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Dynah Kerissis
Profile: No one had ever called Dynah pretty. She was too tall, for a start, and she never seemed to out-grow the gawkiness of youth. She was long-limbed, and awkward, and had the kind of face that strangers forgot as soon as she was out of sight. Her long hair, of a nondescript shade somewhere between ash and platinum, was always pulled back from her face by a length of braided cord, to keep it out of her eyes - they're brown, though no one in her family ever had brown eyes. She is pale, from working indoors all her life, and turns bright pink if she stays in the sun for too long. She is quiet, though not shy, and appears disinterested in things she doesn't understand. What knowledge she does possess she will willingly share with anyone who takes the time to ask. She is succint with strangers, warm with friends, and truthful (sometimes to a fault) with everyone. She forgets, sometimes, to take others feelings into consideration when voicing her thoughts and opinions, but she never means any harm. She prefers books to boys, because the latter make her nervous, but seeks out the company of the like-minded regardless of gender. She does like people, however much she pretends not to, and sometimes wishes she could find it in her to be more outgoing, but the words get stuck when she talks about herself specifically and not about something she knows well. She is good with her hands, and with her mind. She likes reading, and embroidery. She detests uncleanliness, stays indoors when she can. Biography: My life, until very recently, was as unremarkable as I am. I grew up in Mayene as the only daughter of a brilliant tailor and his wife the equally brilliant seamstress. I inherited none of my mother's beauty, and was graced instead with my father's odd build and forgetful face. I learned to embroider at a very young age, to help my mother with her trade, and proved a good hand at the needle - so good, in fact, that by the time I was thirteen she'd leave entire dresses for me to work on. Together, she and my father worked me hard, schooled me well, and loved me as much as any parent can love a child. So the first seventeen years of my life passed in the most mundane way possible - though it didn't seem quite so mundane to me until I looked back on it from a different place in my life. It was exciting, to have something I'd made be worn by a lady who might be seen by the First. There had even been a small rumor (started by my mother, I am sure) that Her Highness had commented on my work. I was young then, and I knew no Lady would choose me over a seasoned craftsman, but I had an eye for color, and a steady hand, and it seemed that all I had to do was pick up a needle and the silk threads just bloomed beneath my fingers. It all seems very silly now, but then I'd never thought my life would contain anything but dressmaking. Even the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me seems quite unremarkable now. After a disagreement with my mother, I threw a tin of pins at the wall. I'd done this often, because the tediousness of picking them all up again was soothing, but this time only the tin itself clattered to the floor. I never heard the tinkling of falling pins, but it was something I could have easily missed when stomping around the room, muttering angrily to myself. I knelt to examine the floorboards, but couldn't find a single one of the pins. It took me more than a few moments to find them, because they'd all been driven into the wooden wall in a tight cluster, each buried all the way to its head. I think I might have screamed, but I don't remember now. I think that, somehow, my mother had always known I might be able to channel. She seemed unsurprised, when I finally found the courage to show her what had happened, and not two days later I was on a boat, bound for Tar Valon, with enough silver in my pockets to sustain me a journey three times the length of the one I was taking. Suffice it to say I didn’t end up in Tar Valon. I’ll not go into what went on – it is neither noteworthy, nor well remembered – but I’ve never been fond of having my choices made for me. At the end of the journey, that was what mattered to me – that I had chosen my fate, just as I’d been left to choose color and design when I was thirteen. No one had ever told me different, in those four years, and I wasn’t about to let them start telling me now.
Unremarkable, as I’ve said, but I’m sure there are those whose
beginnings are even humbler than my own. But now, I think the Wheel might have
something more exciting planned for me.
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