Ella Tailor is the fifth of six children, just a year older than her younger brother Gale. Her family lived in a small community on the outskirts of the Six. Her father worked in the heart of the city, and once Ella and Gale were old enough to go to school, her mother started working mornings at a dressmaker’s shop.

Ella loved school. The teacher dedicated a few hours a week to music and dance, and that was where she found her passion. She begged for extra music lessons on the weekends and eventually decided to become a teacher herself.

To fund her continued education, she started performing anywhere she could. At first, she was an occasional substitute for regular band members or singers that needed a night off. She tended to go to the saloons on other nights as well to dance, and when a harmonica player left, she slid into his vacated role. She held this position throughout the rest of her schooling and began saving money to start her own school.

Unfortunately, her mother and sisters fell gravely ill during this time. Many of the women working in their shop got sick at the same time, but while the others got better, the Tailors only seemed to suffer more. Every coin that could be spared was needed to hire doctors from across the Six and buy the medicine to get them back on their feet. Ella’s savings, as well as the family savings, were entirely gone by the time they were well.

Ella managed to scrape together enough money to finish school, but soon found rent increases outpacing her ability to save. She started serving drinks as a saloon girl on the nights her band wasn’t performing, but even that wasn’t enough for her to save what she needed.

After a few years, Ella had all but given up on her teaching dreams. Her landlord was still increasing her rent, and no matter how frugally she lived, her meager savings never seemed to grow. She had also begun seeing an earth Genasi named Rowan, one of the bartenders.

Rowan had been raised by her uncle Wyatt as much as by her own parents, and she had grown to idolize him. He’d never had his own kids, and his brother had allowed him to stay on in his household. He’d always worked as a bartender, and after many years, he was able to go west and open a successful saloon of his own.

Rowan herself started as a saloon girl, but her preference for more masculine clothing styles led her to work her way behind the bar. Uncle Wyatt had taught her the basics of drink mixing, so she took to it quickly, and she kept a close eye on the saloon girls to make sure that they weren’t shorted for the drinks they sold. She and Ella had first started talking on a slow night, talking about their dreams.

Rowan dreamed of someday owning a bar in her own right, and often encouraged Ella to take the chance on her school. When she started visiting Ella’s apartment, she would dig out Ella’s notes and try to help her make more solid plans. Over time, their plans began to merge. The planned apartment above the saloon would be big enough for two. Rowan could bring a midday meal to the school for students who lived too far to go home for lunch.

At Rowan’s urging, Ella started tutoring a few aspiring musicians, including a young kobold wizard named Huffy. He was easily her brightest and most eager student, and she started to feel like herself again. After a few months of this, Rowan asked when she would be ready to set up her school. Ella put her off again, saying that she still didn’t have enough money and she couldn’t possibly leave her students here.

Rowan was disappointed. She’d received news that Wyatt had died suddenly, the cause reported to be a heart attack, and had left the saloon to her. But time was short in the west, and the law was hard to enforce. If she didn’t claim the saloon soon, someone else would. From her uncle’s letters, she knew Ella could establish a school there, but Rowan couldn’t afford to wait on her to be ready.

Ella was devastated when Rowan left. It seemed to happen so fast, and before she knew it, she was gone. She had an address for the saloon, but she couldn’t work up the courage to write about their plans, and Rowan didn’t either. Time passed her by in a blur until she found a note on her door from her landlord saying that rent was going up again.

She realized that this was why she had stagnated and burned the note in a rage. It took a few weeks for her to form her plan, and she concluded her next letter, “I won’t be staying at this address much longer. I hope to see you soon.”

Without the landlord’s note, there was no proof she was aware of the rent increase. She gave her notice to the band and the families she’d been tutoring for and started packing her things. Anything she couldn’t reasonably take with her, she sold. And, before her landlord could hunt her down for shorting him on rent, she left. 

It was only while she was traveling that she realized Huffy had smuggled himself in her luggage. When she discovered him, he told her that his elder brother had gone missing and he was determined to find him. She threatened to send him home, but then he offered her an enormous sum of gold and said that if she refused he’d just run away again. With this ultimatum, she decided he’d be safer with her and agreed.