Eme'nee, in different parts of her life Jisha Eme of the Sanctuary and Eme'nee the Unwanted Servant of Illrune, was a wood elf fervently devoted to the goddess Illrune Illifane.

Mortal Life

Eme'nee, known in her first century merely as Eme, was one of the rare girls born directly from a jisha in the Sanctuary. She did not know who her father was, though he was certainly a wood elf, and only learned of her mother's identity when showed her grave upon her return to the sanctuary in the 48th year of her life.

She grew up inside the Sanctuary, sharing a cell in the barracks with three other girls born around the same time as her. She was raised communally by the jisha, and did not know the names of the three women who usually nursed her. She was used from an early age to the harsh daily life of a jisha's ammaniyama, mostly scrubbing the stone floors and working in the gardens, though she reputedly often went onto the Circle of Life without authorization and got in the way of older jisha training there. On her sixteenth birthday, when she had already begun practicing with the bow to score her first hunting kill and begin initiation as a novice.

Ward of Immanabe

However, the Sanctuary had then begun a feud with the houses of Ununna and Immanabe, which had reputedly started because Ununna refused to supply three male individuals of the head jisha's choice and because jisha had killed a few elves who had strayed too close to the Sanctuary. During the fighting, a large unit of Immanabe fighters burst into the Sanctuary's fields and captured two young girls who were working there, including Eme, before retreating under constant arrow fire. The conflict ended a year later, when larger houses forced Immanabe and Ununna to stop, but Immanabe did not allow its captives to return. Instead, fearing the senseless and savage life Eme would be given at the Sanctuary, a venerable Immanabe noble took her as his ward to raise her as a proper wood elf. She was fierce and stubborn, but nevertheless spent a decade in Elve'Mythal as an attendant in the elf's scribing offices, and then moved with him to an Immanabe village where she was put to work in his leather manufactory. Throughout all this, she occasionally received lessons in social skills and the history of the Reaches, but house mages carefully kept her away from any ability to use magic. She also participated in the village's regular religious rites and was allowed to visit the chapel of Illrune, an activity in which she took comfort, because she knew Illrune as the Sanctuary's patron deity.

In 4'757 b. OW, Eme had spent the last half a decade directly tending to her patron's needs, as he had grown older and required her help for day-to-day needs in his lodings next to the manufactory. During this time, she was not allowed to leave the manufactory grounds, in case he needed her urgently. She had been determined since she had been kidnapped to leave, and finally dared to make her move then. She had carefully assembled a leather suit for herself, a jisha's ceremonial and battle attire, and chose to strike out into the woods, feeling brave and autonomous. Hunted for some time by Immanabe mastiffs and mages, she nevertheless managed to escape and survive in the jungle, living off of fruits and scraps she stole from elven villages. When she finally reached the Sanctuary, proudly announcing herself as Eme'nee expecting a warm welcome, she instead faced the cold stare of the ayya jisha of the guard; she was stripped of her leathers, which she had no right to wear and which were made against tradition in unnatural ways including metal clasps and brooches, and forced to stand atop a boulder for a day to display her impudence. She then spent some time in the Underhall.

Jisha

On her first day outside the Underhall, she was led to a patch of moss in the jungle: this was where the five jisha who had died in some fighting a decade ago lay buried. Among them was Eme's mother, whose name the forest had forgotten. She was determined, however, and did not cry; when she found she had been locked outside, she insisted to be let in. Because the jisha did not yet think her worthy of becoming one of them, since she had been raised among different people and had come to the Sanctuary out of youthful foolishness and fear rather than conviction, she was forced to stay in the Open Cloister and was refused an ammaniyama. So she spent this time reading holy literature and thesises, and since few jisha would speak to her, she trained determinedly and on her own.

Finally, on her sixth year of staying in the Cloister, the jisha had to recognize her stubborness and allowed her to become an acolyte. She accomplished her five years of training admirably well, being determined to succeed and bulling through the exhaustion of the long days of training. During individual prayer sessions and academic examinations, the older jisha realized that Eme'nee truly mastered the doctrine of Illrune and that she had a determined and pure soul. So she became a jisha, and joined her two-and-a-half hundred sisters in the Sanctuary's day to day activities. She was rarely noted for failures of discipline, and occasionally amazed her peers in her devoutness. Throughout her entire life, Eme'nee had relied on the soothing presence of Illrune to comfort and encourage her, and now that she was a jisha, she wanted to pay the goddess back and serve her as well as she possibly could.

Despite the peace enforced by the greater houses, in 4'663, some vengeful young elves of Immanabe attacked the Sanctuary, wounding three jisha and killing an acolyte in the gardens. The jisha decided they would perform a retaliatory strike before turning to their protectors, and Eme'nee was among the foremost of those who volunteered; her ammaniyama was favorable, so she was allowed to go despite the worries of the ayya jisha. The group of nine jisha made fast progress through the jungle, tracking the raiders. They killed one who had split off from the group, covering her man in her blood; and they tracked the rest to the very village where Eme'nee had been a ward. They decided to attack, killing those who tried to fight back, and they set fire to the profane manufactory where Eme'nee had been forced to work. Inside the lodgings, she found her erstwhile patron, sitting silently and defenselessly in a large oak chair. She drew her bow and could have killed him, but she stopped; for Illrune had taught her that there was no vengeance to seek here, and the old elf would be no danger to the Sanctuary. Having earned great respect from her companions, she returned to the Sanctuary.

Ayya Jisha of the Holy Library

In 4'599, as the venerable ayya jisha of the Holy Library was led into the forest and the beyond, a new one had to be chosen. Though Eme'nee was not the oldest, she was among the most respected, and had displayed her dedication and adherence to Illrune's teachings ennumerable times. So she was promoted to the position and received her golden headband. She served in the position as well as she could, but did not find it very rewarding; she only made meaningless decisions about which scrolls the few visitors would be allowed access to, and maintained the dusty room. She strived for the outdoors, for the training grounds and the patrols; but her ammaniyama rarely allowed it to her, and with time even the fresh waters of the baths did not suffice to reinvigorate her dusty mind. She felt that to serve Illrune in the best way, she had to be active, strive beyond; in fact, during her long hours poring over the longer sacred texts, she more and more lucidly realised that the best way to serve Illrune was not in an academic, scholarly fashion, but out in the world, where the wild tangles and beautiful clearings of Lady Nature were.

The ayya jisha discussed the distribution of their tasks in 4'583; they were thinking of including a very devoted and energetic jisha, popular among the younger elves, into their numbers, and of creating a new post of ayya jisha for spiritual questions, a priestess available to discuss spiritual matters. It was intended for Eme'nee to take either this role, or even that of ayya jisha of the temple; it was clear she was suited to better things than the Holy Library.

Seeking Angelhood

However, Eme'nee rejected both roles, and in fact had made her decision: she would leave the Sanctuary. She had read in certain tomes about great servants of the gods of other pantheons, the legendary angels, servants sworn to their deities for all eternity. She had read, but discarded the many warnings about angelhood, and already had ideas how to circumvent the fact that the Silmarilus had long ago decided it would not grant angelhood and take such servants. She tried to keep this secret, instead closing in on herself and relying on the privacy of the library and the reading rooms to gather as much knowledge as she could and prepare her plan, but her sisters knew her well enough that something was up, and eventually the head jisha came to her and talked with her for a long night, until Eme'nee admitted her intentions.

The head jisha was saddened, but had expected something of the like. However, leaving the Sanctuary, once one became a jisha, was not permitted. So once again, Eme'nee had to strip off her leathers, had to place her golden circlet before the altar of Illrune Jisha, and meditate for two days in solitude, repenting for her intended escape and break of her holy vows. She then donned the sackcolth of the penitent, and remained in them for three years. She lived much like a regular jisha, however, except her ammaniyama provided for occasional night-long meditation sessions in the Prayer Hall of Illrune Jisha, and most of her time was spent either scrubbing the libraries or studying in the Open Library, where she was open for her sisters on questions of theology; the new post of ayya jisha for spiritual advice was unoccupied, and penitent Eme'nee essentially replaced that role; clearly the ayya jisha still intended to rehabilitate her, perhaps after a few decades, and return the circlet to her.

But Eme'nee now knew her destiny, and was just as determined to fulfill it as she had been while a ward of Immanabe. Again and again, she was caught in the Holy and Closed libraries, reading forbidden tomes on angelhood when she should have been resting, and she asked many questions on the topic to visitors of the Sanctuary. Her confessions in prayer, and weeks in the Underhall, did not swerve her determination; eventually, the ayya jisha of punishments resorted to making her work in the laundry and paper production during all working hours, so she would fall asleep from exhaustion rather than entertain forbidden ideas. But Eme'nee learned the rhythm of the work, and meditated while moving, continuing to forge plans and ideas, ever patient.

Finally, she left the temple on a stormy night in 3'574, climbing out of the prayer hall where she was supposed to be meditating with only the sackcloth on her. She ran throughout the night, fleeing so fast that even the best jisha trackers had no chance of catching up; and then she made the arduous trek south, trying to stay well away of any settlements because she never knew what might happen. She struggled to get by, was dirty and muddy, and more often than not had to steal scraps from farmsteads to still her hunger. But finally, she emerged out of the jungle onto a straight stone road cutting through the forest and aiming southwest. It was a dwarven road; she had made it to the territory of the dwarves, in the very south of the Shattered Continent, where no elves - no matter their allegiance - would chase her, and where people were truly free. She did not have to fear being killed for trespassing, or forced into servitude; but she did run the risk of being stopped for a criminal, or sent back away from Dwarven borders, due to her looks.

Still, she managed to get by in the city of Putu, scrounging together food and clothes by getting hired as a dock worker and then finding a menial job in the kitchens of a large ship sailing into the Archaen. Some days in the dwarven temple had confirmed one of her working plans and made it possible: in a golden dragons' temple complex on Dragonia, there were angels who served a draconic god. And she actually managed to get there, stealing out of the ship when it anchored in a Dragonian port and hiking through the pinewoods and the rocky mountains, pretending to be a dragon-pilgrim whenever she was stopped; a cheap bone-pearl necklace with dragon head pendants she had nicked from a stall in port helped build that impression. She finally got into the temple, a sprawling white complex of colonnaded buildings with brilliant silver rooves and rolling vines, the whole thing surrounded by thick white walls and built on a mountainside, by demonstrating her mastery of the Draconic language.

Though she stayed in pilgrim's quarters and did not have free rein of the edifice, she managed to sneak out and even enter the luxurious, gold-draped rooms in the primary humanoid building, where she encountered a nude woman prostrated before a mirror, combing her extremely long white hair; the woman was strange, having the round build of a human, but the smooth, edged face of a high elf. But the woman smiled, and introduced herself as Tiniane, one of the draconic god Ishnarr's handmaidens; and she gave Eme'nee a meeting in the gardens, for the next day.

Tiniane, who dressed richly in white silks with plentiful golden ornaments, was indeed an angel; she was surprised by Eme'nee's intent, and tried to dissuade her. The wood elf insisted, Tiniane wouldn't even consider it; but it was clear she, as an angel, had the power of creating new angels. Eme'nee insisted, and ended up staying in the dragon temple for several years; in all this time, she spoke with Tiniane and other angels, and often tried reaching Illrune, pleading her servitude to her goddess. But Illrune rejected her, once so strongly that the walls shook and she was found unconscious and remained weak for days; and the dragons' angels, despite telling her of how unpleasant their creation and their existence was, eventually softened to her determined pleas. They saw that she sought the Temptation not out of a desire for immortality, but out of one for servitude; and angelhood was, at its core, the most extreme form of servitude.

Against her better judgement, Tiniane finally agreed in 3'570; she would give Eme'nee the Angel's Birth, without an Angel's Bond, since the elf promised she would serve Illrune completely, for always and eternity; such an oath would bind the elf even more than the Bond would. And so, in a windswept vale above the hazy ocean, Tiniane the Twelfth gave Eme'nee the Unwanted the gift of Angel's Birth, and Eme'nee wailed from sadness and pain as her soul was torn apart bit by bit, and she saw the eternal void awaiting her, and the emptyness, and the harsh rejection she had suffered, and had always suffered. As she fell sobbing to the ground, her life destroyed and forfeited, facing only the emptiness of angelhood and the knowledge that Illrune would never welcome her, would even hate her for her indulging in forbidden angelhood, she understood how her great hopes had come to nothing. But she had sworn, and even though she was unwanted, a cold being rejected by everyone and cut off from her god, she began her eternal existence as an angel determined to serve Illrune despite everything and serve Lady Nature for all time.