Another thing experience has taught her is diplomacy, and thirty years of Circuit riding have made her quite good at listening to people and twisting their perceptions so that both parties in a dispute come out feeling like the winner.  Still, being good at mediation doesn’t mean that Sigel necessarily enjoys it.  She has a relatively low tolerance for idiocy, and two or three days’ worth of passing judgments is about all she can take before her nerves start to fray. She doesn’t actively dislike many people, and those she does she usually handles with a cool sort of indifference.  To those she trusts and respects, though, Sigel is a very good friend, supportive, loyal, and entertaining.  This list includes all Heralds and most Trainees, as well as a good many other people at the Collegium.

As far as habits and mannerisms go, Sigel does have a few vices and tell-tale signs to her.  When nervous she tends to rub her thumb across the first knuckles of her right hand, and when someone has captured her full attention she will tip her head slightly down, even if the person is taller than she is.  Her favorite time of day is early morning, and she’ll usually put herself through and exercise/practice regimen before breakfast.  Though few know of it, she also has a horrible addiction to pastry sweets.

Brief History:
Sigel’s story began one sunny mid-autumn day in the town of Hevenbeck, when Jacob Olmstead and his wife, Sarah, were blessed with a healthy baby girl.  The Olmsteads had claim to a family farm that sat several miles from the Hevenbeck proper.  Sigel grew up on the farm, the second to last in a line of five children, doing her chores and performing any one of the innumerable tasks necessary for keeping a farm going.  Her education was rustic; she never learned letters of math, but by adolescence she could midwife a cow or a horse and judge the edible mushrooms from the poisonous ones that grew in the woods around the house. It was a hard life, but a happy one, and Sigel was well contented with her lot.

That lot changed, quite suddenly, one day when she was thirteen.  Sigel and an older brother had taken in some garden produce to sell at the town, and were in the midst of setting up their stand when a sudden commotion erupted from down the street.  Sigel wormed her way out from her brother’s gaze and went to see what it was.  Halfway down the streets, speculative whispers identified the culprit to be a Companion out on Search.  Sigel staked out a spot on the side of the road and watched avidly as the majestic being made its way down the street.  In fact, as it approached her position, the Companion turned so that it almost looked as though it was headed her way.  Sigel had only a moment to thank her good fortune that she had positioned herself where she could get such a good look when her eyes met the Companion’s and she lost herself in a sea of blue.

Three days of riding brought the newly bonded pair to the gates of Haven, and Sigel began her training as a Gray.  Several things quickly became evident.  Firstly, scholarly education was never going to be her strongpoint, though she did prove herself to be a competent student in weaponry and tactics.  Second, Sigel had spent much of her childhood years as a precocious scamp a bit too carefree and full of herself for her own good, and even the shock of being Chosen wasn’t enough to change this.  Worse, she quickly found a friend and willing accomplice in the form of one Rin Mallorey, a merchants’ daughter from Haven who had been Chosen around the same time.  The two were nearly inseparable throughout their four years of training, and though their antics caused many an instructor to shake his head in despair, they also afforded their fellows a good deal of amusement.  Sigel graduated into her Whites at the age of seventeen and, to the discomfort of some, immediately began riding Circuits.

The life of a full Herald was everything the headstrong young woman could have hoped it would be, though the actual duties themselves could often get boring.  Fortunately for her and those around her, Auron was usually able to keep his Chosen’s mind on task and her judgments sure.

One year later, while relaxing at a tavern in Haven, Sigel managed to catch the eye of a traveling Bard.  Henri Wellsworth was everything a woman could wish for: handsome, charming, and witty, and more than willing to spend hours wooing his chosen prey.  Sigel became quite taken with him, even going so far as to engage in a physical relationship.  Eventually, however, the sugar mask began to slip, and Henri, believing his conquest sure, allowed his arrogance and masochism to shine through.  He tried to exert control over Sigel and her life, much to the girl’s growing annoyance, and one night even went so far as to strike her for disagreeing with him.  Infatuated she might have been, Sigel was by no means cowed, and the errant Bard quickly found himself summarily tossed out of her room with his belongings beside him.  Henri’s attempts at reconciliation were met with stalwart rejection, though Sigel eventually had to appeal to her superiors to get the man off her tail.  Thus, while her first experience in love and lust turned out to be a sordid affair, it was certainly educational, and Sigel took the lesson to heart.

Another lesson in life, this one far harder for her to bear, came when Sigel was twenty-two.  Herald Rin Mallorey was riding Circuit down in the south when she got on the wrong end of a bandit party too large for her to handle.  Sigel was woken to the sound of her friend’s Death Bell, and to the sickening realization that neither of them had been as immortal as their adolescent egos had made believe.  During the next several weeks friend and strangers alike began to notice a marked difference in the young Herald’s actions and behavior.  The scamp had finally grown up.

Time passed, and Sigel continued to do her job as a Herald, this time with more consciousness and care than before.  At twenty-seven, she was once again caught in the tender spell of love.  This time the object of her affections was one Samuel Forge, a self-made Artificer who had moved to Haven to peddle his skills.  The dalliance lasted almost two years before falling apart due to the differences in the pair’s duties, but this time Sigel was left with a lasting memento: a son she eventually named Lear, born when she was twenty-eight.

But the life of a Herald is hardly conducive to childrearing, the life of a Circuit Herald even less so.  Lear was given to relatives of Rin’s whom Sigel knew well, and who promised to care for the child as their own.  Sigel herself returned once more to the Circuits, this time with no small amount of regret.

At thirty-five, she, like Rin, was confronted by a band of brigands who had been terrorizing a border town to the north.  Unlike her friend, though, Sigel emerged from the fight cut and bruised but wholly alive.  Soon after, she was offered a position as a diplomat, a calmer and generally safer station than her current lot.  Sigel declined the promotion with thanks; there was still a part of her that hungered for the adventure of the open road, and as an ambassador she would have lost even the tenuous contact she was able to manage with her son.

Since then Sigel has continued to ride like a leaf in the wind, going where she is ordered and doing her best to handle the situations she is given.  Lear was enrolled in the Collegium by his foster family as a Blue when he turned fourteen, and Sigel continues to see him as often as she can.  Lately, however, the relationship between the two has become somewhat strained, due mostly to Lear’s increasingly aggressive questioning of the world around him.  In fact, their last meeting resulted in a not-quite-fight in which Lear walked out before the situation could progress further.  Though worried for her son, Sigel has adopted a pragmatic standpoint on it; there’s little enough she can do for him now, besides hope that he’ll come through the phase alright, and it’s better for her to focus on her own duties now than to spend her time fretting.

Goals:
To serve her country and live to tell the tale.

Gifts:
Mindspeech (weak), Farsight (average), Fetching (average)

Companion/Bondbird:
Auron, stallion.  Steady as a rock and twice as dependable, he has anchored Sigel through fires, fights, and floods.  Physically he is slightly larger than the average Companion, and his hide is dotted with the silvery lines of healed scars.  The most immediately noticeable of these runs starts halfway down his right cheek and curves up around his muzzle, just above his nose.  He is a full 42 years of age, but, like Sigel, is just about as fit as ever.  And if the whiskers on his muzzle are a bit longer than the others’, well…no one really points that out.

Your name:
Attaya Stormwolf

Your Email/YahooID:
greenrazath@hotmail.com / attaya_stormwolf (Yahoo)/ RoninNightfall (AIM)

Author's Comments:
Ever heard that country song about dust on a wine bottle?  Seems it holds true for Heralds as well.