Stage || Prentice
Race || Pure-Blooded Yaeli
Gender || Female
Path || Artisan
Hair Style and Color || Lots of frizzy, messy, waist-length ringlets in the darkest available color for Yaeli (not dual-toned like picture)
Skin Color || █
Clothing || I'm not super concerned with this, but Sez doesn't know much about making herself 'pretty.'
Description || She's a small, mousy girl that's relatively flat just about everywhere.
Three Base Traits: Soft-spoken, Tactless, Rigid
Additional Traits: Calm, Flat, Indifferent, Earnest, Narrow-minded, Poor communication skills, But is sociable, Obsessive, Anxious, Possessive, Clean, Generally cooperative, Decisive, Unreliable, Clever, Spontaneous, Painfully honest
Personality:
- For as long as her parents can remember, Seziah has been a predominantly solitary child, with little interest in her own family, let alone other youngsters. Tidan and Inala tried not to think much of it. Without any siblings to encourage her to share and communicate and learn, their young daughter was forced to take interest in whatever mundane things she could find on her own. And she did find interest in peculiar things, such as colored rocks and sand, tree leaves, and pillow stuffing.
Speech came slowly to her, and she never quite seemed to understand the things that upset those around her- not when anyone was angry or afraid or just plain sad. Reasoning for other’s emotions was a peculiarity, unless it was immediately relatable. She wasn’t afraid of tumbling off the countertop, so her parents shouldn’t be either. She wasn’t offended when mother’s friends called her a ‘young, skinny beauty,’ why should anyone else be upset when she called them ‘fat, old bats?’ It didn’t make sense. She didn’t understand. One of the most notable things Seziah did understand was selfishness. When people touched things, they were liable to break them. She did not want or like broken things, so did not want her things being touched. If she tried very hard to remember, she could at least offer the same courtesy.
Companionship was something she didn’t need, silence was something she was comfortable with, and other entertainment could be found wherever she wanted to look for it. So she didn’t mind being an only child. She didn’t mind her parents’ busy work schedules. Whatever or whoever was available, she could make do with. During her toddler years, Sez’s parents blamed her meticulous cleanliness and vocal possessiveness on the fact that she was young and simply didn’t know what else to do with her time. Seziah would grow out of it.
She didn’t.
As Sez grew older and interaction became necessary for schooling, tendencies from younger years cemented themselves more thoroughly. She didn’t want people touching her or her things and seldom expressed any desire to bond through anything physical (hugs, hand holding, hair brushing, etc). She had trouble making and holding eye contact, and as such, had a very minimal grasp of facial cues, often completely unaware of how her company actually felt about her. She was obsessively absorbed in things the general populace didn’t care about- most prominently, the decorative dyed sand brought to her by her parents, that Sez would dump onto parchment and arrange into intricate assortments.
The things she was interested in weren’t often appealing topics for her ‘friends,’ but so long as she was engaging others in public (rather than in her own home and around her perfectly organized possessions - which she was extremely anxious to bring anyone or anything near), Seziah didn’t seem to mind. She was never expressly asocial (always willing to make friends, if they happened to be available) and has always wholeheartedly and unashamedly conversed with anyone regardless of race, class, or age, though she seldom takes it upon herself to seek others out. The only major drawback being that she couldn’t read people’s faces and or express herself with anything more than a quiet, flat, monotonous voice and downturned gaze, leaving many to see her as insensitive, uncaring, and unfeeling.
Which, of course, isn’t anywhere near true. Behind a soft tone and calm outward demeanor is a young girl with just as many feelings as anyone ‘normal;’ Sez simply lacks a means of displaying it. Her frustrations usually come to a head when she makes mistakes with her sand or when others touch anything that belongs to her. She’s happiest treading down the snaking path of tree roots and observing market wares. Unfortunately, ‘sadness’ is still almost entirely lost on her.
The bonds Seziah builds take time, but they are permanent, in whatever form they take. Her enemies are her enemies, regardless of amends that try to be made. And her friends are her friends, regardless of injustices that occur after she’s made that decision. A sense of social responsibility and expectancy lead her to feel obligated to help others. She doesn’t do it to be nice or to win favors, but because she thinks it’s required of her. She is more functional alone than in a group and is likely to recede immediately to the background in a crowd, rather than try and make herself known to anyone. Although, when pressed, she will speak her mind and only say exactly what she's thinking. She doesn't mince speech and doesn't spare feelings.
Tidbits: Sez is afraid of dust and the things in it, so keeps very very few knick-knacks and decoration in her room (her sand art is tucked away in dressers and cabinets - she doesn’t like useless items, but she loves storage!). She hates dolls, face paint, and bugs living in her pillows (or anywhere else). She does become annoyed fairly easily. She is not unintelligent. She is a good problem-solver, even if she tends to keep most of her opinions to herself.
History: Tidan and Inala were young when they threw themselves into a bond of holy matrimony that they expected to last an eternity. They spoke of forever and wanted near everything they thought the word entailed. They wanted adventure, romance, travel, a large house, lots of land, many things, and in time, a big family to enjoy all of it with them. Any time they had, they spent together. For the first few years of their engagement, thoughts of what might be and things that could happen were exciting enough to keep them together and happy.
Unfortunately, the world had a more mundane future in store for the couple.
In the short weeks before Inala’s twenty-sixth nameday, nearing a decade spent with her husband, she had something of an existential crisis. The textile work she had (dying, patterning, and occasionally stitching fabrics in preparation for them to be made into clothing), the home she lived in, and the things she’d accomplished weren’t in line with the dreams and hopes she’d had so many years ago. Her life was boring and meaningless, and while her husband was a good, honorable, easy-going man, that simply wasn’t enough for her, anymore. Not when they’d spoken of so much more.
Inala was ready to let her work take her elsewhere, out of Ilidan, away from home, far from Yael and her husband. In a unilateral decision to stop her, Tidan decided the precise order with which they obtained the things they wanted didn’t really matter. Adventure, land, and money were clearly harder to obtain, but a family could be built from home. And a child would give them something new to bond over. A kid would save their marriage. The gods apparently agreed. After ten years of playing it safe and patiently waiting for the right time, Inala suddenly found herself with child and with less freedom to roam of her own accord.
Nine months later, after surviving his wife’s throes of hormonal imbalance, Tidan discovered that sporadically imposing a child on his woman didn’t make her especially receptive to the idea of staying home. If anything, Inala was less pleased with their set-up than ever before. She still wasn’t interested in Ilidan, but she felt obligated to stay in a place she didn’t want to live with a man she was rapidly growing distrustful of to raise a daughter she hadn’t been ready to have. The next few years, in their entirety, were less than pleasant for the young woman.
For all her attempts to remain fair, patient, and loving, Inala occasionally struggled with her daughter. Seziah wasn’t normal. She was easy enough to get along with and required very little attention, unlike most toddlers. She didn’t scream or cry, want or do much of anything. And it was terrifying to have an infant that didn't wail after waking or when hungry. Initially, Inala feared it was her fault; she was projecting something unsavory onto the young girl with her negative thoughts. That wasn't fair or right. She had wanted children, and Seziah should be such an easy, low-maintenance one to raise.
Instead, Sez only continued to make her mother more uncomfortable as she grew, and the Yaeli woman found her thoughts increasingly flicking to the idea that there was something wrong with her daughter. Or at least something well beyond her control and comprehension- something she wasn't prepared or equipped to raise properly. By then, Tidan would’ve done anything to get back in his wife’s good graces, including offering what was supposed to have been his miracle child to the Sanctum.
He told them she was special, explained that Seziah didn't need companions, couldn't look at people, or convey emotions because her mind refused to bridge the gap between mortal feelings and the gods' own fondness for their creations. It wasn't the same. Seziah didn't understand. He showed them the meticulously and painstakingly arranged clusters of her dyed sand. Unfortunately, they didn't believe she had anything more than a very normal, average connection to the gods.
The visiting priestess offered a second solution. If Seziah was truly beyond their care, she could be sent to a home for young men and women like her, where she would be taken care of by people with more experience doing such things. It was a paid service, of course, but it would be easier in the long run for all parties involved.
Seziah decided she didn't mind the way that sounded. She didn't care what reason they put to her anomaly, but she did appreciate that there was a reason at all. Her parents didn't expect a teary farewell, and they didn't receive one. As per the usual, Sez didn’t throw a fit, or even seem to care at all when she was moved the capitol city. Her surroundings didn’t matter so much. The new people invading her space weren’t especially important (though there were a great many more people in Pajore than where she lived before). And as a seven-year-old girl with so little structure in her life previously, the greatest adjustment was trying to conform to the new schedule imposed on her and the vast array of others suddenly threatening her belongings with their fingers.
Despite her anxiety and distrustfulness about sharing living quarters with so many strangers, as well as what appeared to be an unhealthy dose of disinterest, Seziah continues to live in her new 'home' throughout her teenage years.
