Gaelan

Name: Gaelan
Nicknames/Handles: Gael
Date of Birth: 1199 III
Place of Birth: Osgiliath
Species/Heritage: House of Anárion - Dúnedain of Gondor
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Nominally straight, Gaelan is asexual
Height: 5’ 10”
Physique/Build: Gaelan has an average build, neither slender or waifish nor plump
Appearance: Gaelan has dark hair and possesses her mother’s deep, grey eyes
Dress Style: Her dress style is that of a young high born noblewoman
Home: Osgiliath and Ithilien
Type of Home/Neighbourhood: Royal quarters in Osgiliath, amongst her mother’s noble kin in Ithilien
Family Background: Her father is Minalcar Rómendacil II of House Anórien, her mother is Ivannah of House Hurin of Ithilien and her elder brother is Valacar, currently Ambassador and Pro-Counsel to Rhovanion
Other Close Relationships: She was close to her cousins, principally Gailraen who is the younger sister of Carmahdil.
Job: As a member of the royal family, Gaelan does not have a job beyond that of securing a suitable match.
Attitude to Religion: Indifferent, though she observed the forms as required.

Depiction by Dusty Art Studio

Favourite pastimes: Reading, riding, archery and hawking.
Hobbies: She is known to engage in a little gambling, somewhat to her father’s chagrin
Personality: Gaelan is adventurous and an independent thinker. She possess her father’s energetic nature and her mother’s kindness. She strives for her father’s approval, somehow always falling short. Gaelan is, at heart, a good and kind person who can be very sweet indeed. She has little patience for cruelty or hubris.
Strongest Positive Personality Trait: She is true to herself, sometimes at great cost.
Strongest Negative Personality Trait: She is very hard on herself.
Sense of humour: Quirky – she can be a bit of a goof.
Best Childhood Memory: Childhood summers in Ithilien, where she was free to ride and do largely as she wished far from Osgiliath’s court.
Worst Childhood Memory: When she was ten years old, she became trapped in a tunnel she had dug when it fell in. The sense of being suffocated, buried alive, terrified her.
Best Adult Memory:Winning the archery contest at the King’s summer tournament. The pride she saw in her father stole her breath away.
Worst Adult Memory: Card nights with her cousin.
Primary Goal: Gaelan knows she is to marry well, as her mother did, but she also wants a husband who will allow her to be herself. She’s not sure such a man exists.
Deepest Fear: The dark in general, but most specifically of being buried alive.

Formative Years:
Gaelan’s childhood lacked for nothing. She was the youngest child of the royal family, born in the same year as her cousin, Gailraen. Being high born of royal blood, she had everything she might hope for as a young child. Her mother was caring and doting and she had an elder brother, 4 years older than she. Unlike her brother, who was sent to Pelargir when he was 9 and she was 5, Gaelan remained with her mother and travelled everywhere with her. When Ivannah went to visit her kin in Ithilien, Gaelan went with her, and it was here she fell in love with the forests and open, wild spaces so scarce in Osgiliath.

It was here, also, that her love of archery began, and her adventurous spirit was permitted to play in a way that would not be possible in the royal apartments. She spent summers climbing, riding, rambling and exploring until the incident with the tunnel she had dug one afternoon. It fell in around her, trapping her there with precious little air until aid could be sought and someone dug her out once more. After that, she was not allowed to roam quiet so freely in Ithilien.

Whilst she was close with her mother, her relationship with her father was different. He was often away, called by his various duties and vigorous nature, to travel the realm. When he was home, he frowned on her quirky humour. Certainly, he had been most wroth about the tunnel. She had been too young to appreciate that it was fear that fed her father’s anger. She strove to earn his approval before she even realised that was what she was doing. Somehow, in ways she could not understand, she always seemed to fall short.

When her father recalled her brother from Pelargir, Gaelan was a young woman of age to be wed. Following her brother’s betrothal in Rhovanion, the business of securing a suitable husband became that much more difficult.

Other Notes:

Whilst Gaelan is aware of the expectation that she will marry and, by doing so, confer to her family some advantage from the match, she has no fear of dying unwed. The fact that finding a suitable husband for her has become difficult following her brother’s unorthodox marriage does not worry her in the slightest. In fact, it rather suits her nicely.