Drifa

[Drifa]

I am Drifa...

Beauty is only skin deep... Slight of build, medium colored skin, those are the striking things about the Drykas girl. Her Zith ancestry (she's only a quarter, mind you!) gave her dark skin and long, thick black hair. Her eyes are the color of coal and framed with thick lashes. Her lips are plump and behind them hide sharply pointed canines. The rest of her teeth are wholly human. She wears her braids in her hair, if she feels like it. The Zith gave her a slight built, she barely breaches 5'0" and weighs a mere 100 pounds when soaking wet. For all that, she is lightly muscled and can clearly withstand more than any half or full blooded Zith. Her windmarks are delicate. They trace her spine, beginning at the base of her spine and weaving in and out of her spinal column.

...but ugly goes right down to the bone A loner to the core, Drifa is more focused on learning and gaining skill than socializing. She is awkward and uncomfortable around strangers; shy and soft spoke around family and friends. She does not care for meet and greets, nor did her grandmother's attempts and finding her a husband sit well with her. She prefers the company of her stryder above all else. Despite her solitary lifestyle, or perhaps because of it, Drifa is deeply spiritual and reflective. She often contemplates life and her surroundings and wonders about the world. Though she would never travel, she has had dreams of the far off places others have told her about. The only traveling she need do is through the Sea of Grass which she considers her home. Unfortunately, her solitude has made her overconfident in her own abilities. The Sea of Grass can be crippling for the overconfident and deadly for the arrogant. She is not stupid, she knows of the dangers of a solo rider in the Sea of Grass, but she persists in doing so anyway. Her social awkwardness ensures that Drifa has few friends outside of her immediately family. Her deep seated curiosity and pensive reflection often cause her to wonder on her heritage. Her grandmother never spoke of the father who left her or the mother who died and so she knows little about the Zith. Believing it to be a touchy subject, few will teach her about them. Her intelligence behooves her however, in that it makes her diligent and studious. She spends her time wisely working at her combat techniques and has begun to direct a bit of attention towards her weapon work. She rides with grace astride Eclipse and with the time she spends astride, it is little wonder that she has become a horsewoman indeed.

We are products of our past... She was born in a storm. The year was 499 and it was the 1st day of Fall. Her father, Render Nightsong had never known his father, but he had known of his father’s people. The Zith were the stuff of legends; swift and deadly cannibals without regard for human life, the people of his father. Arrow Stormsong His mother had been captured when she was 16. She was a bold, daring woman who had received her windmarks at a young age. She was practically one with her horse. She had set out to free her sister from the Zith the day she became a woman. His grandfather had died of a broken heart when she never returned. She had escaped nearly seven years later. In that time, she had been a slave and then a mate to one of the finest Zith warriors. The first night he tried to mate with her, she had rent a hole in his wing. The warrior had been impressed with her daring, but not with the injury. She had nearly died that night, or so the story went. It was her survival that made her worth to be the mother of a Zith son. She had miscarriages. Each pained her more than the last. Finally, she became pregnant and swelled with child. On the eve she went to tell her mate, a fight broke out. He was killed. Devastated and afraid for her life, she fled the colony. Her stryder had been killed and eaten years before, but she knew the Sea of Grass better than any Zith could. Armed with only her wits, she escaped. She took nothing with her, nothing but the clothes on her back and the child in her stomach. When she returned to Endrykas, she found her father had died. Her brother ruled as Ankal in the Stormsong Pavillion. He welcomed her with open arms, pleased to see a child in her belly. Within a moon she had been married off to a man named Aeon Strongriver. The man was kindly to her and when she birthed a son with dark skin and dark hair and possessing of eyes as black as coal, he accepted the babe without question. The evidence of Zith ancestry was writ on the babe’s face but he valued the child above the scorn of his people. He named the child Onson Strongriver and that was that. Onson Strongriver/Render Nightsong Onson was tall but slight. His darkness made him an oddity, but as he learned to fight, they learned to never speak of it. Onson heard much of his people, none of good, but he kept an open mind. In the summer of his fourteenth year he met his stryder. It is said that when Onson first mounted the creature you could not tell where the horse ended and the boy began, so great was his skill. Onson named his stryder Pitch and on the back of his stallion, he won the respect of many a man. It was after one of his greatest victories that Onson gave himself the name Render. After that, he left his father’s Pavillion and began his own. As tribute to his mother’s people he called his Pavillion Nightsong. Despite his ancestry, Render was looked upon favorably by the women of his people. His windmarks were barely visible against the ebony of his skin and he cut a striking figure amongst the pale, blonde Drykas. The woman who caught his attention, however, was named Deya Sunsinger. She was as tall as he, with a slight build. It was said that she could shoot the eye out of a bird in flight astride her stryder, a palomino colored mare named Bronze. To win her hand, Render first courted her, and then when she rejected his suit, challenged her to a race. The stallion was a nose ahead of the mare when they crossed the line, and that was how he won the hand of Deya Sunsinger. She lost the first two children. She fell from her horse with the first and the second was a mere stroke of bad luck. The third child did not come until she was reaching 30. Render had been 15 years her senior when he challenged her to the race. He cursed the lifespan of the Zith for he was aging much more rapidly than his wife. In the end, the child killed her and she died before he did. He cleaned the babe and kissed her. “Drifa Nightsong,” he named her. He took her to his mother and handed the babe to her. “Drifa,” he told her as he handed her the child. “Where are you going, my son?” the now fragile woman asked. “Deya waits,” he replied as he walked away. Pitch had died years before and no stryder had ever replaced him. It was on foot that Render entered the Sea of Grass. There was never a body to recover. Drifa The girl grew. She was slight of build, perhaps 5’0, perhaps a bit taller. It was odd, the Drykas said, that such tall parents birthed such a small girl. The elders said it was the Zith in her. She possessed no wing stubs, but her hair was long and free flowing, bound with small braids if she felt it or none if she did not. It was as dark as the shadows for which she was named. Had it not been for the darkness of her skin and the thickness of her hair, she would have seemed nothing more than human. Except for her smile. When she smiled, she barred teeth just sharper than a human’s, when she smiled, she barred the smile of a predator. Her grandmother did not teach her to fight. She learned how to ride on the ponies that her grandfather owned. She spent time with the Stryders, her dark eyes seeking her partner. As she aged, she taught herself how to spar; her ability with her fists growing faster than any with her weapon. She was a quick learner, her teachers agreed. She was a child of the Sea of Grass. Her stryder was a colt when he picked her. The great-grandson of her father’s Stryder, the leggy, buckskin colt nudged her on her tenth birthday. She stroked his muzzle and she looked into his eyes. “Eclipse” she called him and so it was. The girl grew for four more summers without incident. Her grandmother seemed ageless in those years. That was until she fell one day while plodding about the house. A broken hip turned into a broken woman and soon her grandmother’s body was laid beneath the stars. Drifa wept for days, dried her eyes, then mounted her stallion. “Where will you go?” her uncle asked her as she sat astride her stallion. “Away,” she returned and stroked the stallion’s neck. And so she did. ...but we don't have to be prisoners of it

 

Languages

Fluent: Pavi
Basic: Common

 

Skills

Skill	EXP	Total	Proficiency
Unarmed Combat	20 SP	20	Novice
Foraging	5 SP	5	Novice
Hunting	5 SP	5	Novice
Riding	10 RB, 20 SP	30	Competent

 

Lore

Lore of Sea of Grass Geography
Lore of Importance of the Stryder

 

Possessions

1 Set of Clothing (Colorful)
-Simple Shirt
-Simple Pants
-Simple Undergarments
-Simple Cloak
-Simple Boots
1 Waterskin
1 Backpack which contains:
-Comb (Bone)
-Brush (Bone)
-Soap
-Razor
-Balanced Rations (1 Week’s Worth)
-1 eating knife
-Flint & Steel
Heirloom: Mother's Shortbow

 

Housing

Location: Endrykas

1 large tent (4 person)
1 large tarp
100 ft of rope
1 lantern
2 torches
1 bedroll
1 blanket
1 set of fishing tackle & hooks
1 bonded Stryder (Eclipse)
1 Yvas
1 large set of Yvas bags

 

Ledger

Purchase	Cost	Total
Starting	+100 GM	100 GM

You're just another story I can't tell anymore (threads)... Thread Who When Maybe I'm Crazy Jessor & Drifa 1 Fall 509 Maybe I'm a Fool Akilah & Drifa 5 Fall 509