[hider=Ayessa Shayal]
[b]Name:[/b] Ayessa Shayal
[b]Species:[/b] Miraluka
[b]Age:[/b] 21 standard years
[b]Rank/Title:[/b] Jedi Knight
[b]Planet of Origin/Birth:[/b] Alpheridies
[b]Force Sensitive Y/N:[/b] Yes

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[IMG]http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/138/6/2/Kayrani_Sha__Jedi_Consular_by_Tanqexe.jpg[/IMG]
Ayessa tends to wear robes suited for diplomacy and other consular work, having not truly experienced the rigours of heavy combat. Her mask is simple and practical, her hair cut fairly short so as not to get in the way of her Lightsaber in combat. Since her hair doesn’t affect her sight, she rarely bothers pushing it to the side, only doing so when she remembers others find it strange.

[b]Skills/Abilities/Talents/Training:[/b]

- Force Sense - As a Miraluka, Ayessa relies entirely on the force to replace sight. Not only is she capable of sensing her surroundings as well as if she could see, she has developed these natural talents to include a more developed sense of precognition than most Jedi. She can, in effect, 'see' in 360 degrees, though her focus is usually ahead of her, a habit she learned partially because other races have only forward vision and appreciate being looked at while in a conversation. Another part of Miraluka Force sense is the ability to see feelings and intent in others, as well the capacity to instantly detect Force users, unless that user is hiding their Force sensitivity - willfully or not. Feelings and intent can also be veiled, particularly so with force users, but a skilled con-man could still rely on his skills against Miraluka Force Sight, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent.
- Farsight - Ayessa is a practitioner of Farsight as an extension of her Force sense, though she can only control sight of events happening in the present. She is occasionally afflicted with visions of the Future, and has no control over the occurrence of such.
- Form III: Soresu - Ayessa Has focused her Lightsaber training exclusively on Soresu, the defensive art. She has by no means mastered it, but in combination with her heightened Force Sense she has proved in many a duel that victory comes to the patient. Her original intent when practicing this form was, however, to counter her own comparative lack of physical strength compared to most other duelists, a flaw which made the practice of most other forms untenable.
- Piloting Skills - She has received little formal training concerning the piloting of Starships and ground vehicles alike, but she does possess quite a degree of raw skill when piloting a fast moving vehicle, a trait that is seen quite often in Miraluka Jedi. However, due to the lack of formal training she is prone to taking dangerous risks while flying or driving, a tendency that often sees her assigned to missions that do not involve piloting of any kind, at least prior to the war.
- Basic Force Manipulation - Including Force speed, bodily augmentation, jump, push, pull and telekinesis in general. Ayessa can make use of these staples of Jedi Force training, but is in no way unique in her application of them, merely representing a Jedi Knight baseline level of skill.
- Basic mechanical aptitude - specifically with smaller spacecraft. Ayessa is capable of maintaining and conducting limited repairs on anything from an Aurek Strike Fighter to a small freighter, though this aptitude is more due to the Force guiding her than direct knowledge or training.

[b]Equipment:[/b]

- Blue Lightsaber - Of basic construction, its decoration is largely tactile in nature so that ayessa can appreciate it more easily. Though a green blade would be more traditional for her role in the order, the blue crystal was retained because she located it through foresight.
- Jedi Utility belt - Even diplomats are issued with the standard spread of survival equipment.
- Clothing - Including the mask that covers the blank space where other species would have eyes.

[b]Psych profile:[/b]

Ayessa is an atypical Miraluka, she believes quite firmly in her views of right and wrong as well as good and evil, where most Miraluka have a very grey outlook on the world. She believes wholeheartedly in the Jedi Code, and that the code dictates that the Jedi should help those in need. She believes that everyone has the capacity to be good, and will only fight when there is absolutely no alternative. She has begun to believe that many a wrongdoer deserves to be given the chance to atone, and she dislikes killing. She has a very naive outlook on war, and tends only to see the leaders and the ideals behind the war rather than the atrocity committed on the front lines. While many others may consider her to be a moral pillar, her morals often blind her to the true nature of those around her. She is an extreme idealist, refusing even to use the mind trick to avoid battle in the hopes that people will come to the right conclusion on their own, which ironically has lead to a number of avoidable deaths. Ayessa still believes in happy endings and that light always prevails over dark. She is often momentarily shocked into inaction when witnessing extreme brutality, particularly that committed by people she believed to be 'good', a flaw that has already been the cause of injury in battle.

[b]History:[/b]

Born on Alpheridies not long after it had recovered from the Mandalorian invasion in the Great Sith War Ayessa grew up hearing tales of the greatness of the Miraluka Jedi who had fought in the war. She was, like all Miraluka, born Force sensitive, but even in her early years it was clear that her perceptions where a cut above those of the Miraluka around her. Ayessa was always able to find out things about people and places, and she often had an inkling of the answers to question before they were answered. Her parents were overjoyed, and their daughter was soon brought to the attention of the Luka Sene as a prospective initiate. At around the same time, the Culu Memorial Jedi Praxeum was coming to prominence on Alpheridies, and with it, the stories of the Jedi. The Jedi had played an integral part in the liberation of Alpheridies, and at that time were highly regarded in Miraluka society, a view that rubbed of on Ayessa as soon as she was old enough to comprehend what it all meant.

A young Ayessa was enchanted by these stories of heroism against all odds, and compared to the Luka Sene, these mythic protectors of the galaxy were a far more appealing choice for a Force Sensitive to join. At the age of nine, Ayessa had her heart firmly set on joining the Jedi, not the Luka Sene as would have been more traditional. She wanted to become one of the 'great heroes and saviours of the galaxy' and already she was beginning to develop a strong moral code that adhered heavily with the code of Jedi as seen by an outsider. Though her parents did not like the idea of her becoming a Jedi, as they knew that such a choice would mean that they never saw their daughter again, they nonetheless gave her their blessing and took her to the Culu Memorial praxium. The Jedi were happy to take her, especially once they found out the extent of her natural Force Sight, already trained somewhat by early intervention from the Luka Sene. In her they saw the potential to mold a Jedi Seer, a rare type of Jedi Consular able to see the future. After the sudden and brutal Great Sith War, the Jedi masters felt the need for seers to better predict any future wars of the like.

Ayessa was quickly selected as a padawan to the human master Artemes Myndraav. Artemes was an aging and kindly master who had taught a number of Miraluka padawans in the past, his teaching style a subtle and gentle one. They stayed on Alpheridies for several years while Ayessa was taught all the basics, where she also began to learn the art of fighting with a Lightsaber, though still with a practice saber. Here she also learned the Jedi code and immediately began to interpret it through the lense of the Jedi being heroes of the people. Because of this unshakeable belief that Jedi were heroes and beacons of light, Ayessa always interpreted the code as a responsibility to help those who could not help themselves. She proved an enthusiastic student, though always a little over eager to 'save the galaxy,' Master Myndraav always reacting with joviality to his 'young future heroine'. The years passed quickly for her, and soon enough Master Myndraav took her offworld for the first time. Her first task away from Alpheridies was to forge a Lightsaber, however in a test of her sight, she was given no information at all as to how this was to be done, or where. It was a task she initially thought impossible, and for weeks she begged her master to tell her something, anything. But Myndraav refused, and for all those weeks he also refused to teach her anything of the Jedi ways at all, merely content to meditate aboard their small ship while the young Ayessa cast about for the tiniest clue.

This was the first time Ayessa had been forced to rely entirely on her farsight for anything, and it proved difficult for her. After a solid week of meditation, a vision eventually came to her, from which she was able to determine the location of the Crystal Caverns on Dantooine. Only once she had told her master of this did he finally relent and teach her the techniques necessary to build a Lightsaber, revealing that he had had all the components except the crystal on their ship and waiting the whole time. As much as a test of her sight, the test had been one to teach patience as well. Ayessa took this lesson to heart, taking her time to build the Lightsaber, receiving another vision in the process. This vision directed her building of the hilt of the Lightsaber to fit her future use of it in the Soresu form - as a result the initial saber proved quite large for her hands at the time, but as she grew older began to fit more perfectly into her hands.

Once this had been done, Master Myndraav and Ayessa spent the remainder of her time as a padawan accepting missions from the council across the galaxy. In the field, Myndraav was a skilled diplomat, and always sought to solve problems with reason and words, only resorting to the Lightsaber if it became clear that violence was the only path yet open to him. Ayessa followed his example, an example which served to strengthen her own interpretation of the Jedi code - that everyone should be given a chance to do what is right. Myndraav always encouraged her to make use of the peculiarities of Miraluka sight, and to trust in her visions. Her sight became one of her greatest skills as a Jedi under Myndraav's gentle guidance, quickly coming to rival his own Force sense.

On one occasion during a mission, the pair found themselves betrayed and cast into a sudden ambush by a republic officer. He had been the one to call for the assistance of the Jedi, and had for weeks been providing them with leads to take down the criminal organisation he had been running, but once he had pruned out the elements of his organisation that posed a threat to him with the use of the Jedi, he attempted to kill them to cover his tracks. This sudden betrayal from a man who Ayessa trusted and had come to view as righteous saw her injured in battle when she failed to draw her Lightsaber to deflect the initial blaster shots. Master Myndraav was able to fight off the assailants, standing guard over Ayessa's fallen body until help arrived. Fortunately her assailant had been a poor shot, the blaster bolt having only grazed across the side of her torso, but it had still been enough between the unfamiliar pain and the shock of betrayal to fell her.

After this incident Artemes realised that he had been too eager to push Ayessa into the path of the seer, and in his insistence that she trust her visions and intuition he had failed to prepare her for the unexpected. Because of this he delayed her Knighting for a full year, he began to take on missions that would have unexpected turns, and slowly managed to minimize the amount she would suffer from surprise and betrayal, but after a year of focusing largely on this aspect, it became clear to him that nothing short of complete betrayal would cure her of this inherent trust which had now become a flaw. It was something he could not orchestrate on his own, and indeed could not, fearing something of that magnitude brought about by his hand, the master whom she trusted with her life, would send her to the Dark Side. Not only this, but the Mandalorians were becoming an ever greater threat as they conquered unaligned fringe worlds, and Ayessa could not help but see the Mandalorians as evil, having conquered her homeworld in the last war. This distraction made Artemes's lessons less effective, and with each new report of a world conquered at the hands of the Mandalorians Ayessa grew more distracted and more determined that the Jedi should not be so idle. And so seeing that he could teach her no more, in her twentieth year Ayessa was sent by Myndraav to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to undergo the Trials of Knighthood.

Ayessa's Trial of Skill was one of the lengthiest on record, her focus on Soresu and the defensive technique pitting her endurance against that of apparitions who could fight indefinitely. Eventually she was able to exploit the flaws in the techniques of the apparitions, but only after learning their techniques through a constant and unrelenting battle. Nonetheless, she defeated them and passed the Trial of Skill. Her Trials of Courage and of Spirit where one and the same: A vision in which her own brutal death was portrayed vividly was presented to her. Whether through the efforts of the Council or a happenstance of the Force, she does not know, but for days it appeared as though the vision had destroyed her faith in the Jedi. She has told no-one, not even the council or Master Myndraav of what she saw other than that it was her death and refuses to speak of it, though some have whispered that she saw far more atrocity than simply her own death. Just as the council began to lose hope that Ayessa would be able to surmount this twin trial, she presented herself for the remaining two. Ayessa passed the final trials without flair, but adequately for the observing masters.

Following this Ayessa was Knighted at the age of twenty standard years, and studied at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for a short time. She was here when the Mandalorian war broke out in earnest and she here where she heard of the Revanchist movement. Though barely a Knight herself, she immediately began to support Revan's ideas, citing that the war cost the lives of countless innocents every day, and that even if the Jedi avoided battle they should at least help the civilian populaces. When the Jedi Masters eventually allowed a number of Jedi to leave to support the Republic and Revan, Ayessa was one of the first to take up the cause. She believed it would be like the great stories of how the Jedi liberated Alpheridies, all heroes and villains battling and turning the war with the deaths of a few leaders. She had no conception of the reality of the frontline, and departed eagerly, finally fulfilling her dream to beat back a great evil from devouring the Republic. And not just any evil, but the Mandalorians, who had always been the foes of her childhood fantasies.

[b]Relationships and Acquaintances:[/b]

Ayessa has met the fellow Jedi Knight Elara Rahn several times in her travels, always in the capacity of a healer, often for Ayessa’s own injuries. Because of this, she views Elara as, if not a friend, at least a person of great moral integrity. She is prone to overlook Elara’s methods, even though they clash with Ayessa’s own view of how things ought to be done, due to this opinion.

Ayessa Shayal has also, out of necessity, taken on the Kaleesh Padawan Valek as her own.
[/hider]