1.1  Basics

Lupus & Seculi

Because Zaahira's fur is not designed for the cold, she is very rarely seen in either seculi or lupus form. Her paws are jackal-like and do not have the shape necessary to traverse over deep snow.

Optime Form

She has short, thin fur in shades of gray. It's lighter around her face and chest, and darker around her back. Around her eyes and face are almost white markings. She has a wiry frame, with only a hint of feminine curves.

• Winter Clothing
  • She dresses in dark robes, carefully layered so as to prevent the cold from seeping in. Inside her robes are pockets, either to carry her possessions or to stuff with more insulation, if need be.

• Summer Clothing
  • Her robes are replaced with a thinner leather jacket. Over this, she layers a leather cuirass. She has a scarf around her waist, and around her neck and head.
  • Zaahira hides much of her smaller valuables beneath the scarf wound around her waist; it hides a leather belt and several pouches.
• Elements Present in Both Outfits
  • Her sword and its sheath is prominently displayed so as to deter would-be bandits. She sometimes pairs the sword with a wooden buckler, and sometimes exchanges both for a bow and arrow. Either way, she's always carrying a weapon and is usually wearing armor, even if it isn't obvious on first glance.
  • The only piece of jewelry she owns is a nazar, which is either hidden beneath her robes or beneath her scarf. She views this item as she would a piece of armor, and is never without it.

1.2  Demeanor

• Speech: She is soft-spoken, with a flat voice. She does not use contractions, and her words are excessively formal. When speaking English, she stumbles over the 'p' sound, and replaces it with 'b' or the 'f' sound. She's been known to make malapropisms, and sometimes she puts words in the wrong order.
• Scent: Horses and leather.
• Quirks, Gestures, Etc.: Rarely makes gestures. Almost always has a hand on her sword.
• General Posture and Body Language: Stands straight. Unnaturally still. Rarely smiles. Often stares, either at the person she's talking to, or everything else in the room. Her tail doesn't move when she's happy - unless she's very happy.

Palette

• Back, Neck & Optime Hair

• Fur

• Underbelly

• Markings around her eyes and on her face.

• Eyes

Summary: Superstitious, sad.

Tropes:

• The Atoner
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids

2.1  General

Zaahira appears distant, cold and aloof. Her demeanor does not incline her to making close, easy friends and the oddities of her body language and speech make her difficult to read.

Absent a hierarchy or a good reason to avert her gaze, Zaahira's inclination is to stare and study the person in front of her without revealing her feelings or her intentions.

She rarely smiles. She is soft-spoken, with a flat voice and a dry sense of humor that does not always read as sarcasm. Her words are excessively formal, and in Arabic, they are sometimes peppered with poetry or metaphor.

This is both her armor and her nature, and it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Ethics

There's a wistfulness in her for honorable individuals, as defined by the terms she knew it. She cannot live by that honor code, because they are simply impractical for her life, but she is not sadistic, and she is at times vaguely benevolent.

She freely offers medical treatment to strangers, and will feed and house any guests she has, per the laws of hospitality that her tribe once followed.

Still, benevolent or not, her morals are flexible. While Zaahira does not intentionally seek out violence, she will fight and kill if she feels that it is necessary. She will likewise rob or steal from a person if she needs to, and if she believes that it would be dangerous to help someone, she won't.

Some of her actions and her spiritual practices violate her tribe's traditions, though hypocritically, she's taught her child to do as she says, not as she does.

Motivations

• Saying that she wants to atone for her past misdeeds would inaccurate, because Zaahira doesn't believe that such a thing is possible. And yet, she's doing her best to not kill without first being threatened, she doesn't believe in hoarding wealth, and her only goal is to live her life in peace, tending to the dead.
• While Zaahira fears strong attachments and views herself as being outside of any group, she does enjoy gossip and people-watching. She is eager to hear rumors about local packs and will happily listen to tidbits about one's family or relatives.
• Surrounding herself by as many animals as possible.

Expression

• Outlook: Pessimistic. She's too aware of how very little she can control in life to make certain plans or expect certain outcomes. The best she can do is follow the river life takes her.
• Sociability: Introvert. Zaahira dislikes crowds and loud noises, and her tolerance for this wanes the older she gets.
• Expression: Dominant. Zaahira is not motivated by ambition and has no desire to climb any hierarchy. She does not want to control large groups of people, and would be happy to remain at the lower rung of a pack, so long as it allowed her to keep her dignity intact. She does, however, expect a certain amount of respect when interacting with individuals one-on-one.

Fears

• She's acquired a lot of stuff over the years, and though she ought to know better than to get too attached to objects, she knows that she's going to lose it all some day.
• Personal attachments.
• Dying alone. Not enough to motivate her to overcome her fear of personal attachments, though.
• Finding out that Kasef died.

Biases

• Packs: None, yet.
• Species: Suspicious of people taller than her, regardless of species.
• Non-Luperci: She thinks 'non-luperci' and imagines her ancestors. She assumes that most canines traveling in Lupus form are are Luperci, unless they say otherwise.
• Gender: While Zaahira does not condemn all men for this trait, she does think that men are too easily motivated by the potential for sex.
• Sexuality: Bewildered by people who are motivated by their libido. Can't relate.
• Age: Likes both children and the elderly.

Sexuality

The thought that she might be attracted to one gender over the other hasn't occurred to her.

Her body is in constant vigilance, so her ability to feel desire (romantic or otherwise) is muted. It takes a very long time to recognize that she's in love with someone, and is likely to miss the signals that someone is in love with her, unless they're very blunt about it.

Unfortunately, she can tell when someone is sexually interested in her (or she's learned to notice such, at least among men) and coming on too strong will drive her away.

Substances

She can't consume alcohol and wouldn't trust her body to properly digest hallucinogens. She's never tried to smoke pot, but it is likely that it would increase her anxiety rather than decrease it, if it isn't with someone she absolutely trusts.

Spirituality

She has an unshakable conviction in her beliefs, and an equally firm conviction that they ought to be kept private until they are needed otherwise.

Stealth

Includes using/predicting the weather to erase footprints or hide her tracks. Uses foliage, knows how to hide her scents, etc, though she's not necessarily a master at this in Nova Scotia since she's lived most of her life in a different climate.

Fighting

Her fighting style favors horseback, or tight, narrow spaces where longer weapons would be at a disadvantage. She is not above using stealth or trickery if she needs to.

Her weapon of choice is the scimitar and shield, with a composite bow as a secondary option. She's used a staff once or twice, and she's used daggers only in the context of stabbing someone who wasn't aware that she was armed in the first place.

Horses and Livestock

She has a basic understanding of how take care of horses, and has an understanding of how they communicate. She knows how to ride, and although she's never trained a warhorse herself, she knows how to fight on one.

Sewing

Zaahira's small hands make her deft with a needle and thread.

She knows how to skin an animal and treat its hide, although she has less experience with this than she does sewing already treated leather. Additionally, she knows how to turn raw wool into clothing, though her life as a bandit took priority over herding or the like.

She is at her best when it comes to sizing, fitting and sewing already available fabric, whether it be for armor purposes, or for simple clothing.

Healing

Zaahira has an extensive knowledge of what battle wounds a person can and can't survive, and what actions she should take to prolong a person's life - more or less.

Her knowledge on diseases amounts to superstition, but some of it is correct, if not for the reasons she thinks it is. For example, she thinks that bad spirits are fond of filth, so it is important to clean a space that a wounded or sick person sleeps in. It is also important for the healer clean both their body and that of the wounded. Fire and alcohol is cleansing, so things that burn (like hot peppers) are also cleansing.

If someone has lost a lot of blood, she might recommend that an animal be slaughtered, and a cavity be opened with the wounded person placed inside it, so that they will 'absorb' the blood.

Sailing

She knows how boats and sails work. She does not know how to build a boat, but she is not completely useless when it comes to rigging.

Reading & Writing

Someone outside her tribe once attempted to teach her how to read and write, and Zaahira humored them. She knows how to write her own name, can recognize the Arabic alphabet - but that's it. She is not motivated to learn any further, and she frequently cheated in these lessons by memorizing what she was supposed to be reading, instead.

Languages

She knows snippets of a few different languages common around North Africa, but Arabic is her first and easiest to speak in. Her knowledge of English was acquired during a year-long trip at sea, and her speech is accented, but understandable.

Strengths

• Cross-purposes: Some of Zaahira's knowledge is useful elsewhere. Familiarity with both warfare and healing means that she knows which wounds are more likely to be fatal. Her steady hands helps her both as a seamstress and as a surgeon, and the strength she wields in battle helps her carry and move her patients when she needs to.
• Unsettling Aura: She knows that she looks strange, and she's good at using this to dissuade creepers and scare away thieves.
• Observant: Although Zaahira looks disinterested in others, she is good at analyzing people's behavior and predicting patterns. It is not a natural talent, so much as something she has actively taught herself over the years.
• Good Memory: She remembers names and faces. She might remember the embarrassing thing you did long ago, but she's smart enough to not mention it.

Weaknesses

• Weak Stomach: As a consequence of an illness she had when she was young, Zaahira's digestive system cannot tolerate anything other than meat without becoming ill. This affects her in multiple ways:
  • Testing herbs on herself is a very dangerous prospect. A little poison goes a long way.
  • She has to make excuses not to eat food that someone else has already cooked, if it isn't meat or she's not aware of what is inside it.
• Weapon Choice: Zaahira uses a scimitar. Its curved blades gives a smaller arc, so that it is less likely to hit the wielder's mount. When she is not on horseback, the curved blade becomes a disadvantage because of its smaller reach.
  • She currently doesn't have a trained warhorse.
• Unpersonable: In theory, Zaahira knows how to put people at ease. In practice, she is very bad at it. She's never going to be the kind of person that people are immediately comfortable around, but she does know how to convey her appreciation to people once they've met and are familiar with her.
• Herblore: Zaahira does not know the local flora. This makes prescribing cures or medicine difficult; she must rely on someone else for that aspect of her healing, or else learn how to fill the gap.

4.1  Family

• Mother: Sadiqa al-Ghurab
• Father: Jabir al-Ghurab
• Littermate: Ilham al-Ghurab
• Younger Sibling: Faraj al-Ghurab
• Zaahira has a large extended family, but aside from her deceased younger siblings and her dead grandmother, she hasn't met them. None of them are onboard.

• Family: al-Ghurab (by birth) al-Ghul (by deed)
• Children: Faraj al-Ghul (by adoption)