She is a pretty young woman with long, blonde hair and blue eyes and wears her hair hanging loose in the style of the women of the Motley Folk and favors long skirts and bright colors to wear. Often, on warm days, she may be seen with bare feet, and it's not unheard-of for her to dance a little as she moves from place to place, with a song on her lips.

spoilers for the Inkworld books contained below.

Elani comes from a kingdom called Lombrica where she was one of the Motley Folk, or Strolling Players. Lombrica is bordered to the south by a country known as Argenta. Until several years ago, Lombrica was ruled by The Laughing Prince who became known as "The Prince of Sighs" after the death of his son, Cosimo the Fair, in battle against the forces of the prince of Argenta, the Adderhead. Eventually, the grief was too much for the Laughing Prince to bear and he died, leaving his land essentially defenseless. Soon after, Cosimo seemed to return from the land of the dead and to took back his rightful place on the throne of Lombrica.

Not long after Cosimo's return, he gathered a great army of all the able-bodied men in his kingdom and began to wage war on the Adderhead. Unfortunately, this army was not enough, and Cosimo died yet again with his army, leaving Lombrica essentially defenseless. The Adderhead soon sent men and a governor of his own to rule Lombrica, supposedly only to stay until his grandson came of age. For Cosimo's wife had been none other than the Adderhead's daughter, Violante. The Adderhead's governor, called the Milksop, hardly ruled the country well, though, and squeezed its people dry of what little wealth they had to fill his own coffers. This time saw the rise of an outlaw called The Bluejay in song and tale who was said to strike out against the Adderhead and his lackeys for the good of the common people. Eventually, the Bluejay was believed captured by none other than Violante herself. Little did others know, though, that Violante despised her father and wanted the Bluejay to kill the Adderhead for her so that not only would Lombrica be free of him, but she would be free to rule the country herself. And, after a great many adventures, the Adderhead was indeed killed by the Bluejay and Violante, ever after known as Her Kindliness, became the ruler of Lombrica.

This is the world that Elani grew up in, though most of these events she heard of only through story and song. During the time of the Laughing Prince, the Motley Folk were welcomed in Lombrica, though seen as a class set apart from the "honest" people and forbidden to carry weapons. Though there was always room for good entertainment in Argenta, the risk was much greater as the Adderhead liked nothing more than to see a Strolling Player swing from the end of a rope. It was said that he only ever invited one of the Folk to his castle, the beautiful Roxane, who he wished to sing for him for she had such a voice of beauty that none other could compare.

Elani was born in the wee hours of a warm, summer morning in the Players' camp just outside of Ombra, the capital of Lombrica. Her mother, Niena, had been a dancer until an accident years earlier had left her with a permanent limp and she turned to being a seamstress and minor healer for the Motley Folk. Elani's father wasn't present in her life, though her mother never spoke of him. Elani always assumed he'd just been a man Niena had known for perhaps one night, possibly any of men among the Players. Often, she used to imagine he might even be the leader of the Players, the Black Prince himself! The reality simply was that her father had strayed too far into Argenta for his own good and found himself captured by the Adderhead, never to return. Niena had no wish to burden her daughter with this and...either way...the rest of the Folk served as a sort of surrogate family, being as close-knit as they tended to be.

Elani grew up learning many bits of a Player's art. She can dance, tell stories, and has even picked a pocket or two, but her chief love and talent is that of the song. Her greatest idol was Roxane, the minstrel-woman with the most beautiful voice ever heard, though she only had the privilege of meeting her once, when she was a small child. It was that meeting that made Elani resolve to become a singer. She would sing all the time, about nonsense and various stories she heard, and would pester any of the Folk who'd give her the time to teach her what songs they knew, sometimes over and over again until she had them memorized. While she knows she can never hope to rival Roxane, Elani has been able to make a respectable living, for a Player, as a singer. Her voice and sense of pitch are very good and, even better -- especially on long winter nights when there's nothing to do but stay locked inside -- she seems to have a nearly inexhaustible supply of songs to sing and everywhere she goes, she tries to learn more.

Somewhere along the way, the other players began referring to her as the "little songbird" and the "Songbird" nickname stuck so well, she'll answer to that as often as her given name of Elani.

Not long ago, Elani was traveling with a band of the Folk through the Wayless Wood. They had stopped for the night, setting up camp in a small clearing. Unable to sleep, she had found herself sitting outside, watching the moonlight filter through the trees when the faint strains of a song she'd never heard reached her ears. Before she'd even really thought about what she was doing, Elani began to follow the elusive tune through the trees. She only noticed that things seemed a little...different...when she broke out of the woods and found a man waiting for her. A piper. The Piper. It was he who had lured here there with his song and he who asked her, with a slightly sardonic smile and a twinkle in his eye, "are you good...or are you bad?"

The question along with the situation had her completely flustered. Especially when she realized she was standing before him in little more than her nightdress. Soon after, she found herself a place in Humphrey's inn, working partly as a server and partly as entertainment in return for room and board.

She's not entirely certain how she ended up in The Village but what she does know is that she can't return to Lombrica, no matter how much she misses it.