KathrynAnon

Eilidh was born on the edge of the Kingdom of Santegia-Haria to a large family of six, including her parents. It was a Kaedrin family, with her father and two brothers Niall and James (nine and eight years her senior, respectively) working fields to try and support the family, while her mother and older sister Eithne (five years Eilidh's senior) worked for local businesses doing small tasks for small coin. It was a modest childhood, marked by hand-me-down clothes and toys, stale and otherwise discounted bread and meat, and not a single luxury in sight. Though all of her family worked hard, her father's inclination for the drink kept them from ever really prospering-- nor did it do much good for his temper; it is not a time that Eilidh remembers fondly. Though they were of proud people, they were most certainly not a proud family. While Elizabeth grew up watching her mother pray fruitlessly for change her own faith-- in the gods and in her parents-- quickly diminished to nothing.

From a young age, Eilidh was determined to break the apparent cycle of destitution in her family. When Eilidh was eleven, Eithne got married off and was quite miserable up until she was carried off to a Southern city by her husband, not to be seen or heard of by her family again. Soon after James fell into similar habits as their father, and Niall found a wife and moved away to put as much distance between him and their father as possible-- leaving Eilidh alone with James and her father. Her mother's prayers seemed not to be making things better, but making them worse. So Eilidh found her own way out-- she started hanging around the places wandering warriors, heroes and mercenaries alike, would go. She would do petty jobs for them, from caring for their horses to cleaning their gear, and in exchange, she begged them to teach her something-- anything that could get her out of that godforsaken place. Those that refused to help her sometimes found coin or trinkets missing from their bags, and sometimes (rarely) their pockets-- though she got caught a few times, local knowledge and subsequent pity about her family situation typically helped her out of it with little more than a swat or a hard smack. From those that would help, she learned how to use a dagger and a bow and soon she was joining hunting parties and making coin for herself by selling whatever pelts or meats her parents didn't take for the family.

By the time she turned sixteen and her father started to talk about marrying her off, Eilidh realized she had to get out. She spent more and more time on hunts and, soon after she turned seventeen, she simply didn't come home. Though her mother had helped her with her escape, citing the curse of Iblees and saying it was better to enjoy their shortened lifespan fully than spending it in misery, Eilidh spent the next several years 'on the run' from her family-- more specifically, her father-- who realistically didn't have the skills or the means of pursuing her. She lived off of the land and the wilds, coming into towns to trade things she'd found in the forests, like unusual rocks and wild produce or pelts and meats from her hunts for equipment or a warm bed to sleep in. She roamed from place to place, occasionally crossing into the dwelling lands of other nations (unless she was chased out, which did happen on more than a few occasions). She eventually found a Highlander settlement and spent a good few years amongst there, more attracted to their practical lifestyles than the religious and social values that had been toted about in her home village. While she was far from welcomed (initially) eventually she grew to be recognized and welcomed as a part of their community, despite sticking like a sore thumb with her pale blonde hair and skin in the sea of brown. Eventually, she felt a need for change and set out again.

Recently, Eilidh has found herself back in the forests around Santegia again. She stopped into her old village, just to see what had happened to her family in her absence. She found her father had died of illness over the winter and that, in lieu of that, James had gotten himself together and was now working steadily to support his new wife and their ageing mother. Seeing that the fire she'd been so eager to escape had been quelled but finding herself awkward in her old home, Eilidh opted to head out once again to find a larger city where she could hopefully turn over a new leaf and start the next chapter of her life-- or at least to see if she could find a hunting companion for the road.