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Basic Particulars
Name: Eithne Fayre
Gender: Female
Age: 132 years old
Height: 1.75 m
Weight: 80 kg (or whatever it is that makes Eithne 'slightly plump' )
Build: Slightly plump
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Hair Length: Shoulder-length
Handed: Right
Channeling Status: First Scholar of the Brown Ajah; Spymistress of the Black Ajah
Nation: Tear
Ability in the One Power
Channeling Strength: Average
Talents: Healing, Unweaving, and Compulsion
Strength in the Five Powers: --
Water -- Exceptionally strong
Air -- Strong
Spirit -- Strong
Earth -- Weak
Fire -- Very Weak
Physical Description
Eithne is quite a tall woman, slightly plump, though some might suspect that her weight is more of muscle than fat. She seems quite harmless, with streaks of white in her hair marking her age, and a shambling, somewhat awkward walk. Her hair is often swept back from her face, either by a careless bun or a ponytail or perhaps a twist. Her eyes often sparkle with warmth. She often has a dreamy expression on her face and a distant look in her eyes; she has a deeply dimpled smile, and is known to be a good shoulder to weep on. She is a motherly woman, but when it comes to lessons she expects only the very best from her students, and has made them weep as many times as she offers comfort from tears. She dresses in the style of Tear, often in the commoner's garb.
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History
Eithne was born to Jakel and Varien Joslan-Fayre on the outskirts of the City of Tear. Varien was versed in the herbs; she had no ability to channel, but she acted as a Reader or a Wise Woman in Tear, where it is dangerous to do so. Jakel worked as a shoemender, and though life was not luxurious, it was more than comfortable. It was a strong marriage, one of steady love grown by time together. It had been arranged by Varien's mother Italle, who had been a Wise Woman before her, the same as Italle's own marriage had been arranged. The Fayres have been working with herbs for a long generation of women.
Varien's birth to her child had not been smooth, and anticipating a difficult child ahead, the Reader named 'Eithne' -- which means, in the Old Tongue, 'little spark', or 'the spark that torches the fire'. This foreshadowing of Eithne's mother did not come to pass, however. Eithne was considered a calm child, simple and content with her lot and willing to settle for what she has; she did not have much ambition to be anything else other than what she was. She grew up sheltered and never quite knew poverty; life was simple and all she could wish for. At the age of nine she began to train to be next in the long march of the Fayres and their healing, and found that she possessed quite a talent in that direction.
The Fayres had to keep their heads low in order not to attract the Council of Nine's attention, and it is this caution that has been well ingrained into Eithne. She learned to work carefully, meticulously, and her actions were always subtle, her words simple but multi-layered. She was not hotheaded by nature and was unlikely to commit an impulsive act under the watchful eye of Varien, who was not above turning Eithne over her knee and administering a switching when she found it necessary.
Varien and Jakel loved Eithne, but did not truly know her as a person. She was simply the dutiful daughter, next to take up to the Fayres' arts. The Fayre women had always been widely acknowledged as the best of the Readers in Tear, their herbs and spices working almost miraculously well, so much so that they were in danger of being tried for channeling. Eithne remembers most of her childhood in a blur. She can recall only lesson after lesson, and a harsh scolding when a herb is mixed wrongly, when a spice is used in the wrong quantity; she was restless and inattentive, though talented, and was the heart of Varien's despair. From nine onwards this was her life, shut off from play or friends. Eithne, like any young woman would, wanted to put flowers in her hair and dance at the Feast of Lights, but was seldom allowed out of the house. "The art of healing is a Great One," as Varien often droned in her ear; you could see the capitals in her speech. She harboured a secret resentment of her mother that she never quite dared display; Varien, quite unlike her daughter, had a quick temper and a strong arm.
Eithne began to channel when she was fourteen. Again and again she healed someone her mother had left for dead, by simply sitting with them and holding their hand, or by laying a hand on their forehead. She survived the channeling sic
kness and learned how to channel unconsciously, honing the True Source into a sort of cobbled-together Healing. She never knew she could learn how to channel, and as Aes Sedai kept away from Tear, no one picked up on her abiity, either. Varien simply accepted that Eithne was very skilled with the herbs and the healing; she never suspected that her daughter could channel. Eithne herself was practical and unimaginative, not prone to such flights of fancy. Like any Tairen woman she was fearful and mistrusting of the One Power and any Aes Sedai. She never thought that fate would lead down the very path she was so suspicious of.
At about eighteen, Eithne taught herself how to embrace the Source in a sketchy, rough manner that worked perhaps six times out of ten. She called it the Calm, and though she tried to explain it to her mother, Varien was not interested in a 'child's musings', as she called it; she was more interested in getting Eithne married off. Eithne was not a beautiful woman by all means; she was not plain, but neither was she pretty. She had soft dimples that underscored her cheeks and a warm smile that lent her most of whatever beauty she possessed. At twenty Eithne wedded Reklan Blake, a glass-shaper, a man of little if no imagination, a steady worker who believed in patience. They led a quiet life together.
At twenty-three she gave birth to a child, a lovely babe she named Minda. Minda was the center of Eithne and Reklan's lives; she was beautiful, intelligent, inquisitive and inquiring but never insolent. Minda could never put a foot wrong. For nine years they lived like that, Eithne's Healing improving more and more, and as Minda grew she became the epitome of perfection in her parents' eyes. For nine years life was peaceful, and then one day rumours began to splinter the calm waters of their lives.
Eithne's miraculous healing could not go unnoticed for very long. It was not just her ability to Heal, but the fact that those she Healed had a curious wish to obey her, and were very ameanable to Eithne's suggestions. They were subtle about it at first, but finally they hurled insults at her, named her Darkfriend and a worker of the One Power, a wilder, an Aes Sedai; she could not leave the house to buy groceries without having doors slammed in her face, and she knew that these rumours would eventually reach the Council's ears. There was nothing for it except to take Minda and Reklan and move out of the City of Tear until things settled down. She denied all accusations, of course, and argued that she was a Fayre, that healing was in her blood, and yet nothing seemed to quieten the whisperers.
They left upriver that night with whatever precious possessions they had, for Eithne's aunt who lived in a village off the borders of Tear, and though they did not know it, they shared the river craft with an Aes Sedai. The sister knew Eithne had the ability to channel, of course, but Eithne treated the Aes Sedai with the barest amount of civility and the sister thought that it was best that a woman who had such hate for the One Power riven so deeply into her bones did not come to the White Tower and have her settled life shattered. The Aes Sedai did not know that Eithne had the roughest ability to Heal, to embrace saidar, and Eithne kept her family away from the Aes Sedai as much as she could, until one night, when pirates attacked the ship.
The pirates killed most of the crew before the Aes Sedai was alerted, and slashed Eithne, Reklan and Minda before she could react. The sister killed the pirates and set fire to their ship, and the river craft drifted on, with only two of the crew to man the helm. They could not sail the ship for too long, and told the sister that she would have to find another craft to take her to Tar Valon. The Aes Sedai had no ability to Heal, though she did what she could, and only Eithne regained consciousness. By then, they had already been moved onto another ship.
The first thing Eithne did was to attempt to Heal her husband and child, of course; she embraced the Source after three or four attempts, and as she prepared her herbs, she weaved the Healing flows, ready to allow it to seep into Minda. The Aes Sedai shielded her, fearing that she would harm more than help Reklan and Minda, and had to restrain her with weaves of Air when Eithne fought like a wildcat to be able to Heal her family. The Aes Sedai introduced herself as Ethalaine Remasko of the Gray Ajah and told Eithne that if she could touch the Source at will, she would have to be taken to the White Tower to be put in novice white and prevented from harming anyone. Ethalaine thought that Eithne had killed more than Healed her patients, even when Eithne tried to explain, and refused to let her lay hands on Reklan or Minda. Eithne wept and begged and ordered and screamed to be free, and Ethalaine eventually relented, releasing her from the bonds of Air, but tying off the shield. Eithne got to work with the herbs, but she sensed that something was missing and that her miraculous healing would not work when she needed it most.
With the help of Eithne's herbs, Reklan held on for four days and died eventually; Minda clung on to life for five. With the life of her beloved daughter hanging in the balance, Eithne finally believed what Ethalaine had been trying to explain to her: she could channel. Eithne pleaded for the Aes Sedai to release the shield, and after some deliberation, Ethalaine refused to, deciding that she would kill Minda in her haste, and the child died without ever opening her eyes. Ethalaine was surprised when Eithne shed no tears as she buried Minda and Reklan on the land journey to Tar Valon. The sister did not know that grief had been replaced by the hot desire for revenge. The night after the burial, Eithne was visited by a woman with a masked face in her dreams; she introduced herself as Rachaela Selaine, Head of the Black Ajah, and vowed that Eithne would get her vengeance on the White Tower's ignorance if she joined the Shadow. That very night, after Eithne Fayre awoke, she swore her soul to the Dark One.
Novice & Acceptedhood
Eithne was raised to Accepted after a few months in the novice dress, directly after she managed to learn how to embrace saidar at will and the fundamental weaves needed to gain the Great Serpent ring. As she wore the banded dress, she learned how to be a polished actress; many saw Eithne as the motherly woman with a sad past, the one whom they could go to weep and pour their grievances out to. Eithne instinctively took charge of the Accepted and novices, taking them under her wing and acting as a subsitute for the mothers they all missed. She was meticulous in her work, seldom shirking duty, and never pushed beyond her boundaries. At first, the sisters dismissed her as someone who would gain the shawl in her own good time, not simple, but not particularly quick, either. She might have remained that inconspicious had she not displayed the aptitude she had for Healing.
Eithne could Heal as strongly as a full Yellow sister once she was taught to recognize and use the weaves she had been unconsciously wielding for nearly twenty years. The Yellows were delighted at having such a quick student in Healing, though Eithne had a tendency to use unnecessary herbs, or so they thought. Curiously, the herbs often counterbalanced the Healing effect, speeding recovery, perhaps quickening a blood flow here, slowing a clot there. They were delicate balances, and very specific in the amount and type and combination of herb used. The Yellow sisters scorned it, but Eithne continued to use them, never sharing their effects with her teachers, and everyone thought that her rise as one of the most prominent Healers of the Tower as simply a powerful Talent for Healing. Eithne knew better.
She could Heal physical wounds very well, often not leaving a scar, thanks to the usage of her herbs, but Eithne also had an uncanny ability to Heal the mind, though it was not an ability she heralded -- in fact, she kept it secret from the Yello
ws. It was this ability to Heal the mind that the Black Ajah trained her in. Eithne Fayre was a gem to the Black Ajah; she was one of a very tiny handful that had the full Talent for Compulsion.
Eithne eventually learned how to thread Compulsion into her Healing, so finely that sisters testing the residues of or watching what she had done often dismissed those extra strands of Spirit as part of Eithne's extraordinary Healing. She was so dependant on using Healing as a tapestry to weave Compulsion in that she can barely Compulse when she isn't Healing or Delving, though she could still weave a fragile web of Compulsion.
Aes Sedai
Eithne was raised to Aes Sedai after spending five years as an Accepted, and the day after she was raised, Rachaela Selaine appointed her as assistant to the Spymistress of the Black Ajah. Eithne's qualities made her the perfect spymistress. She never acted on her impulses, and was always considering and thinking, observing and learning and filing away, putting an odd quirk of this sister here to the strangeness of that novice there to form a picture. Her Talent to Compulse also made her the ideal candidate to expand the net of spies on the Light and the Tower's doings. She had infinite patience to sit and not twitch a finger as she waited for a sister to make a slip that would lead to her destruction. Eithne rose admirably quickly in the councils of the Black, to the extent that the Spymistress was jealous of her abilities. Eithne discovered this, and killed the Spymistress and assumed her position two bare years after gaining the shawl. She guards her eyes-and-ears fiercely, and can be extremely touchy over what they could or could not produce. Any harsh word against her agents were punished, either by the death of the unwitting speaker, or the deaths of the speaker's families, or, ironically enough, the adding of the speaker's families to her network of spies. Rachaela watched her very closely, and approved of what she saw. Forty years after Eithne gained the shawl and swore and then broke free of the Three Oaths, she was offered a seat onto the Supreme Council of the Black Ajah, and was the only one other than Rachaela who knew the names of all the Blacks.
To the disgust of the Yellows, Eithne had chosen the Brown Ajah upon her raising. As a result, she turned nearly every Yellow against her; all the Yellows' tutelage had gone to waste. Eithne was not an ambitious person, knowing that ambition could be a knife in the back, but the deaths of Minda and Reklan drove her to climb her way to the top. Forty years after gaining entrance to the Supreme Council, eighty years after gaining the shawl, and nearly a hundred and thirty years old, Eithne stepped into the role of First Scholar, relatively quickly, but not quickly enough to excite comment. Eithne had not needed to use any of her Black Talents to gain that position. It was sheer hard work and, of course, to her temperament and ability to source out weaknesses and exploit them. As First Scholar, she had access to the Thirteen Depository, and therefore the Tower's secret histories.
Currently
Twenty years after being appointed First Scholar, Rachaela Selaine was summoned to Shayol Ghul; for what reason, Eithne did not know, and Rachaela did not care to share with any of her Supreme Council. They never heard from Rachaela again. The Supreme Council voted Eithne to be the interim Head of the Black Ajah until more was heard from the Great Lord, but Eithne resented this, and knew that it was a ploy to reduce her as nothing more than a figurehead. There has been great pressure on her to release her network of eyes-and-ears to the Supreme Council, but she knows that the moment she does, she will be voted out as the Head of the Black Ajah and the Supreme Council and have no more power left.
Eithne is working to break the power of the White Tower and crumble the Tower from within. She hates Aes Sedai and their arrogance, and wants to pull them down, believing that, so long ago, had she had the chance she would have been able to save Minda and Reklan. Her current target is the Red Shen. She refuses to believe that all in the Red Shen walk in the Light, and is trying to infiltrate the Shen and learn its intentions. She is also trying to splinter the working relationship between the White and Black Towers, and will not rest until the White Tower and all the prestige it commands is reduced to a pile of stones on the abandoned island of Tar Valon.
Weaknesses
Eithne does not realize that she has gained that very arrogance she detests in Aes Sedai. She holds grudges very strongly, and never believes that anyone can accomplish anything as well as she does. She tends to underestimate people. She does not like power, knowing that it could topple her in an instant, preferring to work from behind the scenes. She has killed Ethalaine and countless other sisters, Accepted, and novices threatening the Black Ajah; she has also killed women who have simply offered a cutting comment to her and, once, in a temper, the cook who spilled porridge on her robes that morning. Her Talent for Unweaving what she has done turns out to be very handy.
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