Garbed almost completely in black mail, this slight, small Kal'dorei huntress watches you steadily, with a level gaze. When she speaks, her voice is low and quiet, and her face holds as much emotion as a statue. Along each long pale ear is a row of earrings, some bearing delicate silver chains, others wire-wrapped fangs. The impression conveyed by both her stillness and her low voice is not unlike a tightly wound coil; apparently unmoving, but able to explode into action in a heartbeat.
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Early Life[]
Born in Suramar five hundred or so years before The Sundering, the Kal'dorei known then as Tari Shadowsong, daughter of Malethis and Sharisti Shadowsong, experienced a deeply traumatic event in the destruction of her home and slaughter of her parents by the Burning Legion. Believing herself to have died despite being saved just in time by the assault of the local Sisters of Elune on the demon-held town, the adolescent Kal'dorei swore the life she believed she had lost only to be given it again to her rescuer, Tyrande Whisperwind.
Though her savior may not have wanted more gangling worshipful girls obeying her blindly, the necessities of the post-Sundering world required that many give up their lives to devotion, as young Aktarin did. She swore willingly to obey the High Priestess with her life, and became one of the first Sentinel recruits following the reformation of Kal'dorei society. No longer Tari, Aktarin Shadowsong became an unswerving, dedicated archer and huntress under the tutelage of Sisters of Elune and others who trained the Sentinels. Though never as skilled as her Commander, Shandris Feathermoon, Aktarin dedicated her life to Elune and her beloved Lady Whisperwind.
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The Long Vigil ====
For ten thousand years and more, Aktarin fought alongside the other Sentinels in Ashenvale, eventually coming to lead an elite cadre called the Nightblades. When the orcs invaded Ashenvale at the beginning of the Third War, the Nightblades, Starhunters, Shadowleafs and two other bands all descended under the leadership of Cenarius on the invaders, and found chaos orcs instead of easily killed grunts. Routed by the demon-tainted orcs, all but a handful of Sentinels perished, and in the battle, they lost the demi-god himself to Grom Hellscream's axes. In the combat was also killed Aktarin's single daughter, a swift, sleek runner named Tieriendel. While returning to fight by her mother's side, a chaos orc astride a worg threw a spear, and though the anguished mother called out, her daughter was pierced by the weapon and died in her Sentinel mother's arms.
After the War[]
After Tie's death, Aktarin begged Tyrande for permission to honourably suicide; she'd lost her daughter and her Sentinel command at the same time, and her grief crippled her. Instead, the High Priestess sorrowfully explained that all trained fighters were needed, and should journey to Hyjal for a fight to end all fights. Casting aside her silvery mail, Aktarin took up a different set of armour enameled black to fit her destructive mood, and rode to Hyjal with the single goal of dying in battle and thus leaving a life she no longer could tolerate. Instead of her death, she found blessed peace in a near fatal wound at the hands of one of the swarms of skeletal Scourge overtaking each position. The Tree exploded and Archimonde was defeated, and as the survivors tended to the wounded, Sentinel Captain Shadowsong's body was found near death. Though she would have protested had she been conscious, her healers took her to rest in Nighthaven, and ideally recover.
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Shadowglen ====
Aktarin finally returned to full consciousness in Shadowglen, where she had been moved with many other recovering casualties of the Third War. Despite her long training, after her prolonged period of unconsciousness, her muscles were weak and feeble, and required intense retraining. She slowly journeyed and recovered, though there was no joy in her at all. She met Amoona Everclaw, and made a friend who has remained to the present. Upon entering the newly built Darnassus, Aktarin sought an audience with her Lady, and again begged for permission to end her life. A second time, she was refused; the Kal'dorei people frankly needed all skilled and trained fighters still, and Aktarin Shadowsong was too important to throw away on grieving suicide. Instead of death, Tyrande commanded Aktarin to form a new band of Kal\'dorei, dedicated to seeking out foes before they reached Kal'dorei lands, and then eliminating them. Like the now-disbanded Watchers of Aktarin's distant cousin Maiev, the new order would actively work both to protect the borders of Kal\'dorei lands, and prevent such terrible forces as the orcs and Scourge had presented from again reaching their home without warning.
Personal Life[]
Aktarin has been romantically associated with a few names since she recovered at Aldrassil from her Hyjal-inflicted wounds. The most powerful of the names was Lurias Loreshadow, a Druid of the Claw with whom the huntress ran in Ashenvale, and alongside whom she first strode into the Molten Core to fight and defeat Lucifron. Sadly, Lurias returned to the Emerald Dream to sleep away the long years, and while he woke once a few years ago to speak with his beloved Aktarin, he was lost soon after to the deeper Dream, and the druidic nightmare which has claimed so many of late.
Grieving Lurias's loss, Aktarin has kept his sleeping body safe in a hidden Barrow Den, and, finally losing hope that he ever would waken from the same evil which has stolen away others, she solaced herself in temporary liasons. She spent a few months even with the manipulative human warlock Ythfas Vinguld, whose recovery from grief she unintentionally aided, though his possessive love did little to heal her own grief and guilt over both her lover's loss and her daughter's death.
Upon Ythfas's disappearance into the wilds of Lordaeron, Aktarin finally found easement in the person of the enigmatic and feral hunter Tamlin. It was Aktarin who identified the true reason for Tamlin's orange eyes and mobile ears, and his odd ability to sense the Dream while waking, and without training. The pair grew closer, and became lovers in time for Ythfas's unexpected return. After a violent confrontation in which Ythfas attempted to assert himself as a human husband, Aktarin, already on edge after watching the atrocities committed by Pox and its leader's formerly human lover Tanas, snapped and brutally beat Ythfas nearly to death, repudiating any bonds between them and blaming him for the faults of his race as a whole. The warlock, bloodied but undefeated, replied with words as savage as the Warden's fists had been, and those who had found some small amount of solace in one another separated in spite and hatred.
Tamlin and Aktarin have since remained true mates to one another, surviving numerous problems as a couple, and enduring hardships and the inevitable tumult caused when a lover is also a heirarchical subordinate in a military order. It would seem that perhaps Aktarin has finally ceased to hate herself for her perceived failures in losing her child and lover, and can sanely grieve her losses without resorting to destructive behaviour, thanks to the unflinching love and support of Tamlin.
