[Hider=Elara Rahn][B]Name:[/B] Elara Rahn
[B]Species:[/B] Vahla
[B]Age:[/B] 25
[B]Rank/Title:[/B] Jedi Knight
[B]Planet of Origin/Birth:[/B] None - Born in space
[B]Force Sensitive Y/N:[/B] Yup
 
[B]Appearance:[/B][INDENT]Elara stands 191 cm tall, which when compared to baseline humans is fairly tall, but not extremely so. Her eyes are gray with a faint hint of light blue to them, making them stand out a bit from her dusky brown skin and black hair. Over the years, her mode of dress has varied greatly, but it is highly influenced by the ways of the Jedi Order, if tending towards being more worn than most. She has never been fond of owning more than she can carry herself, which is in part rooted in her heritage and in part to the frugal tendencies of the Jedi order.

Her current clothes are brown pants tucked into sensible boots of Jedi make, with a tan shirt tucked into it. She might have a front-open Jedi robe on, but this is not always the case. There are a number of singe-marks on the clothes from various accidents and experiments. One thing that stands out about her is her sinuous way of moving. This is owing to the cartilaginous nature of her skeleton. Unfortunately, while it grants her ability to fit through narrow spaces others couldn’t get through, it also makes her far more prone to broken limbs and such.
[url=http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/125/2/2/rebellion_by_wojciechfus-d7h9rvz.png]This[/url] image is a fairly decent representation, though the clothes don't match. Not our work, of course. [/INDENT]
[hider2=image][img=http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/125/2/2/rebellion_by_wojciechfus-d7h9rvz.png][/hider2]

[B]Skills/Abilities/Talents/Training:[/B][indent]Classic Force powers (speed, sight, telekinesis, …)
Force Healing
Lightsaber combat (Ataru Form)
Basic piloting (she knows the ups and downs of the controls on most smaller craft, but she’s no Ace)[/indent]

 [B]Equipment:[/B][indent]- Lightsaber - The hilt is made of a curious metal alloy that is somewhat bluish in color. It is somewhat longer than average, but not as long as a typical double-bladed lightsaber would have been. When active, the citrine-colored blade is fairly long, but it is also slightly oval in shape, making it both wide and narrow depending on how it is turned.
- Clothes (described in appearance section)
- Basic Utility Belt (IRSOG issue - contains things like some rations, a breather, some simple tools, a short vibroblade knife, etc.)[/indent]

 [B]Psych profile:[/B][INDENT]Elara is pretty abrupt, known for her shrewdness. She is not prone to complex solutions. If there’s a blocked door, she’ll break the door, not slice the controls. If the door is too strong, she’ll go for the wall beside it. She is also rather stubborn, but she is not easily angered. The most notable thing about her personality is that she constantly seeks to make the world safer for the Jedi back home and shies no measures to do so.[/INDENT]

[B]History:[/B][INDENT]Elara Rahn was born in deep space on one of the innumerable ships belonging to the Vahla, a species of nomadic near-humans, who all search for their long-lost homeworld. Exactly how they lost track of their homeworld is a bit uncertain, but it is well-known that the Jedi Order was involved. Seeing as virtually all Vahla belong to the dark-side Cult known as [i]Embers of Vahla[/i], that fact is not really surprising. It comes as no surprise then that her family passionately hates the Jedi.

If events had not turned out as they did, Elara would no doubt have followed in their footsteps, potentially rising to a powerful position in the cult. However, they did not pan out as expected. When she was four years old (3984 BBY), her family ship was assaulted by a Jedi Shadow strike team. The battle that ensued was to put it mildly messy. Though the result was the defeat of that particular faction of the [i]Embers of Vahla[/i], it was not without cost. Fully half of the Shadows and their troop contingent died in the process.

As she was but a few years old at the time, the Jedi Shadows did not feel it right to have her executed the way her family had all been. Instead, they chose to take her with them, fully intent upon raising her as a Jedi. They judged that she could yet be saved from the darkness inherent in her ancestry. At first, they brought her back to Coruscant, to the Jedi temple there. That was, after all, just where that strike team was based out from. It was fairly evident to the Masters of the Order that she should be trained. Her aptitude for the Force, while not exceptional, was still more than strong enough to qualify for training. But they also did not think that someone as young as her should grow up on Coruscant, especially not considering what they termed “her troubled past”. As such, she was quickly sent to the Jedi Academy on H’ratth, where they sought to heal the scars to her soul even as they raised her in what they considered proper conditions. H’ratth was a lush planet with a relatively small population, so for someone with a scarred past, it was the perfect place to heal up, especially when guided by the greatest healers in the Jedi Order.

As soon as Elara had healed up to the masters’ satisfaction, she was initiated into the Order, trained in the basics of the Force. She quickly showed that she had a certain aptitude for healing, as she could see to the roots of the problem with remarkable ease. Three years after her capture, she was raised to the rank of Padawan, apprenticed to Jedi Master Mara Terius. Her master was demanding, but fair in her lessons. She pushed Elara hard, but never so hard as to risk her breaking. For the first seven years of her training (to 3974), her master kept her on H’ratth, teaching her all she could, frequently aided by the other masters and knights stationed there.

Where her master favored the Shii-Cho form of lightsaber combat, Elara preferred the more aggressive Ataru form. This was in part due to her tendency to want to solve things quickly. She received quite a bit of instruction in the form while on H’ratth, but none of the Jedi stationed there were experts in that style, so she did not have a chance to become more than adequate at using Ataru Form of combat. Not that anyone can become truly good through mere practice. At the tender age of fourteen, her master took her out on missions in the galaxy. Never on missions that were particularly dangerous, after all neither of them were warrior Jedi, but challenging missions nonetheless.

For the next four years (until 3970), their missions took them all over republic space, but rarely beyond those borders. Elara steadily grew in confidence and skill, becoming a healer worthy of note. With the republic at peace (other than the odd minor conflicts) their missions more often than not involved tending to the injured from accidents rather than from armed conflicts. It was, of course, not unusual for them to also seek to find the cause behind such incidents. Jedi healers were after all more than just medical personnel. It was after these six years that her master considered her ready for the trials of Knighthood.

The trials were not easy for Elara. Her trail of skill involved several intense lightsaber duels against simulacrums of long-dead Sith lords. This particular test was designed to test her skill at the Ataru form of lightsaber combat. On several occasions, she felt as if she were about to fail the test, for where her skill was passably good, the simulacrums were programmed with much higher skill at combat. It was only through using surprising tactics and utilizing inhuman flexibility of her species that she managed to complete that trial.

Her second trial, that of the flesh, was unusual. Where most often it involved the candidate being exposed to great pain or somesuch, instead she was asked to retrieve an object from deep within the Coruscant temple, accessible only through crawling through the cramped bowels of the temple. Many of the places she had to get through, would have been impossible for a human to get through. Even with her extremely flexible skeleton, it was hard for her to do so. After what felt to her like an eternity of crawling, she managed to retrieve the object and return it to the masters.

How her courage was tested is not something she has ever spoken of, but she will not deny that it shook her to the core if someone manages to dig deeply enough. Where most of the trials involved her being exposed to external problems, the hardest trial of them all was her trial of spirit, for this forced her to dig deeply into the nature of her people. To dig into the way they are almost universally on the dark side of the force. It made her seek deeply inside herself to the darkness that was deeply buried therein. Afterwards, when the masters understood just how hard that particular trial had been for her, how perilously close it had brought her to the brink of the dark side, they deemed that it had served also as her trial of Insight.

The trials passed, she opted to spend a few years back on H’ratth. It was there she met Enric Rahn, a fellow Jedi. Over the next few years, he helped her get back from the brink of the Dark Side to which the trials had brought her. While it was not particularly encouraged, their friendship soon developed into something more. By 3967, they had had their first child, whom they named Nyla Rahn. Theirs was a happy marriage and they raised their child in peace for the next several years, even as the mandalorian wars were beginning to affect the galaxy and the republic more and more. She continued to serve as a healer until 3963, when she considered the threat of the Mandalorians to be too great. She had for months been watching the messages by the rogue Jedi Revan, but had obeyed the directives of the masters to stay out of the conflict. However, she did not want her daughter to grow up in a galaxy ruled by the Mandalorians. The very thought of that made her shudder. It would be almost as bad as growing up ruled by the Sith.

She talked long and hard with her husband and eventually they decided that she would go, while he would remain behind to raise their child. It was not an easy choice to make to leave the two of them behind, but they both agreed something had to be done. Thus her choice to join the Revanchist movement was made. She left H’ratth behind, joining up with a group of other Jedi headed to join the war effort. Among those other Jedi was the four years younger Miraluka Jedi Knight Ayessa Shayal. Though they had somewhat differing philosophies, they both agreed that the war had to be won.
[/INDENT]

[B]Relationships and Acquaintances:[/B][INDENT]During her time on H’ratth, she encountered Ihna Zhiss several times. Its more of an acquaintance-business than it is true friendship, though. They share some personality traits, like the fondness for cutting Gordian knots.
Prior to their encountering each other on the way to join the republic army in the fight against the Mandalorians, Elara Rahn has met the Miraluka Jedi Ayessa Shayal a few times on past missions, but they did not get as close back then as they have done now that they are both heading to join the same war. They do not have the same philosophies, but they have the same goals.
[more will be added later][/INDENT][/hider]