Abhayaa

Nebet's picture
Submitted by Nebet on January 29, 2012 - 10:56pm

Character page

Information
In-game name: 
Abhayaa
Guild: 
The Keepers
Faction: 
Alliance
Character type: 
Player character
Nickname: 
Abha
Title: 
Anahata (given as a last name for convenience, but really a draenei term of endearment)
Gender: 
Female
Race: 
Draenei
Eyes: 
Silver
Height: 
6'8"
Weight: 
Roundish

Abhayaa has recently treated herself to a few new items of clothing, most notably a new dress of pale grey silk; it features a high collar and intricate embroidery in light green on the bodice, cuffs, and hem of the outer cutaway jacket, while the underdress drapes about her legs in precise pleats which swish softly as she walks.

When preparing for travel, she dons a large cloak of green velour, its heavy silk hem embroidered with grey thread; like her previous cloaks, it has a voluminous hood that drapes neatly over her cranial extensions. She also carries a silver-clad staff of white ashwood; it has a silver, star-shaped focusing symbol affixed to one end which she often uses to amplify her spells. When away from her office, she usually has a somewhat beat-up looking canvas and leather satchel slung from her shoulder, and in idle moments often pulls out pen and ink and her bundles of books and papers, trying to sneak in a little extra work on her research.

Though of average height for a draenei woman – a little under seven feet tall – Abhayaa is not particularly slender; rather, she is right on the border between being average-sized and being a little plump, with a figure that will probably be described as “motherly” once she has entered her middle years. Her gray-green hair is cut a little shorter in the back than in the front, swooping forward from a neat side-part in two “wings” that frame a somewhat rounded face. Her skin is the pale, almost pearlescent white that some draenei exhibit, with cranial extensions that project slightly out from her skull as they curl back around her ears.

She wears very little jewelry, perhaps a silver scrollwork ring on one finger; the bands on her tendrils and tail are filigreed silver. The spiral talisman which she sometimes wore around her neck now usually stays in her pouch, its place now taken by a peacock blue crystal which hangs from a sturdy silver chain, though this generally stays hidden beneath her neckline.

She speaks Common well, albeit with occasional pronunciation difficulties and the characteristically overly-formal diction of one not speaking in her native tongue. Her accent is mild and generally quite understandable, however.

Someone standing very close to her (or someone with an unusually keen nose) might notice a subtle, incense-like scent about her -- a a warm spiciness that underlies the musty smell of old books and the pungent fragrances of herbs that often surround her.

Age: 
Young
Home: 
Traveling.
Birthplace: 
Draenor

Her bearing is not especially remarkable; she tends to stand to one side in most situations, taking in everything with a level gaze and preferring to listen rather than to speak. Overall, she tends to be calm and quiet, even cool or reserved, depending on who is present. Most might describe her as "centered" or "serene," but lately she has been seeming more withdrawn, more troubled.

She is generally a fairly tranquil and circumspect person – she is usually unwilling to pry into something if it sounds like an uncomfortable subject, though always happy to lend an ear or a shoulder if someone needs someone to talk to about something. She is a priest, but her faith is centered primarily around love and grace rather than retribution and orthodoxy. She does not react positively to those who are cruel or arrogant, or who believe that truth is something which can be bound up and used as a bludgeon.

Her given name is after the Abhaya mudra, a Buddhist symbolic gesture of the hands signifying “protection, peace, benevolence, and dispelling of fear”; her "last name" (adopted for the convenience of her research colleagues) is from the Anahata chakra: centered over the heart, it is associated with “the consciousness of love, empathy, selflessness and devotion," and with the color gray-green.

This portion is still a work in progress, coming to light as I have cause to think about it, but what I know now is that she was born on Draenor during the period of peace before the rise of the Horde, and grew up among the priests and anchorites of the draenei. She was a toddler when the Horde began to become more militaristic under the influence of the Legion, and a young child when Shattrath fell. Her family was among those sheltering within the city, and the battle is one of her strongest memories, emotionally, though the details are naturally a horrific jumble. Her mother and older brother were killed by the orcs – thankfully not in front of her; they were separated early on -- but her father, an Anchorite, was able to carry her away somehow and join the other survivors.

When Turalyon’s expedition came through the Dark Portal, Abhayaa’s father was selected to be one of the emissaries to the humans due to his facility with language and his skill as a mediator and diplomat. Sensing that it might be important to be able to speak their language in the future, and looking for something for something to keep his young daughter occupied, her father was able to successfully gather up written materials – books, a discarded journal, supply requests – from which to begin teaching young Abha how to speak Common. She took after her father and proved herself a quick study, though by now she has had twenty or more years to learn.

Abhayaa is not sure what happened to her father; he went missing sometime between the destruction of Draenor and the escape of the draenei on the Exodar, but she chooses to believe that he is still safe on the remains of Draenor, somehow.

She had just reached the age where she could begin to study the path of a priest and healer in earnest when the Exodar fled and then crashed, and she is now doing her best to further her knowledge on this strange new planet with its strange new people, focusing especially on comparative theological research.