Name:
Kiara

Position:
Herald Trainee

Age:
15

Physical Description:
Her hair is pale gold, and her eyes are somewhere between blue and gray. Her skin is pale and lightly freckled, and she's best described as plain. Her hair looks nice when caught right in the sun, but she's never gorgeous. Her eyes are too mixed to be special, her skin is too pale to be pretty, and the freckles take away her chance of appearing mature. She doesn't really care about her appearance, so she just wears her Grays, and braids her hair back out of the way. It suits her needs, and she's got no reason to go out of her way.

Personality/Attitude:
She's very introverted, and has been every since she developed her empathic gift. She finds honesty to be the best trait anyone could have. She s feeling someone having one feeling, and saying something else. This has led her away from many people, including Heralds. In fact, though she knows many people, she'd prefer to read, or spend time playing music. She's also often brooding or depressed, and really needs someone to snap her out of it.

Brief History:
Born the child of two Healers, Kiara was raised in Haven, and was almost constantly in the Healer's Collegium for the first five years of her life. Around her sixth birthday, people noticed that if she looked at you, she seemed to know how you felt, and sometimes you could feel her emotions. Her mother had her tested, and it was established that she had a powerful Empathic gift that was limited to within the range of her sight. No one thought anything of it, assuming that soon she'd develop a Healers gift, and have no need to influence outside of her sight.

By her tenth birthday, her family realized that she wasn't going to develop the Healer's gift. In fact, she didn't even had the potential. They noticed that her Empathy seemed to tie in with a very minor Bardic gift she had. She had the talent as well, so they decided that if the Healer's Gift didn't develop by the time she was thirteen, she would be enrolled in the Bardic Collegium. Things didn't go quite as planned.

On her twelfth birthday, a fire in a nearby house jumpstarted her Fetching gift. Some important books were still in the house, and the fear and was so great from all the people around her that she suddenly felt herself experiencing a temporary disorientation as to what was her, and what was everyone else. Her gift took advantage of this, and stretched out to grab the books. She brought them to safety, and promptly passed out. She didn't come around until a week later. Her parents had been frantic. Not only was she showing no signs of illness, but she wouldn't react mentally either. In fact,
she showed signs of being internally. Her functions had gone to sleep to refuel her power. She had awoke and wandered blindly to the Companions Field. Almost immediately, she had been Chosen by a very annoyed, very frantic Companion by the name of Sel.

The next years were rather confusing for her, especially when she'd started classes with Guard Sulien instead of with Alberich himself. She had developed a crush on Sulien due to her appearance (*coughHAIRcough*) which developed into an infatuation with the Guardswoman. Her personality had drawn Kiara in, because she was so honest.

Once she managed to settle in, the rest of the Herald Trainees went into an uproar. She finally decided to give up on the Trainees as friends when Kethry had used her mage gift for totally selfish reasons.

Goals:
To get rid of the emotions she feels from all around her.

Gifts:
Empathy to a major extent, but only with people she can see. She can receive/project to people who she can see, if focusing consciously. If it's unconscious, her reception is weak, and still has to be someone she can see. If it's unconscious projection, it's very weak, and no one can feel it unless she's using the Bardic Gift. (Which she has a weak gift with, so that if you feel her music, you get a slight hint at her emotions.)

Her other gift is Fetching, and that's so weak it's easier for her to just walk and do it. It's more useful for things like rescuing people/things where they can't be reached physically, and will exhaust her for days.

Companion/Bondbird:
A companion by the name of Sel who is worried about her Chosen constantly, and often homophobic.

Author's Comments:
Yes, she's shaych too. Which will be interesting with Sel.