Persona Profile: Shaelis

Writer: Rochelle

Name: Shaelis
Age: 84
Birthday: m9 d20
Rank: Master Harper
Location: Harper Hall, Emerald Falls Hold
Craft: Harper
Craft Rank: Master
Speciality: Composer

Physical Description of Persona:
Shaelis has always been tall, but manages to keep from looking awkward by simply ignoring the fact she towers over many men. Her wiry body has become even bonier and more angled with age so that she looks almost skeletal, but brisk exercise has managed to keep her in far better shape than most women who share her bone structure. Her heart-shaped face is framed by her white hair which she keeps trimmed close to her head for convenience. Wide hazel eyes are surrounded by laugh lines and crow's feet, and forty turns worth of tans and sunburns has given her a striking complexion the color of light caramel. Shaelis is constantly moving, her hands often unconsciously assuming chord positions while composing a new tune or just outright fidgeting, and many people who stay in her presence too long get the feeling that if they leave her alone she will wander off to parts unknown, looking for her next adventure.

Emotional Description of Persona:
Life is not merely something to be lived through for Shaelis, it is to be lived, and she is at her happiest when doing or seeing something new. Over the turns, Shaelis has discovered that being easy-going and friendly is the best way to work with people across Pern. She does this extremely well, so long as no one tries to dictate her behavior. If someone does try, they are usually faced with the steely determination and sharp temper that fueled her way to a young mastery and has faced down bandits and tornadoes with equal resolve. A doting mother and grandmother, she finds her children and grandchildren's insistence on always knowing where she is amusing, and has been known to deliberately wander off without warning just to annoy them.

While she finds it easy to laugh at herself and is normally extremely forgiving of others' faults, she will obsess over a tune until she feels it has reached perfection, a trait that has created many popular tunes in the North but leaves her short-tempered when someone criticizes one of her finished creations. Turns of travel have made her proficient in many skills outside her craft, and she can turn her hand to most tasks. She is almost always whistling or humming something absently, sometimes an old song, but usually a new tune waiting to get out.

History of Persona:
Shaelis was born and raised in the Harper Hall at Emerald Falls, the daughter of two journeyman harpers. She showed an early aptitude for the craft, and spent the next thirty turns dedicated to the ambitious goal of achieving her mastery, never venturing further from the hall than the next hold. Her hard work was rewarded with a young mastery at the age of thirty-five. But the promotion meant little when the plague swept through the Southern continent a few months later, followed by the controversial decision to ban women from entering the crafts.

Feeling betrayed at the decision so arbitrarily forced on her sex, and downright infuriated by the pressure she was receiving from the other masters to settle down and have a child before her biological clock ran out, Shaelis joined the small exodus of female crafters leaving for the north in protest. But as she stood on the deck of the small ship sailing north, watching the continent of her birth dwindling into the horizon, she realized for the first time that Pern was much larger than life in the crafthall had lead her to believe. She fell in love with the horizon on that voyage, and swore then that she would never allow herself to be chained to one place, in order to see as much of her beautiful world as possible.

Her decision was unexpectedly aided by the other women traveling north. With the addition of extra masters and other levels of crafters, the northern halls had to scramble to make sure there were places for all of them. So when the new young master offered to take a small traveling circuit through a remote corner of Southern Boll normally given to a senior journeyman, she was granted the position without a fuss. The first few months of her circuit was hard on Shaelis, who'd never traveled on her own before, and she nearly gave up several times. But the gratitude of the families that greeted her at each cot warmed her and inspired her to continue, as did each new sight and the undeniable thrill of knowing she could survive on her own.

Her first position came to an abrupt end when the Harper Hall discovered she was pregnant. Over the course of her travels she had frequently crossed paths with a runner named Gijirin, and their relationship had developed accordingly. The discovery that she was carrying a child came as a huge shock to Shaelis, but any hopes she and Gijirin had for a more permanent life together were smashed by a rockslide shortly after her discovery that killed Gijirin and two other runners. Shaelis returned to the hall in a grief numbed daze, barely able to fit in the saddle, and soon delivered her son Gaejirin.

Shaelis was then posted to Crom with her young son in tow, and on the journey there she met and fell in love with a trader caravan guard who frequently traveled the route, Aothart. Her match in height and a dedicated traveler, he proved to be detrimental to her concentration by fathering Shaeo. When the hold protested the scandal she was creating, the two good-naturedly agreed to marry. Their son Otharis quickly followed, although he died a few months later when a particularly virulent childhood illness swept through the hold.

Shaelis's determination to explore soon demonstrated to the hall that she was not an ideal candidate for administration, as she had a habit of wandering off to explore odd corners of the hold without telling anyone, often with her children in tow. This vanishing habit was severely frowned on by the Hold, and to her pleasure she was soon reassigned to a traveling circuit in Keroon. A few turns later, she was reassigned to Nerat, followed by Tillek, Ista, Nabol, and Lemos. Aothart followed her by taking positions with whatever caravan happened to be traveling through the area regularly, and their infrequent and often adventurous encounters and long, lonely times apart provided the inspiration for many of Shaelis's songs.

While she created some elaborate compositions that were widely used at gathers, it was the simple songs that could be played or sung by campfires without accompaniment that earned her the most fame. With hits such as "Other Moons," "Utena's Lover," and the eight-instrument gather piece "Dolphin Race" playing across the Northern continent, she soon became in high demand. After overseeing a brilliant production of her masterpiece "The Winds of Keroon" at Lemos for Turn's Beginning, she was reassigned to the main Hall and dedicated her time to traveling and commission work, composing and producing original pieces for several major weddings, Turn's End celebrations, Hatchings, and even a Lord Holders' enclave.

When they came of age first Gaejirin and then Shaeo reluctantly gave up traveling to join the Harper craft, although Gaejirin soon dropped it to become a runner like his father. Eventually they both married, Gaejirin to a cotholder's daughter, Shaeo to another harper. Shaelis delighted in her grandchildren and visited whenever her travels brought her by her sons' homes, but firmly discouraged all suggestions that she and Aothart settle down. When her son Gaejirin tragically died from an infected injury, followed shortly by his wife, Shaelis was devastated but determinedly appeared at the small hold where her son had been living to take charge of his three children herself.

By the time Thread returned, Shaelis's travels had already slowed due to age, although they by no means stopped. Aothart had increasing difficulty finding work with caravans because of his age, and spent more time traveling with his wife to her commissions. The two were forced to resign themselves to the situation, although her standing as a respected master did entail her the use of dragons for some travel, as did her grandson Eulajir's Impression of blue Bakketh.

No longer able to travel as freely as they once had –and running out of unvisited areas anyway- Shaelis and Aothart found their thoughts turning to her abandoned Southern continent. But the South's position on women crafters and her profitable commissions discouraged them from following up on the dream –until news reached them of Emerald Falls Hall's decision to allow female crafters once again. Inspired despite the subsequent burning of the hall, she immediately began the messy process of petitioning for a transfer, reasoning that the Hall needed a female master to set an example –and that being in a weyr would allow her and Aothart easy travel on restdays. The main Hall was reluctant to let her transfer, arguing that she had abandoned the Harper Hall at Dolphin Cove's claim on her and pointing out that she would probably lose her lucrative commissions by transferring, but she persevered. Finally she received grudging approval to move to the Harper Hall at Dolphin Cove Weyr.

Family and Friends
Ariau, 27, Wingrider, Cascade Wing, River Bluff Weyr (Granddaughter)
Aothart, 88, Former Caravan Guard (Husband)
Lishae, 18, Fort Hold Harper Hall resident (Granddaughter)
Baeo, 21, Junior Apprentice Runner (Grandson)
Shabal, 22, Junior Apprentice Caravan Guard, Fort Hold (Grandson)
Aelari, 24, Senior Apprentice Harper, Fort Hold Harper Hall (Granddaughter)
Balari, 46, Senior Journeywoman Harper, Fort Hold Harper Hall (Daughter-in-Law)
Shaeo, 45, Senior Journeyman Harper (Drummer), Fort Hold Harper Hall (Son)
Jaurin, 21, Beastcrafter Junior Apprentice, Keroon Beastcraft Hall (Grandson)
E'laj, 25, Bluerider of Bakketh, Fort Weyr (Grandson)
Aula, 45, Deceased (Daughter-in-Law)
Gaejirin, 47, Deceased Runner (Son)
Aotha, 64, Aothart's daughter, Trader's wife (Stepdaughter)
Alarish, 15, Fort Hold Harper Hall resident (Grandson)

Pets

Dreamer, Blue Firelizard: aged 39, hatched m5 d13
A gift from an old sailor friend while traveling Nerat, Dreamer is named for his coloration. Almost but not quite harper blue, he's a bit too pale and mottled to match her knots, and too small to be much competition for the other flits –he looks like a scrawny green that fell in a dye vat. As loyal to Shaelis as any dragon, he doesn't often sit on her shoulder, but can often be seen swooping above her head or curled somewhere in the room when not taking messages to her family and many contacts.

Approved: August 28th 2007
Last updated: August 28th 2007

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Persona Profile: Shaelis

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