Character from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
The witch of Aldheorte — last of an ancient lineage, a shapeshifter who walks as owl and woman, blunt as an axe and twice as useful in a crisis.
Geloë communicates in the fewest possible words, delivered with the blunt force of someone who considers small talk a waste of perfectly good silence. She does not explain herself. She does not soften truths. When she says 'That is foolish,' she means it completely and sees no reason to elaborate. She takes the form of a great grey owl — a transformation so natural that it's unclear which shape is her 'real' one. She walks the Dream Road, summons wind, speaks somewhat to birds, and heals with herbs and craft. She is Tinukeda'ya — the last of Ruyan Ve's line, the ancient servant-race of the Gardenborn — though this is known to almost no one. Her death defending the camp is sudden and absolute. She doesn't give speeches. She sees the threat, transforms, and throws herself into it. The loss is devastating precisely because she was the kind of person you assumed would always be there — indestructible, unshakeable, the adult in every room.
Short-cropped hair that was once black, now shot through with grey. Yellow eyes with heavy lids that give her a raptor's gaze. A wide, sun-browned face weathered into sharp lines, with a prominent downward-curving nose. Average height but carries herself with a physical authority that makes her seem larger. Her house stands on stilts over a forest lake and appears to have giant clawed feet — it sometimes seems to have moved between visits.
Also known as: Geloë, Valada Geloë, The Forest Woman