Post by Anna on Feb 21, 2010 17:26:16 GMT -5
Araceli Hold
When Nahsan Hold was founded, one of the Lord Holder’s younger sons took Hold in the mountains near Nahsan. Taber, the son, brought with him several stallions and mares, including one line of racing runners, and called his hold New Horizon. His wife, Araceli, had had a notable (and eyebrow-raising) career as a runner-jockey. When she died, Taber renamed the hold for her.
The kinship between Nahsan and Araceli has been recognized and honored by each Hold. Occasionally, a daughter of Nahsan will wed a son of Araceli, and vice versa. The former Holders of Araceli, Tarkan and Fanuila, were a perfect example, as Fanuila was the daughter of the Lord Holder of Nahsan. This does not happen often enough to make the blood ties closer than necessary. As demonstrated below, Nahsan and Araceli are irrevocably entwined with each other in their own enterprise.
Control of Araceli has passed from parent to child, or from uncle/aunt to niece/nephew. Currently, the Holder is Amargen, son of Tarkan; his brother Luka is Steward. Such arrangements are not uncommon at Araceli, where the family tends to be close-knit and wary of strangers. The Aracelians are known far and wide to be remote, clannish, cool to newcomers and icy to any who would intrude on their affairs. They are courteous to a fault, but no one on Pern who isn’t family will ever consider them a warm or welcoming group.
The Hold itself holds up to 800 people, and this includes grooms, breeders, farmers, woodcrafters, weavers, and tanners as well as the Holder’s family. It’s a hard life, with the Holder working every bit as hard as his people, but despite their coldness to outsiders, Aracelians tend to be warm and easy-going with each other. It’s well-known that even a groom can address the Holder to his face with perfect honesty, not to mention sit and drink with him afterward; the Lady Dowager has been known to help new mothers with colicky babies, discuss rising costs and prices with the farmers and crafters, and sit with the aunties to knit socks while they discuss their grandchildren. Once again, rank is something for outsiders to acknowledge; so long as the Aracelians know their Holders are looking out for them, they give them all the respect and affection they’ve earned.
Amongst themselves, Aracelians are warm, courteous, and accepting; they dislike rudeness and they value the ties of family and marriage. Aracelians who accuse each other of lying, theft, fraud, or other crimes are accustomed to a hearing before the Holder and the Harper; if the decision is considered unfair, the parties can choose a way to settle the dispute. It usually involves a challenge of strength such as wrestling, although the parties may also choose to bargain it out. Rarely, there’s a brawl. It’s forbidden to brawl within the Hold itself; fighters are told to “take it outside the gate,” unless weapons are pulled; then Hold guards step in, and the fighters automatically earn 25 lashes. If someone is killed in a brawl, the one responsible is at once made Holdless. Few Aracelians choose to brawl over a dispute for those reasons as well as the fact that brawling leaves resentment and anger in its wake. No one wants to spend a long, cold winter walled up with someone who’s given you a beating or vice versa.
While premarital sex rarely rates more than a shrug, a girl who gets pregnant before she gets married has one of three choices: she can try to end the pregnancy and risk the outrage of her family and friends; she can get her lover to marry her, which may happen more often than not (there’s a joke in Araceli about the couple who weds with the bride’s belly lifting her red skirt past her knees, and the wedding party consisting of their older children); or she can have the baby and bear with a few months’ worth of criticism. Illegitimacy is frowned upon, but fertility is valued more; a young woman with one or even two illegitimate children is still likely to make a good marriage. However, adultery is one crime that is punished severely; cuckolded husbands may challenge their rivals to duels, and Hold women have been known to ostracize adulteresses for years. Hold law forbids a man or woman to kill an adulterous spouse unless said spouse is actually caught in the act; turns of contact with Harper hall have not been able to end this practice.
Because winter is so long and hard, the Aracelians are fond of indoor games (chess, poker, checkers, dice, and other games of skill are played), music, dancing, and storytelling. Once the weather gets warm (and “warm” usually means, once the snow no longer is above ankle-deep), the Aracelians race outdoors to play. The favorite sport is called hurling, and involves kicking or scooping a ball (about the size of a man’s head, stuffed with rags) past a goal, which is marked by two upright posts connected by a cross-post.
The Runners
Araceli Hold has produced some fine runners—and some not so fine. On the one hand, the Hold’s draft runners (known as the Brynlins, after the woman who oversaw their breeding) are among the best on Pern, strong enough to carry weight, yet fine enough to grace any lord’s stable. On the other hand, the racers are prone to soft bones. Grey Gale, a famous racer from the Long Interval, went down at a Sable Hold stakes race with a shattered right foreleg after just two turns of racing, and had to be put down. His line has thrown some marvelous colts and fillies; yet if bred with another delicate bloodline, Grey Gale racers will throw foals whose bones can’t withstand the punishment of competitive racing. To avoid this, recent Araceli holders have searched for stronger runners with good racing backgrounds, in an attempt to strengthen the Grey Gale bloodline.
Araceli Hold has made its fortune off the sale of Brynlin draft runners and the winnings of its Grey Gale racers. The most famous runner from its stables was the filly Precious Pearl, who won 55 of her 68 starts and was only headed in seven races. Precious Pearl is the matriarch of the Grey Gale line, and is buried whole at Araceli Hold near the stables.
Crops
The territory of Araceli Hold is beautiful, almost picturesque—tall, majestic mountains and rolling green hills, sweeping green meadows bordered by forests. It is home to a set of chain freshwater lakes known as the Skywells. However, the Hold is made of plastered stone, and the wood, a precious commodity, is only used for barns, furniture and fuel. Araceli’s main hold is built above ground, but the land is rich with game and is a hunter’s paradise. But there is little arable land available in Araceli—the majority is set aside as pastureland for the horses, with the leftover bit going for sturdy wheat and orchards.
The wheat planted by Araceli holders is red wheat, but a fine white winter wheat is planted in the lowlands as well. Vegetables tend to be of the tuber and legume variety. The local liquor is everclear, made from tubers, or brandywine, made from wheat alcohol aged in charred barrels. The water is prized in Araceli as among the best to be found on Pern.
The growing season is for seven months. Most of the food grown is consumed during autumn and early winter, with stores and game closing the gap until the spring thaw. Being a mountainous region, Araceli gets a good deal of snow and rain during the long winter and cool spring, but has a hot, short summer and a humid, middling autumn. Thanks to the nearness of the lakes and its overall elevation, Araceli Hold gets heavy snowfall from midwinter to just a month before the official start of spring.
Crafthalls
There are minor halls set up in Araceli for the Tannercraft, the Weavercraft, Woodcraft, and Smithcraft; likewise, there are two Harpers stationed at Araceli. Yet the largest Crafthall in Araceli is the one completely unacknowledged by either Araceli or Nahsan, yet the one that has been honed to perfection by both: the Circuit Riders.
The Riders are taken as young as they can be found, but rarely younger than 15. They are taken from the poorer members of Nahsan and Araceli territories, often rescued from dangerous situations by other Riders or championed by them. They are given a clear choice on joining the Riders, for once they take up the training, they are part of the Circuit for life. There is no leave-taking.
The training is as rigorous as any martial Craft, and has the same rank grades: Apprentice, Journeyman and Master. Apprentices wear black; Journeymen wear grey; Masters wear sand-beige. Apprentices are made literate if not so beforehand, and then thrust into the core training. They spend their first official turn as Apprentices blindfolded, to sharpen their hearing and sense of smell. The next turn is spent with plugged ears, to sharpen the sense of sight. During both years the Apprentice is forbidden to speak, and is taught sign language in order to communicate quickly and quietly. Martial arts are taught starting in the second turn; hand-to-hand combat, archery, swordplay, and other distance and close-combat weapons are part of the instruction.
As well as sign language and martial training, Apprentices receive instruction in the Theatercraft. They are taught to assume a role, blend in with the background or stand out in the crowd. They learn how to change their appearance with little at hand, as well as how to use a full makeup kit of putty and paint.
The apprenticeship is usually five to seven turns. Apprentices who fail to pass the final examinations are kept on as assistants and workers at the Rider Hall. Journeymen are promptly assigned to a troop; there are usually two journeymen to join a troop of six. They are then given practical instruction in the fine art of espionage and assassination. The Troopmaster is the one who decides when a journeyman has learned enough to earn his or her mastery, which can come anywhere between eight to ten turns.
Apprentices are renamed the moment they begin training. They keep their identities until they earn their Mastery, at which point they change their names again. While with the Troop they learn to keep their identities elastic, to develop changes in posture, in vocal quality and range, mannerisms and speech patterns, even in favorite foods.
The Circuit Riders perform assassinations, rescues, and other covert actions for Nahsan’s benefit. The only people who know the Riders even exist are Lady Sehrra and Holder Amargen’s family. No other resident of Araceli has any idea who or what the Riders are. Theirs is a craft deliberately shrouded in mystery.
**Note: do not EVER mention the Circuit Riders without first clearing it with Kris or Anna! Top secret, hush-hush, not even the MasterHarper of Pern knows about them!
The Ruling Family of Araceli Hold
Amargen (23 turns): Holder of Araceli, he is a very young man but capable and hard-working. His intelligence and discretion are unquestioned, and he is considered trustworthy. That said, he is as hard to read as a blank slate. Outsiders attempt to befriend him or defraud him; they go away rebuffed or empty-handed. He rarely loses control in public; the times he has lost his temper or behaved exuberantly can be counted on one hand, with two fingers and the thumb left over. He offers outsiders a cool, calm exterior that wears a small smile; with his own and family, he loves to laugh and talk, but only shares confidences with Fanuila, Luka, and Alusin. He’s sired three children on unmarried girls, a fact that has led Fanuila to find him a wife before—as she puts it—her son populates Araceli twice over with by-blows.
Luka (31 turns): Steward of Araceli, he is the oldest son, but crippled by a virus-borne paralysis. Still, he is healthy, sharp-witted, and devoted to his Hold’s organization. Happiest when surrounded by work, Luka would have made a poorer Holder than Amargen, for he is not as reserved nor as controlled in his responses. Still, he is also trustworthy and discreet, and many outsiders find him likable and charming, if remote. His wife, Vanora, comes from another small Hold in Nahsan territory, and they have four children.
Fanuila (50 turns): Matriarch of the Araceli clan, Fanuila is the daughter of the late Lord Holder of Nahsan, Trehn, and his wife Therine, who is the Candidate Master of Sable Weyr. Styled as Lady Dowager, she appears with Amargen at all functions where his future wife will eventually accompany him. While Araceli has a Headwoman, Fanuila is the Hold’s true manager, as she involves herself in nearly every aspect from the runner breeding to the Hold crèche. A woman whose speech is deceptively soft, Fanuila is steady and pragmatic, without the least bit of sentiment, although she loves her children and family more than life.
Mardic (20 turns): Third son of Fanuila and Tarkan, Mardic chose to oversee the tanning works. He has a fine eye for leather quality and is a single-knot journeyman in the Tanning Craft. His wife is a native of Araceli, a sweet young woman named Telis; they just had a baby boy.
Alusin (28 turns): Oldest daughter of Fanuila and Tarkan, considered the prettiest of the sisters. Alusin was wed to the second son of a neighboring Holder, but the young man died and Alusin wanted to come home. Three months later, she was discovered to be pregnant. Alusin is in her sixth month and wants to keep her baby with her; of course, she knows she can’t, and Fanuila is negotiating with her father-in-law to see if they can arrange it so Alusin is still able to see the baby when it’s born. She and her husband had no other children, for reasons Alusin refuses to reveal for her dead husband’s sake. As capable a manager as her mother, Alusin has gone back to work with the runners; she is learning the beasthealercraft, and would be happy with having only Araceli’s stables to work with all her life.
Jorian (26 turns): Second daughter of Fanuila and Tarkan. She married the much younger son of a neighboring Holder, and the young man elected to stay at Araceli rather than bring Jorian home. While not as beautiful as Alusin, Jorian is more approachable, the one her brothers took under their wings to protect. Jorian loves kitchen work, and is a fairly good cook. She and her husband have twin daughters.
Lissel (14 turns): The baby of the family, Lissel’s marriage is the only one beside her brother Amargen’s that Fanuila hasn’t managed to confirm. She is the dreamer, the pet; she has a lovely singing voice and Fanuila is considering letting her go to Cove Harper Hall as an apprentice. However, Lissel also has a sharp mind and keen observation, and Amargen would prefer to teach her how to manage the Circuit Riders. Still, he believes Harper training would only benefit his baby sister, especially if they could find her a husband with Harper-trained espionage skills.
The Colors and Badge of Araceli Hold
The badge of Araceli Hold is a runner’s head, facing right, inscribed in a circle emblazoned on a field, diamond.
The colors of Araceli Hold are dark grey, green and gold.
When Nahsan Hold was founded, one of the Lord Holder’s younger sons took Hold in the mountains near Nahsan. Taber, the son, brought with him several stallions and mares, including one line of racing runners, and called his hold New Horizon. His wife, Araceli, had had a notable (and eyebrow-raising) career as a runner-jockey. When she died, Taber renamed the hold for her.
The kinship between Nahsan and Araceli has been recognized and honored by each Hold. Occasionally, a daughter of Nahsan will wed a son of Araceli, and vice versa. The former Holders of Araceli, Tarkan and Fanuila, were a perfect example, as Fanuila was the daughter of the Lord Holder of Nahsan. This does not happen often enough to make the blood ties closer than necessary. As demonstrated below, Nahsan and Araceli are irrevocably entwined with each other in their own enterprise.
Control of Araceli has passed from parent to child, or from uncle/aunt to niece/nephew. Currently, the Holder is Amargen, son of Tarkan; his brother Luka is Steward. Such arrangements are not uncommon at Araceli, where the family tends to be close-knit and wary of strangers. The Aracelians are known far and wide to be remote, clannish, cool to newcomers and icy to any who would intrude on their affairs. They are courteous to a fault, but no one on Pern who isn’t family will ever consider them a warm or welcoming group.
The Hold itself holds up to 800 people, and this includes grooms, breeders, farmers, woodcrafters, weavers, and tanners as well as the Holder’s family. It’s a hard life, with the Holder working every bit as hard as his people, but despite their coldness to outsiders, Aracelians tend to be warm and easy-going with each other. It’s well-known that even a groom can address the Holder to his face with perfect honesty, not to mention sit and drink with him afterward; the Lady Dowager has been known to help new mothers with colicky babies, discuss rising costs and prices with the farmers and crafters, and sit with the aunties to knit socks while they discuss their grandchildren. Once again, rank is something for outsiders to acknowledge; so long as the Aracelians know their Holders are looking out for them, they give them all the respect and affection they’ve earned.
Amongst themselves, Aracelians are warm, courteous, and accepting; they dislike rudeness and they value the ties of family and marriage. Aracelians who accuse each other of lying, theft, fraud, or other crimes are accustomed to a hearing before the Holder and the Harper; if the decision is considered unfair, the parties can choose a way to settle the dispute. It usually involves a challenge of strength such as wrestling, although the parties may also choose to bargain it out. Rarely, there’s a brawl. It’s forbidden to brawl within the Hold itself; fighters are told to “take it outside the gate,” unless weapons are pulled; then Hold guards step in, and the fighters automatically earn 25 lashes. If someone is killed in a brawl, the one responsible is at once made Holdless. Few Aracelians choose to brawl over a dispute for those reasons as well as the fact that brawling leaves resentment and anger in its wake. No one wants to spend a long, cold winter walled up with someone who’s given you a beating or vice versa.
While premarital sex rarely rates more than a shrug, a girl who gets pregnant before she gets married has one of three choices: she can try to end the pregnancy and risk the outrage of her family and friends; she can get her lover to marry her, which may happen more often than not (there’s a joke in Araceli about the couple who weds with the bride’s belly lifting her red skirt past her knees, and the wedding party consisting of their older children); or she can have the baby and bear with a few months’ worth of criticism. Illegitimacy is frowned upon, but fertility is valued more; a young woman with one or even two illegitimate children is still likely to make a good marriage. However, adultery is one crime that is punished severely; cuckolded husbands may challenge their rivals to duels, and Hold women have been known to ostracize adulteresses for years. Hold law forbids a man or woman to kill an adulterous spouse unless said spouse is actually caught in the act; turns of contact with Harper hall have not been able to end this practice.
Because winter is so long and hard, the Aracelians are fond of indoor games (chess, poker, checkers, dice, and other games of skill are played), music, dancing, and storytelling. Once the weather gets warm (and “warm” usually means, once the snow no longer is above ankle-deep), the Aracelians race outdoors to play. The favorite sport is called hurling, and involves kicking or scooping a ball (about the size of a man’s head, stuffed with rags) past a goal, which is marked by two upright posts connected by a cross-post.
The Runners
Araceli Hold has produced some fine runners—and some not so fine. On the one hand, the Hold’s draft runners (known as the Brynlins, after the woman who oversaw their breeding) are among the best on Pern, strong enough to carry weight, yet fine enough to grace any lord’s stable. On the other hand, the racers are prone to soft bones. Grey Gale, a famous racer from the Long Interval, went down at a Sable Hold stakes race with a shattered right foreleg after just two turns of racing, and had to be put down. His line has thrown some marvelous colts and fillies; yet if bred with another delicate bloodline, Grey Gale racers will throw foals whose bones can’t withstand the punishment of competitive racing. To avoid this, recent Araceli holders have searched for stronger runners with good racing backgrounds, in an attempt to strengthen the Grey Gale bloodline.
Araceli Hold has made its fortune off the sale of Brynlin draft runners and the winnings of its Grey Gale racers. The most famous runner from its stables was the filly Precious Pearl, who won 55 of her 68 starts and was only headed in seven races. Precious Pearl is the matriarch of the Grey Gale line, and is buried whole at Araceli Hold near the stables.
Crops
The territory of Araceli Hold is beautiful, almost picturesque—tall, majestic mountains and rolling green hills, sweeping green meadows bordered by forests. It is home to a set of chain freshwater lakes known as the Skywells. However, the Hold is made of plastered stone, and the wood, a precious commodity, is only used for barns, furniture and fuel. Araceli’s main hold is built above ground, but the land is rich with game and is a hunter’s paradise. But there is little arable land available in Araceli—the majority is set aside as pastureland for the horses, with the leftover bit going for sturdy wheat and orchards.
The wheat planted by Araceli holders is red wheat, but a fine white winter wheat is planted in the lowlands as well. Vegetables tend to be of the tuber and legume variety. The local liquor is everclear, made from tubers, or brandywine, made from wheat alcohol aged in charred barrels. The water is prized in Araceli as among the best to be found on Pern.
The growing season is for seven months. Most of the food grown is consumed during autumn and early winter, with stores and game closing the gap until the spring thaw. Being a mountainous region, Araceli gets a good deal of snow and rain during the long winter and cool spring, but has a hot, short summer and a humid, middling autumn. Thanks to the nearness of the lakes and its overall elevation, Araceli Hold gets heavy snowfall from midwinter to just a month before the official start of spring.
Crafthalls
There are minor halls set up in Araceli for the Tannercraft, the Weavercraft, Woodcraft, and Smithcraft; likewise, there are two Harpers stationed at Araceli. Yet the largest Crafthall in Araceli is the one completely unacknowledged by either Araceli or Nahsan, yet the one that has been honed to perfection by both: the Circuit Riders.
The Riders are taken as young as they can be found, but rarely younger than 15. They are taken from the poorer members of Nahsan and Araceli territories, often rescued from dangerous situations by other Riders or championed by them. They are given a clear choice on joining the Riders, for once they take up the training, they are part of the Circuit for life. There is no leave-taking.
The training is as rigorous as any martial Craft, and has the same rank grades: Apprentice, Journeyman and Master. Apprentices wear black; Journeymen wear grey; Masters wear sand-beige. Apprentices are made literate if not so beforehand, and then thrust into the core training. They spend their first official turn as Apprentices blindfolded, to sharpen their hearing and sense of smell. The next turn is spent with plugged ears, to sharpen the sense of sight. During both years the Apprentice is forbidden to speak, and is taught sign language in order to communicate quickly and quietly. Martial arts are taught starting in the second turn; hand-to-hand combat, archery, swordplay, and other distance and close-combat weapons are part of the instruction.
As well as sign language and martial training, Apprentices receive instruction in the Theatercraft. They are taught to assume a role, blend in with the background or stand out in the crowd. They learn how to change their appearance with little at hand, as well as how to use a full makeup kit of putty and paint.
The apprenticeship is usually five to seven turns. Apprentices who fail to pass the final examinations are kept on as assistants and workers at the Rider Hall. Journeymen are promptly assigned to a troop; there are usually two journeymen to join a troop of six. They are then given practical instruction in the fine art of espionage and assassination. The Troopmaster is the one who decides when a journeyman has learned enough to earn his or her mastery, which can come anywhere between eight to ten turns.
Apprentices are renamed the moment they begin training. They keep their identities until they earn their Mastery, at which point they change their names again. While with the Troop they learn to keep their identities elastic, to develop changes in posture, in vocal quality and range, mannerisms and speech patterns, even in favorite foods.
The Circuit Riders perform assassinations, rescues, and other covert actions for Nahsan’s benefit. The only people who know the Riders even exist are Lady Sehrra and Holder Amargen’s family. No other resident of Araceli has any idea who or what the Riders are. Theirs is a craft deliberately shrouded in mystery.
**Note: do not EVER mention the Circuit Riders without first clearing it with Kris or Anna! Top secret, hush-hush, not even the MasterHarper of Pern knows about them!
The Ruling Family of Araceli Hold
Amargen (23 turns): Holder of Araceli, he is a very young man but capable and hard-working. His intelligence and discretion are unquestioned, and he is considered trustworthy. That said, he is as hard to read as a blank slate. Outsiders attempt to befriend him or defraud him; they go away rebuffed or empty-handed. He rarely loses control in public; the times he has lost his temper or behaved exuberantly can be counted on one hand, with two fingers and the thumb left over. He offers outsiders a cool, calm exterior that wears a small smile; with his own and family, he loves to laugh and talk, but only shares confidences with Fanuila, Luka, and Alusin. He’s sired three children on unmarried girls, a fact that has led Fanuila to find him a wife before—as she puts it—her son populates Araceli twice over with by-blows.
Luka (31 turns): Steward of Araceli, he is the oldest son, but crippled by a virus-borne paralysis. Still, he is healthy, sharp-witted, and devoted to his Hold’s organization. Happiest when surrounded by work, Luka would have made a poorer Holder than Amargen, for he is not as reserved nor as controlled in his responses. Still, he is also trustworthy and discreet, and many outsiders find him likable and charming, if remote. His wife, Vanora, comes from another small Hold in Nahsan territory, and they have four children.
Fanuila (50 turns): Matriarch of the Araceli clan, Fanuila is the daughter of the late Lord Holder of Nahsan, Trehn, and his wife Therine, who is the Candidate Master of Sable Weyr. Styled as Lady Dowager, she appears with Amargen at all functions where his future wife will eventually accompany him. While Araceli has a Headwoman, Fanuila is the Hold’s true manager, as she involves herself in nearly every aspect from the runner breeding to the Hold crèche. A woman whose speech is deceptively soft, Fanuila is steady and pragmatic, without the least bit of sentiment, although she loves her children and family more than life.
Mardic (20 turns): Third son of Fanuila and Tarkan, Mardic chose to oversee the tanning works. He has a fine eye for leather quality and is a single-knot journeyman in the Tanning Craft. His wife is a native of Araceli, a sweet young woman named Telis; they just had a baby boy.
Alusin (28 turns): Oldest daughter of Fanuila and Tarkan, considered the prettiest of the sisters. Alusin was wed to the second son of a neighboring Holder, but the young man died and Alusin wanted to come home. Three months later, she was discovered to be pregnant. Alusin is in her sixth month and wants to keep her baby with her; of course, she knows she can’t, and Fanuila is negotiating with her father-in-law to see if they can arrange it so Alusin is still able to see the baby when it’s born. She and her husband had no other children, for reasons Alusin refuses to reveal for her dead husband’s sake. As capable a manager as her mother, Alusin has gone back to work with the runners; she is learning the beasthealercraft, and would be happy with having only Araceli’s stables to work with all her life.
Jorian (26 turns): Second daughter of Fanuila and Tarkan. She married the much younger son of a neighboring Holder, and the young man elected to stay at Araceli rather than bring Jorian home. While not as beautiful as Alusin, Jorian is more approachable, the one her brothers took under their wings to protect. Jorian loves kitchen work, and is a fairly good cook. She and her husband have twin daughters.
Lissel (14 turns): The baby of the family, Lissel’s marriage is the only one beside her brother Amargen’s that Fanuila hasn’t managed to confirm. She is the dreamer, the pet; she has a lovely singing voice and Fanuila is considering letting her go to Cove Harper Hall as an apprentice. However, Lissel also has a sharp mind and keen observation, and Amargen would prefer to teach her how to manage the Circuit Riders. Still, he believes Harper training would only benefit his baby sister, especially if they could find her a husband with Harper-trained espionage skills.
The Colors and Badge of Araceli Hold
The badge of Araceli Hold is a runner’s head, facing right, inscribed in a circle emblazoned on a field, diamond.
The colors of Araceli Hold are dark grey, green and gold.