Alltafri Ewyn is Alltafri Oska's biological mother. She is a
Maveren, though not by birth; she was made Maver as a young woman. She was part of
Alltafri House in
Malfa, but like many Alltafri her attachment to the city was not deep, and she spent most of her time at sea. Nobody in Malfa has seen her in twenty years; she might or might not still be alive.
Ewyn's history
Ewyn is half sea-elf, half tabaxi. Her parents' romance was a famous love story in its time; a sea-elf master of sea-craft, and the tabaxi woodsman. The sea elf needed a special timber to build her master ship; the story is unclear how it happened, but somehow the tabaxi woodsman heard of this in far-off
Mrassa, felled the trees she needed, and rode their trunks down the dangerous river to the sea. Or maybe she travelled into the highlands herself in search of this timber, and they came back together. In any case, what definitely happened is that they had a child together.
Like many elvish romances, the after-story didn't last all that long; the tabaxi went back to his people in Mrassa, and the sea elf stayed in the seawaters, with their daughter Ewyn. Ewyn grew up with her mother's people, a sea-elf community on the eastern side of the continents of
Findere and Chadun, near
Kursatta. This community is an offshoot of the same
Sea elves from whom the Maveren descend; they are famous for their shipbuilding and seacraft,
which the Maveren inherited . But Ewyn's own mother was a distant figure for her; elves don't pay a good deal of attention to blood relations, not even between parent and child, and sea elves in particular are especially indifferent to lasting ties. As a girl, Ewyn was a very talented shipwright and sailor; by young adulthood, she was reckless and bored, wanting more challenges than the easy-going sea elves were interested in, and feeling few ties to them.
Somehow, Ewyn met some Maveren, and challenged them to a bet; if she could sail down the
Ottiskil Straits in a one-person boat she built and sailed alone, they would make her Maver. The Maveren agreed, since this was impossible; but then Ewyn did it. She was made Maveren, adopted into the loose, easygoing Alltafri House.
Ewyn went on to become one of the Maveren's more famous adventurers, not for acts of war or violence, but out of sheer daredevil seamanship. She spent nearly all her time either at the Sea House, building ships, or at sea, sailing them.
Parenthood
On one occasion, on an island at the other end of the Ottiskil Straits from Malfa, Ewyn met an itinerant elvish monk from the Usmid highlands called
Soliloquy Ieleni. They bonded over their shared origin; the place Soliloquy knew best in the highlands was Ewyn's father's home. One thing led to another, and pretty soon Ewyn had her own daughter with a visitor from the highlands.
Ewyn was very particular about her Maveren rights, having irritated some Maveren at the time by "tricking" her way in. Also, both sea elves and Maveren, while not big on parenting, are very concerned that a child be adopted into a home and community. Ewyn took her daughter Oska to Malfa (with Soliloquy in tow), and made sure she was officially taken in by Alltafri and made Maver. This wasn't very hard, since however Ewyn became Maver, nobody doubted by then that she deserved it.
Having done her duty by her infant daughter, Ewyn quickly grew bored of Malfa and wandered off to sea again, without being very clear where she was going. Soliloquy, himself an elf, was unimpressed with the Maveren's parenting skills. When Oska was just barely old enough to toddle, Soliloquy took her to his own homelands, ostensibly to introduce her to that part of heritage. Neither he, Ewyn, nor Oska have been seen in Malfa since—until Oska, all grown up, showed up in town a few weeks ago.
Ewyn hasn't been back to Malfa, but various Maveren have encountered her at sea, though not recently. They might know whether Ewyn ever asked about her daughter.
