Her hair, as black as the blackest shadow of the darkest hour of the night, falls in gentle waves to her shoulders. Her eyes are a unique soft blue ringed in deep azure and her skin is tanned a golden brown.

Even now, Iridalle is still unsure of her true parents and nationality. Ta'rella Shalmar, a young Andoran woman travelling with merchants through the Three-fold Land, brought Iridalle with her. She claimed to have found the baby while in Arad Doman, but many Aiel believed, and still do, that Ta'rella was Iridalle's true mother. She told the Aiel the baby's name and asked them to take Iridalle and raise her as one of their own, to become the family that she would otherwise never have.

Against all odds, the Aiel accepted the infant. They taught her the Aiel ways, their many customs, and ji'e'toh, the code of honour they live by.

Although Ta'rella never returned to the Three-fold Land, most of the Aiel who had met her were convinced that she was Iridalle's mother. As Iridalle grew older, she began to look quite similar to Ta'rella. She took Ta'rella's last name, Shalmar, as her own, simply because she knew no other.

Iridalle was accepted into the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel, and despite her wetlander looks, she had an Aiel heart and easily adjusted to the Aiel ways. By the time she was ten years old, she was wedded to the spear and fought alongside the Aiel men and Maidens.

On her fifteenth nameday, the Wise Ones forced her to give up the spear to train to become a Wise One. She could channel saidar, and was stronger in the Power than any of the Wise Ones. It was with great regret that Iridalle left her spear-sisters to go to Rhuidean.

Although she would have much preferred to stay a Maiden of the Spear, she trained hard after her initial defiance, hoping to one day make a great Wise One, but alas, it was not to be. Agter, her first-brother, and Galyia, her first-sister and closest friend, were slaughtered by a peddler Darkfriend. By the time the Aiel found out about the murders, it was too late. The peddler had escaped.

Against all Aiel customs, Iridalle reclaimed her spears and set off to avenge the deaths of her two friends. She left the Three-fold Land and searched the nations for the Darkfriend. Each day that she couldn't find him her rage grew stronger, until the day she finally found him. In Amadicia, about to be hanged by the Children of the Light.

It was then that her attitude changed. Iridalle realised then how close she had come to letting the fires of hatred overwhelm her, and how dangerous hatred could be. Love for her friends could have extinguished the fire, so that only glowing embers remained. As she left Amadicia, Iridalle realised that freedom was far more important than vengeance. Agter and Galyia were free, at least. As the Aiel often said, "Life is a dream from which we must all wake to dream again." And, although she didn't realise it at the time, Iridalle set herself free that day.

She continued travelling for a couple of months, unable to go back to the Three-fold Land, the place she had called home for as long as she could remember and more. She couldn't quite work out what was keeping her from returning. She had changed, sure, but she could still be as strong, brave and fierce as any Aiel when she needed to be. The Aiel would have welcomed her back with true happiness. She longed to see them again, but the Wheel was weaving the Pattern against it.

Iridalle still believed in ji'e'toh, but although honour and fighting for justice were important to her, she felt that there was something missing in her life, an unfulfilled desire struggling to be realised.

A few days after her sixteenth nameday, she ended up outside Tar Valon. The Shining City. The moment she saw Tar Valon's shining walls, she realised why she could not go back to the Three-fold Land. This was her destiny. The White Tower.

Iridalle has changed a lot since leaving the Aiel, but her time in the Three-fold Land taught her much about honour, battle, saidar, and life in general. It also gave her the desire to make a difference, the heart to be able to conquer her fears and make her dreams reality, and the passion to want to join the Greens in fighting for the Light and the good of the world. She still has many Aiel traits, such as her strong will, fierce loyalty and sense of honour, but she is no longer as solitary as the Aiel are. She is now fairly tall, and still considered attractive as she was growing up. She has grown stronger in the Power since she came to the Tower, and she is a Dreamer, has a little skill in Healing, and has recently learnt to Skim and Travel.

Iridalle now holds the rank of Aes Sedai in the White Tower, having finally fulfilled the lifelong goal that she never realised she had. Her pride in both her Green-fringed Shawl and her Ajah is deep and her loyalties will always lie with the Green Ajah and the White Tower. Newly Raised to the Shawl, Iridalle aims to do all she can to aid the endless fight for the Light, and to oppose the Shadow. Forever.