I actually have some concept art of Elska as a child! This is how she appeared in the beginning of "To Fight the Fog".

This is her and her father, Eindrid. Elska hasn't changed much over the years. As a child, she didn't have any friends her age and mostly kept to herself. She was a quiet girl who expressed herself more with actions than with words. She never whined or cried, but would throw angry tantrums whenever she was touched. That meant she didn't like hugs or having her hair brushed, so even though long hair was customary in her tribe, her father cut hers short until she was old enough to brush it herself.

Instead of running around with her peers, she would spend playtime collecting things like sticks, rocks, and feathers, then arranging them by size and color. She figured out how to make her own weapons and tools at a very young age, while her peers were still learning from their parents. Elska got frustrated when her clanmates tried to help her with anything. She just seemed to learn skills faster on her own.

Her clanmates were such communally-minded people and didn't understand her independent ways. They often blamed her behavior on the early death of her mother. The only person who seemed to accept her quirks was her father, so she spent most of her time with him.

She had many aunts who tried to raise her after her mother died, but they all tried to force her to be someone she was not. Eindrid allowed Elska to be herself. He didn't push her to make new friends, didn't criticize her strange behaviors, and when she was older, he didn't force her to marry the man he set her up with. Losing a parent is hard in the best of cases, but in Elska's case, she lost more than a father. He was her best friend and biggest supporter.

The day he died was the day Elska officially considered herself an adult, because she knew the only one left to look out for her was herself.

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Questions/Comments?