Bio:
Sindri was born to a small nomadic clan belonging to what the Nords and Bretons refer to as Reachmen. As a child, she spent much time among the wild people, though her mother -a skilled alchemist- often traveled into the populated holds to trade hard-to-come-by herbs and ingredients. Sindri often joined her, making friends, learning the ways of civilized people, believing herself to be one of them.
When she was seven, her mother took her into the mountains and handed her only child into the care of a handful of strangers. Witches in dark robes with terrifying tattoos and skulls bones tied into their hair.
Sindri sobbed, fighting against the hand that held her wrist firmly, but her mother shook her head and left Sindri to the strangers.

For years, Sindri was schooled by the group of women, their tutelage merciless and cold. Sindri learned in the shadows the way of the witches. Schools of magic, alchemy, combat, cooking, every skill that would be beneficial to a future witch.
The nightmare ended when the group of witches were set upon by a group of adventurers who had been wronged by the actions of the group. Sindri woke in the night to chaos, combat, and slaughter. In the fray, Sindri was discovered by the men, who were confused to find a girl so young and decided that she was a victim.

Sindri was rescued, pulled from the rubble that had been her home and prison the last several years, and was put under watch in a Nordic encampment until those around her were assured she was not a risk.
Unfortunately for them, she was. Of the many things the witches forced her to undergo, one was a ritual of transformation that turned her into a werewolf. In the dead of night, she freed herself from her restraints and wiped out the group of men who had slaughtered her people.
With the witnesses gone, Sindri fled into the wilds until her bare feet bled, until she came across a clan of nomads who took her in and helped her acclimate to the sunlit world again.

Sindri’s new life became one of repentance and alliance. She’d grown up homeless and sleeping under stars because her people did not trust those who lived in permanent towns and cities. She’d been handed over to powerful witches because she needed to become a powerful witch to survive. Those witches had been slain by men who did not like that these women were powerful and not subservient to their laws. The civilized people saw them as savages and beasts. The tribesmen saw those who lived in cities as puppets and soft.

She would be the bridge.
Sindri would try to get each side to see the similarities and the minute differences between their cultures in the hopes of bringing them together. As a more united front, they’d be strong. Less of their time would be spent on bloodshed and territory battles.
The witches were not all savages, she tried to explain. The city people were not all weak.

From city to tribe to town to settlement, Sindri traveled, offering her alchemy and enchanting skills in trade, offering herself as a mercenary to those who would hire a woman, mending broken bones and rockjoint to the weary traveler, all while speaking praises of the two sides of her world and promising that the two could become one.

When she fell in step with a group of Imperials traveling through the Jerall Mountains, Sindri explained what she was trying to do, and the Imperials offered to her a chance to do as she was on a much larger scale. Bring the Reach and its neighbors into recognition from the Empire.
She did not hesitate to say yes. Immediately agreeing that she would do this for the Reach and the people who lived in its harsh terrain.
Though, after a time, she realized she had reason to hesitate; she was a beast, afterall.

Please, she begged. See the big picture. I am under control, I will harm no one. Give me a keeper if you must, have me tested, give your men wolfsbane and silver for reassurance, but so long as I am allowed to hunt deer whenever I need, I will be no danger to this cause, as it is also my cause. Should I fail you in any way, cut off my head, for without this purpose, I have nothing.

As with many of the Yokudan myths and legends, the woman who would become Ansei did not start out gifted or soft in any way. Her life from birth had been one of the harsh desert sands, born among the nomadic tribes of the Alik'r who for one reason or another rarely visited the shade of the cities. Though in a way her life was a miracle in a way, as it had nearly never happened at all for her tribe's varied conflicts with neighboring provinces and within Hammerfell itself. One of those few who still hold true to the Warrior Wave philosophy, her people have lived a life of hardship for hundreds of years, seeking out any threats to Hammerfell no matter where they may dwell, and destroying them utterly. Whether it be the revered undead or a clan of Orsimer cursed by Malacath with a blood rage. It was the latter that brought her mother to her father, an Altmer woman gifted in restoration and dead set on sharing that gift with any in need of it. Her wanderings had brought her to a clan of Orcs beset by one tragedy after another, and soon she had been wed to the Chief and the thing thought impossible came to their clan. Peace.

But it didn't last long, as their blood boiled from the merest of slights, and eventually one of their clan struck a Redguard merchant down in cold blood, drawing the attention of the Alik'ri tribe. A mission of destruction was undertaken, with the only survivors being the youngest and eldest of Orcs, as well as Terandil of Shimmerene and her two unborn children. Jakir, the chief of the Alik'ri tribe, walked out of the main building of the stronghold a shaken man and gave the order himself, what had transpired between himself and the Orsimer chief remaining secret to this day. Of course, news spread quickly of the razing of the clan's land and soon an army began to draw against the Alik'ri. Little by little they were driven into a pass that was to be their grave until Jakir himself negotiated with the Reachman warleader, and showed that his people had taken in the most vulnerable of the Orcs as well as the Altmer Terandil.

Many tense years passed since that day, and on the eve of the seventh Khaliya was born to Terandil and Jakir, the two having found a love for each other in their time among the sands. Of course her childhood was a rather rough one though, not just for the biting winds of blown sand, or of the merciless sun during the day and the bone-chilling cold of night, but for her older step-siblings Yashar and Roshanara who had been fully adopted by the Alik'r since then. With half-orcs as siblings, she quickly learned to toughen up for the rough-housing of children, and over the years was made all the better for it. While her kin and tribespeople were given towards more martial skills because of their lifestyle, Khaliya found herself gifted in particular with the blade. As others branched and learned more of song, dance, pottery or weaving she did much the same, but always her eye was drawn more and more to the sword.

It was found all the more in the tales of the Ansei and her people's Yokudan history told through the songs of her tribe. Each was a tale of great heroes fighting the demons of their homeland, or fighting to secure a new home which future generations would call Hammerfell. And while most were told their song, dance and copious embellishment, there were a rare few which Khaliya became uniquely suited for. It started as just a whim on a visit to Rihad, she was a fresh teenager and already assisting on the hunts and defense rotas, and her father and uncle had just begun a tale of Frandar Hunding. Normally the tale would be told with a sword-dancer playing out the role of the hero himself as the elders spoke in reverent tones of his many deeds, but for some time her cousin who would have normally performed the role had been working off an injury. So without even asking for permission or waiting for the two to say something against it, she took up the ceremonial swords and simply joined in mid-act.

At first it was simply the usual crowd of spectators, a few elders watching with respect and curious younger passerby who perhaps had not heard the stories told in such a way. Steel caught the light as trailing red cloth painted the strokes of killing blows millenia past, Khaliya putting to work all the practice over the last few years to try and recreate what she had seen. She knew the steps as well as anyone else in the tribe, and she knew the story better than even her father at times, it being a favorite of hers. There was something else about acting it out though. More and more she let the crowd fade and the words guide her hands and feet, until at last she came to a standing rest and felt the heat of dozens of eyes staring at her and the wave of applause. Her performance had drawn quite the crowd with her easy motions, the swords lighter than air in her hands and acting more like an extension of herself than steel and silk. It was certainly a surprise, but she made herself quite scarce after a few stepped forward asking her name, the calls following her family as they headed back to the caravan to count coin and get ready for the night.

But it wouldn't be quite over for her by any means. Over the next few days as they rested and traded within Rihad there came numerous requests both to have another performance with the young sword-dancer and to know her name. Her father was equal parts frustrated and proud, one in having seen his daughter take up an honored role with such excellence, and the other in having to now deal with repeated advances from Hammerfell knights wanting to bring her into their order. Crimson Sands, Opal Watch, Rihadi Wardens, even the Sentinel White-Cloaks, each of them made it a point to try and speak with Khaliya either with or without her father present in order to convince her to give up the nomadic life and become a knight. "One with such skills cannot belong to the sands alone." As they said repeatedly, their goals clear as they sought her only for her skills and the potential glory for their own individual orders. All were of course turned away, and not always by her father. His word was final, but she had found her frustration mounting as the day they would leave Rihad could not come faster.

On the final day her last admirer arrived at the camp, just as they were hitching the camels and packing the last of their goods for the long road. Unlike the varied orders he came not with a grand escort, no banners, no emblems or symbols of office. There was no intent to impress, ingratiate, beg or intimidate for her attention. Instead the aging man presented himself to her and her father as a keeper of the old ways. He was just a man with a book, one that could be of use to a girl with so much potential, as he said of Khaliya. The book itself looked every bit older than the man, wrapped in delicate silks that preserved it from the arid heat and showed that while he himself looked nearly destitute, that it held more wealth than all of Hammerfell to him. It was offered freely with no expectations, the old man merely suggesting that it would be of interest to Khaliya and could help her make her own way some day in the future.

The significance of this gesture wouldn't be understood until far from Rihad, when she unwrapped the silks and stared at the interlocking rings on the cover, Yokudan script showing the title and author as something quite extraordinary. Within her hands was the Book of Circles, and not just some copy done clumsily by Cyrodillic hands or some Scholar who had never held a blade before. It was done in the tradition of the old Ansei, passed from teacher to student with the intent for them to one day write their own. The pages were old and weathered, the ink older than her entire tribe and calling back to another age where their traditions were a way of life to more than just a scant hundred. And there on the first page in the flowing script of a warrior wielding a pen instead of a blade, the name "Frandar Hunding". All of these books were written much the same, the man who had written the first given the honor of the first page of every copy written by every following Sword-Saint. This was to Khaliya, one of the most significant treasures she had ever seen, and her family knew it as well, allowing her the time to study it more than she had ever delved into any book before.

Days turned to weeks on the road, her feet stirring the sands in one rota after the other. Weeks became months, the sword of her father singing along the wind with a fervor of a woman who had realized her life's purpose. Months shifted into years one after the other and Khaliya had read the Book of Circles front to back, practiced every maneuver back to front and almost memorized the sword strokes that were meant for a blade infinitely lighter than the steel she held.

With three, almost four years passing since being gifted the Book of Circles, life had shifted quite drastically for Khaliya. Now sixteen she was leading expeditions across the sands ahead of the tribe, pathfinding for her people to avoid the dangers lurking beneath the dunes. The slightest mistake could lead to the death of dozens, far too many for any tribe, much less one who had made themselves known to seek out and destroy the undead, a taboo among all Redguard. That was why a good eye was often times more valuable than a strong arm, and she had learned all too well the little details that others missed. The way the dunes shift ever so slightly in the distance, ripples across the surface and the occasional breach of stone hinting at the lurking teeth and claws waiting for passing prey. Heat hazes could distort the horizon in more subtle ways, making one think an oasis was far closer than reality, if it was even there to begin with. Of course the haze was the lesser effect of such punishing heat, and she knew that spending too much time on the sands was lethal even under the shade of the main caravan.

So she learned to read the sands, to listen to and feel the winds, taking in all the signs that a skilled navigator could use to find their way to the sea. Yet it was on a day when she was relied upon most that she would be challenged by her greatest foe. Her brother Yashar had been spending the last couple years with her uncle along the northern shores, and Roshanara primarily stuck with their mother and the main caravan in case some danger bypassed the sentries. On this day she was out ahead with a dozen men walking the sands, feeling out a safe route towards Sentinel and avoiding the fringes of Craglorn. The sands had been whipped into a frenzy by westerly winds heated by the sun and driving the dune rippers into a maddened hunger. Each of the western sentry groups had encountered lesser rippers that would have normally never attacked a group like that, and the tribe as a whole knew that soon there would need to be a decision made. Either press on towards Sentinel regardless of the rippers and the approaching sandstorm, or break east and enter Sunforge. The latter had been regarded as a non-starter for years, ever since the conflict at the pass had nearly destroyed their tribe in Craglorn, they had kept their distance from the region and the many Orsimer strongholds that retained a grudge.

Sentinel though… Yashar was likely to be there, but the most pressing issue was that it was still more than three days of hard travel even if the camels were pressed without rest. All that could be done was to continue on with caution, to keep both options open until the very last moment. That was as her father had taught her, to never close a door until sure that it held no benefit. Pressing forward through the gusting winds and darkening skies there was the ever present looming danger of what may lie beneath, Khaliya herself on point and cresting each dune carefully. Little by little they made their way, glancing between the skies above, to the west and east, and in the far distance the banners of their tribe showing them on their way. That was a distraction though and she knew it. The tribe would be fine as long as they focused on their duty, to keep any dangers from the main caravan. Just one last dune before they would enter into the hinterlands where the sand would start to shift to rock and dirt. The wind shifted the sands around this one as it crested high into the horizon, looming like a barrier in their journey and curling towards them as a break against sea-borne winds. Though the closer her party got to the dune the more something seemed off. It was as if the dune had not formed over eons of gentle desert winds but… Too late they realized the danger they had come upon, one that they were trying to deliberately steer the caravan away from. Without hesitation Khaliya ordered a runner back to divert the tribe east and closer to the border to Sunforge. All she and her scouts needed to do was carefully maneuver themselves around the dune and leave marks for those to follow. But as they closed in and began to skirt around, the sands shifted. Great spires of hardened carapace erupted from the peaks of the dune, pitted and scored by years of desert life. A rumbling came from beneath them, disturbing the sands under their feet as the shape of the dune writhed back and forth lazily, and for a fraction of a moment in the darkening twilight of the impending sandstorm, they saw it.

Murderous intent gleaming behind eyes that had seen many tribes such as hers come and go, the shifting of sands across eras and the death of empires. It was a creature as old as the sands themselves and one of the most feared beings in all the Alik'r. To the Forebears within their safe cities and the Imperial travelers, it was just myth and legend, some creature from the Merethic that had long since passed. For her and the other Alik'ri tribes though, they knew it as the Greater Duneripper. A duneripper that had survived through its adulthood to become an elder and like all of their kind, old age was barely an inconvenience. All Khaliya remembered of what was to follow was a whisper under the howling sands as the creature slowly dove into the earth, meter after meter of ancient terror…

Dunefather.

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It would be several weeks later that Khaliya would find herself in Sentinel, her mother resting beside the bed she lay in and a dull pain all over her body that told her that she had been through something rather significant. Fresh scars lay under the bandages wrapping her entire torso and lower body, flashes of that encounter in the sands and a bright spear of light erupting from her hands in a moment of stress. Her family would take the next few days between her resting to fill her in on what had happened. During the sandstorm that had engulfed the tribe's caravan and the scouting parties, her own had encountered a greater duneripper of significant size, one believed to be the Dunefather himself. That was something of debate among the tribe though, but they knew it to be a rather significant threat and six of their people were dead with several others wounded just as Khaliya had been. What was of particular note though was not their harrowing encounter with the Duneripper or the hastened march towards Sentinel, but in how it had been fended off and sent back into the sands. The survivors of her party spoke of how one by one each of them had been pulled beneath the sand screaming, only blood and cloth remaining as they were picked off. Suddenly Khaliya had been dragged down next, and the duneripper crested from the surface with her clinging on as best she could, sword simply slipping off the carapace of the beast. Everyone had thought her lost as she disappeared into its maw, only for a moment later to hear her voice knowing it to be one of anguish, and instead a blade made of pure starlight erupting from the top of the duneripper's skull and swinging outward. That had been enough for it to drop the wounded woman back onto the sands and retreat, not willing to continue that fight.

Luckily for her the main caravan had hastened to catch up once the sandstorm hit, and that had been when her mother saw the bloodied sands and her daughter barely clinging to life. From there they had set a maddened pace all the way to Sentinel, their rush nearly finding the city guard upon them if it weren't for Yashar there to vouch for them and the state of many of their scouts. But it was all past now, and all she had to do was look towards the future, one that seemed a little strange especially for she remembered little of the event. One visitor in particular though provided some insights, the same elder who had given her the Book of Circles now came to her as she recovered from her ordeal, and just as before he came with a gift free of expectations and once more, he gave her a choice. He sat beside her bed and offered the stories of old Yokuda and the Warrior Waves, some of which she knew already but not in the same ways. There were the same figures of old, the same heroic deeds, but this time a sudden clarity on those myths. Ansei they were called, a word whose meaning had been lost over the eras and merely relegated to the ancient heroes. Gone had been the truth of it, and the myths of warriors of peerless skill losing the why and how. To be an Ansei was to be a Sword-Singer of pre-eminent skill, a holder of the Shehai and one of unshakeable will and righteousness.

And what the Shehai was, it was something she had awakened within herself. The sons and daughters of Yokuda all held this gift within themselves, as the elder told her, but some were more capable of reaching for it than others, and of them there were further separations still. As he taught her of this ancient art, he told her of how she had taken the first step. Through a moment of extreme stress and a display of incredible willpower, she had refused to accept her death and chose to make-way in whatever manner she could. That was when the Shehai erupted from her hands in a display of starlight-made-steel. Try as she might though, she couldn't replicate the same blade she had awoken, only vague shapes clinging to her palms. Even that was remarkable, as all who witnessed it seemed to find their faith in Hoonding there before her, but she would need to steel herself in order to surpass this, and that was a final gift given without expectation.

Three weeks after her awakening of sorts, she embraced her mother and father for what may be the last time, having settled on what she must do with her life. The book had shown her another way of life, anchored her passions into something real. The duneripper had challenged her and through force of will she had not been found wanting. The elder had given her a light along the path before her and signposts pointing the way. With those three she was for the first time filled with determination, something her father Jakir would not stand in the way of, and her mother Terandil would see to it that at least she would have someone to rely upon along the way. Though their hearts ached for it, she was given her father's sword once more, even knowing what must be done with it, and her elder brother and sister would accompany her to provide some much needed assistance when needed, but to also ensure she would never be without a friend. Then with all said and done, she set out for that first step on the road to becoming a true Sword-Saint. It was a simple matter on the surface, to give up her most prized possession to Hoonding and offer it as a blade for those in need. Yet one never does give up their father's sword with ease…

That was two years ago and since then Khaliya has been steadily advancing towards a dream she never knew. The Shehai comes to her hands when called, a blade shimmering and sharper than any she had ever known or ever will know, so long as her will is focused. With the increasing tension in the Empire things have been more and more rough out on the road though, as the growing influence of the Aldmeri Dominion has made people wary of Elves of most kinds, and often distrusting of strangers. She can still count on friends on the road though, and from time to time has made herself an ally of the strangest people across the varied lands. One of those a fellow Redguard of the Blades, who after a long and rather tumultuous journey through the Dragontail Mountains that neither wishes to recount, ended up being owed a favor. Though Khaliya will attest that it was more her being owed the favor, regardless she has found herself surrounded by strangers and being told of a rather bold plan to go and forge diplomatic links between the Mede Empire and Orsinium.

Were it not for her half-siblings Roshanara and Yashar already at the Orcish city, she would have suggested at the least her brother instead. But That appears to be a problem for a different day, and at the very least the Empire seems intent on seeing this one through, hopefully before the Bretons or Nords sack the city again.