" Keelah se'lai "
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Retire Tali'yah, adopt Normandith
NAME: Tali'yah
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Winter 2733
AGE: 38 as of Late Fall 2771
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Rider, Wingsecond
WING: Healer's Wing
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'9", curvy
PLAY-BY: Liz Sroka
FULL APPEARANCE:
Tali'yah is slightly on the tall side, with a rather curvy build. She has wide hips, broad shoulders, and a generous bosom. Her skin is olive-toned, and rather heavily freckled. She has a heart-shaped face, with a smallish nose and pale, full lips. Her ears are somewhat on the smaller side. Her eyes aren't especially large, and are a medium-dark brown color. Her hair is dark brown, near black, down to about her armpits, thick and just slightly wavy.
She speaks with an accent that clips consonants, and slightly rolls her Rs. Her voice is somewhat high, though slightly nasal, as though she constantly has a bit of a cold.
She dresses in mostly dark, utilitarian clothing, but has a pronounced fondness for the color purple, when she can get her hands on it.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Tali'yah is proud and independent, and hates nothing more than asking for help—even when she really needs it. She's convinced she can fix just about anything, whether living or not, and craves challenges in this area. She's fascinated by the way things work, and is at her happiest just trying to put something broken back together, figuring out its inner workings along the way. She's excited by discovery and learning, but isn't particularly interested in large things but in small ones.
She has a big heart, and wants to help people however she can. She's loyal, but can be a bit too focused on one thing at a time, missing the bigger picture and in the process failing to do much to help at all. She's highly offended by injustice, especially against the Holdless, but isn't really the sort to be the first to leap into action—though she'll happily follow whoever is, and she's not afraid to get into a scrap if she has to.
She's still not really used to the idea of staying in one place, and a strong wanderlust still calls to her. She's used to freedom, not the idea of having a home, even though she's longed for one all her life. She and Normandith spend much of their free time just flying, leaving their cares behind for a little while.
She absolutely cannot hold her liquor. At all.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Large extended family, she's not actually sure which are related to her in the blood sense
Son, Mitay (Late Fall 2757)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: Somewhere in Igen lands
HISTORY:
Talirayah was born into a large "family" of transient Holdless. She had a dozen "siblings", and several "parents", and most of them weren't really related to her at all but nobody ever particularly cared. It wasn't blood that was important, but togetherness. Her life was primarily spent in that insular little community, in which nobody really asked too many questions about the adults' pasts and everyone had to pitch in to stay alive and safe. This went doubly for the two wagons they had. If anything on them broke, they could be stuck in a very bad place, or worse, forced to abandon them and their contents. They had little enough that they owned to start with, and losing things like their winter clothes could be deadly. So from an early age, Talirayah learned to fix things, and she took to it quickly.
She never really questioned her living situation, not even as she grew to be a teenager, tall and strong and with a rebellious streak that she crushed ruthlessly. No matter what happened to set her off, where was she even going to go? Her entire world was her family, and without them she was nothing. And besides, what if they were stranded without her help keeping things moving the way they were supposed to?
She had her only child in her early twenties: a son, Mitay. He, like every other child in their little group, was raised communally, and she was okay with this. Her life continued this way, hard but happy. None of them had much, but she was still content with her lot in life. It wasn't really so bad. She could happily have stayed with them forever, were it not for the Searchrider.
She left, not to seek glory, but in hopes of coming back to help. She'd see her son educated, and they could actually make a difference. Maybe even build better wagons. It was a temporary thing, until it wasn't. She was a Candidate, sure, but she was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to Impress. She'd heard the whispers about what it meant to be Holdless, about how she was scum, and little better than a rat. But Normandith disagreed.
Hey. Hey Tali'yah. You better be telling stories soon about how awesome I am. Because I am. Your Normandith is pretty awesome. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. He was unsteady on his feet, he was small and uncertain, and he was hers.
It was three Turns before she found the time to track down her family again. People who didn't stay in one place and didn't much interact with anyone else were hard to find, and a couple of serious injuries in her first Threadfall with Normandith had delayed her. The blue had proven to have trouble not hurting himself with even routine-seeming landings, and when another dragon had crashed into them, there had been several broken bones involved.
Her son returned to the family, and gladly. He'd missed his cousins, and even if Tali'yah would miss him, she thought it for the best that he stayed with them. Maybe she couldn't go back to that life again, but he could. Plus, she'd given him a fire lizard, and—finally able to find them with much less difficulty when they needed her—she could come to visit much more often.
By then, Fort Weyr was becoming an increasingly uncomfortable place to live. Its relationship with Benden was shakier than ever, and Tali'yah wasn't sure she wanted to stay somewhere that Normandith might be hurt by an invader just for belonging to the wrong Weyr. So she transferred to High Reaches, joining the Healer's wing. Even if she wasn't a Healer herself, Normandith was safer there, and they were much more helpful in that capacity anyway.
