"Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways, And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low, I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not, And restless and lost on a road that I know."
- Henry Lawson
BASICS
NAME: Naira
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Biromantic Demisexual
BIRTHDATE: Fall 2752
AGE: 24 as of Fall 2776
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Dragonrider
Former unofficial metalsmith
WING: Mazurka Squad
APPEARANCE
EYES: Vibrant brown, like steeped tea.
HAIR: Wavy brown with undertones of auburn. Naira keeps it very, very short and typically parted to the side
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'8" and nimble, athletic.
PLAY-BY: Shizuka Mikazuki (ZOM 100)
EXPY SOURCE: N/A
FULL APPEARANCE: With wide, vibrant eyes and a toned, sleek exterior, Naira captured the eyes of many a suitor but avoided all like a skittish deer. Her fair skin, under closer observation, yields the marks of one who has worked with stone and heat. By some miracle, Naira has avoided major scarring - save for one jagged mark cleaving diagonally across her left scapula. Tiny chocolate freckles prickle randomly on her back and upper arms. She is limber, built for manueverability.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Unlike her heritage, Naira is slow to anger and rather easygoing. She likes to sit back and analyze her situation, taking extra time to calculate what reactions her responses may provoke, and typically avoids conflict if it can be helped. This partially subdued personality allows her better perspective of people with all nature's. It's not unnatural for her to sympathize with a villain, for instance, or see past the facade of a seemingly well-meaning pacifist.
She cannot stand to be idle and gets restless easily. It's not uncommon for her to juggle multiple tasks of differing calibers just to avoid a second of boredom. Because of this, Naira excels in a variety of skills from woodworking to animal husbandry, from foraging to painting.
But when her hands are tied and she's forced to wait for something to do, or is unable to flex her fingers onto a new hobby, she gets ... Impulsive. Something broken? Waiting for news? Have to hunker down for the foreseeable future? Yeah, not happening. She will try to fix the problem herself, or push forward when she really shouldn't. She will put others' safety first, but not necessarily her own as she dungeon-delves in forbidden zones.
Naira does have a penchant for mischief. Playful though she may be, she often finds herself getting dragged into situations that can become hairy quickly.
Also, don't tell her that she can't do something, because she most definitely will. Naira is overconfident to a fault. Though she may be dissuaded from doing a particular action, that doesn't mean she won't do it when she's sure nobody is looking. This can land her in hot water (or the infirmary).
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Zinaida - mother (52)
Fanuk - father (deceased)
Thassa - sister (29)
Landra - niece (7)
Skyrim - nephew (5)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A
BIRTHPLACE: Dalelry, a mountain cothold near Ruatha
HISTORY: Naira was born into a family of Smithers and Miners. The last-born, she essentially grew with a pickaxe in her hands. From a young age she assisted her mother in father in the mining of coal and iron ore, learning how to smelt and forge alongside her loving parents and older sister.
It was clear from the get-go that Naira could acquire new skills on the fly. Far from willing to reserve herself to the mundane tasks set out before her, Naira used her free time to absorb herself into the unknown. When weather and seasons made mining difficult, she tangled flitty hands in the depths of the woods, or lingered on nearby farmland to mingle with the animals and assist in harvesting food. This is where she met Bjornin, a young farmer lad of hearty stock. They were easily best friends.
When she wasn't dipping into uncharted territory, she was exploring the safer areas of the mine, finding gems and catching tunnelsnakes. At one time she had tried to convince her mother to let her keep one as a pet. Of course, this was refused ... though Zinaida marveled at the ease with which Naira could handle one.
At age 13, a terrible mining accident took the life of her father and a score of other quarriers. As this had been the only venue of income for the family - and as a collapsed mine could produce no goods - they were faced with a hard future of struggle and grief. Naira's mother quickly arranged for her older sister to be wed so that she might escape the bitter winters and hungry summers.
Being too young to be swept into romance and far too stubborn to leave her heartbroken mother's side, Naira remained and took up the bulk of hard labor. She worked alongside good neighbors to clear the wreckage of rock and bone until the dead could be recovered and buried with some dignity. It took several more months to bring the mine back to a workable state. In that time, Naira took up a variety of hobbies and trades to earn some meager coin and goods, filling their rumbling stomachs.
As the Turns wound on, Naira grew into a well-formed woman. Several men approached her with the intention of courtship, but she turned down every single one of them. The concept of love, marriage and sex seemed an enigma ... It really did not interest her. Naira's true adoration was to wander, trade, learn, grow mentally. From foraging herbal flowers to selling slag for fertilizer to neighboring farms, she had little interest in settling down.
Now, Naira loved her life in Dalelry, but she was faced with two undisputable facts.
One, her impulsiveness. While Zinaida's health wanted and waxed with the seasons, Naira found herself becoming more and more the head of the household. This stripped her of her ability to stretch her fingers between hobbies, and she was confined to one thing and one thing only.
Two, the mine was not an infinite source of materials. While it had served her family well for decades, it was becoming harder and harder to come across iron veins and coal deposits. Families that lived there to prosper off the mining and quarrying gradually located to new cothold. Dalelry was quickly becoming a ghost town, and Naira was about to inherit a mountain of dust.
They could go literally anywhere with their skills, knots or no knots (since neither had been *formally* trained). But her mother had laid down her roots in Dalelry and found the idea of starting over in an overcrowded Hold overwhelming, especially when most had their own Smiths already. They had been self-sufficient their entire lives, and depending on the aid of others to forge a new start ... ? Though it didn't bother Naira as much, she sympathized with her mother.
When it became evident that they only had one or two good turns left, Naira poured her soul into research. Where could they go? What could they do?
Sleepless nights were spent gazing over maps. And then, Like a calling to her heart, a word blazed into her vision and burned into her brain.
Semaca Weyr.
Between their readings with others, many words had been uttered about that place. One of which being that they were in need of craftsmen, Smithers included. And it wasn't insanely overcrowded as some Holds were.
Naira pulled Zinaida aside the following day. "Let's leave this place. "
"And where exactly will we go?"
"Funny you should ask. There's a boat ... "
UPDATES
- SUMMER 2775: Naira found a Common Raven with a broken wing just outside of Semaca Weyr's perimeter. She nursed it back to health with her roommate, Scara, and ended up keeping it, naming it Radar.
- SUMMER 2775:, Naira attended the Hatching of the Sand and Iron Clutch as a candidate and Impressed Green Naath from the Blackened Poison egg!
