HISTORY
In the beginning, Yael was part of the Tribe of Gad in a land called Tzion (a beautiful, but dry and dusty area). They followed the teachings of Adonai and kept the traditions according to his word, as it has been for generations upon generations. Her family was ordinary – neither in danger of starving, nor invited to dine with the Rabbis on the Sabbath. Growing up, Yael always knew what was expected of her; eventually, she would be sent to another tribe to find a mate, and bear his children... while her brothers, Levi and Aaron, stayed in their ancestral land. Everything was separated according to male and female, and all Yael wanted was to learn with her brothers - instead, she was relegated to hearth and home. It didn’t make her happy – but she accepted her fate as tradition, and tried not to think too much about it until she began to come of age.
Oh a High Holy Day, the whole tribe gathered at Gad's Cave at the base of a canyon to fast and offer prayers for the New Year. Yael fervently prayed to escape her fate as just another wife and mother – she wanted to learn, she wanted to be a Rabbi and help other fillies be more than baby-makers and cooks. A storm rolled in quickly after that, and while some called for the tribe to seek shelter, the Rabbis proclaimed that they would wait out the storm – that Adonai was testing their faith and that to withstand it would increase their prosperity in the year to come. Dark clouds formed, but no rain fell. Lightning came down and ignited some dry brush, while a fierce wind quickly whipped the flames into a frenzy. When they realized what was happening, that it was blocking the only known entrance/exit, everyone started to panic, jostle, and fight each other.
They lost her Ima in the chaos, but Yael was able to stick close to her Abba, and he showed her a second way out: a path that he had once played on when he was a foal. A tiny ledge zig-zagged its way up the canyon wall, and at first glance, it was hard to believe that it was even passable for a horse. Yael was the youngest of her siblings, and small enough to be mistaken for someone half her age – which meant that she was able to fit herself on the narrow path, and inch-by-terrifying-inch, climb the thin, treacherous path to safety. Her brothers tried to follow, but they slipped, and fell to their deaths. Choking on smoke and the smells of burnt horseflesh, Yael fled the screams of her kin and ran into the Desert – away from Tzion and all that she knew. To this day, she has never been back.
Young Yael wandered for days – becoming dehydrated and eventually delirious, until she stumbled on the outskirts of Beqanna, where the next stage of her life began. A kind, motherly mare named Fictional saved her and brought her to the Desert. There, Yael slowly began to recover from her physical and emotional trauma, learn a new language and customs, and build her own life. It was so much more than she could have ever dreamed of: full of twists and turns, where her golden (if accented) tongue earned her an Ambassadorship, and then the Crown. She ruled through two Wars and a long Peace, fell headlong in and out of love, earned Magic (and subsequently, immortality), and bore a whole brood of children – ten, to be exact, with as many grandchildren. She was their Ima, their Savta, and Yael was happy. Her family was the light of her life - her lover, the missing part of her soul. When Vanquish was murdered, Yael went into death to retrieve his soul, and built it a new body to inhabit. That was the depth of their love for each other, and it was memorialized for all of Beqanna to see in an undying oak in the middle of the Desert. They spent his last years wrapped up in each other, much to the detriment of Beqanna’s politics.
Faced with a challenge for their kingdom, Yael and Vanquish and their allies fought a coalition of stallions who were taken in by the lying son of a past, deposed enemy. It was a far more orderly event than the past two raids, and Yael fought an older, stronger Magic-wielder. It took far more energy from her than she thought it would. When the Raid ended in a draw, and they were able to keep their beloved Desert, Yael began to heal the valiant soldiers who fought for her. This effort drained her to the dregs, but she forced herself to keep going, and when she came to her dear King, Yael slipped up and touched something in Vanquish that she shouldn’t have. It triggered his unraveling - a quick release switch she'd hidden in case of emergency. Her lover began to crack at invisible seams and expanded into a ball of blindingly bright energy, unleashing a surge of Magic that killed some of their family, and took the others to god only knows where.
And so Yael finds herself at Helovia. Grieving. Guilt-laden. Unsure of how to begin the third phase of her life.
In Helovia, she was recruited by Lyanna to come to the World's Edge, and when there, rises quickly through the ranks to become the Edge's Seer. Somehow, Graasvoel manages to either steal her heart, or seduce her and she becomes pregnant with his son.