Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah
- Full Name - Damara Maylin Salines Aes Sedai
- Position - Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah
- Character Summary:
- Persuasive and
saturnine, Damara Salines stands among the first rank of the Red Ajah,
and she is an outspoken critic of the regime of the current Amyrlin. An strongly opinionated Sister, she was recently recalled from her position as the advisor to Queen Breigide of Ghealdan. Originally from Tear's brutal Chalm district, she is a dangerous and unpredictable fighter. Damara was a wilder, and her instructors despaired of her ability to transcend it. She leads a large clique of Red sisters, and was the protégé of Riann Haliwell, the redoubtable
Red sister. Damara is expected to assume a Seat in the Hall before long. She is currently assigned to help govern the conclave of Aes Sedai dispatched to Illian.
- Affiliation - Red Ajah, White Tower
- Extended Background:
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Damara was born to tradesmen in Tear, in the warehouse and port district of the Maule, well over ninety years ago. Her early years were filled with deprivation and violence, as her family was poor and her neighbors rowdy and course. When Damara was thirteen, she experienced her first symptoms of channeling unguided, and came down with what the local healer diagnosed as crack-spine fever. She recovered, though, and thus she became a wilder, channeling unawares. Damara developed a block from this experience, that she needed to be experiencing pain in order to embrace the Source.
When Damara was fourteen, she was accosted by a band of drunken sailors, who slapped her around and manhandled her - feeling the requisite pain, she lashed out with the One Power, permanently blinding her attackers. The Magistrates learnt of this incident, and immediately dispatched Damara to Tar Valon with hasty farewells to her parents and sisters, a scarifying incident that affects Damara to this day.
Upon arriving in Tar Valon, she made her way to the Tower and wrote her name in the novice book. Classified as a blocked wilder, the Aes Sedai instructors despaired of ever breaking her out of it. During her time as a novice, she would often punch her leg, or prick her arm with a needle in order to experience the pangs needed to channel. At last, Riann Haliwell of the Red Ajah formulated a method that would break her block, involving Damara being completely immobilized, and repeatedly taunted and ridiculed, unable to strike herself or free herself without channeling.
Once she had overcome her block, she quickly passed through the Arches, and spent a remarkably short time as an Accepted, training her mind as well as prodigious strength. She felt drawn to the Red Ajah, partially because she was admiring of its dedication of purpose and strict organization, partially because she so wished to emulate Riann Sedai. Upon her raising to the shawl, she chose Red, and quickly began a career of accomplishment, winning admirers and partisans among the Red, and impressing her superiors, with the benign patronage of Riann Sedai. Damara was named as Advisor to Queen Breigide Meigarin of Ghealdan, to bolster her tenuous throne with the might of the Tower, a position she held for nearly ten years, where she impressed the Hall with her service. When the time came to convene a delegation to effect the Concordat of Illian, Damara was chosen as one of the leaders of that delegation, known as the "Tower by the Sea". Currently in Illian, Damara vies for stewardship of the Aes Sedai enclave against Rigan a'Vorhan of the Green.
In the "Tower by the Sea", Damara is surrounded by a party of Red sisters, who defer to her leadership, Almaya ibn Sahudaan, Demethia Hekatheos and Jasiro Tengoyin, and she is accompanied by her protégé, the Mayener Accepted, Nairise Bendone.
- Character Description:
-
Slim and of middling height, animated by a ferocious energy, Damara Salines has the dark typical Tairen coloring, smooth brown skin, with cool amber eyes and a spill of glossy black hair. Damara's eyes are snapping with intensity and intelligence, and her full mouth seems pursed in a perpetual moue of concentration, the expression of a sulky young woman ever on the verge of a tantrum. Yet, quantifying her age is no mean feat, for despite her expression, her eyes are wise and swimming with ennui, and her face his clear and unlined. Damara's currant-colored dress is finely cut from darkly gleaming silk, with a high collar that juts at angles beneath her jaw, long sleeves with tight cuffs, and divided skirts. Intricate embroidery in coppery thread works out a labyrinthine pattern along her hems and down the sleeves, across her shoulders and collar. Her black hair is held from her face by a narrow chaplet of small garnets interspersed with pearls, a rare and extravagant piece. Her only other adornment is her Great Serpent ring. Around her narrow hips is a finely tooled belt of black suede, hung with her purse and poniard, and heeled riding boots appear from beneath her hems. A rich cloak of crimson velvet is thrown over her frame, clasped by a small broach of intricate golden knot-work.