THE AHRHIM AVÁ'RÁNN AXIASTRAS |
Axiastras, also called "Heila" by the humans, was the initially disputed First Ránn of the patriarchal Ahrhim tribe. Her upbringing in a peasant human family led to a rather unelven outlook on life. She also possessed human dogma and often self and tribal interest; rather than regarding elven people as a whole. Successor of Vená, she became the Avá’ránn in 160 b.S. She turned out to be an industrious and intelligent monarch and in her lifetime proved a powerful image of female authority, regal magnificence and challenged the tribal patriachal tradition and the dominance of the Quaelhoirhim at that time. The regime she established with the indispensable aid of the elven bard, Thiothor, and eventually enjoyed a considerable degree of popular support while achieving a stability and prosperity during the turmoil of the Third Sarvonian War. Under her rule the tribe enjoyed a "golden age" of achievement in art, music, literature and influence. However, despite what seemed to the elves a distinct self interest, her reign and ultimately her life were cut short by her own self sacrifice. She married the Móch'rónn, for tactical reasons, to save Sarvonia from the Móch'rónn’s threatened release of Coór'Mélor from the Grave of Can'doi where he was improsoned.
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Biography. Following is a short summary of
Axiastras life:
Skeletons in the Family Closet.
Axiastras had a tough
upbringing. She was the daughter of the ruling Rónn Axthis; a weak leader and
not particularly popular with his people. He had also married from outside his
tribe, Auenviere, his lifemate from the
Aellenrhim and close friend of Aiá'merán. Many
of his tribe felt that this was likely to lead to trouble in the long run. The
Ahrhim tribe are a strongly patriachal
tribe and in the tribes' long history the first child had always been male. But
Auenviere had failed to bear the tribe a son and heir by her 150th year. In her
154th year (240 b.S.) she instead gave birth to a daughter, who could not
inherit the leadership of the tribe. In despair, frightended of what might
happen if the tribe found out and desperate to uphold tribal traditions, Axthis
arranged for his uncle, Torntheis to hide the child so no one would know of her
existence, and effectively disinherited her from the tribe. Torntheis knew that
the best course of action was to make the child’s origins untraceable. He took
the new born child that night to the house of a
human family who had just been blessed with a baby boy. The child born of
Auenviere was swapped with the human boy. The
human boy was taken to the
Ahrhim court and was brought up the
elven heir, the parents taking great care to
protect the childs ears. The child himself was simply told that flattened ears
ran in the family (royal inbreeding will do that).
Only Axthis, Torntheis and Auenviere knew the true story of the child. While
Auenviere was persuaded to keep quiet to save her own blushes, she found it hard
to warm to the boy who had replaced her own daughter. She therefore left much of
the parental responsibilities to the Rónn and died soon after childbirth. He
named the child Kaěnthor and brought him up to be his heir.
The Birth of Axiastras.
Axiastras was discovered that morning by the human parents. They recognized the
changling immeadiatly, but felt helpless against fate. The villagers of Elsreth
knew little of the elves, or the Lords as they called them, and did not know
where to start looking for their son. They saw the replacement of their son as
an unavoidable fate, though they mourned his loss greatly.
Axiastras grew up with the human name "Heila" and that was the name with which her
closest friends adressed her for the rest of her life. She grew up with her
human parents and their family of 16, 7 older
and 9 younger siblings. While the family was protective of her she never really felt like she belonged, a
stranger in their family and often her siblings used this against her. She
was teased by local children, and villagers reguarded her with doubt and
suspicion.
On his death bed Torntheis told his son Thiothor, a bard and like his father a
key advisor to the Rónn, the truth about Kaěnthor and the existence of
Axiastras. The bard felt the impending doom that the Rónn's deception would
bring upon them and he waited until the day the Rónn became sick before traveling to
where the child had been left.
When he found her she was just 14, but he felt that she was owed the truth,
young as she was. Axiastras felt relieved, she finally knew who she was, but also
very angry. She insisted that Thiothor take her to her father that very day.
Thiothor was reluctant, but Axiastra's aggressive arguments persuaded him that on
the Rónns death that she should return. From that moment on he felt a great
responsibility toward the child, as he had altered her fate.
Thiothor gave Heila the elven name "Axiastras" and a rigorous education in
languages, history, rhetoric, and moral philosophy. He was an outstanding tutor,
and is said to have marked early in their relationship her fierce temper and
headstrong manner. She was a quick learner and an able and dilligent student.
However, of greater worry to Thiothor was the unconcerned, rather self-centred
streak in the elf that he spent much of the rest of his life trying to conquer.
Axiastras as the
Ahrhim Ránn.
Four months later, the Rónn died and the 14 year old Kaěnthor became the tribe's
leader. Axiastras arrived in the Almatrar three days after his ascension. She
came before the Rónn, but he did not believe her claims and had her confined to an abandoned building on
the edge of the forest. But the truth was out and the
truth nearly ripped the tribe in half.
The tribe was flown into disarray. A brief, but furious, civil war followed
between those who held she was the rightful leader and those who would not
accept her leadership, nor tolerate her presence in the forest. The
Ahrhim had
never had a female leader, and the thought was to many in the tribe unbearable
and there were many elves in the tribe who did not
accept Axiastras as a legitimate
daughter of Axthis.
A group of her supporters finally freed the terrified Axiastras from her captures and
she went to confront her human counterpart. A long year of negotiations
followed. Eventually, accepting the truth and fearful of what was happening to
his tribe, Kaěnthor was deposed, leaving Axiastras to lead, finally as undisputed
Ránn and he left the forest, in exile, for good.
Doubtless the experience hardened Axiastras and she was no longer under any
illusions of what some of her tribe thought of her, despite her advisors trying
to soften the blow. She was more than aware that there were those who would see
her gone. She ordered Thiothor that he must never hide the truth from her again,
and he kept to his word his whole life. Axiastras then simply got down to
arranging the tribe to be how she wanted it. Being Ránn she reformed and reduced the
size of the Talos or Privy Council from 30 to 19, partly to get rid of whom she felt
she could not trust and partly to make the body more efficient. She appointed a
number of talented advisors, the most skillful of which was always Thiothor and
he remained her final council on any matter on which she had to decide. She
reformed the tribe’s ways by teaching young elves of
human currency and removing
all barriers of trade between the two races that had been created by her father.
The Ahrhim were weak and poorly defended and had no standing army to speak of.
At her first High Elven Council meeting she heard about the feared coming of
some unspoken evil, and she made it her task to ensure that her tribe would not
be beaten in combat. Axiastras arranged for elven children to be taught weapons, and went
to meet with the Jhehellrhim, a tribe with which the
Ahrhim were in the past
forever unfriends, to ask those surviving the Great Slaughter, if they would
join her tribe. The strategy was unpopular, and perhaps ill advised as the
Ahrhim regarded the
Jhehellrhim with great suspicion. Thiothor was notably
firmly against the move, but the Ránn would not be dissuaded and few tried to
reason with the imposing monarch. Many of the
Jhehellrhim did however join the
Ahrhim and provided the tribe with a well-trained fighting force and effective
teachers. Despite initial grumbling from some of the Talos, the integration of
the Jhehellrhim was a great success, and many of the
Ahrhim’s preconceptions
about the tribe were changed. The new arrivals quickly proved to be hard working
and diligent members of their new community.
Axiastras as Avá’ránn.
Axiastras was a hard-working monarch, though her motivations were more often
than not to further her own reputation. She had no time for the arts, though
they flourished under her reign. Her prime concern was military and financial
success. And success she achieved. By the outbreak of the third Sarvonian War
in 298 b.S. her tribe was well defended and among the quickest troops on the
continent, well suited to stealth operations. Luckily Thiothor often tempered
her ambitions. And in the year 161 b.S., it is said that he suggested that the
Ránn should take a life mate. She of course was not interested. Thiothor tried a
change of tactic, and later that year proposed to the Ránn - and to his great
surprise she considered the issue for three months. Perhaps the headstrong
elf
truly did have feelings deeper than she ever allowed to appear at the surface.
This will never be clear, however, for in March 160 b.S the Avá’ránn Vená was
killed in a confrontation with the one of the four Móhhai, the servants of
Coór
himself, and his servants in outworking his purposes. Other
elven leaders who
admired her successes, and rather unaware of her faults, asked that she be the
next Avá’ránn. Driven by ambition, she accepted, and rejected almost immediately
Thiothor’s proposal.
This perhaps was her first mistake, and set in motion the wheels that would lead
to her own downfall. Her second mistake was more fatal. In 135 b.S., after
suffering huge losses that year against the darklings she allied herself and
the High Elven Circle to
Saban Blackcloak, a dark elf with a dislike for
Coór’Melór, who unbeknown to the elves was
Saban’s father. Thiothor distrusted
Saban Blackcloak and ordered the Avá’ránn to end the alliance. She laughed at
Thiothor. She did not need to pay him heed, for she was the leader and decision
maker of the elven race. She saw the alliance as a risk, but an acceptable one.
Thiothor, hurt and angry, turned his back on Axiastras and offered her no more
help or advice.
In Saban captured his
immortal father and imprisoning him in the now famous Sea Grave of Can'doi,
secretly wooing the darklings to join his forces.
Saban paraded the weak
Coór'Mélor through the elven forests, even took him to a meeting of the
High Elven Circle to show the world his power. The price that this mysterious
elf
demanded for his actions was nothing less than the Lordship over the
elves.
Whether Saban ever realistically thought the
elves would accept this or not is
not clear. But, clearly he had another tactic up his sleeve. When the
elves refused to recognize him as their leader (for there are
truly no leaders among
elves), Saban unleashed his second plan. He and his troops rode to the Almatrar
forest to visit Axiastras. In payment for their alliance she would have to marry
him. Failure to do so would result in their alliance being terminated and he
would release Coór'Mélor. Axiastras was torn, half prefering to take her chances
with Coór'Mélor than be wed to Saban. For such an independent monarch the idea
of being nothing more than Saban's trophy wife was unthinkable. But, Axiastras
swallowed her pride for the sake of men and elves, many tribes of whom were
still reeling from the War. She agreed to marry
Saban, writing one last letter
to Thiothor before doing so. Hoping that perhaps he would have a plan, perhaps
she was hoping he would save her as he always had. But there was never a reply.
In 125 b.S. the marriage of Saban and Axiastras took place. From that moment on
Axiastras was Saban's virtual prisoner and political pawn. Through her
Saban could demand what he wanted from the
elven tribes and expect their co-operation.
Angered by the poor treatment of the Avá'ránn, the
Circle refused to recognize
Saban's commands and elected another leader, the first male Avá'rónn,
Anthioullsn.
Seeing that Axiastras was useless to him, Saban imprisoned her in Alvang, where he raped her. Her son she named Serveran. Serveran would
eventually go on to guide an
enormous army of joined forces of all races (the "Alliance") to the enclave of
Alvang to put an end to the Móch'rónn's dark ambitions and lead a party to
defeat his father, with the help of Saban's brother,
Eyrin Fontramonn.
Such captivity was too much for the proud and independent Avá’ránn. Despite the
best efforts of elves and
men to free her from her prison, she died long before
they could reach her in 110 b.S. She will be remembered as a strong leader who
made a great sacrifice for the good of those around her.
Information provided by
Wren
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