gained very useful knowledge, both from the research done and merely by paying attention. She could use her mind and her charm to get what she wanted from life. It all lay sprawled before her like a banquet feast.
To this day, though, she will awaken on occasion screaming for her Mother, though, and smelling the char in the air that wafted from the room where she had experimented. It is what haunts the Elf Lady, and what fuels her.