Elka Brunner

Pauli's wife. She was just over a year older than her husband, and was killed in a car accident in November 2009, age 35.

Elka was bought up in Saltzburg, Austria. She was the younger of Annika and Hilderic Brunner's two children, her brother being 5 years her senior. As both of her parents worked full time (her mother was a teacher and her father worked in the motor industry) she was mostly raised by her grandmother, her maternal grandfather having been killed during the Second World War.

Her childhood was mostly uneventful. Elka was not really an academic, but excelled in more practical based subjects; she applied, and was accepted, to study fine arts at one of the universities in Vienna.

It was during her second year here that she first met Pauli, although he was no mage at that point, but it was not until her third that they actually spoke. It was not love at first sight, but a relationship they pursued to keep a mutual friend happy. Initially, at least; she was your stereotypical, free spirited artist (those who knew her slightly less well described her as a hippy after it was cool. To be fair, she did wear beads, flowers and ribbons in her hair), whilst he was still learning how to not be a tool of his parents, and yet not rebel against everything. It took them a while to find their first common interest - music. Others followed from there.

By the time the friend was no longer interested in their affairs, the two of them had developed some form of feelings - at least, that's how Elka understood the situation - and so carried on dating. Introducing him to her family went well, her to his less so.

Their lives continued on inter-locked paths for a while as Elka started working as a restorer in one of the museums of Vienna, and then continued to become better qualified, more experienced and so forth. She always intended to move back to Saltzburg, but it never quite happened.

In late April 2003, she was proposed to during a music festival. On January 17th, 2004, Elka and Pauli were married at a small Church on the outskirts of Vienna. She planned most of the ceremony, down to most of the small details.

She and her husband both stopped renting their own flats in Vienna to pool resources and rent one, slightly nicer, flat. They continued to work and play, using the little extra money they had after necessities and savings to attend many of the balls and music recitals as they could. It was nearly a year after their marriage that Elka mentioned to her doctor that they had been trying to conceive and failing. Another year, and she discovered she was infertile. It was upsetting for her but, eventually, she and Pauli concluded that for now they were content to simply look after Luca's children from time to time and, eventually, they would adopt. Until then, they would just enjoy what time they had.

That time was cut short when, in November 2009, she was killed in a car crash just outside London.