- Nastarai hiding beside a bush in autumn.
- ce4c16132c95902eb8c59e6e4799daa4[1].jpg (94.46 KiB) Viewed 266 times
Konti
31 years old, born on the Eleventh day of Autumn in 479
Female
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 117
Eyes: Pale, silvery teal
Hair: Pale blond
Skin: Pale ivory and silvery white scales
Special features: Typical features of the Konti (scales and gills), but the scales on her back are very slightly tinted blue and green
Personality: Nastarai is a typical, quiet Konti. She says little and observes much. When she is alone, she prefers to play a soft string instrument to herself.
Ethics: She is as passive as all Konti, but is also very protective. Although she has never drawn blood with her suvai, she has drawn it many times to protect animals from ignorant hunters.
Likes: Soft music (especially strings), watching nature, observing others
Dislikes: Anyone who interrupts her journey away from Syliras
Character History
Pre-Creation:
The Eighth day of Winter in 470
Today is my first day in Syliras. Upon my entering the citadel I rented a small room. My neighbor, a fierce Akalak, was standing outside of his room when I found mine. His name is Pa’shir. I looked in his eyes upon his introduction. There was great sadness there. I gave him my name and told him I had rented the room beside his. He smiled. His smile was sad, too.
The Twelfth day of Winter in 470
Pa’shir asked me to walk with him to the Bazaar this morning. The Bazaar was incredible, with so many different peoples in one place. There were colors I had never seen before, baubles and trinkets whose uses escaped me, horses that shimmered like the sun on water, cloths that seemed as ethereal as twines of incense smoke. I spent no money at the Bazaar. Neither did Pa’shir. I am beginning to suspect he did not want to go to the Bazaar. I think he only wanted to go somewhere with me. Perhaps he is becoming a good friend.
The Twentieth day of Winter in 470
I wandered the Bazaar with Pa’shir again today. It is becoming a routine of sorts for us. We go to the Bazaar every morning and at midday we go about our own business. Today was different though. A man approached us today. A Drykas. Pa’shir was speaking to a groom about a horse he was considering purchasing. I was waiting quietly for him. The Drykas came to me and tried to converse with me. The stench of alcohol was strong on his breath. His words were slurred and heavily accented. I apologized to him and explained that I did not understand. He took a handful of my hair, inspecting it almost. I did not understand the customs of Drykas and stood still, uncertain. Pa’shir returned as the Drykas began pulling on my hair. I backed away. It hurt. Pa’shir grabbed a hayfork and knocked the Drykas across the back of his head with the handle. The man fell, unconscious. Pa’shir smoothed my hair down and cupped my face. The sadness in his eyes had been replaced with worry. Worry for me. I did not understand his actions here, either.
The Fortieth day of Winter in 470
I was reading my tarot today when Pa’shir entered. The card I drew as he approached was The Lovers. I stared at it. Upon the card were Night and Day, the celestial lovers. Day with her silvery gold hair and pale skin, Night with his black hair and skin of midnight’s blue. Pa’shir took the card from me when he saw how I stared and stared at the card. “Is this the card for your future?” His question was quiet. I nodded and he smiled. “I like this card,” he said. “It makes me think about someone I hold dear to my heart.” Uncertain of his meaning, I took the card back gently. He offered me a hand. I took it and stood, looking back at my unfinished reading. He pulled me lightly in his direction. All at once his arms were wrapped around me. He was strong, protective, but also careful. “I like that card very much, Karish,” he told me.
Nastarai refolded the four sheets of paper and tucked them away in her harp case. Her mother’s death was still a raw wound in her heart. It had torn into her quiet life and left her a broken and bleeding child. Back then, nothing in the world mattered. Even her father had been unable to heal the pain. Her father had been almost as distraught as she, though.
That was before she had discovered her mother’s old harp. She was sitting in her parents’ room while her father was gone. As the tears welled again in her eyes, she saw the case, tucked in between a chair and her father’s chest. The craftsmanship was unusual. Not the sort of thing her father would have had. It was elegantly carved of a silvery white wood and had a carving of an eye on one side. That was when she was only twenty-seven.
She ran one hand over the silvery case. Music had been her only solace. Without it, she fell into the silence of depression. Her father began to pine for his lost love. She remembered when she woke up, not yet thirty, not yet an adult. Her father was gone. It was not a shock. He had begun to wither. The sadness her mother had written about was in his eyes, but it was not yet a match for her own despair. When he had gone, she decided to leave as well. Over time she worked up to being able to leave the small home outside of Syliras.
She studied her mother’s tongue further to preserve her memory. She knew some phrases and words that her father had taught her, but not enough to converse with an Akalak. She turned to her harp and learned to play, eventually making her own simple tunes. She began to sing in her basic Kontinese and in Common. The blade her mother had taught her to use she practiced with daily, but had no way of learning anything beyond the simple movements her mother had shown her. She began reading about the mysterious tarot cards her mother had written about and learned the names of the cards, how to arrange the cards.
Nearly halfway into her thirty-first year, she purchased basic traveling equipment with the money she had made selling the few items she owned. Now she had been living in the woods for only two days. Her gildling, Namali, nudged her shoulder. She laid her hand on the horse’s muzzle. “Yes, it is time to move again.” She slipped her harp case’s sling back over her shoulder, hooked her pack over her shoulders, and mounted the gildling. They began again their journey away from Syliras and her home filled with sorrow.
