Ivy’s mother, Labila Silonorin, came from the Fire Clan, a reclusive tribe in the far reaches of the Hissing Waste. Though they would be considered Elves by human standards, they were actually Djinn, and thus more akin to Spirits. However, as Solas explains in Trespasser, among the ancient Elves the boundaries between Spirits and the People were not so distinct. The Fire Clan was a surviving remnant of that era. They adapted better to the creation of the Veil than most of their contemporaries, because they had already hidden themselves away to avoid being enslaved.
However, due to the unique quality of Labila’s position…which is passed from mother to daughter…she was forced to seek outside the clan for a suitable male. What she needed was a mage who was not a blood relative. Therefore she allowed herself to be “captured” by a party of Tevinter explorers. On the night of Satinalia Labila had relations (entirely consensual) with one of her captors. The man was young, charming, and not hard on the eyes. He was also inebriated, as was most of the camp. This made it ridiculously easy, afterwards, for Labila to cosh one of the guards with a large clay pot, and steal a horse. She could as easily have escaped in a puff of smoke and returned instantly to the Clan. However, as a Dreamer she’d had visions which told her Fate had other plans for the unborn child. Besides which…the man she killed was a brute who mistreated slaves.
Eventually she made her way to Valroyeaux. For a time, she supported herself by brewing potions, and other lowkey work that drew no attention. But she had an uneasy feeling about Empress Celene; and so once she saved up enough for her passage, she moved on to Kirkwall, where her daughter was born. She gave her the name Fana’an. This was another form of Ivy (meaning elfroot)…Labila being the mature plant, and Fana’an the green twig. Unaware of her paternal ancestry, Ivy grew up in Lowtown. She was a Dreamer like her mother, but for a time they both escaped the notice of the Templars, because of the Djinn ability to shift form. Both took the form of birds…Labila a dove, and Ivy a peregrine falcon. Anytime the Templars came near they might have noticed a couple of birds flying away, but nothing more…
When Ivy was ten years old, she met a human boy of the same age in the marketplace. Young as they were, they immediately recognized each other, but in the beginning their bond was no more than friendship. However, Maddox himself was a mageling, and at his twelfth birthday celebration the Templars came and dragged him off to the Gallows. Ivy was caught in the same net. She could easily have flown away, but could not bring herself to abandon her friend. Fearing what would become of her if the Templars discovered her true nature, Maddox claimed she was his sister. And though his parents might have denied it, they did not.
Being confined did not isolate the two young mages as much as the Chantry may have expected. As the Archive, Ivy’s mother could access anything that was put into writing, even if it was immediately burned. Thus, besides nightly messages from Ivy, she also received messages from Maddox...which she would pass on to his parents. In order to deliver replies, she visited the Gallows in her avian form. For Maddox to receive messages from a homing pigeon would doubtless have attracted attention, but the visits were always timed for late at night, when the guards tended to be less attentive.
For Maddox and Ivy to meet in person was trickier, so they developed a simple code, using origami birds. These messages, hand-delivered by sympathic Templars, contained no incriminating words or names, but were based strictly on the color of the paper. A blue bird meant it was safe to meet, red meant it was too dangerous. When Ivy received a blue bird, late that night she would summon an Ifrit, enchant them to look like her, and they would pretend to be asleep in her bed. Then she would vanish, to reappear in Maddox’s cell. Inevitably when they were both seventeen, the true nature of their bond asserted itself.
It was not long afterwards that Knight-Templar Samson was caught carrying a red paper bird. There were no words to prove where it came from, and he claimed to have found it at the Blooming Rose. Unfortunately another Templar…Ser Alrik...had been spying on him and Maddox, and saw the mage pass something red through the bars of his cell. For no more than this Maddox was made Tranquil, and Samson expelled from the Order.
Furious at this treatment of her lover and a loyal friend, Ivy sang a protest song loud enough for everyone in the Circle to hear. For this she too was made Tranquil. The official charge was blood magic, with the excuse that she had nicked her finger while cutting herbs for a potion.There was widespread grumbling about this, even among some of the remaining Templars. So Meredith had her cast out into the street, as she’d done with Samson.
Ivy longed to move back in with her mother, but with the eyes of the Templars on her, she dared not. So she survived by singing and dancing in the Lowtown marketplace, for donations. When the owner of the Blooming Rose witnessed a performance, he offered her room and board for playing to entertain visitors. The bad news was that he wasn’t only referring to music, and Tranquil were known to be amenable to whatever was asked of them. The good news is that the Rose did not allow patrons to abuse the residents; meaning that none of Ivy’s clients turned out to be freaks, and she was well-paid.
As if things weren’t already complicated enough, Ivy soon discovered that her stolen moments with Maddox had left her with child. Or rather…with children, the twins, Tariq and Aziza. Once they were born she knew better than to call attention to their existence by informing their father or his parents, nor did she dare ask help from her mother. So she supplemented her already substantial income by keeping books for her employer, making potions for the locals, and writing letters for them.
Inevitably…considering their parentage…both twins showed signs of magic at a precocious age. In order to prevent their suffering their parents’ fate, she arranged for them to be sent to the Western Approach, where they would be met by her mother’s kin. After their departure she continued to fund the Mage Underground and its allies, through agents who were often disguised Ifrits.
Ivy’s mother perished as collateral damage in the explosion of the Chantry, when debris struck her as she attempted to fly out of range. When the Records were instantly passed on to Ivy, it came with an unexpected side-effect. Since the Records were held in the keeping of a Spirit of Wisdom, it also reversed Ivy’s Tranquility. She attempted to conceal this by going veiled and hiding herself behind a latticework partition in the custom of her people, so that only her clients ever saw her face.
Eventually she caught the eye of a Lay Brother in service to the Divine Justinia, who stopped by the Rose on the way to the infamous Conclave. She accompanied him as a personal assistant, and stumbled right into the thick of things. The explosion which created the Breach and marked her hand, also completed her connection to the Fade, and with it, her spell-casting abilities.
At the time of the Conclave, she is in her mid-forties. And…a grandmother.
Faceclaim…Michal Elia Kamal
Modern/Dark Tower AU’s descendant…Buffy Sainte-Marie
Quick Navigation
Profile
by 
