 
 "The magic of healing is a gift, Jischa." How many times had she heard the words? Countless surely. She'd been marked as a Healer her entire life, and the small black tribal design near her eye was only the literal manifestation of that mark, specifically the Mark of Rak'keli, a luminescent, spiraled opal that swirled out into a small yet complicated tribal-esque pattern at her temple. Her mother was a Healer, devoutly devoted to the Opal Order, as was her older sister, and it'd been no surprise when she'd been marked as one as well, another proud addition to the myriad blonde heads scattered over the White Isle.
Unlike her mother or even, apparently, her sister, Jischa had interests that rested outside of healing pavillions and great libraries, a fact that she was proud of, and wouldn't hesitate to point out when chastised for missing a day or three of study time. Active and outgoing, she prefered the sound of her own voice, preferably mingled with a few others, over the sound of pages turning, and she spent a lot of her time in the more tourist-heavy areas of her home city, flirting and playing with visitors in the sunlight, then retiring to dimly lit pavillions in the evening, emerging only for more wine or fruit before disappearing inside again til morning.
An avid dancer, Jischa would perform with little prompting for friends, and with a little more prompting and a bit of wine, she'd perform for others as well, taking pride in her skills and boasting that she'd never once taken lessons, instead making most of her routines up. Much more recently, she'd taken up painting as it seemed the 'in' thing to do, and she'd not wanted to be left out, but she found that while painting on canvas was fun, inking up her friends was more enjoyable, so she'd begun practicing the art of tattooing, hardly surprised that she was better at it than the more mundane artform - after all, isn't everyone better at what they actually enjoy doing? 
Her sister bemoaned her dalliances good-naturedly, despite her more serious countenance she didn't actually disapprove of Jischa having her fun, so long as she did get around to her work. And let it not ever be said that the girl didn't work hard, for she did. Healing fascinated her, the way one mundane plant crushed with a mildly poisonous berry and heated just so could work such wonders for an infected wound, or the way the island would get all aflurry when some new and wonderous method was discovered - why, who on Earth would ever want to be anything but a Healer? Who didn't secretly yearn to be a beautiful Konti girl, blessed by gods?
As if island life on the sea wasn't good enough fortune, the gods had also seen fit to bless the Konti with the ability to live life beneath the ocean's waves as well, and Jischa spent much of her time exploring and gathering resources, from elusive seafloor dwellers with their useful numbing excretions, to nightblooming flora whose leaves and petals were put to all sorts of magical, medical uses.
Also on the seafloor were Jischa's 'pets' as she fondly called them, though many would hesitate to apply such a title to creatures such as these. Large, lumiescent mussels of various sorts, tucked away in a shallow crevice hidden behind a wall of kelp. She'd found the first one here, and slowly added its three 'roomates' over the years. Keeping them safe in the hidden alcove, they'd shown their thanks in the form of radiant pearls every few years, and Jischa treasured these gifts, the five orbs nestled into a small decorative box.
Life was good to Jischa on the island, and without the worries of the other lands of Mizahar, or even the cares of her Divination-blessed sisters, she flourished, her interest in medicine and her inherent talent for healing conspiring to make her a productive citizen, despite, or perhaps in spite of, her unusually exhuberant persona. Not that it didn't have its uses, mind. Her vibrant self-assuredness coupled with the Gift bestowed upon her by Avalis often came in handy.
The ability to sense a person's strongest desire of the moment. A fitting Gift for someone as contrary as Jischa could be, as it never took her much effort to get back into someone's good graces, whether it be offering a sincere apology to someone who felt deeply wronged by her actions, or a new paint set with a specific shade of blue for a peeved friend, knowing at a touch exactly what someone wants has always been a useful blessing for the Konti healer, save when that desire is something she doesn't wish to part with, then she's just as likely to call the Gift a curse. |
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by Jischa on October 28th, 2010, 10:47 am 
578 GM, 2SM