At 47years of age and respectable 5ft
tall Alanor O’Danach bears the outward appearance of a stern woman, one of
great poise and dignity who we mistakenly thought would spend most of the
interview looking down her nose at us lowly workers. Instead we find her to
possess an inquisitive nature one that reveals a calm, genuine and kind-hearted
lady who is more than interested in her current surroundings and the people
therein.
That said we immediately learn she has
an intense dislike of being nicknamed ‘Alan,’ and nicknames in general. She
professes we may call her, ‘Lana,’ if we must shorten her name, however doesn’t
see how anyone can be so lazy as to avoid pronouncing a third syllable. We’ll
take it as a given that her husband doesn’t have a pet name for her then.
A well-respected lady of commerce
Alanor is also Mathias' younger sister and hence bears the O’Mahryn family
glyph on her forehead. Whilst incredibly busy with her own work she has
frequent contact with her brother and young niece Tomor. This is partly due to
the fact that the O’Danach business ties in well with the O’Mahryn’s, Mathias
and Tomor raise and sell wyvern, whilst Devahn and Alanor design, fix and
manufacture riding apparatus, armour and clothing. She is quick to inform us that she didn’t marry Devahn because of their obvious
business ties but rather that their shared investments led them to meet.
From the way Alanor speaks of her
husband it is clear that she is actually deeply in love with him, which is
fortunate considering all drow have their spouse’s family glyph permanently emblazoned
atop their left hand. Marriage laws are a serious business in drow society as
are the constraints on child rearing. So what if they want to get divorced or
the spouse dies? We are sure you are wondering as that was the first thing we immediately
cried. Well, Alanor explains that yes divorce does happen and if the reasons
are legitimate or a spouse dies then the glyph is merely faded. She explains
further that if however the divorce occurs for an untoward reason such as
infidelity then the glyph is branded red as a warning to future partners. We
think it amusing to imagine a whole bunch of drow wandering around with strings
of red spousal glyphs like cheap nightclub stamps all over the backs of their
hands. Much to our childish dismay we are swiftly informed that this red
branding is a rare occurrence and most divorces are ruled fairly resulting in a
faded glyph instead.
Alanor’s personal speciality is dressmaking;
she is lead designer for several ranges of thermal and outdoor wear but
confesses that her passion isn’t in the practical clothing that forms the bread
and butter of their business. It is a rare treat then when she is asked to
design a unique item, one with likely limited saleability in the market. The
wealthier members of society have on occasion requested she design outfits for
them and as a side-project Alanor does make one-off custom clothes that, as her
catalogue will attest, sell for hysterically extortionate prices.
In dealing with customers Alanor tells
us that women are unsurprisingly the worst offenders when it comes to demanding
alterations and are also the worst when requesting specifics for their
priceless gowns. In fact Alanor explicitly details that the things she least
likes designing are, ‘frilly frocks, and baroque, gaudy fascinators that those
puffed up princesses order and wear for one night only.’ Now aside from the
fact that she knows her work is going to spend the rest of its miserable life
gathering dust in a closet we assume it pains her to put her name to whatever
cheap and tacky eye-catcher is en vogue for those precise five minutes.
After wasting a full thirty minutes
talking about fashion we realised it was going to be a pretty dreary interview
if we didn’t swiftly change the subject and so set the next line of enquiry to
‘any hobbies that don’t involve clothes.’ Following a raised eyebrow or three
and a few flirty remarks at our Freudian slip we were surprised to learn that
Alanor is more than adept with a bow and arrow. Whilst she doesn’t profess to
be any good at riding or shooting from wyvern-back she tells us she has won
many an archery competition in her time. Amused she relays that as a child her
eye was so keen her father had hoped the idle hobby would transform into a
profession. To this day she tells us she finds it laughable that her father wanted
her to be an archer when all she really wanted to do was play with clothes and
dress up dolls. She recalls how, in a backwards act of cunning defiance, she
would make sure she was seen sneaking from the house with her bow and arrow and
heading to the woods, where she would in her own words ‘proceed to sit and
brazenly sew things.’
We’re not entirely sure how one ‘brazenly’
sews anything but to avoid stumbling back into a conversation about clothes we
ask if she still practices archery. The answer in short, yes she does. Alanor
tells us she likes to goes out hunting small game of a weekend with Mathias and
Tomor, but ruefully explains how her niece seems to be ‘at that age’ and that
Tomor is ‘more interested in chasing after older men than catching rabbits.’
The supportive and accepting type
Alanor reveals that she is at times quite literally an agony aunt for Tomor’s woes.
Thankfully as an understanding and well-rounded soul she has the patience of a
saint and enjoys counselling young people. She relates that if she hadn’t made
a success of clothing design she would like to have become a counsellor or
teacher. However Alanor informs us that she believes in embracing opportunities
as they present themselves and that as much as she loves children her career
arrived first.
That’s not to say her career is the be
all and end all. In fact she slyly saved the most exciting bit of news right
until the end of the interview and then like some clandestine agent suddenly
revealed that she is pregnant with her first child! We had wondered why there
was a new range of thermal baby grows in her catalogue slapped next to the cocktail
dresses.
After an intense round of
congratulations and fawning from the staff, we ask if she thinks it will be
tricky choosing which of the two surnames to gift to the child seeing as both
families are equally prosperous. Alanor smiles broadly at this question and
relates that she and Devahn have already agreed that the infant’s surname will
be dictated by whichever business is doing best at the child’s time of birth.
Now that’s strikes us as special, in a competitive ‘whoever is making the most
money wins,’ kind of way, which incidentally doesn’t sit well with the steady
and solvent personality we have been presented with over the past hour. All of
which makes us wonder what other ‘little’ secrets seemingly open Alanor is
keeping to herself.
