Profile of Echo

*Echo is technically 5 years of age, but due to fae magic has skipped aging a year and is still physically 4 years old

A slim slip of a creature. Perhaps, in a way, she lives up to her name; where once you might have seen her only a memory remains, for she is no longer there, slipping through the world like smoke through the trees. Softly she treads, quick to come and go. Her small stature allows her to explore the many nooks and crannies that Rionnach has to offer and explore she is glad to do. Blanketed in blue-black shadows, moon-silver greys and starlight white, she looks every bit the Lowlander she supposedly is. Her eyes, however - blue - suggest there is little Lowlander in her blood. And indeed, there is none.

Echo is mercurial. She does not fit into a neat little box of black or white. She is prickly, slow to create deep, meaningful relations and has a very pessimistic view on life in general, along with a very unhealthy relationship with authority that can get her into trouble more often than not. She does not regret the life she took to save her mother even if others tell her it was wrong, that there had been other less violent ways to resolve the situation. She does not see herself as brave but nor is she afraid to do what she feels is right.

That being said there is a gruff compassion and empathy that can surface for the ones that suffer, the underdogs, the maltreated. Perhaps her mother passed down some of the softness she once held after all.

Before Echo, there was Eden. Her mother; an Outlander from a similar land torn between the people of the Kingdom and the Exiles, fraught with animosity and malcontent. The criteria for being an Exile was long and more often than not unfair - from being a murderer to simply being born on the wrong side of the border. The rules were strict and cruel, just as the Guards who upheld them, and Eden believed in something better. She worked to campaign for fairness, for trials and considerations. Her kind heart did nothing to change the status quo and only ended up with her being caught up in the cruel hands of one of the King's Guards.

It took months for her and a close friend to escape the Hell they had found themselves in and by then Eden's belly was already round and full with life. Civilians to Exiles, after a long and arduous journey the pair found themselves in Rionnach and sought shelter at the College of Eòlas. The College in their magnanimity allowed the pair a safe place to rear Eden's only surviving child - Echo. They took jobs, worked for their keep within the College, but Eden had already been scarred, broken. She never spoke again.

Echo grew up in the college, Eden's friend filling her head with stories of their old homeland. Often Echo would ask about her mother who was always so quiet, so distant from everyone around her, and while she was never told any details it planted a seed of resentment for anyone in power - King, noble, guard. Funnily enough her mother's emotional distance brewed no resentment in Echo for the woman herself because Echo could see the pain behind her mother's eyes. It wasn't her mother's fault.

Although Echo was content at the College she never really felt like she fit in. The first Lowlander of her line, she felt and still feels little affinity to the Highlanders or the Mainlanders, knowing only the history through what she was taught by Professors at the College... but none of it is hers.

It was during Aileen's rebellion that Echo was forced to leave the College (or, at least, she feels she was forced). One of the King's Soldiers came upon a site of healing. He was injured, delirious, and enraged that the healers had been healing Royalist and Jacobite alike. In a fit he'd tried to attack the closest healer - Eden - and Echo had swiftly intervened to defend her mother.

If the Solider had not already been injured it would have been a different story, and perhaps it would have been Echo dead on the ground. Many pacifists of the College looked down upon what Echo had done, believed she had done something wrong in killing the soldier. Even her mother wouldn't look at her after that.

Weeks later Eden was gone, perhaps off to find a land not torn apart by warring factions. Echo doesn't know, and while she never resented her mother her leaving stung her. Eventually she, too, thought it time to leave the College though she remained within Rionnach. She now spends her time delving into old ruins and collecting bits and pieces and taking on odd jobs to eke out a modest living.