"Be careful. The world can break you. But it's worth it."
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Retire character, adopt bonded(s)
NAME: Yatara, Honorific Ya'ra
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Upwards and onwards
BIRTHDATE: Late Summer 2742
AGE: 25 as of Fall 2767
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Bluerider, Journeyman Healer
WING: Healer's
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'6, average
PLAY-BY: Gemma Whelan
FULL APPEARANCE: Few would call Ya'ra a beauty. She's a girl of middling looks at best, with something perpetually worn-out looking about her. She's usually a bit dirty, from work or travel or whatever else she's recently been up to, hair not really coiffed, clothes a bit of a mess. She dresses like she doesn't give a forsk what people think. She has a good build for fighting, lean and muscular, and moves with a grace that suggests while she might not be a soldier yet, she has potential.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Ya'ra is strange. Direct and blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness, it's easy to think of her as a cynic or an asshole or generally a trouble-maker. That first impression would be wrong. Ya'ra might not be one to beat around the bush, but she's an idealist at heart, good-natured to the core. The sort of person who believes even the holdless deserve a chance. That most Bendenites could be taught to be decent. That there's no one beyond saving. She might not see the point in stroking a wingleader's ego, but she'll be out fighting for fair pay and equal rights for drudges with the next breath. She believes in making the world a better place and while she may not always be nice, she is always good.
She's a fairly self-confident woman with a strong sense of self, who doesn't worry too much about what others think. She'd rather say that someone looks ugly than let them go out looking ugly, if unlike her that's the sort of detail they worry about. Ya'ra tends to shrug off insults fairly easily, so long as they're not coming from a friend, and finds gossip amusing enough, unless it's about someone who would be truly hurt if they heard.
That said, she's a bit more suspicious these days than she used to be. While she believes everyone deserves a chance, she's not as quick to let people close. It's one thing to risk having her marks stolen. Something else to risk having her trust broken. Again.
HISTORY
TW: Emotional abuse
FAMILY:
Mother: Allara, Master Harper
Father: Yatar, Master Weaver
Several younger siblings
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Ex-husband Aidan
BIRTHPLACE: One of Fort's outlying holds
HISTORY: Yatara was born to a comfortable life, in a prosperous hold not far from Fort Hold. She was raised with everything she could need or want. When she came of age, she decided to become a Healer, so she could help those who couldn't help themselves while making her family proud.
As she neared the end of her apprenticeship, she was offered the chance to travel and improve her craft. She chose to go to the impoverished parts of Bitra, where she was needed the most. It was an eye-opening experience. Yatara had never before seen real poverty, real desperation.
It was in Bitra she met Aidan. A native of the hold, of moderate, though not excessive, means, he helped her navigate the unfamiliar landscape. The first time she met him, he saved her from a mugger. And from then on, he protected her from pick-pockets. Told her which areas were too dangerous to enter alone. Warned her of the common scams. Taught her how not to become a target. He liked her innocence and her goodness and her willingness to speak her mind. It seemed meant to be.
She fell for him, hard and fast, and when she received her journeyman's knots and was ready to move on, agreed to marry him, so that they could enter the next phase of their lives together.
Yatara's next post was at a neighboring hold, much like the one she'd grown up in. She had little intention of spending the rest of her life there, but they needed a Healer and it was familiar and comfortable, a good place for her to get her bearings for a few turns.
It was a disaster. Aidan was paranoid, convinced the world was out to get him. She learned the protectiveness she'd so appreciated masked a quick temper and a predilection for violence. Like her, he wasn't one to dance around the truth. But whenever she said something he didn't want to hear, he accused her of playing games with him or said she didn't know what she really wanted. His patient guidance and advice? They didn't come from caring. But a need to control. A need that didn't go away just because she no longer needed his help.
It was impossible to go anywhere with him, as he considered himself above the need for even the pretenses of basic politeness. He would push a child out of his way or punch an old man for bumping into him. He was always looking to take advantage of anyone who let their guard down and didn't understand why he should have to care about anything but him and Yatara. Everyone else was irrelevant.
Yatara left him, after he brought a knife to the children's harper lessons and tried to fight the guard who told him weapons were forbidden. She snuck away in the middle of the night, leaving a letter. She might not usually hesitate to say what needed to be said...But it wasn't worth the chance that he would hurt her or force her to stay.
She went home and arranged for a divorce. And applied to Healer Hall for a new post. Elsewhere. This time they sent her to Fort Weyr, where she could study under well-trained masters. Soon after she arrived, she was offered the chance to stand and accepted. Because why not? It was an honor to be chosen and dragonriders did a lot of good. She was on the older side and only had a turn to stand, but if she didn't Impress, at least she'd learn some fighting skills, so that next time she wouldn't have to sneak away.
Her first clutch came from two garnets. Some candidates grumbled and one even abstained, but Yatara thought that was silly. A dragon was a dragon, no matter who its mother was, and every dragon deserved a full selection of candidates.
She was glad she came. Because one of those dragons, the most beautiful blue she'd ever seen, the loveliest thing she'd ever gotten to touch, was hers. Dymrith. He saw potential in her. And she knew from the moment he hatched she adored him. Everything was going to be okay.
UPDATES
- Fall, 2767- Nornth, Dymrith's closest friend, kills one of her suitors and orders the rest to slay each other. Ya'ra and Dymrith transfer to Semaca without saying good-bye.
