Illustration by Michael Kirkbride
AL'ESH
She is not was she once was. Those who are touched by the gods, are changed forever. She departed from that free tribe at a mountain stream in the high northern reaches of that land.. wandered off alone, and came back alien, estranged. They did not know the woman who returned, and wondered where the girl had went.
They thought her mad, at first. Such as it is for all those touched by the et'ada. She could've been left to wander, to become another pariah witch. No, that was not her destiny. Her soul is no longer hers. The stars have touched her eyes, kissed her lips, and have spoken to her ears in tongues in lilting grace.
She will be called many things. She has seen it, just as she has seen many things. Al'Esh, Her Highness, is the foremost of these, which in the great fullness of time will become Alessia. She is also now Paravania, the Perif, the Paravant; the First. The name given her by the mer of Cyrod is long forgotten, for that tortured girl is gone, and now stands in her place, the daughter of the Aka-Tos.
They will say that she arose upon a hill, without tree cover, arising golden as if in summer out of a wintry highland. The peaks of Jer-Al rose high above, seeking to scratch the stars like stone daggers. The girl knelt in the flowing grass of that hill and cried out to the names of the et'ada who once all mer prayed to. She prayed to those gods of men, whom the northern warriors kept faith in. The girl became the Paravant when she heard the tongue of the dragon. She later would liken it to the sound of a battlehorn, echoing in the deep sky.
Promises were made, as a father to an adopted daughter. The slave queen has seen as much as Aka-Tos has let her see. The cruelty of the Cyrodiils will end. Men will take their place, led by the sons and daughters of the divine ones. There will be many after her, and the dragon's children will reign over the Nibeneans for ages, a shining civilization to mimic the starlight above. Hers will be the stars, like jewels on a crown, says the dragon to his daughter.
The daughter of the dragon is afraid, at first, averting her eyes and ears into the tall grass. But then she is pulled to her feet by the unseen, and relief falls over her, as the mysteries of the aurora flow into her. She swears, at that moment, that by all her power and every breath, her people will never betray the divines, and devote their entire beings to the fulfillment of these promises, the terms of this covenant.
They call her Al'Esh, a corruption of a title that elven queens in their white cities use, meaning "high highness". They flock to her in straggling, starving numbers, bearing torn fetters and broken chains. Wolves are among them, eager to bite in the flesh of the foe. Others are wretched things, souls broken, hope lost.. They fall to their knees before their mother, their empress. There are those who cry, as if laying eyes upon an avatar of Mara.
The warriors swell. They keep to the jungles. She has seen what to do. The dragon's daughter knows where to strike. The slavers are decadent, the chain is weak. It will break under the strike of the righteous. The cults of the dark gods will be slaughtered, and the idols dashed against the marble, stone floors of their temple-cities. The Paravant prepares to lead her followers south, back to a place where she was raised as a child for breeding... beaten, raped, and sold. They will start there. They will free their brothers and sisters, her children, one by one. She has seen it happen. It will be done.
Paravania's fate is not her own, her soul is to the dragon. Her life will change the great course of time, as bade by the one who rules it. The King of the Underworld has made alliance with his killer, and the rule of the elf-kings will end.
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Name
Al-Esh; Alessia; Paravania; Perrif; the Paravant;
Age
17 in 1E 242, born in 1E 225
Trait
Dragonborn: Al-Esh is the first Dragonborn (as far as anyone knows, anyway), an individual blessed with the soul of a dragon. She cannot wield the Thu'um like the shamans of Skyrim, nor could she consume the souls of other dragons, but she does have a powerful binding covenant with Akatosh, the dragon-god who sits at the head of the Aedric pantheon, who will work miracles through and around her to ensure that she succeeds in her mission - freeing her people from the Ayleid yoke and cleansing Cyrodiil of the sinister Daedra. In battle, Alessia has 20 HP and +2 to combat rolls, and like any other character she can be further enhanced with artifacts.
Ancillaries
none
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[TAR] Court of the Paravant
