Post by Zeneka on Feb 10, 2012 12:29:56 GMT -5
Crafter Application
Name: Ara
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual (strong preference for females)
Rank: Sea Trader (Pirate), Captain of the Reckless Abandon
Location: Reckless Abandon
Appearance:
Ara is a small and willowy woman, hardly intimidating in her appearance. She stands at five foot four and is quite skinny, but certainly not in a sickly way. She is lithe and athletic, her muscles well toned and much stronger than her size would suggest. She has long, dark brown hair and guarded amber-brown eyes that could be considered pretty.
Despite her rather feminist attitude she enjoys wearing colorful, shiny, pretty female things. Her clothing is always flamboyant and she enjoys nothing more than styling new and odd fashions. She owns a number of rings, necklaces, and bracelets set to match with any garments she owns. Though she rarely wears skirts of dresses, her leggings are generally of an odd fashion and quite clearly tailored for females. She owns a variety of boots that she wears on a day to day basis, to best match her outfits.
Personality:
Ara is very much a Pernese feminist and can’t stand women who fawn over men and are content to simply spend their lives as wives and mothers, with no real goals or dreams of their own. Being a wife and/or a mother does not necessarily mean Ara does not like you, she’s a mother herself after all, but if that’s ALL you are and all you ever aspire to be she won’t give you the time of day, because frankly you disgust her. She is also something of a Pernese ‘Robin Hood’ in that she steals from the wealthy and gives, or at least sells at a discount, to the poor, or to anyone/place she happens to have a fondness for. Not quite as much of a do-gooder, but better than some anyway.
Ara is fiercely independent and will not be controlled by anyone in any way. She is self-sufficient and depends on no one to get what she wants in life. She doesn’t care one bit what others think of her and will always do her own thing, her own way. She is a leader, not a follower, and she can easily get others to follow her with her charismatic ways. She can bolster just about anyone’s spirits with a rousing speech and has self-confidence to share. She has a friendly demeanor, even if it is a guarded one, and is very approachable.
Ever since she was a young girl Ara has caught glimpses of things that perhaps she shouldn’t have seen and notices those things that are out of place almost at once. There is little that is likely to escape her ever watchful eye, her sight sharpened by suspicion. In body and mind both, Ara exudes a very strong presence to those around her. She does not back down from any challenge and can hold her own against men twice her size. She will happily get involved in a brawl to prove a point.
Ara’s philosophy when it comes to dealing with others goes something like this: Everyone is a liar until proven otherwise. Ara does not trust quickly or easily and requires a great deal of proof before she will trust anyone about anything. She is highly suspicious that just about everyone she meets will end up hurting her if she lets them, and so she doesn’t give them the chance. Ara knows how to work a crowd, she understands how people tick, and she uses this knowledge to her advantage when she wants something from someone; she can be quite the manipulator.
Scarred by a past full of hurt and betrayal by men, Ara much prefers women for company, if they actually have a spine. Ara does not enjoy the company of very many men, those that she does like can probably be counted on one hand. Most men she sees simply as tools, or possibly obstacles, and uses them or discards them as she will. Any man that gets in her way had better not stay there for long or she’ll see to it he never does it again. She will take every chance and opportunity to swindle a man on a trade, make him overpay, frustrate, or generally make it known that he is obviously a part of the ‘lesser’ sex, not she.
She also has no qualms about using her body as a way of getting something from a man, and most are quite compliant when it comes to this method. Ara is ever the Businesswoman, even in her personal life (except when it comes to her daughter), and she will never do anything unless there is something in it for her, unless she will gain something worthwhile for her troubles. If she performs a good deed it is rarely ever out of the kindness of her heart, but for some other hidden motive.
Family:
“Husband” – Domal (39)
Daughter – Fala (16)
Mother - Falara (deceased)
Father – Nyrim (62)
Older Brothers - Falnyr (43), Nylar (42), Farim (40), Nyfal (37), Larny (35)
Sisters (In-Law) – Mara (40), Ressa (41), Loni (35), Aless (34), Yuma (31)
Countless nephews and nieces she has never met and doesn’t even know about, though she’s sure her brothers wasted no time siring litters of children on their meek, weak-willed wives.
Background:
Ara was born as Nyara, final child and only daughter of fisher Nyrim and his wife Falara. She has often thought she was born into the wrong family, they were always very traditional in their thinking and Ara is very NOT traditional. They lived in a small Fishercraft cothold, a place innovation and forward thinking ideas did not reach. Nearly all the boys grew to be Fishers and the girls simply mothers and wives. She had five older brothers, all of which went to help their father on his fishing trips as soon as they were old enough. Nyara was to stay at home with her mother and learn her ‘proper place’ as a woman, however Falara was bedridden after she gave birth to Nyara and very sickly; she clung to life for barely a Turn before passing. And so Nyara never really knew her mother and while she was too young to be left to her own devices aunts and friends looked after her when her father was out to sea with her brothers. Mostly as she got a bit older, she was left to do as she would until it was time for bed.
She was a wild and unruly girl, nothing like the other girls her age, the ones that had mothers to teach them to behave properly. Instead she had her brothers, when they were home between fishing trips, and the younger ones had no qualms picking on her, wrestling with her, when no one was around to scold them for it. Nyara rather enjoyed these rough and tumble sessions with her brothers, and though it took some time before she could even hope to hold her own against them, she learned to be outwit them if she couldn’t beat them with brute strength. Males, she decided, were definitely the less intelligent sex. So they could lift heavy objects? Well, who wanted to do that? She could sit about and have them lift those heavy objects for her and they’d be happy to do it and prove their strength? How silly! Yes, men were very easy to manipulate, and they’d never even know it….
Her father did not approve of her behavior at all, of course, and neither did most others. Mothers kept their daughters away from her and most boys simply found her strange, not used to strong-willed females in their little cothold. Other boys picked on her when her family was away, but she wasn’t afraid to fight back, and she knew how thanks to her brothers. She fared quite a bit better against boys closer to her own age, and won quite a few scraps, though she also lost some thanks to the cowards ganging up on her.
When she was 10 she asked her father if she might go out on the next fishing trip with them and help out. He promptly denied her request. Most everyone in the cothold held to an old belief that women were bad luck aboard ships and her father was one of them. Even at 10 Nyara thought this was backwards thinking and wrong and snuck on board before her family could leave her behind again. She stayed hidden until they were well away from home and when she finally revealed herself her father was furious. Her backside was sore for the next week for that little venture, but he did put her to work on the ship while she was there and nothing went wrong, which she pointed out smugly to her father and earned more abuse to her hind end.
Reluctantly, her father allowed her to continue helping on fishing trips, if only to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble at the cothold. She was a hard worker, as hard working as any of her brothers, but it just wasn’t the place for her… she was a girl after all. For five Turns she worked beside her brothers and father on their ship and she watched each of her brothers marry girls from the cothold. Marriage was something she most definitely did NOT want for herself, but in her 15th Turn her father told her had arranged for just that. She was horrified. The man was some Turns older than her, she recalled seeing him about the cothold throughout her childhood but didn’t particularly know him, and she didn’t like the way he looked at her… like he owned her already and they were not even handfasted.
The wedding was arranged shortly, even though she told her father she would not marry him, and finally begged him not to make her to do so. Domal, her husband, would not tolerate her boyishness. She was to stay home as a wife was meant to and care for their children, he told her. She cursed him and told him she’d never bear him a single brat and that was that. Domal, unlike her brothers and father, was not used to being talked back to by a woman… and was not going to allow it. He struck her, just once, and not like boys had struck her before when they were wrestling or having a scrap. He very much meant it when he told her she would obey him and for the first time Nyara was afraid of a man.
Numbed by her fear of him, she obeyed him meekly for a time, but there was a hatred that grew in her every day, only reinforced when Domal forced himself on her at night and ignored her tears when it was done. She soon became pregnant, much to Domal’s delight. He tried to be kind to her but after their less than pleasant start she wouldn’t have it. She remained distant to him no matter what he did and began formulating a plan to run away. She would not spend her life this way. After a particularly hard birth, one that she almost didn’t survive, she was presented with a daughter and told that due to complications during the birth it was uncertain if she’d ever be able to bear another child. Domal was not pleased with this news and turned cold toward her once more. The birth of her daughter and the return of Domal’s unpleasant attitude solidified her plans to leave. She would never subject her daughter to what they taught girls there, what they made them do…. Officially, her daughter was named Domara, but Nyara never called her that. Instead she called her Fala, after the mother she’d never known who’d had to suffer through this and died never knowing anything else.
When her husband was gone on a fishing trip she took those few marks she had, a small pack of food, her infant daughter, and left in the early morning. She didn’t really know where she was going, she’d never left the cothold except by sea, but she followed the faint trail away as it twisted and followed the sea. She met a band of Traders along the road and asked to stay with them, promising that she was willing to work for the right to stay. Most were men, and she noticed that look in some of their eyes, that look of ownership when they looked at her. Before any of the men spoke, however, one of the women spoke up and told her to stay with her. The woman wasn’t too much older than her, perhaps in her twenties, and Nyara found herself attracted to her, which was a very strange thing to her. Her name was Lilia and she taught her to read, write, figure, and the basics of being a Trader.
It was at this point that she changed her name to Ara, she wanted no part of her father’s name after what he’d done to her. She worked for Lilia when she set up her wares, helped haggle with customers, raised her daughter. It was at a Gather some time later that the two woke up naked together after too much drinking the night before. They decided to continue what that night started and began a rather loving relationship. Lilia was quite like a second mother to Fala and Ara couldn’t have hoped for more. She was happy. It wasn’t to last for too long, though. Around her 20th Turn Lilia broke it off; she was in love with a new trader that had joined their little group, a rather dashing young man with a quick smile. Ara was heartbroken and left the caravan when they stopped in Igen Hold a few days later, taking the 4 Turn old Fala with her.
She found that a Sea Trader’s ship was docked at the harbor, fittingly named Reckless Abandon, and requested to join them, assuring them she had experience at sea and with trading and she could be of use to them. She was welcomed by most, especially the captain, Treyjen, who took a liking to her. She was wary of him at first but it turned out he was nothing at all like Domal and though he wanted her he wasn’t about to force himself on her. He was persistent in chasing her, though, and she finally decided to give him a chance. She remained his lover for just over five Turns, Fala looking to him as her father, and they traveled all over Pern by sea, trading as they went. She had never been happier.
Like most good things in Ara’s life, her love with Treyjen was to end in disaster. During a particularly bad storm out at sea he was tossed overboard. The man who announced it to the crew afterward, Hadren, explained it as a tragic accident, but Ara had seem him push the man she loved over the side of the ship, just glimpsed it as she was herding Fala below decks. What motive the man might have had, she did not know, but neither did she care. She would get even with the man. She didn’t say anything at first, she knew that Hadren was well liked on the ship and they even named him captain. However, Hadren soon made it known that she would no longer be welcome aboard, she suspected he knew she’d seen him kill Treyjen, and at their next docking she was to leave.
This did not sit well with most of the crew, however. They began to question Hadren as to his reasoning. Hadren became paranoid and seemed to change from the man the crew thought they’d known. He attempted to ‘rule’ the ship in a tyrannical fashion, and just when the crew had about had enough they were chased down by pirates before they could reach land. It was then that Ara spoke her truth as well, told the crew what their so-called captain had done. Told them why he had changed. She hadn’t been certain before they would believe her, but now he’d shown his true colors she knew she could reveal the truth and know it would be accepted as such, rather than crazed rantings from a grieving a woman as she had originally feared. The crew rallied behind her and Hadren was thrown overboard to share the fate he’d inflicted upon Treyjen.
When the pirates were upon them, Ara told the crew to back down and addressed the captain. She explained to him a mutually beneficial business arrangement. Why plunder them once and have that be the end of it? Spare her crew, spare her ship, and she would happily give them half their cargo twice a turn as payment. Intrigued by this deal, he agreed on the terms that some of his own crew join hers in order to make sure she kept her end of the bargain, and some of her own crew join his, for further ‘insurance’ against her betraying their agreement (or in other words, as hostages).
Ara herself turned to pirating in order to fulfill her side of the deal, giving the pirates their choice of those items she had pilfered herself so that she could still maintain the appearance of a good sea trader with goods others entrusted her with or that she had to trade or pay for herself. She found pirating to be a rather easy way to gain cargo and took a liking to the job. She picked up more crew members here and there, some joined from ships she pilfered and others from times when they were docked, oblivious to what they were getting themselves into. However, Ara does not pillage any ship she sees, there are some she favors and spares, depending on where they are from, how wealthy they are, how they’ve treated her if they’ve met at harbor. She also sells the things she’s pilfered at lowered prices to places she favors, such as the smaller, less wealthy cotholds.
During the first turn of her pirating she came to know a certain Dragonrider, by the name of S’don, who apparently led a similar life style. She would never say they were really friends, but contacts, perhaps. When there was something potentially mutually beneficial, they shared in the knowledge. It was from S’don that she heard of the coalition of riders and how Thread was supposedly returning. If Thread returned when these coalition riders predicted it would, then she wanted to be on their side and be afforded their protection should she ever need it. She vowed to help, if she could, and brings them both news (when she has any) and supplies.
Pets: N/A
