[Hider=Meera Kaes][center][color=#c2b280][b][h3][u]Meera Kaes[/u][/h3]
{{ FEMALE || 28 }}[/b][/color][/center]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]APPEARANCE[/b][/u][/color]
[indent]Meera is a young human woman, notable for her substantial height.  Unlike most of her people, whose hair grows almost universally black, Meera’s hair has a light brown colour she inherited from her father alongside her unusual green eyes.  Her skin is also a tad lighter than the norm, but still a deep olive indicative of her origins.  On the whole her appearance might be described as comely, though domestic.  She is a far cry from the beautiful women taken as wives by the great lords, her crooked nose and somewhat gangly build alone marking that distinction. [/indent]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]BIOGRAPHY[/b][/u][/color]
[indent]Meera’s life began when her father, the mercenary fifth son of an ancient bloodline, settled down in Jeshkan.  What compelled the man to end his long journey in one of the most desolate and unyielding climes the world over Meera would often wonder, her mother was far from a great prize herself, but perhaps she was enough.  In the end her father joined the personal guard of a prominent lord, and Meera came about not long after.  For ten years she was happy, her family one of the very few who ate full meals and never suffered the harshness of the Jeshkan sun; but it was not to last.  Her father died in his duties, but in a cruel twist of fate he perished only after the great lord he served had been mortally wounded in the attempt on his life.  Knowing his end was near he blamed and cursed the guard who’d failed him, and when the great lords son came to succeed him the boys first act was to put Meera and her mother in chains.

What came next was a blur, but perhaps mercifully one.  Prisoners in Jeshkan are wasted water and food, so to live in chains is to live under the whip, at work for your captors.  In the beginning that was all it was, work.  Yes it was endless work, and there was pain, thirst, and hunger under a scorching sun that seemed to eat at her every day, but it was mercy compared to what came after.  According to the work chief there were better uses for a passably pretty girl.  By the time her supposed sentence was up she was nineteen, her mother was dead from starvation, and she was a husk among a throng of those just like her.  Perhaps it would have been better if there had been truly nothing left of her.

Alas, she was not so lucky.  She had known what it was like to live above the filth, and she knew who had taken that from her.  Meera had been hollowed out, but among all the depredations of those who’d tormented her, none had robbed her of the hate and yearning that boiled her blood on the coldest of nights.  For a time she returned to the work, the simple and comforting humiliation of labour for the slimmest of rewards.  After it all it was bliss for her, but bliss with greater purpose.  Organizing it took more humiliation yet, but she managed to ingratiate herself with one of the largest labour gangs among forsaken who toiled in the sun.

She earned their trust, and exploited it.  Money for reporting on their activities, money from skimming, all things she knew she risked terrible punishment for, but punishment no worse than she was accustom to.  Suffering was existence, and she had purpose enough to endure it.  Eventually she had earned enough to bribe her way into a maids position, a life far more comfortable than most in Jeshkan, but not enough.  Money was simple to steal, but the secrets of the great houses were far more valuable.  Years passed, and in time she had accrued enough favour to earn a place in the household of the lord who’d once condemned her to the life she’d suffered through.

Years of toil, and in one moment—after excruciating months in the lords service—she took her revenge.  A simple drop of poison in the wine another was preparing him, a flick of the wrist, and the pendulum began to swing.  On some level she was prepared to die, but what good was revenge if you only tasted it once?  She wanted more, or else she’d have never framed the other girl.

The lord died in agony, and the girl who’d served him followed suit.  Meera, so far as anyone cared, was just another serving girl who hardly knew the traitor.  It was mere coincidence that the lords heir and uncle rewarded her for her service a year later and elevated her from servant to the nondescript, but distinguished, role of scribe.  To have her as a maid would have been a waste of a literate girl, after all.

Some would say that her return to society was miraculous, impossible without help, and perhaps she’d had some after all.
[/indent]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]SKILLS[/b][/u][/color]
[indent][b]-- Quick Hand[/b]
[indent]Meera has survived on her skills, and in the beginning the ability to make a coin disappear, or a knife do the opposite, saved her many, many times.[/indent][/indent]
[indent][b]-- Sly Tongue[/b]
[indent]Lies are life.  One learns that quickly among the poor of Jeshkan, but not all embrace it.  Meera has lied for so long that she may not even know, or possibly care, what the truth really is.  Her manipulations allowed her to fulfill her first purpose.  Surely they’ll help her the second time around.  [/indent][/indent]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]WEAPONS[/b][/u][/color]
[indent][b]-- A Poisoned Dagger[/b]
[indent]Meera may not have needed it in the end, but she had needed it before.  This simple dagger has dimples along its length, each one with a hardened wax laced with a different deadly poison in it.[/indent][/indent]

[color=#c2b280][center][b][h3][u]AKAT THE WICKED[/u][/h3]
{{ FEMALE }}[/b][/center][/color]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]A Silver Ring[/b][/u][/color]
[indent]Meera has been deprived of almost all she once had, but this ring is perhaps the one thing that remains of her father.  It is worn and scratched to the point any original pattern it had is long gone, it fits none of her fingers, and all the same she would gladly kill to keep it on the simple brass necklace she had made a short year ago.[/indent]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]PERSONALITY[/b][/u][/color]
[indent]It is hardly surprising that Akat choose Meera, for they both value life itself below their revenge.  For Akat the act was legendary, and profoundly excessive.  Why she came to hate the Teferi family is unknown, though some speculate it was as simple as an unrequited love or a slight no more or less severe than any noble would have directed towards a commoner.  Whatever the reason Akat set about the task of exterminating one of the oldest, largest, and most beloved noble families in her home country.  By the time she was done her vengeance had expanded to the point that those even moderately involved with the dead family were being hunted by unimaginable beasts. From there it seems Akat decided most humans were responsible for something or other, and they all had to pay.

Even among the legionnaires she became renown for her cruelty.  Those she encountered were often subjected to mock trials where they were forced to admit to a litany of supposed sins, and often her punishments were as creative as they were brutal.  For her revenge and justice became interchangeable, any slight against anyone or anything was a slight against her and her ilk, to who the whole world was owed.  It is said that even as she died she was describing the colourful and disturbing ways she’d torture her executioners for the crime.  [/indent]

[color=#c2b280][u][b]SKILLS[/b][/u][/color]
[indent][b]-- Bloody Confession[/b]
[indent]Akat can grant Meera the ability to compel individuals to admit their sins, and in the act inflict twisted punishments on themselves for each confession. [/indent][/indent]
[indent][b]-- Those Who’ll Never Betray You[/b]
[indent]Akat made frequent use of otherworldly and terrifying creatures when she terrorized the world, and in some small ways she has conferred this power onto Meera.  Meera can summon shadow like reflections of awful and bizarre creatures who, while largely incapable of inflicting injury, make perfect spies.  It may be that in time her power to bring them into this realm in totality will grow. [/indent][/indent][/hider]

[@Sierra]