Aife the Gladiatrix

Aife daughter of Gwaeddan

The Gladiatrix of Difelin

Aife daughter of Gwaeddan is the only female gladiator in the city of Difelin. That she is also freeborn and only fifteen years old makes her even more of an oddity and attraction in the Bull Ring, the rickety wooden arena used for gladiatorial matches, cattle auctions, and city watch training.

She is of the villein (lower) class, but her family is reasonably secure by the standards of that class. She is the illegitimate bastard daughter of a lower-class woman named Gwaeddan. Her father was a vagabond/tinker whom she has never known. She lives with her mother, her mother's husband Deniel, her mother's brother Dalach, Dalach's wife, and their three young sons in a small cottage in the Snarl of Difelin.

Appearance

Aife stands 4'7" tall and weighs 110-111 pounds. She is broad through the shoulders and chest, even at her age, and narrow through the hips, with strong thighs. Her brown-red hair is worn in a multitude of individual braids (dreadlocks), decorated with beads and small bells.

She bears a noticeable scar down her forehead, through her empty left eye-socket, down her left cheek, and into her left shoulder, caused by a wound from a broadsword in the Bull Ring. The scar is only a year old, so is still quite livid. Her right eye is brown, and her skin is otherwise pink and smooth.

She is young, but has a youthful look with an unusually sober demeanor. Her general appearance is rough; her loose-fitting dark clothes are second-and third-hand, oft-patched. When on the streets and around the house, Aife generally wears a black patch over the empty socket of her left eye.

When competing in the Bull Ring, she fights bare-chested and wears only a loincloth and cloth-and-leather fasciae on her legs, with soft leather boots. Because of her intensive physical fitness regime, strength, and youth, her breasts are not yet fully developed. She has a boyish figure, but is beginning to mature, with an under-bust measurement of 28 inches and an across-bust measurement of 33 inches (bra 32B).

Personality and Possessions

Aife is somewhat neurotic and suffers from a vengeful nature and a low-grade paranoid anxiety as a consequence of her youth as a street urchin in the Snarl. She has an abrasive personality, but is not especially extroverted nor introverted, and has a morose disposition.

She is a girl with an active intellect from a multi-cultural background, and speaks three languages fluently (Gallavach, Yoruach, and Aukrian). She has an intellectualist's materialism, and is truthful and foolhardily brave.

Her morals are aesthetic, in that she tends to see value in beautiful, aesthetically-pleasing things. She is irreverent in her piety to the gods, and uses profanities carelessly.

She has a normal energy for an adolescent girl, and is thrifty now with her money, after several unfortunate financial life-decisions as a gambler.

She has a habit of picking her teeth with a splinter of wood.

She has a loyal domesticated pet, a small woodcocker spaniel with black hair and a white blaze on her chest. Her dog's name is Rua, and she stands five hands (20") tall at the withers and weighs about 32-33 pounds, typical of village scavenger dogs. She is intelligent, aggressive and strong and knows several "tricks", including house skills, heel, silence, stay, recall, and track. She is also water-trained. The dog Rua is three years old.

Aife has an unusual combat sense, being sharp and quick-witted in stressful situations. This serves her well in the Bull Ring, where she often seizes the initiative over her opponents. She owns a spear-axe (halberd) of particularly good quality. It is extremely well made — forged of the finest steel, honed to razor sharpness, and made of the finest woods. It has a value of one-hundred and twenty silver ôra, and is the most valuable thing she possesses. Her enemies would gladly take it from her to collect on her debt to them.