Description: This woman does not particularly stand out in the crowd. She isn’t a great beauty, but nor is she particularly plain or ugly. She’s average, if that can be a descriptor. Her face is slightly weather-beaten, skin tanned by time spent out of doors, and there are lines at the corners of her eyes. Her face is narrow, just the lean side of gaunt, with slightly sunken eyes and a hawkish nose. Dark brown hair frames her face, falling to the base of her neck and usually left loose or tied back and out of the way. Her expression tends to be muted, whether she smiles, laughs, frowns, or shoots a disapproving look (although the latter tends to be the most pronounced and severe). Her movements have a certain athletic grace to them. Not the easy flow and glide of a lady on the dance-floor or in a salon, but someone who has spent long, dusty hours working on footwork for swordplay. Her build is athletic and fit and the muscle in her speaks to someone used to violence and action. She wears little, if any, makeup.

Personality: Despite her rather severe looks, Adelais isn't always cruel or otherwise unpleasant. She does tend to be a bit reserved, though (although some would qualify her as "dour", if they were being uncharitable). She tends to take her job very seriously, no matter the occasion, with a tendency toward conservatism or caution. Still, she isn't entirely humorless, even if she sometimes gives the impression that she is. If she feels she has the chance to relax, she opens up a little more - becomes warmer - but most of the time, she feels that she needs to keep herself in control. Her family and their fortunes are her motivation and what she strives to protect - occasionally through unsavory means. But if that means that others don't need to dirty their hands, so much the better. She'll do it for them and they - they can continue without worrying. She's seen some of the uglier sides of life and she's accepted it, but she also knows that there's more to life than just her own wants and her own needs. She also doesn't suffer braggarts well - she's run into enough of those in her own training and fighting that she knows those who talk the loudest are usually covering up for something. Or just cruel. Either way, they need to be knocked down a peg.

Background: Adelais was born out of wedlock, the product of a young dalliance between a merchant-prince and a middling serving girl. Fortunately for her, she (and her mother) were set up by her father's family in a town near the family's sprawling estate once they realized what their reckless son had done. The family resisted the pressure for marriage, but they did their best to accept her and her mother into their family - albeit still beyond that inner ring. Still, she had a decent education and a decent life growing up, living in relative comfort with her mother and provided for by an extended family that she didn't quite understand until she grew older. As she grew, she felt awkward and a touch out of place, especially when her father married and had another child: a younger half-sister named Mateline, who stood to inherit. Their relationship wasn't always good, but Adelais did her best to be a decent elder sister. However, determined that she wasn't going to rely solely on the largesse of her extended family, she left home once she came of age to seek her fortune as a soldier. She spent five or six years of her life training with the blade and working as a sellsword, despite her mother's worries over her new station in life.In a way, it helped her purge her private demons and she learned a great deal about the uglier side of the world and the power of violence. Adelais eventually returned to her extended family when she heard that her father was dying of a wasting disease and despite her misgivings, found that she couldn't simply leave her younger half-sister to pick up the pieces by herself. Since then, she's essentially bulled her way back into the family business ,serving as a bodyguard and the right-hand woman for Mateline, dealing with some of the more unsavory aspects of the business and arranging protection for their business interests whenever necessary. If she has anything to say about it, they'll prosper.