The Chartres, Auri's father would tell her, had never once abandoned the Royal Castle nor the Royal Family. Not once. No matter how dire the situation.
Although she never said it aloud, Auri thought this was most likely because they belonged to a class of servants as ensconced within Caemlyn's Royal palace as the very stonework. You couldn't exactly run from that kind of reputation when the balance of power turned bloody. And while there was much to be said for an illustrious history of service to one's country, Auri did not personally feel that what she did compared on most levels to the service of, say, the military or bureaucratic servants of the nation.
Besides, a young woman who wanted more out of life than mere servitude could hardly ask for a better place to be than in the city-in-a-city that was daily life in the Royal Court. Her mother had come into service recommended by one of the Great Ladies of one of the Great Houses, where she met Auri's father. The first sixteen years of Auri's life were spent in a kind of manic joy, part of the crew of aesthetic engineers whose every silent effort ensured that the understated majesty and confidence always displayed Andoran royalty and court nobles in their best light.
There was a potential future that did not involve so much livery or crisp linen, and as she heard from visiting servants, servants in other nations were living far harder lives.
And while service as one of the minor wheels in the great machine of statecraft was indeed a kinder affair than in at least some other nations, Andor's aristocrats were no less likely than any other to exploit every resource available. So it was that a bit after her sixteenth birthday, Auri found herself summoned by someone she knew only vaguely, in the same way she only vaguely knew the Royal Family up close. It was an Aes Sedai, advisor to the Court, only too pleased to find a wilder literally under her nose. Bonus points for her, the Crown, Auri's family, and... everyone but Auri, it seemed.
Scrubbing a stone in the courtyard with mindless fervor, Auri reflected upon the true magic of the whole situation: the way in which the Aes Sedai had somehow, without any use of the One Power, made the very concept of any alternative future vanish sans discussion.
Character Bio: Auri Chartre
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