"Get up and fight. It's the only choice. "
BASICS
NAME: Zinaida
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
BIRTHDATE: Winter 2724
AGE: 52 as of Winter 2776
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Metalsmith, former Quarrier and Refiner
WING: Chopin Squad
APPEARANCE
EYES: Dark amber, like spiced chocolate.
HAIR: Wavy auburn lockes extending to just below her shoulder. Zinaida prefers to tie it back into a rough bun when she works, not really concerned with how haphazard it may look.
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'6". Thin frame with toned muscles in the right places.
PLAY-BY: Susan Sarandon
EXPY SOURCE: N/A
FULL APPEARANCE: Zinaida is weathered and wiry in her older age. Sinewy limbs are wrapped in wrinkled flesh, but it's impossible to miss the tough muscle underneath. Constellations of scars cascade across her body, born from various injuries sustained over turns of hard labor. Zinaida's hands are rough and calloused. Burn shadows tattoo her knuckles.
At night, Zinaida is plagued by wracking coughs and blackened spit - a curse from her lifetime in the coal mines.
**Zinaida suffers from Black Lung Disease, a common ailment of coalworkers. This is a chronic condition and will not be healed. Symptoms include difficulty breathing, chest tightness, hacking cough and black phlegm. **
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Jolly and sharp-tongued. While Zinaida is good-humored and benevolent, her lifetime in the Outlands grafted her with a punch-first-ask-questions-later temperament. She gets easily frustrated when things don't go her way, and will often spit venom before considering her words. Zinaida will eventually apologize, but only after simmering for a good long while.
Zinaida suffered some abuse as a child, which has pushed her to be protective and nurturing of all children she comes across. She might yell to get her point across, but she would sooner take a hot pocket to the eye than strike a youngin'. She's also not afraid to throw hands if she witnesses a tyke getting hurt or bullied.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Thassa - daughter (29)
Naira - daughter (24)
Landra - granddaughter (7)
Skyrim - grandson (5)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Fanuk (husband, deceased)
BIRTHPLACE: Dalelry, a mountain cothold close to Ruatha
HISTORY:
TW: Child abuse
Zinaida was born to a pair of Smithers in a mountain cothold in the Outlands. She was an only child. Her parents were not exactly empathic and were heavy-handed with her, hardening her personality some. As she aged, they came to blows and an odd, grudging respect came to be. Despite this, there was love between them, though the undertone of bitterness was hard to miss. (This has been a major contributibg factor to her bursts of anger.)
As she grew, Zinaida learned the craft from her family and carried on their will. Their cothold was situated near a mine, brimming with coal deposits and iron veins. She set to work at a young age juggling the duties of a miner, smelting ore and hammering metal into tools and weapons.
When Zinaida came of age, her hand was arranged in marriage with a young boy of another mining family - a gangly lad named Fanuk. There was no love there - initially. But a fondness gradually took root, blossoming to become more through coming hardships.
And come they did. Zinaida's parents fell ill back-to-back, consumed by an illness all-too-common among coal miners. Zinaida tended to their bedside as they passed. Too soon after, Fanuk's home caught ablaze and burned to ashes. Luckily Zinaida had inherited the home of her parents. And none too soon, for she was with child.
Thassa was born first. Four years later came Naira. Zinaida didn't know such a love was possible.
Between rearing children and managing the home, Fanuk and Zinaida worked in tandem. Zinaida smelted and smithed the materials Fanuk mined up. They traded with farmers and herders and healers, and all was well and quaint.
One fateful day, Fanuk accidentally struck flamestone. This ignited a pocket of methane in the roof cavity above him, causing an explosion that caved a large portion of the mine in. He and five others were lost.
Grieving and suddenly without their main source of income, Zinaida married Thassa, who was age, off to a wealthy jeweler so she could escape the coming struggle. They happily relocated to Fort Hold, where Thassa would eventually have two children.
Naira refused to leave her mother's side and assisted in clearing the mine and burying the dead. Through harsh winters and hungry summers, they plodded through until things became right again.
As the turns past, it became evident that the mind was beginning to dry up. The wealth of iron ore and coal deposits that had sustained them their entire lives were suddenly becoming few and far between. Other families who depended on this trade to survive began to pack up and leave for other locations.
With their cultivated skills, Naira and Zinaida could go anywhere they wished. But Zinaida had planted roots in Dalelry and she found that settling into an overcrowded, new hold with new people was intimidating. Her daughter found an alternative, however, where Zinaida could continue her craft to the best of her ability - and possibly teach others in the process.
They would board a ship to Semaca Weyr.
UPDATES
- During Summer 2775, Zinaida was gifted a fire-lizard egg by her daughter, Naira. It hatched into the Green Scone.
- During Summer 2775, Zinaida formed a blood-bond with a brown Wher, Zinsk.
