"Ich hab die Nacht geträumet
wohl einen schweren Traum,
es wuchs in meinem Garten
ein Rosmarienbaum.
Ein Kirchhof war der Garten
ein Blumenbeet das Grab,
und von dem grünen Baume
fiel Kron und Blüte ab."
Full Name: Constanze Hölweck von Claubrück
Title: Dame
Monikers/Aliases: Constanze Khallatis, the Southron
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Race: Half-Elf
Ethnicity: League Oster, Transmyrian
Social Class: Lesser Nobility
Bloodline: Bastard, House Hölweck
Occupation: Scout, Tracker, Courier
Character Bonds
The Party:
- Roman was destined for the axe before my intervention, no matter how much he might grumble about tagging along.
- This isn't the first time Lothar and I have been in a mess together - ranging over the Eider, he and his men did the work of the Six, and I helped them find the bastards.
- There is a darkness about the Ire Witch that I cannot help but sense, I will have to keep a close eye on her.
- Vania understands my struggles - most of them, at least, as another half-elf - and she is a talented archer to boot. It's good to have someone to comiserate with.
- Kalegen saved my life with powers that are beyond my understanding, and I in turn saved his own. He has pledged a life debt to me, and while I welcome his blade by my side, I am ill at ease with his oath, pledging what little life he has left on a wretch like me.
- [Dhal]
The League:
- Adolar Karwitz proved a valuable ally in the last campaign, despite that one mistake they made.
Twelve Questions
What are your memories of home like?
"Mixed. It is a place that I yearned to escape from, but now long to return to. I dream of it often."
What is your family like, blood or otherwise?
"Eccentric, but I would suppose it comes with the territory of being the unwanted child of a political pariah. I pray the Gods keep and deliver them all, save one."
Have you ever been in love?
"Yes, and we shall speak no more of this."
Is there anything that you find delightful?
"I love songs - not the bawdy limericks of taverns and alehouses - but songs, real ones. The epics of days of yore and knights of old - the Songs of Roth and of Roland are my favorites."
Who taught you to survive?
"What I did not learn from my mother or my elder sisters Sabine or Kathrin, I learned from Hedwig Stassen. It was she who taught me how to hunt, track, and range. My affinity for the bow is entirely her fault."
What is it that makes your blood boil in anger?
"Sieglinde."
When was the first time you ever killed someone? What was it like?
"Three years ago, when I first came to this gods-forsaken land. It was… sad, in it's own way. I knew his intention for me, for my comrades, but to see such a mighty figure clutch at his chest in vain, drowning in his own blood.
Humbling, really."
Do you put any stock in the divine?
"I beg for clemency every night."
What in the world terrifies you?
"The Ocean. By the Six I will never go upon its waves so long as I live."
What is the thing you fear coming to pass the most - rational or otherwise?
"That the truth be known."
What do you value most in the world?
"The love of my family."
Do the ends always justify the means?
"Mother would have said so."
Capabilities
"Khallatis."
Such is the murmur of the man beside you, answering the silent question that lingered, "Constanze Khallatis, so I've heard." Dull eyes lingered on the tankard below his chin, lost in the amber swirl of the northern honey-wine. He was part of the Salvation, having arrived in Sagard alongside you, a veteran of last year's campaign who reenlisted this prior spring. "Never spoken to her myself, not really. Well, 'cept for once..." A wearied sigh slipped from the infantryman's lips as he nursed the drink, his gaze closing shut for but a moment as he savored the mead.
"They had us dead to rights," The pikeman mused, "Caught us while we were on patrol, two to one. Cut most of us down before we even knew we were outflanked." Sullen, brown eyes bored into the counter their master leaned over, the flagon in hand held fast with knuckles white from a sight only he recalled. "They like to toy with you, you know, once you realize you're going to die. Give you some hope that you can still make it." Another lingering, nasal sigh came of the man, who blinked only once. Judging from the scar that ran along the length of his left jaw, it wasn't his first time at the wrong end of a blade - or perhaps this was simply the worst.
"That's when I saw her," His tawny gaze turned from what lay before him to you, meeting your own, "Over the bastard's shoulder, and by Tempus I swear, she just stepped out of the darkness with nary a sound." It was then that his eyes turned to the figure in question, resting there as the grip on the mug's handle softened, "It's not often you get to see Northmen flee, but we did. She dropped two before they even knew what direction the arrows came from - probably before they even knew they were arrows."
With another languid blink of his eyes, the soldier took another draw from the tankard, swishing the swill about in his mouth before sending it down, "One of the savages came at her with his axe, though by the time he reached her she didn't need the sword to finish him, but Gods be damned if she didn't make it dance. The rest cut and ran from a woman half their size..."
The soft curl of a smile grew upon his lips, and the slightest inflection of a pastoral, eastern twang wrapped about his words, "She spent the better part of that week tracking them for us, as if saving our lives wasn't enough. 'No one deserves to die on their knees,' she said, but we made sure they did, once she found them."
"Keeps to herself, from what I gather. Spends weeks out there in the woods, and when she's not ranging she's waiting for the chance to do so again. Khallic blood, I think - it does something to the mind." With a shake of his head, his gaze fell once more to the counter beneath him. "Sticks close to the baron when she's back in camp, but only long enough to get her orders and slips away again into the night. The finest shot I've ever seen, and a damn good tracker to boot, even for a Khalblood."
"A pity she's so sentimental, it'll be her death."
Appearance/Equipment
What might have otherwise been a far more jarring sight elsewhere was softened, somewhat, by the environs she now stood in. Surrounded by mercenaries, sellswords, and all manner of camp followers, her mail helped her blend into this crowd of ruffians and death-dealers - but it was the longbow slung across her back and the arming sword, hung from a baldric at her hip, that made it evident that she belonged here amongst their number. An unadorned, crimson tabard was the only real color she wore, a sharp, sanguine contrast to the hauberk underneath, whose once-blackened rings now glinting with the light of the hearth, worn nearly clean with ample use. Though hardly seen beneath the skirts of her mail and tabard, trousers, bloused into weathered boots, shifted as she waited for an answer, their darksome dye casting them more as shadows than legs.
Her already dour face bore a look that betrayed her distaste for the establishment, and an otherwise fair face found itself marred by a haze of impatience. Sharp, angular features betrayed her southern heritage, from her high-set cheeks to her aquiline nose, though few things bore such ire as the severe jade gaze that darted from patron to patron, sifting silently through their number. Even that she, like so many others now, found herself back in the comfort of civilization, she still kept her hair tied neatly behind her head in a simple, utilitarian bun, eschewing the comforts that now surrounded them and showing all the mark of her blood.
Long, sharp ears flanked her features, bared to all free of thought. If anything they improved her reputation, and, despite her civilized dress and eloquent tongue, there were some who shied away from her, unwilling to be so close to a scion of a savage folk. Still, she bore no other real tell, having refrained from both the fine jewelry and paint of her elvish lineage, otherwise looking the part of an Oster, in dress and demeanor. The only thing truly particular about her person, keen to an Oster's eye, is the small sash looped and tied about her belt, a splash of shimmering, onyx silk against a crimson field.
Personality
To those here in the northern reaches of the League, Constanze Khallatis is something of a brooding outsider, a figure who seems to be ever-present but rarely involved. This is perhaps the first time that many have ever seen her in the alehouse - indeed, any alehouse - so rare is it that she bothers to mingle amongst her comrades or the populace. Typically only seen in passing, it seems only to be when in the field that anyone spends any length of time with her.
Nigh on constantly the woman is pursuing her duties, whether it be in the field - as she prefers - or amongst civilization, be it encampment or township. What waking moments she spares for herself are spent seeing to her gear, or offered in quiet prayer. She seems to always bear a look of quiet distaste, save for when she finds herself amongst the trees and the rivers. There, in the wilds, her eyes grow wider, her shoulders slacken, and her breath stills. Some have said that she stops and lingers near the water, at times, peering into it with a soft, wistful look.
But for as aloof as she might prove, several of Steitz's Salvation have shared tales of the good fortune of her arrival in dire moments, or her guidance through twisting mires of brush and bramble to the safety of the regiment and the baron's host. Otherwise hopeless causes have been brought from the brink of despair by her intervention, and though she is not always successful, there are a handful that speak highly of her - at least not where she can hear. Indeed, there have been several times that she has skirted quite close to tempting fate in her efforts to preserve the lives of those in the regiment, though she has eluded Orcus's call thus far.
Biography
Khallatis.
Constanze remembers well the first time she heard the word, and the piercing glare that came alongside its whisper. The ears of such a child were ignorant to their subtlety, and their mistress unaware of the cruelty of rumor. So it was with little thought that the girl asked her mother what it meant over supper, and still does Sagard's chilly sting pale beside her sister's laughter. There were few opportunities in Constanze's youth for her to be free from Sieglinde's mirthful malice, but of all the miseries that life inflicted on the youngest scion, none cut her quite so deeply as that dismissive chuckle. Despite her mother's stern chastisement, Constanze could not help but flee from the table at the realization of the sobriquet's nature.
Only the arrival of her mother, the image of authority and might, was able to halt the march of tears. It was when she took Constanze's hand into her own, and spoke of her destiny - in the way her mother was want to do. She had visions, and her gifts intimidated the girl at times, but such prophecy was spoken with maternal adoration. As she showed Constanze their reflections in the water basin, how they shared the same face, she spoke of how her youngest was meant for greatness, just as she had been.
It seemed always that Constanze and her sisters lived in the shadow of their mother - a woman who had managed so much in a realm set against her, from valor on the battlefield to shrewd politik. In many ways her mother proved a frightening standard to be judged by, a high bar made even higher with expectation and a parent's pride, but in others she was a constant beacon, someone to follow. To hear her mother, her greatest hero, speak of Constanze in such terms was both humbling and inspiring, and the words whispered to her that night have lingered every morning hence.
Despite the loss of her tutor and closest friend, the creative cruelties of Sieglinde, and the ever-constant whisper that surrounded her, she strived to excel. Every day she made sure to practice with the bow, to spar with the blade, or to study the tomes of her forefathers. She buried herself in her duty to escape the misery of the world about her, and it was only one other selfish escape she allowed herself - the one which had granted her the sash about her belt. The sable knight that doted on her so keenly, an oasis of calm in a darksome, tumultuous adolescence.
But even that was taken from her, if only for a time. When her knight had to muster for the defense of the realm, and she too had to depart on her own campaign, so the two exchanged tokens of their affection, promising themselves to each other in secret without the knowledge of their elders.
So Constanze has served in the distant north for the last three winters, marching alongside Steitz's Salvation and the Baron Karwitz in his ineffective campaigns against the northern raiders, biding her time until she can return to her home, its cool, sunny evenings, and the one whom her heart longs to meet again. So she suffers the indignity of being taken for a common tracker, to withstand the assumption of her savage nature, and to weather their constant whisper.
Khallatis.
Bastard.
