Ashling
Template:Character Ashling was a female flamekin on a pilgrimage through Lorwyn, serving occasionally as a messenger for various races. She was searching for a greater elemental, a mythical embodiment of higher nature principles, whose call she subconsciously followed, though she did not know where it may lead.
Ashling the Pilgrim
Pilgrimage
Her task in Kinsbaile intertwined her fate with a Gilt Leaf elf named Rhys, who was outlawed from his tribe. Rhys had an encounter with the elemental Ashling searched for, and the flamekin decided to keep close to Rhys. Ashling was nearly killed by Brigid Baeli, who followed instructions from Gaddock Teeg, unaware that the message was modified by Colfenor. Instead of subduing Rhys and bringing him back to Kinsbaile in order to win Nath's good favor, Brigid doused Ashling in water and brought her to her clachan. Ashling was then placed to custody of Colfenor. In a final hour before her flame would be extinguished forever, Ashling was approached by the greater elemental she sought. A surge of energy from the elemental's blessing rekindled her fire and put Colfenor in flames, obliterating the yew.
Abused and Angry
Unbeknownst to her, this all was a plan of the ancient yew sage. He captured the elemental himself and, in fact, forced it to get in touch with Ashling. Though rekindled, Ashling became quickly uneasy, nervous, and angry. She devoted her life to the pilgrim's path, trying to find her elemental and meet it in the right time. Now, she was forced to meet him far in advance, and she was definitely not prepared for it, and neither was the elemental, who, instead of joy and enlightenment, was displaying terror before rekindling her. This was not as it should be. Ashling felt like nothing, having failed her true path...or worse, having been made to fail by anothers' plot. Thanks to the contact, she also ascended a step on the Path of Flame, from red flame to white one. From time to time, a seizure-like state occured, when he heard and felt the presence of the elemental near her, unable to perceive anything else. She helped Rhys and Maralen to free Brion and Kiel from the embrace of nettlevines, but then her mind snapped. Instead of guarding the giants and helping the group, she decided to take her own path now, to hunt and to punish the elemental.
The Ember Fell Monastery
Using the borrowed power, she flew to the place of her birth, the Mount Tanufel. Here she was attacked by the flamekin monks of Ember Fell monastery, who asked her to enter the order and make her ascension in the Path of Flame properly. Ashling refused, and the monks animated a huge stone titan to fight with her. With the unexpected help from Colfenor's sapling and the groundling fae under leadership of Endry, the giant was bound to the ground. Later, she freed the giant again to attack the monastery itself. The leader of Ember Fell let the giant crush the walls and gates, then obliterated him. He repeated that Ashling must undergo a certain ritual to ascend on her path properly.
Destiny Fulfilled
Ashling reluctantly agreed, and was faced with a shadow reality with distorted, feral flamekin. She reinstated their fire by her borrowed power, and learned what she was destined to do - being a vessel for bringing the flamekin fire through the shadowy future. This should have been made by uniting with the greater elemental, and Colfenor's sapling, who bore the ancient wisdom of yew sages. The ritual began at the top of Mount Tanufel at the precise time of the Great Aurora. For sixty heartbeats, the sunny Lorwyn and its shadow counterpart reality Shadowmoor should coexist, before the shadow taking its place. The unity of the sapling, Ashling's greater elemental and herself, the last flamekin child of Tanufel, should have produced a supreme being that will rule and endure the shadow, as Colfenor planned. However, Ashling had enough of being used. In the culmination of the ritual, she seized the unsuspecting elemental's power and sapling's wisdom by force. The elemental was absorbed by her, and the burning sapling was attempted to rescue by Endry and the groundling gang. Part of the energy was also diverted to Maralen via a faerie mushroom ring at the sapling's body. Lorwyn gave place to the dreadful Shadowmoor, with Ashling becoming one of the mightiest being on it.
Ashling, the Extinguisher
In Shadowmoor, Ashling became the Extinguisher, also known as the "Destroyer" to the other races. She was both worshiped and hated by the cinders, the creatures that the Great Aurora had changed the flamekin into, who blamed her for their wretched state. Unable to control the elemental rage and power and driven by her own desire for revenge to those who abused her, Ashling laid waste to many places in Shadowmoor. She was repelled from Mistmeadow at the cost of the life of Vigilant Eidren of Wilt-Leaf, and from Kinscaer by the protective magic of the kithkin augur Warree Tarcha. The combined effort of Maralen, Brigid Baeli, Captain Sygg, and the Source of the Wanderbrine managed to subdue the Destroyer. Oona stepped in and tried to gain the elemental power for herself, but Maralen, aided by the scroll of Rosheen Meanderer, gained the power instead. Ashling, reduced to flamekin level again, repented of her actions and tried to atone by helping Maralen's party to defeat and destroy Oona.
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