Lokelani (Moonsilver) of the Moonwood
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Lokelani of the Moonwood, a deceptively simple name for a not so simple creature. In fey tradition, Lokelani was named after an aspect of Nature she most closely resembled in personality and in physicality.
In Common, Lokelani has couple different possible translations from the original Sylvan. Being the name of specific kind of flower that is a small, red rose, Lokelani can be translated as 'Small, Red Rose'.
The individual parts of her name, Loke (Low-kay) and Lani (Lah-nee) can also give a more literal translation. Loke meaning 'Rose' and Lani meaning 'Sky' or 'Heaven' would bring the literal translation to be 'Sky Rose' or 'Heavenly Rose'.
Lokelani always tells people her name means 'Small, Red Rose' because her mother always told her she was named after the kind of flower. More than one acquaintance in her life has argued the other translations describe her just as well.
Greatly mixed heritage, a human grandfather, a dryad grandmother and an elven father all blends into a beautiful young woman on the smaller side. An almost idealized elf to outside eyes with her fair complexion, long auburn red hair, vibrant spring green eyes, long slender ears, and shapely grace and charm. Yet to anyone who knows elves, there's something not quite right. Her ears are far too long to be an elf, and her spring green eyes have an almost glowing neon quality to them under the right light. They don't actually glow, it's just a trick of the light under proper conditions.
Her grandfather's red hair and grandmother's delicate fey beauty plus some elven blood lend her the rose part of her name. As a child, her mother often described her personality as 'prickly sweet', completing the thorny half of the rose. Always the more mischievous one compared to her twin sister, Hokanoe (Hoh-ka-NO-ay).
If she had grown up with humans, maybe she would have seen herself as an elf with a little fey blood. Instead, growing up in a village of full-blooded moon elves, she learned vividly how much NOT like an elf she was. Her half-elven heredity made sure she didn't quite fit in with the elven children, and her fey heredity ensured the few half-elf children who called her village home resented her as much as they resented the elven children.
Being outsiders to the village outsiders and the village 'normies' alike ensured that Lokelani and Hokanoe were extra best friends growing up, the sisters being all each other had. As they grew older, both sisters made friends among the half-elves and moon elves, but the mindset of being fey first, half-elven second was permanently ingrained. A mindset that was reinforced when each sister started to discover an innate fey talent to charm or enchant others while being immune or resistant to the same.
While Hokanoe was a true natural to enchanting and magic in general, Lokelani struggled a little in comparison to hone her magical gifts. Loke was always the more rough and tumble sister of the two, always trying to talk Hokanoe into helping her with some prank or to go off exploring.
Lokelani had an affinity for dryad grandmother, always loving the rare times when her family would be invited to her grandmother's grove for special feasts. She could never understand the rift between her mother and grandmother, nor why they could never go visit more often because of it.
Lokelani's mother, a half-fey woman named, Haukea (hou-KEE-ah), was the youngest daughter of a dryad, Ali'ikai (Ah-LEE-EE-kih), from the deepest part of the Moonwood. Unlike Ali'ikai's older daughters, Haukea was not born a dryad. By some cruel twist of fate, she was born only half-fey. Since there are no male dryads, they reproduce with males, some dryads like Ali'ikai bore children men of different races who had trespassed into her grove.
Anyone who was not a druid or ranger ally and entered her sacred grove without permission would often fall under Ali'ikai's song. Their punishment, to serve Ali'kai until death or she was bored with them. The rare trespasser she grew fond of would on even rarer occasion be taken as Ali'ikai's lover. And it is these few Ali'ikai had her children with. Usually they would be born and grow as dryads like she was.
For whatever twist of fate, Haukea was only half-dryad, keeping half her father's humanity. Ali'ikai's disappointment was never hidden, and drove mother and daughter apart. Haukea was never close to her older sisters either, so when she was old enough she left Ali'ikai's grove. Haukea found safety and kinship with the Moonwood's druids, becoming one herself and honing her healing and herbalism.
As one of the circle's healers, she wound up falling in love with one of her patients, an elven ranger ally of the circle, Elendir Moonsilver (A last name Lokelani rarely uses simply because using only her Sylvan name makes her feel closer to her grandmother). Some time after Elendir's recovery, they were married and moved to Elendir's home village of Forest Knoll in the Moonwood. Not long after, the twins, Hokanoe and Lokelani were born.
Ali'ikai eventually came to realize how she mossed having Haukea around the grove, and began hosting feasts and inviting her granddaughters to stay in her grove all in fruitless hope of winning Haukea back. It was only because Elendir's pleading that the twins should learn something their true heritage that Haukea allowed them to visit their grandmother's grove a handful of times.
Despite how much she loved visiting Ali'ikai, Lokelani never dreamed of living anywhere besides Forest Knoll. As long as she had Hokanoe and her other friends by her side, Lokelani was happy assisting her mother's herbalist and healing work for the village.
The one city she and family had visited just south of the Moonwood, Silverymoon, did not impress her. Dirty, crowded and claustrophobic, humans, dwarves and elves outside her village could keep their cities as far as Lokelani was concerned. The only thing Silverymoon was good for was discouraging the People of the Black Blood from harassing her village too badly.
Then one day, Lokelani and Silverymoon were both blindsided by a series of Zhent raids through the Moonwood. Forest Knoll suffering one of the biggest hits, Lokelani's world would necer be the same. Her mother and father dead from trying to protect their children and village. Friends also dead, and Hokanoe carried off as part and parcel of spoils. Lokelani narrowly escaping that fate herself thanks to her mother's sacrifice.
That would drive Lokelani's life into an alien direction. All the rough and tumble and swordplay that had been for fun was turned serious intent when she went south to Silverymoon and joined the Knights in Silver. She would be the sword and shield for others like her family and friends, and if she was lucky, she just might get to end a few Zhents along the way.
In just a couple years, she went from squire to full Knight in Silver, getting herself assigned to the newest Knight Captain in Silver's team, one Juniper Amalith.
Juniper was good people, deadly with a sword and that blade-dancing of hers. Also, Juniper knew what it was to be an outsider's outsider, and the importance of family. These qualities and the camaraderie built by serving and protecting Silverymoon together would lead to an understanding commander granting Lokelani leave of absence when the fey woman happened on a lead to Hokanoe's whereabouts during a mission to defend Peltarch from the Zhentarim.
Years of believing all her family was dead or good as dead, including her twin sister translated utter elation at even the slightest hope of actually finding her. At some place called Moonreach Keep.
