Ellia was born fourth of five siblings, and the only girl. Her father, Jaellor, is the holder of a rahter large cothold, one that houses two families other than her own. Before handfasting to Killea, Jaellor was a woodcraft journeyman. Ell's elder brothers, Jaelean, Lorean, and Kael, were all at least six years older than she, so she was closest to her younger brother Cheran (or Ran, later Ch'ran).
When Ell was about eleven, the journeyman posted at Hold gar made his rounds among the cotholds, and pronounced her potentially good enough to enter the hall. Therefore, at the age of fourteen, Ellia took her pipes (a gift from her brother, who had some of his father's skill at woodcraft, as well as his father's help) and her small collection of marks, and made her way up to the Fort Hold and Harper Hall, where she asked for apprenticeship.
While she was waiting, Ellia took the time to go up to Fort Weyr, under orders from Cheran. There she got to know and become passing friends with not only bronze Zyanth, and through him his rider, F'ren, but most of the current weyrling class of the time. Eventually, one of the weyrlings - J'bal, and his blue Emmith - brought her back to the hall to take up her apprenticeship. (This, incidentally, provoked her into the first song that she wrote; an instrumental describing the flight home.)
Through no fault of her own save ignorance, Ell got sort of vaguely peripherally "involved" with a Healer apprentice named Bastian. It can be said that it was no fault of her own for the simple reason that she didn't notice it happen until wll after it was too late for her to do much about it. After a while, she reached a point where she'd realized that she din't want to be in the relationship - but had no way se could figure out how to get out of it. This finally came to a head when she was proposed to; her reaction was gut-simple, and she ran.
She ran, in fact, to the Harper courtyard, from the archives, and sort of collapsed there, much to the astonishment of a few of the other apprentices present. They managed to get her calmed down and coherent, and Bastian, when he showed up, finally ecided that he had been incredibly mistaken, and vanished. He reappeared only occasionally for what Ell considered to be the express purpose of making her feel guilty.
However, the hall went on, and apprenticeship kept her busy. A little while after this sequence of events, she came to a sudden realization: that she had been greatly comforted by another one of the apprentices. And that, in fact, she would far rather be with him than the obviously wrong Bastian.
When she admitted this to Jerethan, however, at the end of a particularly loud sequence of limericks, he told her that he was involved. Specifically, with a Miner journeywoman, who he hoped to marry as soon as he could manage to achieve his own journeyman status. Somewhat subdued, Ell filed this away in the back of her mind, and promptly declared a prank-war. This was a relatively quiet thing; a large quantity of bad verse was written, and several fire-lizards turned up purple.
Over the course of her time at the hall, Ellia subcrafted to Composition. However, she is still quite a generalist at heart; her knowledge of the instrumentcraft is competent if not skilled, she can drum well even if the codes fall straight out of her mind, her grasp of theory is complete if not extensive, and she has a sweet, clear, if somewhat light soprano voice. (Archiving is something she can do, and does very efficiently - so as to get it done all the faster.) Turns passed, and eventually many of her friends surpassed her in the craft, most significantly her close friend Rathenna (currently Masterharper of Pern) and that self-same Jerethan.
Rathenna, then a journeyman, held a theory class some few days after Jereth was promoted to journeyman. After the class broke up, Ell and her two friends were left in the room, as the remainder of the apprentices filed out. At this, her first opportunity to speak with Jereth after his promotion, Ell was somewhat subdued - he did, however, ask her at length about the somewhat odd colour of his pair of fire-lizards, who were, at least until recently, blue and green. In the middle of what was beginning to be a very interesting conversation, a Benden dragonrider appeared to bring Jereth to a Turnday party for one of Benden's bronzeriders; Ell was invted to come along.
By the end of the evening, the two were, at last, together. This made both of them quite deleriously happy and was the source of a burst of creativity on Ell's part.
Time passed, and eventually Jerethan was posted to the High Reaches sweep region. Ell, still in her apprenticeship, proceeded to carry on learning, occasionally having her brother or Rathenna come up with a good excuse for her to get to Reaches for a visit. She acquired her pair of metallic firelizards, the first a gold (from a clutch of Rathenna's Titania) and the second a bronze (a gift egg from J'man Simile), and proceeded to threaten Jerethan with sticking an egg in his gitar - a dire threat, since he's long ranted about not wanting to acquire any more firelizards.
Ell's quiet frustrations at the hall occasionally erupted into small explosions or long, intense conversations with Rathenna at odd hours of the night. Rathenna, now Apprentice Master, was having problems of her own - as she had been promoted far faster than any of her friends due to her diligence and her tight specialization, she was suddenly bereft of anyone she could talk to without the difficulties of rank intruding. With Thenna's somewhat calming influence, Ell was able to keep her patience and calm, though her period of time in the hall over the last two or so turns of her apprenticeship has given her more than a slight stubborn streak. Her quiet fits of temper have become intermittently notorious, as has her rather cutting sense of wit - and her talent for a well-placed limerick with no advance warning.
Soon after Ell's promotion to Journeyman status, she was posted to Ruatha. At that same time, Masterharper Caoilfionn was called off to a vital arbitraration, and resigned the Masterharper's knot - to Rathenna. Both friends have found dealing with their respective new positions difficult without the assistance of the other. This has led to several scrawled conversations (on Ell's part, at least) delivered by firelizard, as well as the occasional meeting at either the Hall or Ruatha. Of late, the meetings are far more likely to be at Ruatha; for Ellia has determined that she is pregnant. Now that the Masterharper's knot has passed on, however, she will be able to handfast to Jerethan, and therefore will be able to actually tell her parents.
In addition to all of this, Ellia has taken on a student, one Karvin, who failed Impression at Fort's last hatching. He seems to be a drummer, and a competent one at that, and Ellia is considering giving him a nudge in the direction of the Hall should he prove interested.
Ellia's Description
Ellia is a small, lightboned woman of perhaps five and a half feet
tall. Her somewhat elfin features lend themselves easily to laughter. Her hair
is a dark brownish-black, with a slight hint of a curl to it that makes it go
to wisps, and reaches midway down her back. Her hair is entirely loose,
spilling free over her shoulders and falling frequently across her face. A few
stray curls frame her face, wisping around her incredibly deep, dark grey eyes.
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She, despite her fear of heights (another reason not to be a drummer!) accepted.
She is wearing a Harper-blue skirt that brushes at her grey wherhide
boots, its hem embroidered in an intricate pattern in grey, black, and white.
The skirt is bound by a black cord, which has, on one side, a grey cloth
pouch, and on the other a slender case that holds her flute. Her shirt is a
plain cream, and well-padded across the shoulders for the perching of
firelizards. She is also wearing a thick cream-colored shawl, embroidered
about the edge with musical notations, that occasionally slips down to obscure
her knot. Her knot is the graceful loop of a Junior Journeyman of the
Harpercraft, blue and white.
At your best guess you would place her at nineteen, or perhaps on the
outside twenty. Though her general demeanor is cheerful, there is an edge of
the serious behind her eyes, that hints at depths behind the laughing exterior.