Lim

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Information

Player: NoSecrets

Character Full Name: Lim Darkvine

Character In-Game Name: Lim

Nickname(s): None

Association(s): Associated with Darnassus/Alliance. Counting her true allegiances is far more difficult.

Race: Kaldorei (Night Elf)

Class: Rogue

Age: 10,300 (approximately)

Sex: Female

Hair: Violet/Short (Naturally, but subject to change as needed)

Eyes: Silver

Weight: 175lb

Height: 6'

Alignment: Neutral

Appearance

Typically form fitting leathers when performing some task. In leisure, she is likely to wear unadorned robes---that is to say, their purpose to preserve her modesty to an acceptable degree and little else. So far as weapons, she favors pairs of whatever it is she is using. Usually straight blades, daggers, or hand blades.

Personality

Lim cannot help but treat most of the living world around her as infants. To her, they most certainly are. Her experiences have left her beyond jaded, and her wisdom is often buried beneath constant cynicism toward those around her. She trusts no one, and if it is possible she has compassion toward even fewer.

She says she saw paradise, once. And watched her kind help organize its destruction. She says she remembers a time when they sought to return to it. She says she remembers a time when "...it was about keeping the Legion from our land. Now it is simply about fighting the Legion." and assorted views such as that. She has very little reason to show favor toward anyone/anything and it shows.

On the other hand, this may simply veil a deep injury in the ancient Kaldorei. She still lives, after all, and doesn't precisely go around murdering others. She retains a purpose of some sort, and the motherly tone beneath her barbed comments to younger creatures may provide a hint.

History

One can set the tone for Lim's story by the simple setting of her birth. When one thinks 'old', a few centuries is typically what comes to mind. Lim was born on the shores of the Great Sea, when the Great Sea was all there was. The vast verdant continent of Kalimdor was her home...and were her mother not the wandering sort, the glow of the Well of Eternity might have been her first sight. It wasn't, though. Perhaps lending to her more plain understanding of the world, her eyes first found a calm beach.

Unconcerned with the unnatural power of the race who sometimes inhabited it.

Ten thousand years is a very long time---Lim will say, if asked, that it is a shame she doesn't have very much to tell then. She asserts that the story is the same story everything else that "Lives and breathes" should be telling, but is typically too oblivious to know. The Kaldorei took time to find the Well of Eternity, and longer to realize its power. Lim's bloodline was late to the party so to speak---the tribes trickled in from the forests to live by the Well, drawn to the flourishing culture there. Lim's hadn't quite yet. So it is that Lim has been 'mortal'...twice.

Her mother was far closer to their feral roots... and Lim cannot quite recall why her mother was alone. Surely she had a father, but cannot recall him. She recalls her mother speaking of "Waters where dreams lurk."---this was where they were going. The mortal, child Lim and her mother began winding their way inland once Lim was mature enough to hold her own. She had a very close bond with her mother...one that doesn't even seem terribly shaken by her mother's presumed death. The two drifted into a temple settlement one day at dusk, as her mother had insisted they be wary of the inhabitants and go through with several superstitious rites before entering the area.

The fact that they seemed to just walk out of the darkness of the brush as night fell and the settlement awoke earned Lim the surname which has become hers over time. She does not know (if she had one at all) what her born surname was.

With questionable fortune, they had walked into a settlement of fledgling Highborn. Highborn wasn't really a term yet---that took a bit longer---but still it was obvious the area was meant as both temple and academy for the learning of magic. Lim and her mother weren't treated precisely with kindness...many of their ways and habits were deemed too savage by the then already ego driven highborn-to-be. While Lim's mother became reclusive, and went through a period of intense sadness (refusing to look in the direction of the Well though they lived directly beside it), Lim was younger and more flexible.

As a way to bring she and her mother more closely into the settlement, Lim began to show interest in the religious and magical studies of the other Kaldorei. Having grown up for the most part without stories of gods and ethereal powers, she quickly grew a genuine interest in the tales and learning (though she always sort of took them with a grain of salt---vaguely amusing, and unconcerned with whether or not they were true). It was when years passed, and her mother remained much as she was when they arrived that Lim began to more seriously consider the effects of the Well.

Her mother, superstitious as she was, was alarmed that she'd not withered and died. Presumably even the elves who'd remained distant by incident were effected by the Well to some degree---it didn't dawn on her until her one hundred and thirty third year that she was still alive and didn't feel even remotely unwell. It was to detract from the mocking of her mother (who then decided to lie in a bed and not move for the entire year, as some suspicion demanded she do this to make up for not being dead yet) that Lim attempted more seriously to learn some of the magics being studied there.

They referred to her as 'simple', having little faith that she could learn anything at all. And in truth, they were very much correct. All she could do effectively---at the end of another century and a half---was a questionable use of magic. She could blend very well with the dark, even to Kaldorei eyes. Lim says she actually learned the talent---mostly---from what her mother taught her, and the use of magic was minimal. In any case, none could prove if she actually faded from view in darkness or was simply extremely adept at hiding.

To this day the talent is left uncertain in origin or practice.

When the turmoil surrounding the crazed Azshara and the Well erupted, she was confronted with a decision. Stay with her 'civilized' kind, leave back into the forests. At the time, she was not aware of the devastation that would befall the land and the Kaldorei as a result of the Burning Legion. Her mother was far less indecisive... she disappeared off into the forest after a cryptic comment about the price of dreaming. This was the last time Lim saw her mother.

Lim stayed more by chance than anything---the settlement hadn't yet been touched by the battles, even when the Highborn there were recalled to Azshara's side. Lim lingered among the settlement for a very short time (days in this case) to see if her mother would return. She did not. Lim's actions leading directly up to the great sundering are lost to far more vast historical happenings, and Lim's youth. Without specifics (though she'll tell if asked), she hid for the vast majority of the time.

The war raged, the world was blasted apart, and it just so happened Lim survived. She assumed at this point it was over---it was logical in her mind that she'd just seen the fall of 'civilized' life and all would now simply fade back into the forests. She didn't think this was a terrible idea, really. It made sense, and she was never particularly attached to 'civilization'. Some Kaldorei ended up on the eastern continent a bit before the rest of their lost brethren (as Illidan was already busy reigniting a Well of Eternity when the majority of them made landfall) and Lim was one of the loose ends who was simply carried along with the new continent when it was forced to form.

She lived in the forests (again) and stayed away from the few she knew to be there. It was during this time she realized she had been tainted more seriously by exposure to the Well (and was one of the few to realize it was a taint, not a blessing) and her affinity for using the shadows as a cloak was more than just an ability to keep still among branches when the light was low. Without much to do, her mother gone, and honestly feeling the threat had passed (no one expects to see something like that twice in one lifetime...even if they've now lived for upwards of four hundred years...) she drifted back into Kaldorei society.

This tenure was far longer---she witnessed the growth of the World Tree at Hyjal... experienced a stroke of luck with not being lumped in with the 'Highborn' who never considered her part of their fold. Though it was known that the softspoken female Lim could teach a passerby "...to hide as a yellow fruit amongst red with the observer none the wiser." (Which was of course an exaggeration), life among the civil hadn't ever really knocked the... feral out of her. She simply wasn't them, despite having demonstrated an ability to practice a very simple form of magic. She also hardly harbored their love for the unnatural power---hers was more along the lines of their natural gifts anyway, and she studied it simply as a pastime. She apparently wasn't going to die any time soon, so why not?

The Highborn were exiled. Lim, rather calmly, simply stopped practicing at that point. Around four thousand years old by this time, she quietly wondered what her people would find to do with themselves aside from toying with magic. Ever quiet, she remained so and watched. Watched as her kind set to an attempt to restore the world they'd done so well at destroying, attempts she felt were fruitless but worthwhile in a dishearteningly desperate way. She watched as the druids set themselves to a long slumber, and was relatively unsurprised when the new period of idleness resulted in a pledge to defend Kalimdor from further threats.

The Sentinels formed, and she saw no reason not to train as well. In the beginning, as most things, the term 'Sentinel' was far less defined as it is now. There were sisterhoods among them, Sentinels of this and that, and Lim found herself among some who were at least vaguely like minded. They did not favor armor, or even heavily held weapons... rather, they were quick moving, and preferred to be unseen. In direct battle, their style was more of swiftness than made for full scale conflict. Still, as they had so much time on their hands, there was purpose found for these fighters. At least in preparation for a time when they would be needed.

It may have been at this point where Lim was first touched with the idea of a simple solution to a problem she felt was likely to repeat itself. It dawned on her that in many conflicts, simply destroying what drives the enemy can break their will, or end the need for battle at all. Remove a leader, remove an objective... She understood the Legion as an exception to this rule (they didn't seem to want anything but destruction), but also reasoned that if the magi had heeded the constant warnings (or been silenced by some other means) then Azeroth would never have been threatened at all.

She holds the opinion now that all of Azeroth's problems stem from wayward forms of lower life...and the true path to restoring any form of peace is a constant vigil to silence the various upstarts. It is unknown just when she came to this conclusion, but noticing her sisters' relation to other Kaldorei and use on a battlefield very likely inspired the thought.

In the quiet between battles in history, Lim trained. The ways of subtlety and efficiency, rather than outright warfare. Waited. And due to the paranoia of Tyrande, was as unsurprised as the rest of her kind when the Burning Legion made its show again. There are many reasons attributed to the quiet eagerness of her kind to battle. They say it was because of the anciently formed status of the Legion as mortal enemies. Lim more simply reasoned that it is because her people can be quite feral at times, and in a way the opportunity to hunt or defend what is theirs excites them.

Or maybe that's just her.

Her loose sect within the Sentinels of course battle the newly recurring threat---as Undead and Legion were fought off at the borders of Ashenvale, she and her sisters were pulled to the aid of a different threat. The orcs, having been lead there by the nose by a prophet of some sort, were given a warm Kaldorei welcome---Lim found she was never more proud of her people than when it became apparent that they were hopelessly outnumbered.

History tells that they---that Tyrande---asked for help. But nowhere does it state the elves were losing terribly... certainly, the struggle could not be upheld, but Lim will recount first hand that five to one (if the five are raging Legion or nearly mindless undead) is an even fight. Her roll in the war was more in the way of things that never happened than things that did. Orc supplies that never quite made it through the forest. The quietest of battles, wherein even the Legion grew wary to travel the Kaldorei's forest after nightfall if the intent was not to burn everything in their path. Fortunately for them, it almost always was.

Lim was there when the Druids were awakened. She'll loosely reference a name that is obvious a male Kaldorei---Dinarin---who was most likely a druid. So far as him 'going to take a nap', that can be easily surmised. It is uncertain when in her history she'd met Dinarin, but buried in her history is a brief stint of their reunion of sorts. Someone who, when the Druids turned nature against the enemies of the Kaldorei, Lim was more than happy to fight alongside.

Quiet rumor holds that they were somehow joined, and she took his surname. Darkvine. Kaldorei do not marry, and his surname was not Darkvine. The story stands to reason, but that's simply now how it happened.

She'll say she remembers when the World Tree was traded for the second stop to the Legion and its wiles. She'll say she recalls a glance at Dinarin who (and why she grins at this thought is unknown) dropped his shoulders and sighed. Melded back into the bear form he so favored, and sat down to stare in that direction. She stayed with him a while, then set off. It's uncertain just what happened to her sisterhood among the Sentinels after the battle at Hyjal. They don't appear to be active as a group anymore---and it's unlikely very many of them are still alive. If they are, Lim does not regularly communicate with them.

Dinarin's location is unknown as well.

She idled for a short time (a year or so is very short to this now ten thousand year old elf), and made a decision that was unlikely to surprise any of her kind and certainly not herself. Hiding in the forests of Kalimdor was not going to stave off another attempt by the Legion to rip their world apart---but she felt she had an idea of how to do just that. It required traveling, and watching. Awaiting outright warfare had worked...once. And only barely. She is certain to this day it will not work again.

Lim drifted off again to wilds and foreign lands as her people recovered from having their existence shattered. She traveled south along the continent and, taking advantage of what she thought of as a laughable concept---this 'alliance' with the humans and dwarves---traveled to the 'other' continent. Which, to her, is really just the eastern half of her former home. She says (having been born to the south east of the original Kalimdor) she's walked by the same tree in current day Stranglethorn twice, separated by ten thousand years and a constant fight for survival.

Amused by the concept that she'd fought to survive while the tree was completely unmoved (and was just as alive as she was as a result), she stayed there for a while. Was introduced to her mortality by the way of a poisonous vine growing on it causing her a terrible itch, and reasoned that this might also be an attributing factor to the tree being unmolested.

Unremarkable, and just unpleasant enough to remove any threats without much commotion. Subtlety.

Her current whereabouts are, typically for Lim, unknown. One knows the whereabouts of Lim when they're looking directly at Lim, and few other times. There is rumor she's began to exercise her suspicion that subtlety and targeted action can save the world. Though it wouldn't be very subtle if anyone was blatantly sure of such activity.