Kamon Vondiranach
Heart in a Jar
Source: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Moth-147470741
"Moth" by thundercake on DeviantArt
Name: Castianna Lo'tel aka Zaharrak Opari (Translation: The Giver of Gifts)
Loyalties: The People of Mirial
Role: Zaharrak Opari is a being of the recent lore of Mirial known for the giving of gifts to some children on Life Day and generally being unfindable.
Development Threads: N/A
Age: 565
Species: Aetherian
Appearance: Castianna has always looked young. Even when she was young she looked younger than she was, which often allowed her to get into trouble without reprisal. She's a short girl, all things considered, at approximately 1.6m tall. She has a bushy main of what is normally red hair, but she likes to dye it a more chestnut color as she thinks it suits her better. Despite the cold, which she loves, when she appears to children she always seems to be wearing hand stitched leather clothing with bare arms and has numerous leaves, berries and flowers in her hair. Even though she's getting up in age, she still looks like she's in her early thirties.
Personality: She's always been what one would call bubbly. Even as a child she was quick to laugh and always wearing a smile. It became sort of her trademark. After visiting Kashyyyk and discovering Life Day, she became even more so. She thrives on the joy of others. If she can coax someone to smile or be happy, then she is visibly happy as a result. She respects everyone around her whether they deserve it or not, which serves to keep people from wanting to harm her. Her greatest joy, though, comes in seeing a child smile. She'll do practically anything to see that.
Force Sensitivity: Knight
Weapon of Choice: The Force, though she's not much of a fighter.
Skills:
- The Basics: She knows how to use the Force to assist in running, jumping, pushing, and pulling at a knight level.
- White Current: Having spent a few years among the Fallanassi, she learned how to tap into the White Current and use it to hide herself. She is a firm believer in their teachings. Castianna was, and remains, a firm believer in non-aggression, and uses the Current only for concealment.
- Construction: She knows how to build things pretty well.
Wealth: She lives in a precious ore mine of her own construction, so she's extremely wealthy, though she never uses it for herself. It's directly for her gift giving on Life Day and in other times where people are in need of help.
Combat Function: She will hide and flee rather than engage in battle. She believes it isn't her place to interfere in the squabbles of others. Unless slavery is involved. As is noted, her people absolutely despise slavery.
Notable Possessions: She owns an old M31 Airspeeder which she uses to get around when she needs to. Traditionally she carries no weapons as she does not like to fight. So other than clothes and some modest mining and living equipment that she keeps in her mine, she doesn't own much, but she's alright with that.
History:
At the ripe old age of sixty-three, Castianna was still a trouble maker. To be fair, most Aetherians are like teenagers until they're about two hundred years old, so it wasn't like she was abnormal. No, she just liked using her magic (aka the Force) to play fun little tricks on people that never hurt them but could often be quite the annoyance. As it was, even though she still looked really young, some people were getting rather fed up with it, and told her she should go out into the galaxy and figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Now, Castianna was confused by this notion because she was rather enjoying what she was doing then. She didn't feel the need to leave. However, the pressure became so great, from many different people, that she eventually grew tired of it and did what they wanted: left.
She traveled the galaxy for a while, visiting several different planets. It was easy enough to do as a stowaway. Being small and a trickster, she fit into the little spaces that most people didn't ever check. Eventually, however, she ended up on Kashyyyk. Once there, she became thoroughly enthralled with the forest. The giant Wroshyr trees were magical to her. The fact that the Wookie's lived in them blew her mind. Being tiny, and kind of pink by comparison, she didn't quite fit in, and she had trouble learning their language, but she did her best. It took a few years but eventually she understood what it was that they were saying. Of course, during that time she experienced several of the Wookie's traditional Life Day ceremonies. As she became more accustomed to the world and the language, she became more enthralled by this festive tradition.
She learned that it had once happened only every three years, but now every year. She learned that it was a celebration not just of the life of individuals, but of the life that lived all around them. That blew her mind. She knew that most people in the galaxy celebrated their birth day, another form of Life Day, but she'd not heard of a day all about celebrating the wild and those around them. And then she learned it was mostly about celebrating the young and remembering those that had died and she immediately had a revelation. When they'd told her to leave home and go out into the galaxy to find what it was that she was supposed to do with her life, this was what they had meant. Not just celebrating with the Wookie's, but spreading this joy to other worlds in her own way.
Over time, several other Aetherians had found their way to Kashyyyk, and she gathered them together and explained to them her idea. The group started calling themselves the Life Day Revelrie. They each decided to leave the world and travel to a random planet in the galaxy with the intention of spreading Life Day cheer to those worlds as they had come to know it on Kashyyyk. Each picked a different world at random, and each left Kashyyk knowing that they would likely not see each other, or any others of their race, ever again. It was a difficult decision to make, but ultimately, they all accepted the task and each went their separate way.
Castianna ended up intending to head to Mirial, but her ship first brought her to a world where she met a group of individuals known as Fallanassi. It was pure happenstance that she spotted one of them entering an illusion that she deduced must have been created with the Force. Enthralled by the potential uses of such an ability, she tried to enter the illusion herself, but failed repeatedly. Instead of giving up and leaving, as many would have done when the Fallanassi didn't approach her. She sat down in the middle of the illusion, crossed her arms over her chest, closed her eyes, and waited. Using the Force, she sustained herself for days, simply sitting there and weathering the elements. She didn't complain and she barely even moved. This impressed the Fallanassi, and eventually one of them approached her.
After some conversation, she was able to express her interest in their ability and in how she could use it to help make people's lives better. While they didn't particularly care about the latter, the fact that she would be using it for concealment was enough for them to believe that she could understand the nuances of the ability. Now, at the age of eighty-five, she was accepted into their group as a student of what they called the White Current. Castianna would come to understand that this was merely their word for the Force, but that they used the intricate ripples in it as natural hiding places. Getting lost in the folds of time took on a whole new meaning with their ability. She loved every minute of learning about it, and took it to the maximum that she could before she told them that she needed to leave to continue her journey. Though she would never be able to hide a city as they could, she knew she could do the little she needed.
She left the planet and continued to Mirial, arriving when she was eighty-eight years old, having spent three years learning from the Fallanassi. Upon her arrival, she found that the locals were celebrating Life Day, but only in part. They celebrated their lives, but not the lives of others, or the life of the world around them. She knew that she had her work cut out for her. The first thing she did was purchase an airspeeder. A landspeeder might have been fine, but she liked to fly at least a little bit. She was still quite young, after all! She took the airspeeder and went searching for the wilderness. It was difficult to find given that the planet was mostly frigid desert, but she eventually found some when she found the mountains. She also found a cave system which she started exploring, and soon discovered various precious metals (gold, silver, nothing super rare, but still valuable). She decided to make it her home because of the small wood right outside.
Here she crafted her illusion, hiding the place from everyone. If anyone had actually watched, it would have all suddenly winked out of existence, hidden within the currents of the Force. It was then that she went to work. Mining, building a home for herself, making her own clothing. She spent a few years just getting ready. In that time she learned that she would never be able to visit everyone on life day, or even it and the night before. It was an unfortunate reality because she'd initially wanted to give gifts to everyone. Knowing that she couldn't made her sad. But she knew that she would do her best to get the gifts to where they needed to be.
After a couple of years of preparing, she started her work. On the eve of life day, she started visiting the homes of children who'd lost relatives: parents, grandparents, siblings. She would wait until everyone was asleep, hiding herself in the current, and then let herself in by using the Force to unlock doors. She would enter the house in silence, decorating it with garlands of leaves and flowers, some of which she grew hydroponically in her mine. And ultimately she left a handwoven basket filled with precious stones and flowers just inside of their door. Before she could leave though, she would visit the rooms of the children, making sure they were thoroughly tucked in. She'd let herself be seen if they woke then, as that was part of the fun. When a child woke and saw the little elf woman, dressed in handmade clothing with sticks and other things in her hair to show her celebration of nature, they thought they were seeing a dream. She'd smile, wink at them, and then she'd vanish before their eyes.
It became a holiday tradition. At first people thought it was a fluke. Someone had just randomly given them a gift. The second year it was much the same. People waved it off. She only visited about a dozen homes each Life Day, but that was all she could get to. She didn't know a way to move faster, so that was how it had to be. By the time they got to the third year, with several children all saying they saw the same thing, people started hunting for her. The first instinct was that she was a troublemaker, someone they needed to lock up before she hurt the children instead of giving gifts. For several years she had to be extra careful of the adults. The children, though, had taken to calling her Zaharrak Opari, translation meaning The Giver of Gifts in basic. She embraced the name, and chose not to correct it.
Years went by and nothing bad ever happened. The people gave up on trying to arrest her, and most began to embrace her as a Life Day tradition. Though she never appeared to all of them, they began to celebrate those that had been gifted to. They'd come to the realization that the people she visited were the people in the greatest need, and often times the people around them wouldn't see the need. Her gift opened their eyes just as much as it gave them monetary assistance and joy. Often these people would rally around those who were suffering as a result of her actions, and this brought her more joy than just the act of giving. For a few hundred years she has continued this tradition now, and she still has years to go. To this day she spreads joy and reminds people to celebrate not just the lives they've been given, but also the lives they've lost and the life of the world around them.
The people of Mirial have even adopted a song about her on top of the traditional life day songs.
Song of the Giver (modified version of Frosty the Snowman by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson):
Zaharrak Opari, is a joyous happy elf,
With sticks in her hair and flowers everywhere, and a heart made out of gold.
Zaharrak Opari, is a fantasy, some say.
She has skin of snow, but the children know how she tucks them in to stay.
There must still be some magic left in the world around them all,
Because when they need her the most she appears to give them gifts!
Oh, Zaharrak Opari, was as real as she could be;
and the children say she would laugh and away,
to hide from you and me.
Hummity hum, hum, hummity hum, hum,
where did she go?
Hummity hum, hum, hummity hum, hum,
nobody will ever know!
Zaharrak Opari, knew a child was in need that day,
so she said, "Time to run, to have some fun, and to meet a need today."
Away to the city, with a basket in her hand,
Sneaking here or there, even in the square,
sayin', "I'll give them all if I can."
She led us all around the town, right to a dead end stop;
and even though we had her then, she disappeared with a pop!
For Zaharrak Opari, had to get on her way,
But she smiled goodbye, sayin' "Don't you cry, life goes on anyway."
With sticks in her hair and flowers everywhere, and a heart made out of gold.
Zaharrak Opari, is a fantasy, some say.
She has skin of snow, but the children know how she tucks them in to stay.
There must still be some magic left in the world around them all,
Because when they need her the most she appears to give them gifts!
Oh, Zaharrak Opari, was as real as she could be;
and the children say she would laugh and away,
to hide from you and me.
Hummity hum, hum, hummity hum, hum,
where did she go?
Hummity hum, hum, hummity hum, hum,
nobody will ever know!
Zaharrak Opari, knew a child was in need that day,
so she said, "Time to run, to have some fun, and to meet a need today."
Away to the city, with a basket in her hand,
Sneaking here or there, even in the square,
sayin', "I'll give them all if I can."
She led us all around the town, right to a dead end stop;
and even though we had her then, she disappeared with a pop!
For Zaharrak Opari, had to get on her way,
But she smiled goodbye, sayin' "Don't you cry, life goes on anyway."
Intent: To add some lore to the world of Mirial and the people that live there while creating an entry for the Life Day Contest 2016.
