[Name: Keeta (Emlin) Harding
Age: 30
Race: Half-elf
Occupation: Part-time bartender at the Casbah Club, a place run and owned by her friend Tess. Secretly has a part-time job exotic dancing at a less respectable club on the other side of town. Mostly retired mercenary and thief.
Appearance: Her hair is currently dyed a light-brown and cut short, but when her hair is let to grow naturally, it is a bright blue and is somewhat wavy. Her eyes are a light grey-blue. Her ears are pointed slightly, betraying her father's race, however she keeps them covered for the most part, not wanting to answer any hard questions. She has a tallish, slender figure, thanks to her elvin heritage, that allows her to make decent tips dancing. At one point she was extremely well toned from the kind of work she did, but since she has come to Gaia, she has let herself go some.
Abilities: While Keeta has an elf for a father, she didn't inherit much in the way of elven qualities. For the most part, all she really got from him are slightly faster than normal reflexes (useful when fighting) and a particularly green thumb.
Apart from her inherited qualities, Keeta is skilled at knife throwing and staff fighting. Recently, she has had training in exotic dance that she is becoming good at.
History: Keeta was born away from Gaia, in a place called Evin, to an elven father and a human mother. Her father didn't stay around very long, so she ended up being raised by her mother and the family she came to know at the place her mother worked: The Mystic Nights Bar and Fight club.
The bar was frequented by and employed all manner of races from all walks of life. Many were attracted by the fight club, where they could train and hone their skills, as well as make a bid for the in-house fighting titles. As Keeta was growing, she too trained in the arena and learned to use a staff and throwing knives to her advantage.
When Keeta was 17, her mother disappeared after going on a job she had been hired for by one of the bar patrons, the employees banded together and became her surrogate family; One in particular being the co-owner of the establishment, Tarotess, better known as Tess. Because Keeta was growing relatively independent by this point, working behind the counter at the bar and honing her fighting skills, Tess was more of a cool aunt, than a replacement for her mother.
Keeta spent many happy years in and around the bar. Her fighting skills having improved even more over the years, she eventually started to hire herself out as a mercenary and on jobs of more questionable legality. She also kept working in the bar's fighting arena and held the championship title for a time.
Two years ago, however, there was a falling out between Tess and the other owner of Mystic Nights. Finding that they could not reconcile, Tess picked up and moved to Gaia. Keeta and several of the other bar patrons followed her out of loyalty and a sense of curiosity of what this new place would be like. There, Tess set up her own establishment called the Casbah Club, and began to settle into life in the more modern, faster-paced world of Gaia.
The culture shock of moving to Gaia was a bit much for Keeta, however, and she started to fall apart. She was used to the forest covered, more 16th century feel of Evin, so the new world took her for a spin. Normally she would have turned to Tess for support and guidance, but she was too wound up in setting up and running her new place to take too much notice of what Keeta was going through. More than once, she thought about returning, but she wouldn't leave Tess and she wasn't sure what kind of welcome she would receive if she returned to Mystic Nights. Instead, she fell into a self-destructive depressive state, that involved wandering into the darker corners of town and seedier bars.
Keeta dyed her hair and cut it into a bob, covering her ears to hide her heritage. She even changed her last name from Emlin to Harding to avoid unwanted questions about where she was from. It was easier if she didn't have to think about it. She took to drinking heavily, sleeping around and experimenting with the drugs that her new "friends" were passing around, none of which she would have done in Evin. Unfortunately for her, her father's genes weren't enough to suppress the addictive and intoxicating qualities of what she was experiencing. She eventually took a part time job as an exotic dancer, spending half her tips on booze and often doing more than just dancing for the establishment's customers. It's no wonder that this lifestyle could eventually lead to an unplanned pregnancy.
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