[hider=Amesha]
Character Name: Amesha Spenta Ameretat

Rank/Role:
Amesha seeks eternal life, at any cost. Already old by human standards, she seeks to push the limits further, to truly transcend the limitations of a mortal lifespan and preserve her intelligence ad infinitum. A master geneticist and an expert in cybernetics, she yet lacks the answer to the question of true immortality, having yet stumbled only on half-measures and imperfect approximations.


Appearance:
[Art will be done]
Perfectly normal human in at first glance, there are subtle oddities about Amesha’s outward appearance that bely the true nature of what lies beneath. While her body has not been replaced to the same extent of a Magos of the Mechanicum or the most extreme techno-barbarians of the desert, the white hair and immaculate, utterly flawless skin free of all imperfections or damage are at odds with the standards of most of those people of Terra. That beneath the robes lie a patchwork of stitches, cybernetics, and blotched skin is only further proof that something is deeply unusual about the woman - as though the body has been stitched over its framework not just once, but many times before. Mismatched eyes, one evidently cybernetic, and the other a piercing violet.


Biography:
Born many, many years ago to an Achaemenid noble, Amesha was once known as Azadeh Shahzad, second born child of Yazdegerd Shahzad. Raised in a privileged, comfortable home and provided access to the best of instructors who recited ancient tomes of knowledge to her, the young girl voraciously devoured any sort of knowledge provided to her. 

Amesha wowed her instructors with the eagerness with which she learned. The ancient hymns of the genetic lines of man and beast came to her as second nature. The tongues of the ancient biomancers who worked flesh and bone like clay between their fingers seemed to her a natural fit. The sagas of the masters who wove flesh and steel together like threads of gene-spider silk, she memorized in full. And the stories of an even more distant, ancient past. The mythologies and tales of the time before time when gods walked the land and the ancient psykers wrought their magykes. 

However the political realities of the world intruded upon her blissful little bubble. She was married off to another noble to secure a political alliance in the constant jockeying and shoving for power and influence within the Achaemenid Empire, and a young beautiful bride was a mighty prize indeed for the powerful Satrap of Iazd. The Satrap disgusted her, an aged, old man who saw her as a choice prize. She looked upon his decaying form with despair - was this what awaited her in turn? 

She beseeched him - she had far more to offer him than base fulfillment and heirs before he died. Like many nobles, he used rejuvenants to extend his life and delay aging. But she offered him more. Like the snakes of the old stories she promised him to peel away the decay and decrepitude of age in exchange for her freedom. 

He did not believe her at first, and set her three tests to demonstrate her skill. 

First he bade her to restore the mangled flesh to a common man. So she set out into the streets of Iazd and found herself a veteran of many wars, one without arm nor leg, who depended on begging for his bread - and restored his body to him. The veteran jumped as he exited her laboratory, astounding the noble.

Then he bade her age a young man, and age him forward - so she set out into Iazd once more, and found a man willing to do so in exchange for a great reward. This she gave his family, and the young man walked out of her laboratory hunched over and decrepit, a wizened shell of strapping youth. The noble trembled at such a transformation, but conceded her victory.

Suitably impressed, he bade her complete one last test - not only would she restore youth to the young man, she would restore it to his most loyal bodyguard. Herself a veteran of many wars, the years had worn away at her strength and vigor, and she could not defend his liege as ahe so wished. And so where an aged, weakened man and woman entered her laboratory, out strode those same two - but now young, strong, energetic, and in the prime of life.

The Satrap was now fully convinced, and he agreed to release her from her marriage if she could restore his own youth. And so deep within the laboratory she had erected, she operated upon him. Skin and flesh moved like clay beneath her fingers, just as it did the old masters, and when he awoke, the Satrap looked into the mirror and saw the young, handsome face he had once thought forever lost. 

He leapt to his feet in joy and proclaimed to her and to his bodyguard that he could never relinquish a woman so skilled, who claimed such mastery over life and death itself. And he proclaimed that she would be his for eternity, and that she and he would remain young and whole henceforth. 

And Azadeh Shahzad, enraged at this betrayal, pointed an accusatory hand at the Satrap and, with a snap of her fingers - the Satrap fell dead. For within his body she had implanted a most lethal poison, to be released if he were to reneg. The Satrap’s bodyguard drew her sword, but the words of Azadeh stayed her.

“Would you kill for a dead man who could not keep such sacred word? You have no poison in your heart - for I had nothing to fear from you. He would have lived on, happy, for the next few decades - and I would have kept my word."

The bodyguard drew closer, "And yet you have slain my liege." 

"And in doing so I freed you of you bond to an oathbreaker. Join me, instead. You are brave and strong and loyal - and when I find the secret of true eternal youth and beauty I shall share it with you." 

The bodyguard hesitated, before at last inclining her head to her new liege. 

"And know me no longer as Azadeh Shahzad. I will become Amesha Spenta Ameretat, she who grants eternal life." 

And so with the Satrap's equipment and many of his former followers she set out from Iazd, to roam Terra in search of the answers she sought. For over a century since she has roamed the landscape, hiding from dangerous foes and trekking through ancient ruins to learn the secrets she sought. Gradually she learned more and more - but the true answer remained ever elusive as the years wore on her body and she felt even her treatments beginning to reach their limit. But she remained ever determined and continued on, confident she would find what she sought.[/hider]