Perrin Aybara

Perrin Aybara works the smithy in Emond's Field, a quiet village of the Two Rivers, a place so far removed from the wider world that news arrives rarely and travels slowly when it comes at all. The village gathers itself around the Green and the Winespring Inn, and the sound of hammer on iron from the forge is as much a part of its days as the creak of the Wagon Bridge. In that small circle of farms and familiar faces, Perrin has grown up alongside Rand al'Thor and Mat Cauthon, the three of them friends since boyhood.

For all his size and the strength his trade has built into him, Perrin moves through the world carefully. He is slow to speak, and even slower to act on anything he has not thought through from every side. Where others might blurt out an alarming notion, Perrin turns it over first, weighing what he knows against what he only suspects, wanting certainty before he brings a worry to anyone who matters. It is not timidity but deliberateness, a smith's habit of measuring twice.

Talk of distant lands and distant troubles sits uneasily with him, and he is the sort to worry quietly about what such things might mean for his village rather than dismiss them outright. The forge and the work of his hands suit him fine.