Herin was born to an upper middle class elven couple and raised in Tir Tairngire. As an infant she had a very successful career as a baby model. She stopped modeling around the time she learned that the word "no" worked on her parents as well as on her, but the cutesy pictures and advertisements containing her angelic infant face haunted her socially well into high school. When she left home for college she moved up to Seattle for college in the hopes of finally leaving her childhood behind.
In her sophomore year of college the Matrix crash gave her the opportunity to leave her past behind in a more final way. She had been growing increasingly disillusioned with college life and her prospects in sports medicine (her initial plan for a future career), so rather than try to get back the life she'd had, she stood up to be counted just long enough to withdraw her college fund from the bank. She moved across town to stay with her cousin Will (Ben's PC character) temporarily and began doing odd jobs while looking for her own apartment and developing her contacts in the shadows.
She really never looked back. Her parents know she's still living in the Seattle area, but aren't too clear on what she's doing for work. She's pretty sure that they don't buy her line about being a "freelance personal trainer" and she gets the feeling that she's a disappointment to them. She's enjoying the fast life she's living far too much to let it get to her... yet anyway.
Over the last six years she's developed her martial skills and worked on a variety of smaller runs. Her college money petered out a while ago, so she's had to be more serious about working over the last two years. She works with Will on and off and was more than a bit upset when he got hauled off to jail. She still regrets that she wasn't there to help him.
A few months ago, she and Will were doing a pretty simple smuggling cargo run with a hotshot pilot (Nick's PC character) when things went very bad. The jerk put her cousin on watch duty. She tried to tell him that there was no way Will would be able to react quickly enough, but he was not having any of it. Consequently the plane got hit by falling rocks and they crash landed in the middle of nowhere.
Four weeks of hiking later, they finally made it close enough to civilization to get their Matrix connections working again so they could call for transportation other than their own feet. It was not a fun trip, but the pilot, Des, turned out to be a bit less annoying and arrogant on further acquaintance. Herin's not sure she wants to work with him in the long term, but she sure as hell needs to pay her rent now, so she's willing to tough out a run or two.