Tatyana
New member
Tatyana
| Age 22 |
| Gender Female |
| Origin Iannasoluu Peninsula; South-west Ilica |
| Occupation Sailor. An occasional boatswain. |
(THIS IS ALL A PORT THAT'S STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS, BE GENTLE)
Tatyana was the kind of person who thought they had no story to tell.
There were no eventful moments of childhood or dire prophecies seen in her birth, nor any celestial signs in the night sky on the day she was delivered into this world. No parents to even tell her whether or not that was actually the case, for her mother was a blur in forgotten dreams, while her father may as well have been a blur for how small his love impacted this story being told.
Had she found herself at swordpoint to account for her earliest memories?
She might decide then to speak of the ocean in all its endless glory, or the churning of the deck beneath her as saltwater stung her lungs, with the roiling waves mesmerizing an impressionable child with what a sunken god's wrath must have looked like. And for a people who lived either on the water, or near enough to it, the experience was a universally understood one. Those who she considered family could all nod their heads in understanding if that was the answer she had given.
Another tale she could have told might have been of the sand beneath her feet and the harping of small fishing people leading small lives; of how the corals and all the wonderful colors beneath the sea must've looked to her in her youth, and how she found herself bereft of the necessary words in her tender age to convey the beauty and tranquility found beneath those waves.
Certainly, it was hardly any wonder why it would leave an impression on anyone, especially as a child. The peninsula she was born to came with more than its share of strange and utterly exotic sights, and it was easy to think that you were in an completely different world when you sank beneath the waves, utterly unrecognizable in its total and jarring alienness.
Or perhaps she would describe what papaya tasted like for the very first time? How unripe papaya was not very palatable? Nonetheless, either of those options were certainly more palatable than the occasional poisonous berry or low hanging fruit, which must have seemed like a rare treat to an unsupervised child with an unusually strong stomach - and a stronger will to live, thankfully.
Any incidents of self-inflicted poisoning is a thing from this list she hesitates to recollect with any enthusiasm. So maybe not that.
The rest of her life was both uneventful (in her opinion), and wildly eventful in the court of public opinion. Unsurprisingly, Tatyana was a fine example of repetition dulling even the most dramatic moments of one's short life, as with repetition did things become... not easier, but definitely less of a conversation hook for someone so utterly inundated with the kind of dangers that most city-born people blanch at.
For example, there were very few souls out there who were somehow less concerned when it came to Solannai pirates as opposed to Saknnesse census officials. The logic being that pirates weren't even half as ardent in their chosen profession when compared to magistrates and their attempts at punishing or driving out vagrant workers.
It was quite clear that her perspective was somewhat skewed after having spent much of her life traveling without needing to worry about the social niceties of polite society. The things she feared compared to others were simply different because of that fact.
Pirates were terribly uncomplicated in what they wanted when compared to the customs and laws of civilization, and she had only ever prospered in cities by the skin of her proverbial teeth - mostly due to the aforementioned treatment by city officials.
All rather simple logic, really.
Her childhood aside, there really was nothing to tell. Tatyana was a member of the Vastuun people, or more specifically the Vasuuyno; those who scorned a settled life in the Iannasoluu Peninsula and what they consider the stagnancy of an outmoded culture; perpetually shunning those from the world beyond, and perpetually afraid of the goddess' rot. With the only shelter from their myriad of fears coming from uncompromising adherence to old traditions and even older prejudices.
Not that she was ever particularly one for politics, and that same utter lack of responsibility was what ruled essentially every facet of her life.
Which was an arrangement she was perfectly content with, in all honesty. There was a certain degree of freedom in permitting her feet to do as they will, and to take her wherever they would with less than a passing thought as to what came before. Or what they were even leading her to.
What comes around the corner isn't something she likes to think about. That's a little too forward thinking for her tastes.
As far as she was concerned, tomorrow would probably resemble yesterday, or the day before yesterday, with all of it an adventure whose pages have eventually all blended together into an illegible mess where the only coherent part of the story was the now.
So why be concerned about something that has yet to happen?
Tatyana was the kind of person who thought they had no story to tell.
There were no eventful moments of childhood or dire prophecies seen in her birth, nor any celestial signs in the night sky on the day she was delivered into this world. No parents to even tell her whether or not that was actually the case, for her mother was a blur in forgotten dreams, while her father may as well have been a blur for how small his love impacted this story being told.
Had she found herself at swordpoint to account for her earliest memories?
She might decide then to speak of the ocean in all its endless glory, or the churning of the deck beneath her as saltwater stung her lungs, with the roiling waves mesmerizing an impressionable child with what a sunken god's wrath must have looked like. And for a people who lived either on the water, or near enough to it, the experience was a universally understood one. Those who she considered family could all nod their heads in understanding if that was the answer she had given.
Another tale she could have told might have been of the sand beneath her feet and the harping of small fishing people leading small lives; of how the corals and all the wonderful colors beneath the sea must've looked to her in her youth, and how she found herself bereft of the necessary words in her tender age to convey the beauty and tranquility found beneath those waves.
Certainly, it was hardly any wonder why it would leave an impression on anyone, especially as a child. The peninsula she was born to came with more than its share of strange and utterly exotic sights, and it was easy to think that you were in an completely different world when you sank beneath the waves, utterly unrecognizable in its total and jarring alienness.
Or perhaps she would describe what papaya tasted like for the very first time? How unripe papaya was not very palatable? Nonetheless, either of those options were certainly more palatable than the occasional poisonous berry or low hanging fruit, which must have seemed like a rare treat to an unsupervised child with an unusually strong stomach - and a stronger will to live, thankfully.
Any incidents of self-inflicted poisoning is a thing from this list she hesitates to recollect with any enthusiasm. So maybe not that.
The rest of her life was both uneventful (in her opinion), and wildly eventful in the court of public opinion. Unsurprisingly, Tatyana was a fine example of repetition dulling even the most dramatic moments of one's short life, as with repetition did things become... not easier, but definitely less of a conversation hook for someone so utterly inundated with the kind of dangers that most city-born people blanch at.
For example, there were very few souls out there who were somehow less concerned when it came to Solannai pirates as opposed to Saknnesse census officials. The logic being that pirates weren't even half as ardent in their chosen profession when compared to magistrates and their attempts at punishing or driving out vagrant workers.
It was quite clear that her perspective was somewhat skewed after having spent much of her life traveling without needing to worry about the social niceties of polite society. The things she feared compared to others were simply different because of that fact.
Pirates were terribly uncomplicated in what they wanted when compared to the customs and laws of civilization, and she had only ever prospered in cities by the skin of her proverbial teeth - mostly due to the aforementioned treatment by city officials.
All rather simple logic, really.
Her childhood aside, there really was nothing to tell. Tatyana was a member of the Vastuun people, or more specifically the Vasuuyno; those who scorned a settled life in the Iannasoluu Peninsula and what they consider the stagnancy of an outmoded culture; perpetually shunning those from the world beyond, and perpetually afraid of the goddess' rot. With the only shelter from their myriad of fears coming from uncompromising adherence to old traditions and even older prejudices.
Not that she was ever particularly one for politics, and that same utter lack of responsibility was what ruled essentially every facet of her life.
Which was an arrangement she was perfectly content with, in all honesty. There was a certain degree of freedom in permitting her feet to do as they will, and to take her wherever they would with less than a passing thought as to what came before. Or what they were even leading her to.
What comes around the corner isn't something she likes to think about. That's a little too forward thinking for her tastes.
As far as she was concerned, tomorrow would probably resemble yesterday, or the day before yesterday, with all of it an adventure whose pages have eventually all blended together into an illegible mess where the only coherent part of the story was the now.
So why be concerned about something that has yet to happen?
Appearance
| Height 5'5 |
| Build Perfectly healthy |
| Hair Tawny brown |
| Eyes Warm amber |
There were few things that the Vasuuyno cared less about than appearances, and why should they?
Those without home or hearth or even the faintest memories of how their mother must've looked were reviled wherever they went, no matter their appearance. Tatyana knew of the things they were called; knew how to armor her heart to it at a younger age than most, since those upon the path of the nomad were rarely permitted to forget what they were.
How could they forget when both kings and commoners alike scorned those vagrants which trickle into villages and towns with little else but what could be carried upon their backs? All of this and more was simply a fact of life for the wayfarers she traveled with, for they had long became accustomed to the looks and rumours.
Nobody in their right mind would have trusted these migrants with so little to lose; nobody would have lent faith to their promises, yet everybody always assigned quick blame upon these rootless people when calamity struck.
All of this made the choice to care so very little an easy one for Tatyana, allowing her to embrace a lifestyle of dressing with little more thought than what she was able to fit into. To the Vasuuyno, this was often more than enough. When they sailed in their patched and leaking sloop or slept underneath the stars in some meadow with no name, was there cause to sleep in silks and velvet?
She would not have been overly embarrassed with admitting that some of them dressed in... skin and little else. There was no privacy as a wanderer; nowhere else but the deck of a sloop to deliver a crying child or to dance freely in the rain without thought of sin or propriety.
There was a comforting simplicity to this life that removed all the common barriers of polite society.
However, nakedness ill befits the occasional trip to city or market. Something which she consented to with plain and torn shirts, belted trousers, and the occasional pair of shoes and sandals when fortune permitted. Any concession to style usually came in the form of necklaces of colored beads, pearls, and other such things easily scrounged from an ocean's bottom.
Distressingly fitting for a grubby urchin girl with a tangled bird's nest atop her head, otherwise colloquially known as hair.
Those without home or hearth or even the faintest memories of how their mother must've looked were reviled wherever they went, no matter their appearance. Tatyana knew of the things they were called; knew how to armor her heart to it at a younger age than most, since those upon the path of the nomad were rarely permitted to forget what they were.
How could they forget when both kings and commoners alike scorned those vagrants which trickle into villages and towns with little else but what could be carried upon their backs? All of this and more was simply a fact of life for the wayfarers she traveled with, for they had long became accustomed to the looks and rumours.
Nobody in their right mind would have trusted these migrants with so little to lose; nobody would have lent faith to their promises, yet everybody always assigned quick blame upon these rootless people when calamity struck.
All of this made the choice to care so very little an easy one for Tatyana, allowing her to embrace a lifestyle of dressing with little more thought than what she was able to fit into. To the Vasuuyno, this was often more than enough. When they sailed in their patched and leaking sloop or slept underneath the stars in some meadow with no name, was there cause to sleep in silks and velvet?
She would not have been overly embarrassed with admitting that some of them dressed in... skin and little else. There was no privacy as a wanderer; nowhere else but the deck of a sloop to deliver a crying child or to dance freely in the rain without thought of sin or propriety.
There was a comforting simplicity to this life that removed all the common barriers of polite society.
However, nakedness ill befits the occasional trip to city or market. Something which she consented to with plain and torn shirts, belted trousers, and the occasional pair of shoes and sandals when fortune permitted. Any concession to style usually came in the form of necklaces of colored beads, pearls, and other such things easily scrounged from an ocean's bottom.
Distressingly fitting for a grubby urchin girl with a tangled bird's nest atop her head, otherwise colloquially known as hair.
Personality
Had you asked her if she would've willingly chosen this life, the reply would be a vehemently uppercased "No."
As for why she hadn't yet left these people she considered family? Those who raised her, demonstrated to her all the principles of a carefree life, permitted her to see what was beyond every horizon there was? That was a question that practically answered itself.
Tatyana was a member of the Vasuuyno with all that a girl's heart permits - no matter how stunted the rest of her personal growth may be. This was one thing that she was certain about in her mind, and that same freedom of certainty meant that she could subscribe wholeheartedly to the Vasuuyno way of life, as well as their stories which were told in the dark of the night.
How they came to be, why a person would cast away all the fixtures and all those obligations of a settled life; how they ran away from these things until the sweat ran and, suddenly, they were alone in the world.
What once was is no more, and home was a stone toss in any direction.
All of this was a rather romanticized view, truth be told, and she soon came to find that out for herself.
But the concept, at the very least, was still as solid as the ground beneath her feet. They traveled where they liked, sometimes alone, and sometimes settling in cities and towns together for months or years at a time to ply their trades. Tatyana was no different than the others - which she went to great lengths to prove with the desperate, terrifying need to belong to something, no matter how little substance it had in reality.
This need to belong dropped her into a life not at all fit for a child, and surviving it meant employing her youth and agility as a pickpocket, when she wasn't too busy begging. For the nomadic life she had come to embrace tore down a great number of barriers when it came to what she was willing to do for survival, while starvation ripped the rest of them to shreds. And then proceeded to stomp on them, a lot.
But it also meant that, despite everything that came with this false romanticization of true freedom, she also came to discover the benefits of deception and the hollowness of words, and sometimes even the benefits that came with the kind of shortsightedness that was equal parts fearlessness as it was foolishness.
As an adult it translated to the willingness to do just about anything for the sake of survival, or promises of the next payday. Even amongst family, it was a cutthroat endeavour to simply collect what you were owed.
Ultimately, Tatyana was a soul who has built a bulwark around herself in the company of just about anyone aside from family. Someone who was quick to deceive, quick to lose patience, quick to laugh at the absurdity of a great many things.
You could dig deep enough to discover a sense of loyalty as well, however convoluted it might be to obtain.
She could just as easily laugh with (at) you while robbing you blind.
As for why she hadn't yet left these people she considered family? Those who raised her, demonstrated to her all the principles of a carefree life, permitted her to see what was beyond every horizon there was? That was a question that practically answered itself.
Tatyana was a member of the Vasuuyno with all that a girl's heart permits - no matter how stunted the rest of her personal growth may be. This was one thing that she was certain about in her mind, and that same freedom of certainty meant that she could subscribe wholeheartedly to the Vasuuyno way of life, as well as their stories which were told in the dark of the night.
How they came to be, why a person would cast away all the fixtures and all those obligations of a settled life; how they ran away from these things until the sweat ran and, suddenly, they were alone in the world.
What once was is no more, and home was a stone toss in any direction.
All of this was a rather romanticized view, truth be told, and she soon came to find that out for herself.
But the concept, at the very least, was still as solid as the ground beneath her feet. They traveled where they liked, sometimes alone, and sometimes settling in cities and towns together for months or years at a time to ply their trades. Tatyana was no different than the others - which she went to great lengths to prove with the desperate, terrifying need to belong to something, no matter how little substance it had in reality.
This need to belong dropped her into a life not at all fit for a child, and surviving it meant employing her youth and agility as a pickpocket, when she wasn't too busy begging. For the nomadic life she had come to embrace tore down a great number of barriers when it came to what she was willing to do for survival, while starvation ripped the rest of them to shreds. And then proceeded to stomp on them, a lot.
But it also meant that, despite everything that came with this false romanticization of true freedom, she also came to discover the benefits of deception and the hollowness of words, and sometimes even the benefits that came with the kind of shortsightedness that was equal parts fearlessness as it was foolishness.
As an adult it translated to the willingness to do just about anything for the sake of survival, or promises of the next payday. Even amongst family, it was a cutthroat endeavour to simply collect what you were owed.
Ultimately, Tatyana was a soul who has built a bulwark around herself in the company of just about anyone aside from family. Someone who was quick to deceive, quick to lose patience, quick to laugh at the absurdity of a great many things.
You could dig deep enough to discover a sense of loyalty as well, however convoluted it might be to obtain.
She could just as easily laugh with (at) you while robbing you blind.
Skills
uhhhhhhhh
Art Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/pheberoni
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