Auli'i (ow-LEE-ee)

[acmefalls]

Average height for a dryad, this fey woman blend human and dryad heritage. Skin soft and fair, face more round than a full dryad, her pointed ears have gotten her mistaken for being elven by the uneducated despite not carrying a drop of elven blood. Her wavy blonde hair usually worn in a ponytail, leaves a few monde wisps to frame her fade and electric blue eyes. The way her eyes seem to glow in subtlest light is the surest sign she is feytouched and not elven.

Deep, deep, deep in the Rawlins, there is a sacred grove little seen by human eyes. There a court of fey make their home, the Court of Willows. The denizens of this Sylvan court are mainly a family dryads, their pixie courtiers and a few other varied feykind. The eldest dryad, known to the outside world only as the Willow Queen, rules over the grove with her sisters and daughters. They have little to no contact with outside world. What little contact they do have is usually through the druids of Rawlins own Circle of Quercatha Terr. Even contact with the circle has been limited as the Willow Queen prefers to keep her court and grove safe through isolation from the outside world. Thusly, humans and their ilk who wander dangerously close to the grove are often enchanted to serve as the groves protectors or memories wiped.

It is in this ancient and oft forgotten grove, that Auli'i was born and raised. It is in this grove she expected to die. Auli'i is not the daughter of the queen, but the daughter of the queen's youngest sister, Kalea, a dryad all the court politely refer to as the 'quirky' one in the family. Kalea has caused many a headache, mostly unintended, for the Willow Queen and the Court of Willows over the years. Auli'i is considered one of these many headaches.

Dryads mate with a human, elf or satyr to produce their children, and the resulting offspring is almost always a full dryad. Very rarely things turn out differently, and the father's genetics will come through, and the offspring will be born only half-dryad or feytouched. Auli'i, Kalea's only daughter, is one these rarities, and in the Court of Willows its the kind of rarity that is seen as embarrassment rather than a blessing.

Auli'i turned out feytouched rather than a full-blooded dryad like most of her aunts and cousins did. The Willow Queen and her court know perfectly well this ultimately not Auli'i's fault, so she was afforded a modicum of understanding and allowed to grow up in her mother's love and care.

As Auli'i grew, she developed an interest in the boundary between civilization and wilderness, because as a half-human, she felt she embodied that boundary. The place where Feywild and Material meet. Since she was born in a one night affair between her Kalea and an anonymous human who claimed to be from Norwick. Kalea wasn't thinking about the man's name was at the time, so Auli'i never learned who her father was.

Rather than risk suffering a second generation of 'quirky' problems, which being Kalea's daughter, seemed quite likely at the time, the Willow Queen had Auli'i dubbed Ambassador to the Realm of Norwick via a rigged card game tournament that guaranteed Auli'i was the victor and won the privilege of being ambassador. To ensure she was away from the grove for a long while, she was given the mission of establishing official relations with Norwick and reaching an agreement to ensure the Court of Willows territorial integrity. Auli'i was to request that all hunting and logging be prohibited in around the Court of Willows grove.

The Willow Queen didn't expect Auli'i to succeed, she just wanted to ensure she only had to deal with one 'quirky' courtier at a time. If Auli'i succeeded at all, that would be a bonus... Auli'i was also sworn to not lead anyone from outside back to the grove itself. Any agreement was to define the larger general area where hunting and logging would be prohibited. Auli'i was permitted to promise the blessing of crops in return.

Now that she's left the grove on her mission as emissary from the Court of Willows to Norwick, she's taking the opportunity to learn more about the boundaries between Civilization and wilderness. She maps the strange civilized lands, and keeps an ear out for any leads on her human father.