Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on a member of Elpsis' posse.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Zhaleh is a soldier in Elpsis' platoon. She belongs to the Champions of the Flame, one of their squads. She is a soldier and a Force-User who focuses on Alter Environment and elemental Force abilities, especially cryokinesis, air and water shaping.
Permissions: Permission for all ArmaTech gear and all other subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here.
Links: Adjudication, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Tephrike, Communion, The Long Road, Qadiri, Xioquo, Shikoba, Laira Darkhold.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 41. Qadiri have a longer life span and age more slowly than the average human, but also develop at a slower pace.
Force Sensitivity: Apprentice
Species: Qadiri
Appearance: A young Qadiri woman just out of childhood, Zhaleh has unusually green eyes for her kin. Like all her people, she has pointed ears. Her exposure to the cold of the arctic tundras has left her with slightly paler skin than her desert cousins. Tribal and family tattoos cross her skin in lines and waves, each one having its own special meaning for her. Her long dark hair is braided back out of her way so that it does not impede her in combat or on a hunt.
A combination of good genes and a hard life in the arctic have left her physically hardy and with a well-built physique. Accustomed to the cold she wears sensible but not overly restrictive clothing when not in armour. She may blend more traditional clothing with more 'modern' styles the humans have introduced her to, though she will stick to what is practical. When on duty but not in combat, she will wear a Firemane uniform. Her uniform is always well-maintained in a drill and camp setting.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Private Zhaleh Jai Bijana. Zhahleh is the Qadiri word for dew or hoar frost. Jai is the middle name Qadiri females have, while males use Jal. In either case it means 'from/of'. Bijana is her clan name.
Loyalties: Firemane Industries, Order of Fire, Young Flames, Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, Inferno Platoon, Champions of the Flame, Qadiri.
Wealth: Low. Like every Firemane soldier, Zhaleh receives remuneration from the megacorp. Pay is on a sliding scale based on experience, rank, reward and so on. She is a Private and has not been with the company that long, so she does not get paid a lot. It is enough to cover her expenses and allow her to live it up a bit, but she has to be frugal. Her people are new to hard currency, but often engaged in barter trade with outsiders.
Notable Possessions: Owns a collection of furs from various animals she has hunted and skinned. These were her typical attire back in her homeland. She wears them less now, but keeps them well-maintained. Zhaleh owns a necklace made of animal teeth. One particularly big tooth belonged to a kraken. Back in the day her mother led a hunting party to kill the great beast, which had been raised by the Xioquo. Zhaleh was part of it and was given the tooth as a trophy. She also keeps the head and pelt of a large, powerful bear she hunted as a trophy. It is important to her since the hunt was a rite of passage.
She still carries her old harpoon and hunting spear. Both see less use now, but she still trains with them. Zhaleh has been issued a Sarix, though she tends to favour other weapons. She owns a collection of rifles and pistols, including a Vornskr Revolver, a Magnetic Repeater and a hold-out bolter. She carries a multi-weapon and a vibro-dagger. Zhaleh is a member of the military, so she owns a suit of armour and a military uniform. She will usually wear Olympian Battle Armour or Spectre Scout Armour. She prefers the latter since it is lighter and thus grants her greater agility.
Skills: Zhaleh is a Force-User who focuses on the elemental manipulation of ice, air and water. Qadiri elementalists tend to be fire or air mages, but ice magic helped her people survive in the arctic conditions. She has a natural resistance to the cold, though she finds hot climates uncomfortable. Moreover, she has a knack for stealth. She can use air shaping and Alter Environment to create a concealing mist, as well as manipulate wind currents. She is good at using Tapas. It allows her to maintain a stable body temperature in environments she would otherwise find oppressive. She can use basic physical augmentation to enhance her physical traits, such as speed, stamina and reflexes. Her command of telekinesis is solid, though not exceptional. In short, she is fine at it, but no telekinetic tank. Zhaleh is capable of using a combination of telekinesis and air manipulation to levitate herself off ground and essentially glide. If she pushes herself real hard, she can levitate herself high enough to fly through a fifth floor window. However, this is very taxing for her and thus not something she can do all the time.
Zhaleh has also been trained as a warrior who can fight without use of the Force. She is good with a blade, harpoon, rifle and pistol. In addition, she is a good swimmer, huntress and tracker. Overall, she knows a lot about wilderness survival and has keen weather senses. She is able to easily spear fish and even has experience hunting whales. She knows a lot about fieldcraft and arctic/mountain survival. The Qadiri soldier is decent at first aid, but no medic and lacks the ability to use the Force to heal herself or others.
She is fluent in Zandri, the common Qadiri language, though her dialect is a bit idiosyncratic since her people come from a very remote area of Tygara. In addition, she can understand and speak Basic, though certain idioms may fly over her head. Zhaleh knows some Xio, but is not fluent in the language and does not write it well. The young Qadiri has some artistic talent. She likes to make small sculptures of animal and humanoid figures. These are carved from ivory and bone. She can also make clothes or footwear out of animal skins. Zhaleh is aware of lightsabres, having been introduced to them after she started associating with the sky people. However, she has not been trained in the use of a 'sword of light' yet, though she knows how to use a Force Imbued blade and a Sarix.
Personality: Brave, loyal, curious. Having never left the arctic lands her people call home until recently, Zhaleh is very much the fish out of water when it comes to the greater galaxy. Her people are quite unusual even by Qadiri standards, as they live in the icy north of Tygara, far from the great cities and deserts most Qadiri dwell in. Due to the remoteness of their tribal hunting grounds, they missed the initial first contact with the outsiders and encountered the 'sky people' fairly late. However, when the sky people arrived Zhaleh bravely set off to offer welcome to them. Indeed, she rescued Firemane members from drowning.
Zhaleh is still catching up about the outside Galaxy. She is a bit socially awkward outside of her immediate circle, but tries hard. Overall, she is of a friendly and optimistic disposition, if a bit serious and literal-minded. While no social butterfly, she is helpful and easy to get along with. She has a passion for hunting and likes to share stories about it. She is the only Qadiri member of her squad, which has forced her to adapt a bit. However, as the squad is very diverse, everyone else is in a similar boat. She finds Shikoba odd and her powers unsettling. She spends quite a bit of time with Celaena, the Eldorai member of the squad.
Zhaleh privately calls Nyssa Vykaris 'the Flayed One' because the Red Sith looks like a flayed Qadiri to her. She finds Nyssa a bit intimidating, but judges her on the same basis as the Xio her people worked with. "Many Qadiri see all Xio as evil. My tribe encountered our fair share of them in the cold north. Some were vile and came to enslave us. But many just wanted to escape their evil rulers. You cannot change what you are born as, but you can decide your actions." Zhaleh respects, but does not revere nature. Overall, Zhaleh is disciplined and quite happy to follow orders within the framework of military hierarchy. She can get assertive though, especially when she feels pushed around or maltreated. She has a strong sense of pride when it comes to her family and clan. Her people lack many of the tools the sky people take for granted, but they have thrived in an environment many outsiders would find inhospitable and they are a very tight-knit community.
She regards it as her duty to defend their honour and live up to the example of her ancestors. When she eventually returns home, she will undoubtedly have many stories to tell. Sometime she gets homesick, but also thinks that she was granted a great honour by being allowed to see the stars. She treats the rag-tag band of misfits that constitute the Firemane unit she belongs to as akin to the Qadiri war band she was once part of.
Zhaleh was raised in the faith of her people and is spiritual, though not a zealot. She prays to Kashara, the goddess of the sky and head of the Qadiri pantheon, in her aspect as a solar deity. She also makes obeisance to other Qadiri deities, especially those of the hunt, healing and sea. Her religion is polytheistic and thus accepts the existence of multiple deities. As a result, trying to force her spiritual beliefs on other people is alien to her. She is brave in the fight and more than willing to put her life on the line.
Having been raised in a culture with its own Force traditions, Zhaleh finds Jedi and Sith beliefs strange. She has been raised to treat the Force as a power that comes from within her rather than an omnipresent energy field. Her people call it Zari, which is also their word for soul. This also means that she would not bother to try and talk down a hostile dark side Force-User. An enemy soldier is an enemy soldier, not someone who is one pep talk away from becoming a trusted friend. Zhaleh finds wanton cruelty abhorrent, but has a pragmatic attitude in combat.
She resolutely rejects the idea that she or her people require 'enlightenment' from Jedi or that the latter deserve deference. To her, the Jedi are just another religious group, not the 'defenders of peace and justice' in the galaxy. Her people have done just fine without them and so Jedi who claim to have jurisdiction due to possessing some sort of divine mandate from the Force get short shrift. She has struck up a tentative friendship with Laira Darkhold, a member of the Resistance's Jedi Remnant.
Being a Qadiri, Zhaleh was raised in a matriarchal society. Similar to Eldorai, Qadiri females tend to be taller and stronger than their male counterparts. Qadiri females are given preferential treatment over males, but by no means to the extent that the Eldorai and Xioquo do. In many ways, for their progress level, the Qadiri are quite progressive, certainly more than humans at the same level. The Qadiri have what is called enatic-cognatic succession, where a female will inherit before a male sibling, but the male sibling will not be passed over beyond that. Her tribe has had male chieftains, though female ones are a lot more common.
Zhaleh's first exposure to the outside galaxy was via Firemane, which can be considered a de facto matriarchy, as well as the Eldorai Matriarchy. However, she has since learned that the situation among many of the sky people is an inverse of what she is used to. Zhaleh has no issue with males serving in combat roles, and finds the extreme misandry of Eldorai and Xioquo conservatives wrong and harmful. But she would be perplexed if a male thought that he would have to 'protect' the girl because she would expect the opposite.
Having grown up in a remote region of Tygara, Zhaleh lived far from the major wars of the planet. But that does not mean her life was a peaceful utopia. Aside from fighting the elements, her people fought other Qadiri as well as the Xioquo. The latter have traditionally been seen as the hereditary enemies of the Qadiri. However, Zhaleh has had positive and negative experiences with the 'Dark Ones'.
Her people had to fight against Xioquo incursions and raiding parties that tried to enslave them, but at times also cooperated with Xioquo fugitives and exiles on the run from the totalitarian régime back home. Thus she mas met Xio who are both good and bad, giving her a more nuanced opinion of them. Some of the Xio she had more positive relations with have joined the Light Side leaning Seekers of the Sky.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Melee Weapons | The Force | Blasters & Slugthrowers
Combat Function: Zhaleh is a Force soldier who has been trained to use the Force as well as conventional weapons in combat. She has a good knowledge of small unit tactics, recon, fieldcraft, winter/mountain survival. She is also a good swimmer, especially in icy waters others might find oppressively cold. She is well-adapted to surviving in such harsh conditions. By contrast, she finds hot climates uncomfortable. One does not survive in the icy north by playing fair, and so Zhaleh is not above fighting dirty. Thus she takes a pragmatic approach to combat.
Her affinity for all things ice gives her a natural resistance to the cold. She also has a knack for stealth and is a good shot. Zhaleh will commonly fight enemies at range, using her Force powers - especially her abilities to manipulate ice, water and air - as well as her guns. She has a preference for hard-hitting slugthrowers, but will also use blasters. However, she can also engage in melee, especially when using hand-to-hand combat or a dagger. She is a trained huntress and applies this mind set to combat.
Zhaleh is part of a military unit and thus will commonly operate as part of a team, fighting within the framework of a fireteam, a squad or platoon. Her elemental Force abilities are more geared towards a support role as they lack the raw destructiveness of say fire, but they are still potent.
Strengths:
- Force soldier. Zhaleh is a Force warrior, but has also been trained as a soldier to fight without the Force and use small unit tactics. Force-wise she is particularly skilled in elemental Force abilities.
- Her origins make her at survival in the wilderness, hunting, fieldcraft and tracking. She is physically tough and possesses a high resistance to the cold. Like all Qadiri she is a balance between Eldorai and human in strength and agility and has an instinctive skill of navigation. She has keen senses and good hearing.
- Limited experience or skill with galactic standard technology. Not trained in the use of a lightsabre.
- Zhaleh is still an Apprentice, which affects her experience, the extent of her powers as well as how energy-intensive drawing upon them is for her.
- Sensitive hearing is a double-edged sword, as it makes her more vulnerable to high-pitch frequencies such as those emitted by sonic weapons.
Qadiri are commonly associated with the great deserts and cities of Tygara. Zeheb, a metropole, is the centre of native Tygaran culture and a Qadiri city. In that regard, Zhaleh and her people are anomalies as far as her people are concerned. They live far away from the tropical forests of Khajwar or the great Dune Sea. Instead her tribe dwells in the icy north of Tygara. As a result, they have largely grown up in isolation from their southron brethren and sistren. Rather than build great cities and monuments, her people have lived a life as fishers and hunters, hunting whales, polar bears, fishes and other creatures. They build kayaks to hunt sea animals and use sleds for transportation on land. Qadiri elementalists tend to be fire or air shapers. However, water shaping and ice magic is more common among her people. This is a result of adaptation, as cryokinesis helps her people survive the arctic conditions.
It is a hard, rugged life that produces hardy people. Qadiri city-dwellers from the south, seeing themselves are more 'civilised', look down on them a bit. In some ways, Zhaleh's people have more in common with the Vashyada, though the wood elves are less nomadic and theoretically united under the rule of a High King and High Queen. Her people call themselves the Zaldarni and are divided into various tribes.
From an early age, Zhaleh learned how to track, hunt and skin animals. Here and there, the Zaldarni traded with their southron sistren, but contact with them was infrequent. With good reason, they distrusted their sistren, for while some southron Qadiri came to engage in peaceful trade, others tried to take them as slaves. Conditions were harsh in the far north. It was expected of a young woman to prove herself as a huntress and provider so that she could found her own homestead and take care of her elders.
Like their sistren, the Zaldarni had a matriarchal society, though it was significantly less rigid than that of the Eldorai or Xioquo. Broadly speaking, women were mostly responsible for the acquisition of food as well as technical work, while men were responsible for keeping things running at home and taking care of the kills. However, these rules were not absolute. Men could and had risen to positions of leadership. As was common practice, Zhaleh's birth was a community affair and the tribe gathered to welcome the newborn.
Infant mortality was high. Indeed, Zhaleh had a younger sister who died before her first birthday. At the time the little one did not truly understand death when she had to bid goodbye to the younger sibling she had helped look after. She tried to wake her up, but she would not move or breathe. As with births, burials were communal affairs. The Zaldrani performed above ground burials. This winter was a harsh one, so the body was stored in a shack until conditions allowed a burial. Then it was laid face up and covered with stone.
Her parents passed on the values of her clan to her so that she grew up conscious of their traditions, her heritage and her duties. Her mother was a prominent elder of the clans. She was known to be a strong warrior who had led many successful hunts and skirmishes against other tribes. Her mother lived in a polyandrous marriage and thus had two husbands. This was unusual in mainstream Qadiri society, but quite common among the Zaldrani. Skewed sex ratios were one reason for this, as did the fact that it was a bit of a status symbol for powerful matriarchs.
Zhaleh's father Ashraf was the first husband of her mother Sadirah. Typically, he accompanied her on hunting and raiding parties, while her second husband stayed behind, managed the ice house, looked after the children and represented her interests. Since this was the culture she and her siblings grew up, Zhaleh did not consider this arrangement strange. She inherited her affinity for all things icy from her father, though this was not apparent to her at the time.
From an early age, she learned about the family tradecraft. One of her earliest memories consists of skinning the game her mother and father brought back home. Young Zhaleh yearned for adventure, though her youth and inexperience meant that she was given less glamorous tasks, such as standing guard, skinning a beast, scouting and carrying supplies for the hunters. In time, she would actively participate in hunting trips herself. She acquitted herself well on her first hunts, though her impetuousness got her injured on one hunt.
However, the tribe was menaced by the Xioquo. The drows had set up a base in the arctic wastes. From there they launched expeditions to search for artefacts and procure slaves who would be forced to perform heavy labour or brought to the Underealm. Lacking the more advanced technology of the Xioquo, the Zaldrani used guerrilla tactics. Zhaleh learned to trap and ambush sentient beings as she did animals.
The Qadiri was very young but eager to fight. Moreover, if the tribe was defeated, she would not be spared from slavery. Her people evacuated their settlement, leaving traps and food that had been laced with poison behind. This strategy slowed down the Xioquo and took a toll on their morale and numbers. Disillusionment caused some slave-soldiers to desert. They were far away from home, so resupply was difficult. In one skirmish, Zhaleh shot a Xioquo cleric who was executing deserters. But it also affected the ice Qadiri, for it was a particularly cold winter. This meant that supplies were scarce and there was little game to hunt. Moreover, most of the able-bodied members of the tribe had to be drafted to fight. Eventually it came to a battle. At significant expense, her people had been able to purchase muskets from their southron sistren. They also made alliances with other Zaldrani clans. The Xioquo were led by dark sorceresses who sought artefacts from Tygara's distant past and used dark rites to summon a kraken. This had the effect of raising the Xioquo's fighting spirit.
The Zaldrani learned of this threat from a deserter who had been the indentured servant of a Xioquo witch. His name was Xerl'Vare. Zhaleh's mother, being a respected warrior, was chosen to lead the hunting party that would kill the beast. Secretly, she sent Xerl'Vare back to tell Xioquo slave-soldiers and deserters that the Zaldrani did not want to murder them all. She aimed to sow doubt and stir up unrest. Her stepfather assumed responsibility for taking care of the rear area, setting up shelters and so on.
The girl's birth father, though sceptical of meeting the Xioquo in open combat, volunteered to join it out of loyalty. With it being an all hands on deck situation, Zhaleh joined the group for the fight. It was her first large-scale battle. She was frightened, as was to be expected, but determined to prove herself worthy and fight for her tribe. She was particularly motivated when a scouting party she was part of was ambushed by the Xioquo. They fought bravely and she killed a Xioquo warrior, but had to retreat. Her father pulled off a rearguard action to draw the enemy away, but was captured.
The Zaldrani's Fabian strategy had taken its toll on the Xioquo, wearing them down. But they had better, more advanced weapons and fought fiercely. Thus the battle was a brutal one. Many Zaldrani warriors perished in the fighting. Zhaleh was injured. Using their agile boats, they caught the kraken while the great beast was feeding. Zhaleh and her mother used some gunpowder explosives they had taken from the drows. But even injured the kraken was fearsome and powerful. The Xioquo believed they could use its power, but the beast proved uncontrollable. In the heat of battle, it proved eager to feed on them as well. Some Xioquo slaves joined the Zaldrani after it had swallowed their mistress, a dark sorceress. Zhaleh was able to help her father break free during the melee, shooting his captor.
One of Zhaleh's brothers was injured and fell into the icy waters. Zhaleh dove after him. Perhaps her Force affinity manifested in this moment, for she could endure the icy waters. However, the kraken was upon them. Zhaleh was able to wound it with her harpoon, striking a deep blow. But a tentacle seized her. As she was being pulled towards its maw, her father attacked the beast. He was able to get her free, but was devoured. Zhaleh's anger and grief triggered her Force abilities in an uncontrolled manner as ice spikes struck the beast. However, she had to get away. Fortunately, her tribe was continuing to wear the kraken down with harpoons, lances and primitive bombs.
Her mother struck the mortal blow, driving her lance through the beast's skull after dropping a grenade into its mouth. It was not a glorious victory though. Many of their warriors had lost their lives or been injured. Thus the aftermath was a solemn, somber affair. They had to take care of their wounded and bring their dead home so that they could be put to rest in accordance with the Zaldrani's burial traditions. For her bravery, Zhaleh was given one of the kraken's teeth. Her father's death provided her with a treason to treasure her keepsake of the battle, as it reminded her of that time.
However, there was little time for a period of mourning. Winter was here. The tribe had stocked supplies, but with so many of its members being pulled away from hunting or growing things in order to fight, they had only been able to prepare so much. Moreover, the casualties sustained during the fight meant that there fewer experienced warriors who could hunt or protect the tribe from raids. The tribe's leader had perished during the fight, and so Zhaleh's mother was elected as the new Scheikha. She had led the party that killed the kraken and had distant blood ties to the last leader.
However, now she had to manage the aftermath of the battle and ensure the tribe's survival through winter. Their old hunting grounds were taken over by a rival tribe that had sent some support against the Xioquo, but let Zhaleh's people do most of the heavy lifting. The leader of the rival tribe tried to pressure Zhaleh's mother into entering a marriage alliance, with the aim of absorbing her group.
There was also the matter of the Xio who had been left stranded and were unwilling to return to their mistresses. They rightly feared punishment for their defeat. The Xio's totalitarian rulers had a tendency of being just as unforgiving and cruel as Sith Lords. Outnumbered and stranded in hostile territory, they were hunted by the Zaldrani tribes. They holed themselves up in their rusting ironclad, but were unable to leave. The survivors tended to be former slave-soldiers and so their technical skills were limited.
Faced with pressure from the other tribe to submit to them, Zhaleh's mother took a very unorthodox step: She contacted the rogue Xio and offered them an alliance. The Xio would join their fate with theirs and send a representative to their tribal council. They would teach her people how to use their strange technologies. In return they would gain protection and a home. As a sign of good faith, she had a few Xio captives released. This was also a pragmatic move because guarding them tied up manpower.
When she heard about this, Zhaleh was outraged. Indeed, she had to be restrained from lashing out. The Dark Ones were evil and had killed her father. To her it was a betrayal. Her mother must have lost her mind. However, the new clan matriarch stuck to her guns. Winter was here, and if the clan wanted to survive, they had to adapt. The first meeting between representatives of both groups was tense.
Xerl'Vare was one of the Xio's emissaries. The Zaldrani wanted Xio who had committed atrocities against their people handed over for judgement. The Xio were obviously reluctant to do that, and distrusted the ice elves. In the eyes of the Xio deserters, they had suffered under the mistresses as well. Quite a few of them suspected the Zaldrani would murder them, for they had been indoctrinated to revile the Qadiri. In the end, they reached a compromise. Because the ice elves were not naive, they took some hostages. Vare agreed to be one of them.
The unwieldy allies lacked the means to move the Xio's rusted ironclad, but they could cannibalise it for tech and use it as a defensive outpost. Its guns proved its worth when they repulsed an ambush from the rival Zaldrani group. Zhaleh fought in this skirmish, showing her worth as a sharpshooter. However, fighting alongside Xio left her very conflicted. Zhaleh needed to find herself and so she left the tribe for a while. It was part extended hunting trip, part voluntary semi-exile. Her mother gave her some weapons, supplies and a sled. Zhaleh was away for several weeks. She spent her time hunting and meditating. For a long time she was alone. She prayed to Kashara for guidance, but no sign came.
Then she came across an encampment where some Xio had rescued a couple of Zaldrani. Zhaleh saw it from a distance and thought they were being taken as slaves, so she burst in only to learn the truth. She was deeply shocked and embarrassed by this. It turned out that many of the Xio were former slaves. It gave Zhaleh a lot to think about. However, she could not return to her clan as a supplicant. It was a matter of honour.
The people in the encampment told her of a mighty bear that had its lair not far from here. It had killed one of the Xio fugitives. Zhaleh resolved to hunt this beast. She was offered help, but declined it. Honour demanded that she face this trial herself. Zhaleh was a Force-User, but had little in the way of formal training. Moreover, she lacked advanced technology, so she had to rely on guile and skill to take down the bear. Zhaleh stalked the bear. It was bitter-cold, but her Force abilities allowed her to endure it. She had wanted to use her rifle to kill it, but the averse weather conditions made it impossible to use the musket. So she baited it with a carcass, then she attacked it with a special spear.
Though wounded by the enlarged, sharpened head of her weapon, the bear put up a fierce fight. Zhaleh was wounded by its claws, but her abilities allowed her to endure. One of the large bear's paws froze and she was able to get out of being mauled and land the killing blow. A scout from the encampment found her. Her people did not kill for sport, so Zhaleh and the people at the encampment shared the bear's meat and used its fat as cooking oil. She took the pelt and the bear's head back home as trophies.
When she returned home to her clan, Zhaleh was accepted as a full warrior. She shared an emotional reunion with her mother, stepfather and her siblings. By the time she returned, Vare had risen to become a Xio representative of sorts. He had established a rapport with the Scheikha. The winter was harsh on both groups, but they eventually managed to pull through. Zhaleh also started receiving Force training from the shamans.
Meanwhile, great changes were taking place on Tygara. The Zaldrani's remote location meant they missed first contact with the sky people. Mercifully, this also meant that they avoided the corsairs' slave raids. But in time, they received word that people had come from the sky in metal ships. This sounded absurd, so they dismissed it as a tall tale. The main thing that changed for the Zaldrani was that after a while, Xio raids all but ceased.
However, when the sky people arrived Zhaleh was one of those who bravely set off to offer welcome to them. She and some of her clan members were out scouting when they came across a strange metal ship. It resembled those used by the Xio, but looked far more advanced. A Xio who had joined their party did not recognise this design. The vessel had crashed into submerged ice. Zhaleh and her friends boarded it to salvage what they could and search for clues about its origins. At the time they still believed it had been made by the Xio.
However, then they came across strange aliens who looked nothing like the Xio. One of the crew members had blue skin and tentacles coming out of her bald head. Another was a talking lizard and could apparently speak some Zandri. This was the common Qadiri language, but the Zaldrani spoke a dialect that differed strongly from that of their southron sistren. There was also a strange metal golem that would not cease talking. Surprised by this unexpected encounter, Zhaleh came to the rescue of crew members who were in the process of drowning. They were able to get off the ship before it sunk into the freezing waters. They brought the aliens to their camp and questioned them, after making them disarm.
There was quite a language barrier. Fortunately, the metal golem turned out to be highly adept in speaking all manners of languages, including Xio. After some consideration, Zhaleh decided to bring these strangers to her people's settlement. There they were brought before her mother. Her people learned that the sky people were real and not things of myth. The strangers worked for a distant queendom that called itself Firemane.
It was ruled by a powerful queen called Siobhan Kerrigan. Apparently the Shahbânu of the Amikarese Empire had submitted to this skyqueen, who had also conquered the Xioquo. When the sky people sent a rescue team to evacuate their people, Zhaleh got a chance to inspect one of their metal sky-ships. She was both curious and unsettled. Having learned that the ancien régime had been toppled, a number of the Xio who had joined her people took the chance to return home.
Xerl'Vare was one of those who elected to stay. He had grown very close to her mother. The sky people took Zhaleh on a ride and made a tentative agreement with her mother. The Scheikha saw the value of trade with them, but did not want to compromise her people's freedom. Zhaleh wanted to see more of the outside world. She decided to take advantage of an exchange programme of sorts to join Firemane.
She would show that her people were strong, honourable warriors. Her Force-Sensitivity ensured that she was inducted into the Young Flames, the cadet corps of Firemane's Force-using branch. However, not everything was idyllic. Zhaleh had to deal with racism. This angered and upset her. Once she punched a bigoted instructor who was being cruel to a Xio recruit. This got her in trouble, and led to her being placed in a newly-formed trainee unit nicknamed Inferno Platoon. The rag-tag band of misfits was clearly perfect for her. Its commander approved of her punching bigots. Zhaleh spent the next couple weeks training under Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori. She got on well with her commanding officer. Elpsis was strict and pushed her recruits hard, but she never looked down on the Tygarans for being less technologically advanced. Nor did she mock their spiritual beliefs. Indeed, she took a genuine interest in Zhaleh's faith, allowing the Qadiri to teach her a bit about its precepts and rites.
Since then Zhaleh has participated in a number of missions in the stars, fighting First Order remnant groups. For their first assignment, they saw action against a First Order Remnant group that had turned to arms dealing and enslaved a number of Qadiri scouts. To this end, the Champions teamed up with a group of Qadiri freedom fighters in Firemane's services. Zhaleh fought bravely in the fight, using her cryomantic and air powers to support her comrades.
Later she participated in a joint operation between Firemane and the Resistance. A world on the far rim had been taken over by what at first appeared to be a small cell from a remnant of the First Order. The Champions and a few Resistance operatives went undercover by posing as mercenaries in order to determine the strength and goals of this remnant. Firemane had had an informant on the planet, but he had been murdered by the Imperials. The group was able to bluff the First Order remnant into hiring them, as the occupiers were fighting an insurgency spearheaded by deserted Stormtroopers. While hanging out at a cantina, Zhaleh and a Resistance operative called Laira Darkhold were able to ingratiate themselves with a young FOSB officer, who took a shine to th exotic Qadiri.
As part of the ruse, Elpsis and her crew supported the First Order's troops in a battle with the insurgents in the main town, while secretly undermining them. This required killing some rebels though, as they had to maintain cover. Zhaleh worked with her comrades to sabotage a rebel speeder without killing the crew. She robbed the rebels inside it of sight by freezing the windows, while Celaena set the vehicle on fire and Nuroch created an illusion to compel them to run. Later, she and Laira Darkhold teamed up to take out a rebel sniper. Zhaleh summoned a mist and Laira used her super speed to get them close. Then she threw the Qadiri towards the window.
Luckily, Zhaleh could use her air powers to levitate herself. A bolt went right through her helmet, though luckily it only grazed her forehead. After crashing into the room, she engaged the sniper in melee. She took several vicious blows, but was able to disarm and wound him severely. Later Shikoba and Diona arrived to make sure the sniper stayed alive and question him. In order to fool the Imperials, Laira and Zhaleh mutilated the corpse of a civilian who had been killed in one of the bombings and passed him off as the sniper. This left both very conflicted. However, questioning the sniper and convincing him that they were opposed to the Imperials enabled the team to establish contact with the rebels. There was bad blood, but the two groups managed to join forces and take out an important First Order factory.
However, the factory had been the main reason for the imperialists to hold on to the place. The Ren deemed that the local warlord had failed to contain the insurgency and decided to make an example by bombing the city from orbit. Reinforcements had to turn away, as they could not match the firepower he had at his disposal. The team was able to escape. Zhaleh had never witnessed such devastation before, and was deeply shaken and disgusted by it. For now, Zhaleh remains with the platoon. She has also found the time to visit her home again to stay connected to her people.
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