Alison Smith History

Alison's Family

Alison isn’t entirely sure where she’s from or how old she is. In fact, she’s not entirely sure Alison’s her real name. It does in a pinch, with ‘Smith’ tacked on the end whenever a surname is definitively required. Thankfully, in her line of work, it’s usually not. She doesn’t remember anything about her past, family, or background. All she remembers is Rhyanna ferch Hywel and, vaguely, the initiation into Sophia’s Daughters. She had talents, apparently, and was trained to them in Avalon – as well as the not-so-subtle crafts of the Jenny, she studied Necare to Apprentice level before moving about Théah, gathering information and making contacts. Also working for a living as a Jenny, and enjoying the freedom immensely. In the past two years, between seventeen and nineteen years of age, she has been to Avalon, Vendel, Montaigne, Eisen and Castille before ‘dealings’ with a Castillian merchant got her stranded on a Castillian settlement in the Midnight Archipelago.

She has had dealings with Viola in the past (once, in Eisen, where she was keeping an eye on the progress of the work on the Südlache, and in Castille when having dealings with some priest or other), and considers her a friend, if only because she has no true basis for comparison.

She chooses to consider herself Avalon, as that was where her new life began, and makes every attempt not to consider the old one very much. However, certain facts are starting to make themselves painfully clear. For example, while she can speak many languages, she can only read and write in one – Vodacce. And recently, she has been told that she has ‘many broken strands’. She’s not entirely sure what this all means, but she has suspicions that her former life may have begun in Vodacce; that it is more Alesio than Alison. She doesn’t want to know, though. Hedonist to the core, she prefers living the relatively carefree life of Alison Smith than Alesio anybody else. After all, there’s nothing definite…

There are a few things that she feels threaten her existence and her much valued ‘new life’ – Vodacce attitudes and the Syrneth. The former she can sabotage merely by existing; while those such as Viola must hide themselves for the most part, Alison as Alison Smith of Avalon may freely wear her colours (red) and show the world that women can go their own way. The Syrneth, however, are a different matter entirely. She will never speak of it, nor think about it overmuch, but when presented with it, she will do whatever is necessary to eliminate it within the bounds of the desires of the Daughters.