Marlaina Lockwood

Marlaina was born to a poor hunter in Anslem Fief. Well, not just a hunter- a poacher, truth be told. She was the eldest of five, all girls, and her mother died when she was only eight. Her father, needing help to provide for the family, taught Marlaina the secrets of hunting- shooting, moving silently, blending in to the forest, and preparing her kills afterwards. But as she set about helping her father, she harbored the secret ambition to become an Araluen ranger. The rangers were an elite group, highly skilled in archery, stalking, and knife fighting. They wielded immense authority, and were sometimes thought to be practitioners of black magic, although she'd never believed that. They had freedom, independence, and solitude. Everything Marlaina had ever wanted, really.

There was just problem. There were no female rangers. Tradition said rangers were male, and that was how it had always been. But Marlaina wasn't deterred. When she was fifteen, she went to the ranger assigned to her fief, Nathaniel, and asked him to take her on as an apprentice. At first he seemed taken aback by the idea, but truth be told, he was aware of her father's skills- rangers dealt in information, and poachers were always a prime source of local knowledge. Once Marlaina demonstrated all she already knew, he agreed to take her on. There were some protests from other members of the ranger corps at that decision, but Nathaniel had been appointed to such an important fief as Anslem because he was a popular, respected, and experienced ranger, so the corps commandant decided to let him do as he saw fit.

That doesn't mean things would be easy for Marlaina, of course. The five-year apprenticeship to become a ranger would be difficult for anyone. But she had to work harder than any other apprentices to prove her worth, and her assessors at the yearly corps gatherings were harder on her, looking for any reason to fail her. But despite everyone's doubts, she made it through her apprenticeship and passed, becoming a full-fledged ranger. She was assigned to the sleepy little fief of Merrow to get her feet- a common assignment for new rangers, or older ones getting close to retirement. But now, three years later, she was moving on. The ranger in Seacliff Fief died in what appeared to be an accident, and she was assigned to take over that fief- and take on the responsibility of training the apprentice the former ranger had taken on several months before his death.