Avidon+Ashdown



Tall with slightly stooped shoulders, Avidon Ashdown is the proprietor of the Aldimari Manuscript Depository. Dark haired with kind blue eyes hidden behind reading glasses, he is not an old man though he has an old man's habits. He wears warm sweaters knitted by his beautiful wife, Elisabetta. He takes long walks, stopping now and again to lend a sympathetic ear to the local gossip. He enjoys his pipe. It's as if he has an old man's soul in a young man's body.

Not much is known of Avidon's people. He has not spoken to his family in years and rarely mentions them. Yuki suspects his childhood was unhappy. What is clear is that he received an impeccable education. Trained as a scribe and linguist, it is said he speaks close to thirty different languages. (Yuki has only heard him speak eight fluently.) Before he married Elisabetta, he was an adventurer, working as a scribe and traveling the world researching stories, finding rare scrolls and transcribing manuscripts for all kinds of private clients. He has recently earned small fame in certain circles as a writer of courtly love fiction, helped along by a secret patron.

People have always trusted Avidon, easily sharing with him their personal stories and secrets. This unique gift has earned him many free drinks, berths and access to interesting people and many, many interesting stories.

He adores his sweet, young wife and his super cute only daughter. He can deny them nothing. He has taught Yuki all the languages she knows and how to read and write while she was still in swaddling cloths. Even now, he tells her the most wonderful stories and she hangs on his every word. He brags of his family to everyone he meets and has many miniature portraits of them hanging about his work area. It is in them that he has found his happiness.