Ayla grew up as the only daughter of Adian and Grania of Minas Tirth. Aidan was (and still is) a baker. Her mother taught her to be a strong woman, to never give up, but also to know her place. When she was young, Ayla would help her parents bake and would sometimes listen to her father as he would talk to the customers. It was those early overheard conversations that made Ayla love people in general. Just hearing about their lives was quite exiting to her. Then one day, when she was fifteen, a trader came to buy some bread. He stayed in the shop for a few moments, and told of the sort of things he had seen. Ayla was amazed at the sorts of lands he had spoken of. He told of seeing huge oliphaunts, and little folk no bigger than children. Ayla’s father told her after the man left that those sorts of things were not real. But they were real to Ayla. Even if she would never see them, she would always fear them. What would happen, she wondered, if an oliphaunt was to come crashing though the forest I love? It was in fact these tales that made her with to protect her homeland. And that wish has stayed with her. She learned a bit of fighting from her friend Aaron, who was in the millitary. She is now in her twenty-third year, and old enough to be out on her own. Her parents want her to get married to a nice young man, but Ayla would rather not. She still wants to find a way to help Gondor. But as her father said, “What can a woman do?”