Ayessa Kroan
Stay A Little Longer
Not all those who wander are lost.
GENERAL INFORMATION
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Name: Ayessa KroanAlias(es): Blackbird, Snake-Eyes, Ess
Rank: Jedi Knight, formerly General
Age: 22 GSY (895 GSY chronologically - Born 44 BBY)
Homeworld: Kiffu
Citizenship: N/A
Affiliation: Ancient Jedi Order (Formerly), Herself
Occupation: Wanderer
Force Sensitive: Yes
FAMILIAL CONNECTIONS
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Father: Unknown Clan Kroan Member
Mother: Unknown Clan Kroan Member
Siblings: Unclear
Extended Family: Unknown Clan Kroan Members
Romantic Interest: [member=Nej Tane] | "That's-- A messy topic."
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
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Species: Kiffar
Gender: Female
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 126.3lb
Build: Ectomorph
Hair: Brown-Black
Eyes: Hazel Brown
Cybernetics: N/A
Notable Features: Coiled Snake Facial Marking, Various Battlescars
Status: Alive
PSYCHOLOGICAL INFORMATION
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Sanity: 65%
Alignment: Neutral Good
Personality Type: INTP
Tarot Card: The Sun
Zodiac: Rising Leo, Zodiac Scorpio, Moon Ares
Virtues: Bold, Empathetic, Perceptive, Loyal, Trustworthy
Vices: Arrogant, Smart-mouthed, Naive, Reckless, Hot-Headed
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
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+ Acrobat: Jedi are naturally inclined to athleticism, obviously, but Ayessa goes above and beyond with the grace of a dancer. This manifests passively in her careful, highly-refined and almost delicate motions but during combat it's an active benefit, able to perform impressive feats even without the Force. With it, good luck.+ Empath: Ayessa's powers in the Force are deeply tied to emotion, and always have been since birth. She forms bonds through the Force easily with those around her, willing or not, and this brings boons -- Like her bond with her troopers, or with an old flame, allowing them to work in perfect sync. At least, on her end. Additionally, she tends to passively react to and influence the emotions and feelings of those around her, something she is extremely wary and cautious of due to bad experiences in her past.
+ Compassion: Perhaps a weakness, but in this case a strength, despite her hardships Ayessa is always willing to care and to lend her shoulder for comfort, and is direly unable to leave someone behind if they can be saved. Doing so anyways leaves her with extreme guilt.
+ - Psychometry: Like most Kiffar, Ayessa is gifted immensely in telemetry. Enhanced by her sensitivity in the Force, her powers rival that of the other great practitioners of her era. This is an obvious strength in that it lets her be an efficient hunter and tracker, but reading the wrong things-- Like, famously, corpses --will send her spiralling to the Dark Side very quickly, which leaves this as a neutral.
- How Many Years?: Carbonite freezing is a son of a Bantha, that's for sure. But being down for almost a millennia? Things certainly get worse. Everything that has ever been remotely familiar to Ayessa has changed drastically, and it will take quite the climatization before she even feels comfortable in her own skin.
- So-Called Leader: Most expect those ever-awed 'Jedi Generals' to be military geniuses and master tacticians. Ayessa is neither of these, only knighted after valour in the ancient Battle of Geonosis partly due to the fact more 'Generals' were needed. She led her men with... Mixed results.
- The Best Offence Is: ...A good defence, of course. Ayessa is lacking in expert swordsmanship, passable for a Jedi but nowhere near that of an experienced Knight. She is skilled in Form V, Shien, but beyond that, any truly talented Lightsaber wielder could dominate her in single combat.
- Claustrophobia: A side effect of her extended stay in Carbonite, Ayessa is extremely uncomfortable in tight spaces. Anything smaller than a closet will cause her to enter an anxious state and she will usually attempt to exit as fast as possible, no matter what, else the locale will induce a mild panic attack if she's unable to.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
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Ayessa of Clan Kroan was born 44 BBY, to the minuscule Clan of the same name on the desert world of Kiffu, born inconspicuously during a lightning storm. Memories of her youth before the Order are notoriously hazy, though Ayessa can often recall certain things; the sound of her mother's calm voice or the stern laughter of her father. She was never around them enough to have an impression left. It was evident even as an infant that Ayessa was sensitive to the Force, particularly in relation to emotions. If her parents were saddened by something, chances were infant Ayessa would also grow distressed, and if they were happy, she would share in their joy. This, coupled with the psychometry that exhibited itself in uncontrollable ways during her toddlerhood all but confirmed that Clan Kroan had produced its first Force Sensitive. A time of pride and sadness mixed as a Master soon arrived to take the young girl away to places new. Coruscant would become her home then, the austere halls of the Temple her playground, fellow younglings and initiates her family. Despite her perchance to form close bonds with her peers, they never lasted long, with such attachment discouraged and, of course, outright forbidden.At the age of 13 Ayessa would be taken under the wing of Nautolan Jedi Master Fynlisi Saiss. It was just Ayessa's luck that such a Master would find interest in the young Kiffar, as Fynlisi would later moonlight as a spy for the Separatist Alliance during the Clone Wars. Prior to her traitor tendencies, however, she was a picture-perfect Jedi Master, with her perfect gifted apprentice. Ayessa struggled throughout her younglingship and Padawan journey with controlling her psychometry, often reading things she had no want or wish to read. Through the Nautolan's guidance to focus herself and control herself, Ayessa asserted dominance over her powers and grappled them under control before they grew too wild to be tamed. Her empathetic powers were also docked slightly, and Ayessa very quickly learned that non-Jedi often didn't like their emotions being read or influenced. This restraint was key in her youth, especially prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars.
Whilst she found success in honing her abilities, the same could not be said for her swordsmanship. She had never been the most technically proficient fighter even as a Youngling training but managed to squeak by anyways with what knowledge she had, and Fynsili did what she could. In the end Ayessa wound up proficient in at least Form V, the Shien variant, and often wields her lightsaber in a reversed grip.
Ayessa was 21 when she was approved to attempt the Jedi Trials, to try and attain Knighthood, but wound up earning it in a haphazard manner. One trial in particular would come close to breaking her entirely, forcing her to consider her place in the Order. Her Trial of Skill was standard enough, proving her hard-earned prowess in Form V as she held off blaster fire from cloaking Temple droids for an exceptional period of time. She utilized her Psychometry in order to track and destroy the robotic foes, impressing the Council and earning her a pass in the first of the Trials.
The Trial of Courage is where things began to decline. Due to the nature of her skill-set of 'seek and destroy', Ayessa was given a mission outside the Temple to complete by the Council. A self-proclaimed ‘Jedi Hunter’, Pash Klusto, a Devaronian assassin who specialized in eliminating Knights, was in town and looking for work. Ayessa was given the assignment to bring him in for the courts to try for murder. So an undercover Ayessa made her way to infamous Level 1313 of Coruscant, where Pash was said to be hiding out, and began her play. It wound up taking nearly 2 months for Ayessa to complete the second Trial, integrating into criminal society without raising suspicion was hard enough, even harder on 1313 which was pretty much the scummiest one could get on Coruscant, everyone and their great-aunt watching neighbours and trusted friends like Akk dogs in search of their next kill. Fortunately, help came from an unexpected place -- Unbeknownst to the Jedi Order and Ayessa, the Republic Strategic Information Services were also tracking Pash and had deployed a deep-cover agent to ‘take care of him’. The paths of Jedi and Agent were inevitable to intersect and they did, with abrasive results at first. The Agent only ever told her a codename and she reciprocated in kind-- Going by 'Blackbird' --which was the beginning an enigmatic cat-and-mouse game with this stranger who had forced his way into her Trial with similar goals. All that mattered was ensuring the assassin was off the streets, preferably alive. Whilst she was unwilling to cooperate at first, maintaining her cover as a hopeless wanderer looking to eliminate Pash for personal reasons, after spending an inordinate amount of time together chasing leads and following up on the assassin’s whereabouts, eventually Ayessa felt she could trust her would-be partner enough to reveal her position as a Jedi angling to be Knighted. Unfortunately, before he could explain his own cover as a SIS agent, the Devaronian, who had been tipped off by those loyal to him, assaulted their hideout and all traces of their conversation were forgotten in the rush to escape safely.
Now on the run, the fact they were hunting the hunter exposed, things quickly became clear. For one, Ayessa was beginning to bond through the Force with this person that she, admittedly, knew little about beyond some facts that could or could not be true. Secondly, that was beginning to lead into emotions Ayessa was only able to coldly identify as being ‘passion’. She was beginning to feel something, and her empathic abilities let her know that her companion was beginning to feel the same way. It helped, of course, that an insane hunter of Jedi was on their heels now, that tends to bring people together. Unfortunately for her Agent, his time as a chess piece was running out. His handler hadn’t counted on Pash being tipped off so easily to their game and since he never elected to inform his handler of Ayessa’s position as a Jedi -- His own way of protecting her that wound up biting him in the ass -- An extreme exit was orchestrated. His cover, no matter how deep it had been, was closed to being burned, both by the Jedi he’d grown too close too and the killer after him relentlessly. Eventually, the consensus was reached that wiping this cover and adopting another would be the best way out, the Agent able to convince his handler that Pesh would be taken care of by the woman he had allied with. Choosing duty over the heart is the noble's way, isn't it?
Half-still-concerned for his and Ayessa’s wellbeing, half-wracked with guilt at having to do this to her, the Agent managed to hide his intentions from her divining mind, though she still sensed something was wrong in their relationship now. They had gotten dangerously close now that they were relying on each other for survival in 1313, silent intimate moments Ayessa’s speciality as a Kiffar. But things don't last forever, and the day came for the cover to be burned, and for Pash to hopefully be taken in simultaneously.
They planned a trap for their would-be hunter but it backfired spectacularly, at least, on the Agent’s end it was purposeful. Managing to perfectly fake his death to Ayessa, she played right into the game above and beyond what could have been hoped for. The tension in their bond was enough to make it frail enough for her to not detect the ruse, and the overwhelming emotions she felt even at the idea he had been lost right before her eyes were enough to focus her to a razor sharp point, sending her directly at Pash with everything she had. She managed to apprehend him and turn him over to the CSF after a violent and pained struggle, but Agents within the Force had already managed to sneak the Agent’s ‘body’ out and informed Ayessa of his passing afterwards. The ruse was up that she was a Jedi and half of the SIS deep-cover task force nearly had a heart attack when it was revealed to them, though the now-'dead' Agent found little to be amused by. Knowing what he had done to Ayessa emotionally was enough 'heart-attack'.
A heartbroken Padawan buried her emotions deep and returned to the Temple head held high and the Council passed her through her Trial of Courage. But before Ayessa’s Trial of the Flesh could begin, all Jedi in the Temple were required to deploy on Geonosis, for the first battle in the Galaxy-consuming conflict known as the Clone Wars. It was wholly unfair to have Ayessa be thrown into war so soon after her emotionally paralyzing Trial, but she went into battle with her master by her side, craving Fynsili's presence and the calming effect it had on her after two terrible months apart. It was just a shame that the battle would turn out so bloody.
Seeing as Ayessa was only a Padawan, technically, since her Trials were not yet complete, she was granted the military rank of Commander and given command of a squad of fresh-faced clones. Her role in the battle was simple; kill droids, kill Geonosians. It felt a little strange to be operating as a military commander but she tried it to the best of her ability. But the emotions from the Trial still ran high and led to her behaving a little irrationally on the ground. Eventually, her squad was ordered to do one simple job. Destroy the artillery. Three words, that led to a near-miss that could have been so much worse. To say that her squad was obliterated would be an understatement. Temporarily distracted by a bout of remembrance over her ‘dead’ would-be lover, the artillery they were sent to disable, detonated practically on top of the small detachment, blowing them to high hell. Ayessa was thankful to be on the outskirts of the detonation zone, her front spared whilst her back took the majority of the damage instead. The only reason her squad escaped practically unscathed was due to a quick-timed push in the Force to clear them of the blast radius.
Commander Kroan was taken to triage where she was treated for significant burn damage, with her master watching over her. Her act of bravery and… Flesh-loss was reported directly to the Council via Fynsili, who insisted and vouched for this counting as Ayessa’s Trial of the Flesh. Despite the fact that the majority of the Council was quite, quite occupied, they reached consensus and agreed to these terms.
Following the Battle of Geonosis, Ayessa was left with two more Trials. Once she had recovered -- Scarred, but alive somehow -- The Padawan underwent the next Trial almost as soon as she was medically cleared, the Trial of the Spirit. It was set to be her hardest test yet, which is quite a feat considering the hardships of her previous two. Accompanied by her master, who would watch over her to ensure her sanity, Ayessa entered a deep meditational trance that also happened to be her first brush with the Hibernation Trance power, which would be her absolute saving grace later on. Fynsili had almost thought her Padawan had died before her eyes but was still able to sense her in the Force, concluding she had achieved meditation so deep it mirrored death itself. Whilst in this trance Ayessa witnessed many things, but most importantly confronted her emotions over the Agent she had let die, stewing in her misery and regret at never verbally telling him how she felt. The Trial wound up being somewhat cathartic for her as she let go of most of her pain, enough to turn a page emotionally and achieve a deeper attunement with herself and the Force. Whilst she’d never stop mourning, she could learn to live with that now, thanks to the Trial’s insights. Upon emerging from the trance, she learned that it had been a period of 3 days, even though she felt relatively fine and somewhat-healthy. Nonetheless, the Council approved of her completion of the Trial of the Spirit, and there was only one left.
It was difficult to balance military duty with that of the Trials, seeing as Fynsili was a General and wasn’t able to oversee her final trial due to being called away to the front. It was fitting, that Ayessa would complete her trial alone. Even despite the distance, her Master encouraged her to succeed through their close bonds in the Force, which gave her the strength to continue. Her Trial of Insight, the last Trial, consisted of decoding a phrase among a maze of various literature. Supporting her efforts was her talent in comprehending language through the Force. She had done it previously and learned bits and pieces of the dialects she had extracted from a target’s mind, using these fragments to help in constructing the final picture necessary to pass.
Upon completing her Trial of Insight, Ayessa was given a date for her Knighting. Whilst she was technically supposed to spend an entire day in the heart of the Tranquility spire, meditating on her future as a Knight, this was skipped due to the demands of war on the Order, and the need for capable Knights to serve as Generals. The next day, Ayessa was Knighted. And the day after that, she was given her military commission.
To say it went poorly would be an understatement, after all, we're here, aren't we? For starters, Ayessa's battalion would up being more 'reject' than 'prospect' -- Most being defective in one way or another. Paired with a General who had no idea how to be a General, and it was a recipe for something, all right. Ayessa and her men would participate in the Liberation of Ryloth, the Second Battle of Geonosis (Which went no better than the first for Ayessa), the Umbara Campaign and various other smaller skirmishes and battles against the Separatists of old. Their results were mixed, casualty rate high, and morale higher. It's not quite clear how the last one came to be. Meanwhile, Ayessa's old Master fed information to the Separatists, but it wouldn't be enough to save her for what came next.
Order 66 and the subsequent Jedi Purge proved to somehow be more troubling than all of Ayessa's life combined. Due to her battallion's relative neglect by the Republic Army, the order came in rather slow due to faulty communicators. But Ayessa had already felt her Master's death through the Force and had become nigh-hysterical. And when time came for her own purge, her own soldiers couldn't even raise their blasters. Other Jedi could have betrayed the Republic, sure. But not their General. If they were all defective, then at least they would be so together. This was when the utterly crackpot plan came into effect, which led to her current situation. Ayessa's Hibernation Trance could keep her in a state of temporary suspended animation, or at least keep her relatively preserved for some time -- Enough time for her soldiers to find her somewhere safe to hide and await the results of whatever the hell the Republic was becoming. This, in events not entirely clear to Ayessa due to the fact she was entranced, somehow led to her being carbon-frozen. Probably to help with transit, somehow, but clearly that didn't amount to anything as her carbon-frozen body never even left Coruscant. It now resided in one of many 'curiosity' shops in Coruscant's lower levels, awaiting someone to finally realize that, no, it's not an art piece. It's a dormant chess piece awaiting her grand return to the board.
This realization came with the recent sacking of Coruscant, wherein Ayessa's slab was claimed as a trophy item by a sellsword. He was in for a surprise when a flesh-and-blood woman emerged from the carbonite. There was little time for either party to think on it and he bailed soon enough, leaving her alone to recover in the alleys of lower Coruscant. Her Hibernation Trance left her well off; the hibernation sickness alone might have killed her if not for the Force, which kept her strength and senses about her. The adrenaline of wartime helped immensely, along with the general confusion. Where was she? When was she? Locals weren't exactly forthcoming, her once-homeworld reduced to a maze of unrecognizable streets. Finally, upon learning the truth of her current condition, the Knight broke down.
Yet even that has to wait in conflict. Escaping Coruscant on a fleeing Civilian transport Ayessa backpacked around the Galaxy for a short period of time, quietly overcoming her immense emotions surrounding her current status. Finally, she went to the only place she could think of going. Home. Kiffu. Clan Kroan was long destroyed, crippled under occupation after occupation, but their bones remained. And their bones now sustain one last member.
RECENT EVENTS_______________________________________________________________________
Arc One -- Awakening (Ordered Chronologically)
Aesthetic - 'It's a scary galaxy, now.' (w. [member=Cedric Grayson])
During her hitchhike to Kiffu, Ayessa is stuck on the planet Ruusan and is drawn through the Force to an individual who may be able to help with her own lackluster connection.
"For a guy with a record that long, I thought you'd be taller." - 'I really, really hate this planet.' (w. [member=Nej Tane]) [Completed]
Ayessa has a run-in with a scoundrel who's upset the wrong, wrong people, and winds up helping him after he figures out she's a Jedi. It's decidedly taken an emotional nosedive from there; perhaps for the best, as Ayessa does quite a bit of soul-searching with her new... Friend?
Nepenthe - 'The thing. Right.' (w. [member=Nej Tane])
Following the escape from Zeltron, Nej takes Ayessa home to Kiffu for the first time in nearly a millennia. Disappointed to find that she has no living relatives left, the two have a heart to heart under the storms.
Madrugada - 'The start of something.' (w. [member=Rook Lokar]) [Completed]
On Kiffu, Ayessa is hired by an admittedly charming smuggler named Rook to join his 'crew' in order to do... Something. She didn't get much information on what, which was probably for the best. A begrudging partnership is possibly born, albeit born prematurely.
Lacuna - 'How many people are trying to kill us?' (w. [member=Rook Lokar])
Due to a meeting location change Rook and Ayessa are briefly holding over on Nar Shaddaa, and the Force leads Ayessa to a third crew member. It also leads her to a Rook who is definitely not having a good time on the crime world, and they're forced to escape from hired guns.
Youngblood - 'I have a bad feeling about this.' (w. [member=Vinon Demeaux], [member=Rook Lokar])
Ayessa meets Rook's boss, Vinon, and slowly realizes she might be in over her head. There's also the small problem of the fact Vin's clocked her as a Force User. Really, just not her day.
The Siege of Commenor - 'Please tell me I'm not hallucinating.' (w. [member=Rook Lokar], [member=Nej Tane], [member=Rohak Vizsla], The CSA, TSE)
Whilst on sabbatical on the planet Commenor, Ayessa and her pals arrive just in time for an invasion by the Sith Empire. The tale that follows involves two scoundrels and a Dar'manda trying to kidnap her. Cue the music!
"Wanna come back to my ship and talk about feelings?"http://starwarsrp.net/topic/134720-wanna-come-back-to-my-ship-and-talk-about-feelings - 'It's... Complicated.' (w. [member=Nej Tane])
Escaping Commenor with a serious head injury and a worried scoundrel, Ayessa is forced to both acknowledge questionable relations and come face to face with an unknown anomaly -- Tatooine.
Quare Pugnare Debemus?http://starwarsrp.net/topic/133882-quare-pugnare-debemus/ - 'I'm a little out of form, aren't I?' (w. [member=Kei Raxis])
Following the siege, Ayessa, in a bout of survivor's guilt, returns to Commenor. And, of course, it can never go entirely smooth for her, and she encounters an individual with whom she can direly relate with but also feels surprising animosity for. Oh dear.
Arc Word Count
36,467 Words
FURTHER ITEMS OF NOTE
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Apparel: Clothes!
Weaponry: Lightsaber
Vessels: --
Property: 'The Old Bones'
NPC Companions:
Formatted by [member=Runi Verin]
