Ellou

Character type: Staff
Rank: Healer's Aide
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Sexual Preference: Heterosexual

Appearance

If fate had to extend a contentious hand to Ellou, it at least also blessed her with every good gene her parents possess between them, and more still that probably only presented themselves far back down the family line. She is clearly 'the pretty one' of the bunch, long assured that her good looks will attract a nice husband some day, even as they've started attracting her all the wrong sort of attention in the infirmary, and begun to make things awkward between her and her father as she is developing into quite the young woman, no longer his little baby.

She's a tall young lady, all shapely leg and gentle, svelte lines. She has just enough of her mother's curves at the enticing sweep from hip to small waist, the soft swell of her developing bust, and the 'great ass' she's known for among the apprentices, which has received more than a few swats from shameless male patients. She stands out in her family for the gentle grace of her figure, the soft femininity that her youthful coltishness settled into.

Her features are the same: gentle and sweet, finer-boned than most of her family. The gentle sweep of her jaw and cheeks do well to disguise the stubborn set of her chin. Her mouth is full and luscious. She has a clear, high brow, anchored by even, strong eyebrows, under which the true show-stoppers are framed. Ellou has the biggest, most soulful eyes, in vivid, dark forest green, no mistaking them for the twins' hazel. Freckles dance across her cheeks and nose, otherwise only flirting at showing themselves elsewhere, a coy spot here and there, on her otherwise peaches and cream complexion, smooth and fair but perhaps not quite so pale as the rest of her family. Her hair falls below her shoulders in thick, lustrous waves, rather sweetly framing her face when she hasn't drawn it back into braids or a tail for the often sweaty work in the infirmary. It is, of course, as red as all the rest of her family, in a woodsy copper hue that brings to mind the richness of autumn in the north.

Personality

At first glance, Ellou seems to be one of the better adjusted members of Braughan and Sooty’s brood. One of the middle children, she’s typically been known as ‘the pretty one,’ otherwise too quiet and unassuming to earn herself much more specific attention than a vague appreciation for not causing trouble. To all appearances, she’s a sweet, mild-mannered girl, content to work in the infirmary as an aide and help her mother at home until she finds a husband of her own.

All of that is true, but there’s also so much more to Ellou.

She’s not often given credit for her keen mind. She’s curious, and she loves to learn. She might not be a genius, or a prodigy, but she has the focus and determination to dig deep into a new concept until she has a grasp on it. As she’s grown older and become more comfortable in her role in the infirmary, she’s found that each new bit of information gleaned there, every new procedure to be learned, comes that much easier now. She’s certainly much quicker to understand Guts’ studies than he ever seems to be, and there’s a reason the likes of Sarada give her the time of day (aside from the initial factor of irritating Braughan).

Her curiosity led her to the infirmary those first few times when she was small, eager to see what Da did all day, and it got her asking questions, and it made her a good fit for the position of aide once she came of age. But it’s been her empathy and compassion that has truly driven her to work with the healers. Ellou has always been on the sensitive side, emotions running deeper than just ‘sweet’ and ‘kind’ as she’s known.

And between the two, being quick and smart, and being so /caring/, she wants desperately to apprentice to the craft. Sarada and Sudaje and Hawlsen have told her often enough that she more than has the knack for it, and despite knowing that with each passing turn she’s falling further and further behind if she ever /were/ able to join, she wishes and pines and aches for the chance.

But Ellou is the good daughter, the mild-mannered helper at home, the one who’s never made Sooty cry or Braughan bellow. Her father would never approve of her apprenticing. She’s never had to ask; she’s heard often enough what he thinks of uppity girls like Sarada. She’s been allowed the leeway to work in the infirmary as an aide, but that’s as far as he’d ever allow it to go, and probably only then so long as she’s without a husband and a family to look after. Ellou knows she could make it happen without his approval; she has her allies in the infirmary, and just three turns into it she’s already one of the better aides. She would have her sponsor. She could succeed. But she doesn’t think she could ever do that to her father and mother, especially not after the twins’ betrayal.

She’s always cared too much when it comes to her family in particular. Family means everything to her. When she was little and Braughanac or Bertaula pinched her or pulled her hair, she’d cry because she thought it meant they didn’t like her, and that was a far, far worse injury than any fleeting pain from their teasing. Growing up, she was the girl who happily curled up with her mother to have her hair brushed and braided, and at dinner never failed to thank her for cooking it. She’d loop her arms around her da’s shoulders and just hang there, burying her face against him and smiling when he’d pat her on the head, happiest when she could make him laugh. And the fact that she’s drastically cut back on the hugs she tries to give him these days, as he’s turned awkward at her affection now that she’s older, only shows how much she cares for him and wants to make him happy.

She shares her parents’ holder values. While she’s spent her whole life at the Weyr, she’ll never consider herself weyrfolk, or truly part of their world. If anything, she differs from a holder’s traditions in the same way a crafthall child might. Ellou absolutely wants a husband, and to raise a family, but she’s hoping for one who could understand her dedication to healing, who might even value her for it. When she daydreams, she pictures a kind man who wouldn’t begrudge her being a crafter, who probably is one himself.

Ellou does yearn to be loved and wanted. She’s too used to being looked over, to not pushing herself further forward. Though she can’t quite bring herself to act out for it, she does crave attention and affection. When she’s at her most down, her thoughts take her down a road where she’s not worth the time to anyone, where she will never quite be enough to be someone’s number one, their favorite, their everything. She probably gives her friendship and affections too easily now as a result. Lords know that for all the hugs she holds herself back from giving Braughan, Sooty gets double or triple.

She’s become adept at hiding herself, and doesn’t realize how it has probably made her situation worse, as far as being seen for herself goes. Ellou bites back her tears, because Da must never see her crying and think her weak. She’s quiet about her successes in the infirmary, because Guts will just make fun of her, and Da might think she’s overstepping. She has a temper, but she breathes through the anger, stifles any urge to shout or snap, until she’s calm and no one’s the wiser that she was ever upset in the first place.

Ellou is all steely resolve and determination and laser-like focus, self-contained and stubborn, but she’s also terribly repressed and bottled up and prone to giving up too much of herself.

She’s the pretty one, the one with the sweet smiles, who’s always there to help.

History

Birthdate: 8.440.3.30
Birthplace: Ista Weyr

Ellou was born to a pair of conservative holder types; her father a senior journeyman healer surgeon, and her mother a master wife and homemaker, both of them always and forever examples of the rough-hewn lives they’d known at the minehold, no matter how long they’d been gone or how many other places they’d been placed by the crafthall. Ellou’s upbringing was steeped in the traditions and values her parents had brought to the Weyr with them, neatly (some would say bluntly, ham handedly) isolating her from the ways of the weyrfolk.

While some of her siblings struggled under their father’s often oppressive regime, especially those young enough not to want to be so different from the weyrbrats they were surrounded by, Ellou was never particularly ruffled. She loved and adored both her parents to distraction, watching with awe at how effortlessly Sooty wrangled their large family, and looking on with absolute hero-worship as her father stomped and bellowed his way through the infirmary. There is a story Sooty still likes to tell about a five-turn-old Ellou helping her with dinner, attacking a bread loaf with a ‘bone saw’ like her da, managing a rough approximation of his coarse mutterings as she saved the ‘patient’ by taking the leg (and wouldn’t hear no blubbering whining ‘bout it neither, damn fool should be grateful!).

Ellou never really grew out of the idolization of her parents. It was already fairly locked into her mind that she wanted to be part of both their worlds, and was determined to be as good at both as the examples they each had set her. Of course she wanted a husband, and wanted to be a good wife to him, and to give him babies — none of that flitting about that weyrfolk liked to do, rushing around for the cheap thrill and avoiding all the best things that were supposed to come along with being with someone. But she also wanted to be a healer.

Ellou had visited the infirmary as a young girl, tagging along in her mother’s arms or at her skirts, and then later on her own accord. When she was old enough to square it, she pulled herself a position there as a healer’s aide, fueled by a burning desire to help people. As she made quick work out of her training and proved herself an asset, she started wishing for more, to be a /true/ healer, nevermind that she’d never be able to do it, not with Braughan as a father.

As hard as it was at times to find contentment with her lot in life, she managed — until her older sister Bertaula snuck off and became a candidate. Seeing for herself just how hard it hit her parents (and how Chip following suit, and the two of them impressing absolutely /imploded/ the family) drove home to her how she could never hope to find a way to make her own dreams come true without destroying her parents’ love for her — a sacrifice she was by no means ready to make.

Then Braughan and Sooty turned their attention fully on Ellou for perhaps the first time in her life since she had just been born, watching her every minute, it seemed, and really upping the pace in bringing over likely suitors (admittedly fewer and far between at the Weyr), and poised to snuff out any hint of unseemliness or stepping out of line. It was not the kind of attention Ellou had always longed for from them.

In a fit of teenaged foolishness, she let herself believe Apprentice Zechalu when he professed his love and intentions to court her. She let herself go further than she would ever normally think appropriate, desperate for someone to like her for /her/. But even she had her limits, raised as she was by Braughan and Sooty of all people, and when she refused to lift her skirts for the boy, she was crushed and heartbroken when he very abruptly lost interest, casting her off as a tease and not worth his time. She’s never spoken of it to her family, too ashamed and too aware that the infirmary would be one apprentice short if she did, but she has grown even shier of men’s attentions, just as her parents are having more over for dinner in the hopes of setting up a marriage match.

Relationships

Family

Father: Braughan, Senior Journeyman Healer
Mother: Sooty, brusher of hair, recipient of hugs

Siblings:
Bucnar, junior journeyman healer (29 turns)
Birka, wife of Tagilin, Ista Weyr (28 turns)
A sister (25 turns)
A sister (24 turns)
A brother (21 turns)
K'vrett, weyrling to blue Nezenth (17 turns)
Bertaula, weyrling to green Rekkith (17 turns)
Guts, junior apprentice healer (13 turns)
A sister, romantic-minded weyrbrat (10 turns)
Beuzila, cheeky mini-Braugh weyrbrat (7 turns)
"Dusty", the baby who hides under the couch (5 turns)

Friends

The Infirmary staff. Ellou is, in her own way, as established in the infirmary as her father and brothers. Though there are times when her fellow aides side-eye her for her dreams of apprenticing, she’s a mainstay among them, too cheerful and sweet and hard-working to hold it against her for long. She was accepted among them readily, maybe initially with some amount of morbid curiosity that /Braughan/ was her father, and has good friends among them now. They absolutely gossip about patients, and even more than that, the healers.

Enemies

The candidates. The infirmary staff reluctantly accept their help as unskilled labor, but generally can’t stand how the candidates never seem to realize that’s what they are — unskilled labor. A sevenday or two in the infirmary and suddenly they fancy themselves as good as any healer, definitely above the ‘lowly aides.’ They boss staff around like they have some sort of rank to stand on, generally get into things they shouldn’t, and Ellou is chief among the group of aides who make sure to give them the very worst tasks and make their rotations in the infirmary hell.

Zechalu. One day he’s going to push things too far, make one too many snide remarks, or she’ll find out he did something similar to another girl, and she’ll end her silence. She sometimes daydreams (when it doesn’t hurt too much just to think about what happened) about which of her family she would tell first — Guts? Buc? DA?

It's Complicated

Guts >:C He’s so STUPID and he acts like he knows so much more than she does, even though she knows he failed his last exam, no matter what he told da! But he also has his moments, and there were times in their early childhoods when he was the closest thing Ellou had to a friend.

The twins. Sure she understands their desire to do something Braughan disapproves of, but they broke Sooty’s heart and tore apart the family, and now life at home is particularly rife with problems for Ellou. They’re still her family and she loves them, and misses them, but she might just be slower to forgive them than even Braughan.

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