Sivaria Kress

Name Sivaria Kress (sih-vah-ree-uh krehs)

Age 19

Gender Female

Hometown Trespa, Galidus

Appearance Quite a beauty, Sivaria has smooth, glowing olive skin, with lush black hair cascading in long, elegant waves down her back, though it's not uncommon for her to tie it back in a thick braid. Her eyes are a shade of brown dark enough to drown in, and yet always seem to shine with the light of a little mischief. Her thin, narrow, straight features match the rest of her body perfectly, her whole body holding that kind of lithe, petite grace, at once angular and yet fluid. She doesn’t have too much in the way of voluptuous womanly curves, but those wouldn’t really suit her anyways. She tends to move as if everything she does is something of a dance, as well. Interestingly enough, however, her tapering, graceful fingers are calloused, unafraid to show her low birth and hard-working lifestyle. She typically walks around barefoot. She likes a variety of long skirts with revealing short tops and a variety of cheap jewelry, but in the interest of maneuverability she will pull on some form of mid-length pants/tights underneath when not dancing. Because she dances, both her clothing and jewelry are very secure, a great deal more than they appear. She also wears several different sizes/types of chakram on her arms like jewelry, though few realize those are weapons.

Personality “People like to tell me I’m trouble. I like to prove them right.” ~ Selfish and Bold ~ Sivaria primarily thinks of herself first. Though not necessarily out of malicious intent, the girl rarely takes note or care of others’ comfort. At the very least not over her own. She is used to getting her way, and comfortable doing whatever it takes to get it. Nor does she ever bother hiding this intent. She may not always be truthful, but nor does she see much point in deceiving people about who she is and what she intends to do. She can be a rather brazen girl, and is at times rather scary for it. Safe to say, diplomacy is not a passion or skill for her. This does mean she can seem to be a bit of a brat at times, and quite a number of people - some of whom only knew her for a few minutes - have given her the "bitch" label, quite justifiably. She very literally speaks her mind, the words coming out of her mouth as she thinks them, so little about her thought process is hidden (not to say she can't lie).

~ Whimsical and Daring ~ Sivaria is not exactly one to hesitate or overthink. That's not to say she never thinks, simply that she likes to follow the flow of her emotions, rather than letting her mind dictate what she does. How boring would life be if people always stuck to what was logical and sensible. Life is short. One should live it to the fullest. Her emotions are strong and quick to change, easily swayed by outside influences. Stupid as some people might see her, she is true to her ideals, and brave enough to follow them even if they set her against the rest of the world. She is not afraid of standing out, and in a burst of passion could quite willingly defy people in positions of power. As a member of a traveling band of essentially orphan thieves, this kind of "flashy courage" is a very dangerous trait to exhibit.

~ Stubborn, Independent, and Overconfident ~ Perhaps this doesn't really need to be said, because of the traits listed above, but this little girl is a rather independent soul. As a general rule, she hates being tied down, loyal only to her father figure and mentor. For the most part, this free spirited attitude has no effect on their other people, but it is also not uncommon for her to butt heads with others simply out of a pig-headed need to be Not Told What to Do. She fiercely believes that she herself knows best what's best for herself, and nobody can tell her otherwise. What else is she supposed to believe? She's taken care of herself all this time.

~ Teasing and Flirtatious ~ Sivaria's natural state of being is "comfortable." She is comfortable most anywhere doing most anything, and she never faces any of it without keeping a good-natured sense of self-entitled humor through it all. She rarely takes things (or people) seriously and easily pokes fun at anybody she meets. One of many traits that has gotten her into trouble with people much stronger or more powerful than her more than once. In a sense, she enjoys making other people uncomfortable. She also happens to be very well aware of her own beauty, and has taken advantage of it all her life. Flirting has just always been an easy and amusing way to interact with others. Whether she's fighting with someone, stealing from them, or dancing, everything she does and says shows off an obnoxious sense of joy and unconcern. It helps that she has a low understanding of sexual morality.

History/Bio "People say life is a game, but they're wrong. It's a dance. The difference is that there are winners and losers in a game. In a dance, the end is inevitable and all that matters is everything you do before it's over." Sivaria has always been something of an orphan. She knows nothing about her parents, nor cares. You could treat Sivaria's entire life like a dance, because that's how she has always treated it. Being thrown aside by the mysterious people who gave birth to her was like the first step forward. They took the first step, and handed her to Mehgo, who has been her mentor for years. Mehgo never pretended to be her father. He had other homeless orphans he took care of, and those other orphans were her dance partners. She danced circles around the bully Marko tried to be, guiding sweet little Gemina to do the same. With Delilah, they would dance towards each other, taking jabs at each other before dancing away again. They were rivals, but never truly enemies, both too enthralled with the dance. She would dance her way through newcomers and tourists, innocent merchants too stupid to notice her daily thievery. More often she was the one other people trained on while they were being stolen from. Dancing was always something she was good at physically, too. There were others, many others.

~Some were better at begging, some were better at threatening, some were better at pickpocketing, but Sivaria was good at dancing, and all of them were beholden to Mehgo.~

Life has always been just a give and take. Some people you work with, some people you work around, and the rest are nothing but background. When her soul's restlessness compelled her to step away from the dance Mehgo was conducting, she stepped a little too close to the edge of the stage, but found her feet again and a new partner in Mirellion. The dance hasn't stopped yet, so neither has she, or so the story goes...

~ The Travelers ~ The people of Galidus are largely independent both of each other and of their central government. They are a hardy people and quite a number of them are very proud of that self-same independence. But among such a people it is perhaps no very great surprise that there would be those without homes, ever-wanderers. These wanderers are known to most as the travelers. Some roam the plains of Galidus, others make their stomping grounds among the icy peaks, and yet others travel the dry, hot underbelly of the country. Wherever they go, they are outcasts. Although they are a good source of commerce and entertainment in many parts and their coming is usually an anticipated event in smaller villages, they are never truly part of any one people, and are widely regarded with some suspicion. When the travelers come to town, men and women will go out to enjoy their day, but will watch their children and purses carefully. Those travelers are all thieves, after all.

This is a rather unfair generalization of travelers, for there are a wide number of different clans, and while most do support themselves through trade, entertainment, and the livestock they keep with them, few are dishonorable, and even fewer have any real affiliation with each other. On the contrary, most clans intersect little with each other's "territories" and have historically made their routes such that they would not bump into one another. It is unknown why this is the case, but perhaps thanks to this distinct separation, each clan acts much like its own settlement, adhering to separate social norms and distinct, if perhaps crude, forms of government. As a matter of fact, any who dared actually study this diverse people would find that the only true similarities clans appear to share are a restless, independent disposition, and a love of their caravans and their livestock.

~ Mehgo and the Dehtarani ~ The Dehtaran travelers are as old as they go, which is to say, no one can really say when precisely when they were born, but it was not early and it was not recently. They simply always were, the way most traveler clans were. They were a clan that traversed the desert-like stretch between the Kalliu lake and Misery lake. They were a kind clan, but one of scavengers. Unlike many clans where the members were largely collections of families, the Dehtaran were a clan that gained and lost its members fairly easily. They picked up stragglers and orphans who needed a home here and there, and people would leave to settle down, when they got tired of the wandering life. Most would leave them in the bigger cities, where they were less well-known as homeless nomads. Though the nature of their clan made their patterns inconsistent, typically, the Dehtaran would stay no more than a week in inhabited places, cultivating goats as livestock. They were arbiters of simple trade and occasionally entertained as dancers, but overall a quiet clan who kept to themselves. A group of women were considered elders, and they were depended upon to be a constant presence - a governing body for disputes, but also the warriors who protected the clan from those who would seek to harm them. As they grew older they would groom younger women who seemed most likely to stay to take their places when they could no longer do so. They chose when and where to go, rarely sticking to a single route - yet another rare trait among the Traveler clans. Men were not encouraged to stay, nor were families with children. A culture that worshiped the single woman.

Everything changed, however, 40 years ago, when the Dehtarani picked up a very small, very dirty eleven year old boy with sandy blonde hair in an obscure town with no name. He was an orphan, as many of their people were, but he was not just any orphan. He gave no name, so the elders gave him a name: Mehgo. For their people may come and may go as they please, and Mehgo would be one of their people. They did not understand then that his name ought to have been Mustgo.

Mehgo's story is full of its own secrets, of the darkest of loves and the most beautiful of hates, but it is not one that Sivaria knew. All that matters is how he changed the Dehtaran. Though outwardly the clan remained largely the same, by the time Mehgo was 26, he had unofficial control. No longer were they a clan of wandering freedom. He decided who joined and who left. He decided where they went and how long they stayed there. But most of all, he decided how the clan thrived, and while more lucrative than the professions they had taken in the past, they were also more unscrupulous. As fluid an organization as they had always been, morality changed with the generations. At times the Dehteran were thieves preying upon the careless in the large cities, at others they were hunters who stayed oft in dangerous, unsettled paths, but this had never been decided by any one person's will, but by the talent and whimsy of the people who joined them. Mehgo, however, saw only potential. He began to gather vagrant orphans from the streets. He would evaluate each one and assign them a job based on their strengths. They fell into four main categories: thief, mugger, distracter, beggar. If the children began questioning his authority, or no longer brought in a fair profit, he would cast them out of the clan. If they did not go quietly, he would take care of them. It was a simple, but ruthless system, and it was into this self-same system that Sivaria was brought as a babe.

~ The Spitfyre Leaves Home ~ Sivaria was a rare case. It was unusual that Mehgo saw fit to invite into the clan something so immediately useless as an infant, but the current elders were growing restless. Mehgo had allowed few people to stay a long time, and the elders were anxious to begin training a new generation to take their place. Sivaria was raised with the expectation that she would one day succeed the current "head" elder, along with a couple of other girls the elders were training. She was formally taught to wield the Weapons of the Elders - chakra - as well as one other weapon of her choosing, which she decided would be a staff. The elder overseeing her tried to guide her decisions as well as train her to be a warrior, even as she did her duties with the rest of the orphans. There was just one small problem: Sivaria was............ Sivaria.

Impetuous even as a child, she loudly stirred up trouble wherever she went. She hated responsibility, loved play, and the only kind of charisma she had came from her wild, independent spirit. She was the very epitome of their clan, just not necessarily a good leader of it. She was smart and a quick study in combat, but the last thing a quiet clan recently turned to thievery as subsistence needed was a spit fire for a leader. Even more curious was how determined Mehgo was to make Sivaria an elder one day. She was the only one of the orphans ever allowed to speak back to him. He cultivated her, brought her up, and perhaps was the cause of her unshakable confidence. If she was to succeed their leaders, and the unofficial god of their clan prevented her from being punished, what reason was there for her to ever fear. That, coupled with her natural talent for survival in any environment, and Sivaria enjoyed a life that, though less than privileged, allowed her to flourish. Her life could not be considered "uneventful" or "peaceful," but to her, it was untroubled.

Unlike many of the other orphans, the dancer never felt any uncertainty about the clan being her home. People came and went, but not her. The clan was where she belonged, the heart of freedom. The clan was where she would stay. Always. This was not some kind of resolution, but an irrefutable, immutable fact. That was what she thought until one day she awoke and she knew she was going to leave. She knew it with the same level certainty she had always had that she would stay. So she went in front of all the elders, the older members of the clan, and Mehgo himself, and openly announced her departure, before turning on her heels with everything she had ever owned and left. The clan was in uproar. Mehgo stopped her on the edge of their settlement, and for the first time in her life she was afraid of him. He had a wild look in his eyes and told her that she wasn't going to leave. She stood her ground and retorted that she was. For a moment she thought he was going to kill her. But then he let go of her, and she walked away without turning back.

For months, Sivaria went wherever her feet took her, walking without aim or direction, following her instincts. She survived solely on the money she got from stealing and dancing, because she took nothing of monetary value from the clan except for her metal chakram and a small knife she used to craft a crude staff. Her dancing was all she really had besides her weapons. She went as her clan ancestors had done and wandered the great lands with no greater purpose than to be free in the truest sense of the word, until finally she found herself at the monastery, banging on the doors for reasons she herself did not know.

Strengths

• Quick - Sivaria is a quick thinker, a quick learner, and quick on her feet.

• Flexible - The girl is physically flexible, make no mistake about that, but it is more important to note that she is mentally flexible. Rebellious, stubborn, and frustratingly childish as she may be, Sivaria has learned that sometimes you need to work with people you may not want to work with, or may not even like, and that a quick change of plans will be more often necessary than not. She'll butt heads with an authority figure any time, but if she needs to listen to that person's orders or work with them, she'll also understand that she needs to do it and without hesitation or complaint.

• Charming(ish) - Few people ever have neutral opinions on Sivaria, because those people whom she does not butt heads with, she more often than not becomes friendly with. It is rare for Sivaria not to have people she can turn to in a pinch.

• Brave - A blessing and a curse, really.

• Instinctively Pragmatic - While oftentimes subject to her own nonsensical whims, and nowhere near sociopathic, Sivaria's instincts almost always lead her to pick the most practical option in high pressure situations. Meaning, on occasion she can be very efficient and borderline ruthless.

• Dextrous
  

Weaknesses

• Proud - Although she doesn't mind leeching off of people, Sivaria struggles with openly and vulnerably asking for help when she needs it.

• Deathly Curious and Immature - It gets her into trouble.

• Half-Unscrupulous, Half-Too-Noble - While clearly shameless, careless, and somewhat amoral (does not exactly endear her to others and win her their trust), Sivaria can have something of a savior complex towards those she perceives as being unable to stand up for themselves, and has gotten herself into trouble many a time for fighting for poor little souls.

• Vain - Really self-explanatory.

• Flashy - Not a subtle or stealthy girl.
  

Abilities/Skills Dancing Pick-pocketing Climbing Sewing Cooking Uses chakram as main long-range weapons, staff as close-range (better with chakram)

~ Bonded Ability ~ Thick Skin - Much like the Hard Head ability of the Swamp dragons, this would allow the tamer to survive very tough blows by concentrating sheer willpower into protecting her life force, which also reduces the impact of strikes of any kind.

Relationships The Other Orphans - Gemina, Marko, Delilah, Billy, Carrowen, there are tens of other orphans under the care of Mehgo. Sivaria was never close to any of them, not because she didn't like any of them, but because few of them were ever constant. Children of all ages from 6 to 17 came and went.

Dragon Name Mirellion (murr-rehl-ee-ihn)

Dragon Gender Male

Dragon Species Swamp (Olive)

Dragon Personality "Swamps kill. Shame I'm just a swamp dragon." ~ Aloof, Proud, Impulsive, Intransigent, Protective, Unfriendly, Clever, Humorous ~ Mirellion is not a likable dragon. Not only does he dislike speaking with... well, anyone besides his tamer, he is also a naturally proud, stubborn creature, who has no desire to interact with others and does not care about being polite or thoughtful or considerate. Despite this, he is fiercely protective of those around him in a sibling-type, "only I get to insult you" way. It is possible (heh, not really) this is an indication he actually cares about others, but it's more likely to be his dislike of labels, enforced organization, and authority figures. Ie. He's argumentative. While an undisputed lone wolf, on the rare occasion one actually speaks to him at length, Mirellion is revealed to be an incredibly witty, sarcastic fellow, with surprisingly keen insight, though his love of brevity is in no way stinted.

Dragon Strengths Observant, Stealthy, Nature Navigator, Good Swimmer, Balanced, Agile

Dragon Weaknesses Extremely LazyPoor Communicator, Resistant to Change and Authority, Not Adaptable, Deathly Curious​