Virara Wakuwa

Virara Wakuwa
Gender	Female
Race	Plainsfolk Lalafell
Clan	Unknown
Citizenship	Vagrant
Age	Indeterminate, but likely 18-19
Marital Status	Single
Occupation	None
Height/Weight	3'3" (3'2.2")
Orientation	(She is ignorant of it, for now.)
Relatives	None known

Virara

Basic Info

LIKES ■ Sensei ■ Food, particularly meat and inland fish ■ Cooking and fishing (Because she wants food) ■ High places

DISLIKES ■ Being patronized/pitied ■ People with no ambition ■ Violent, stormy weather ■ Her height (New since coming to Eorzea)

OTHER ■ Alignment: Chaotic Neutral->Good ■ Vice(s): Insensitive, wrathful ■ Favorite Food: Anything. Commonly Smoked Raptor or Aldgoat Steak ■ Favorite Drink: Warm milk ■ Favorite Color: Rolanberry Red

Appearance & Personality

At 3'3", Vira is unusually tall for a Lalafell. She is more toned as well, though the characteristic physique hardly shows it. Raven hair, dyed haphazardly to resemble Doman black, done up in pigtails frames a round, immaculate face disinclined to expression. She wears an eye patch more often than not, though her vision is fine, hiding one of her discolored reddish purple eyes, which is permanently dilated due to cosmetic cornea injury in her youth, so it is permanently lighter.

Her gaze is withering, and intimidating on a primal level that disconnects with her short stature, complimented by her generally dour, emotionless countenance and tendency to stare. Though she might be small and cute, she can become unnerving and creepy in an instant, like a possessed doll.

She's also somewhat scarred across her body from extreme training, though she rarely shows these.

Though it is hard for non-Lalafell to see her in any light other than the generic, cherubic cuteness common to her species, Vira possesses something akin to statuesque, dark beauty.

Vira is ill at home in either the culture of Eorzean's Lalafell, the culture of Doma, the environment in which she was raised, or amongst any other race. She is a loner (though not always by choice.) with painfully deficient social skills, ignorant of mores and unable to read the mood. An aura of dangerousness radiates from her steely glare and wired posture that always seems a step away from pouncing. Though she was 'civilized' by her martinet Sensei, a sort of feral undercurrent drives her most instinctual actions.

Her life has been dedicated to the cause of becoming stronger and survival, and she knows no other way. Having communicated through her fists practically since she was old enough to walk, a lifetime of hardship has left Vira profoundly alone, and her Master is the only human connection she's truly been able to enjoy, a fact that leads her to zealous, blind worship.

She became sensitive about her height after coming to Eorzea, being painfully aware that she is unusually large for her race, and envious of others' cuter, shorter stature.

Vira only truly feels alive when fighting. Her Master raised her to exercise self-control, but the normally sedate girl is actually quite hot-blooded underneath it all. The more dangerous and potentially fatal the situation, the more at home she feels. Her Sensei did her best to curb this innately violent nature within Virara, but it comes out nevertheless in moments of poor self control.

She plays at being a cynic, something she picked up from her Sensei, but ultimately has a moral compass and inwardly admires those who fight for an ideal, rather than self-gratification. She's capable of things like kindness and compassion, but in her early life these were in such low demand that they confuse and bother her inwardly.

Virara is very brave, almost suicidally fearless, but loses her nerve when it comes to supernatural things (Because she is too much of a materialist and fears things she can't punch like ghosts.) and typhoon/hurricane weather. (Childhood trauma.)

Biography

Childhood

The girl who would become Virara was born to a couple from the islands in Merlthor. Orphaned at sea by a typhoon, she was cast away in a worm-eaten barrel to the shores of a coral atoll halfway between Othard and Eorzea. Hunger and thirst drove her half mad. She forgot her name, her family's faces, even her old language. Now nearly feral, the tiny girl struggled to survive at no older than five or six. Only through an uncanny strength and copious luck did Virara live for more than a year.

During this time, Garlemald solidified its powerful claim on its holdings in Othard. Many refugees fleeing oppression retreated from their continent, particularly from Doma. What started as an unremarkable atoll visited only by the occasional smuggler gradually grew into a shanty town full of the runoff from Garlemald, and from there expanded into a series of small fishing, trade and supply communities tailored to the cultural needs primarily of those from Othard and Doma. Cities were sometimes more water than earth and stone canals rose up seemingly out of nowhere. Incredible masses of Doman refugees poured in, particularly at the start of the disastrous rebellion years later.

The young Lalafell had become a stranger to civilization. Tentatively entering the territory of the intruders, she secreted herself into the remote alleys and canal ways of the settlement, soon to become a tiny, unremarkable dot named Llymlaen's Necklace on Eorzean maps. The girl stole and mugged her way into a higher calorie diet, improving her famished but wiry strength such that she could easily beat and rob any refugee children and relieve them of what little food kept them from starvation. She had no conscience any more than a wild animal, and lacked the ability to recognize the harm she did to others, and as a result grew stronger and bolder, eventually even attacking adults. On her small island, she became hated and was driven out of town whenever they caught sight of her. But neither could they capture the girl.

After a few close calls, she became semi-civilized, learning their language through observing from the shadows. She knew she needed some basic ability to communicate as the intruders became more numerous and their towns grew larger. She smuggled herself from island to island by offering food she stole, never staying in one place more than a night. Eventually, the locals on almost every island grew wary of her once more as she finally reached her maximum height at somewhere around ten or twelve years old; she'd lost count long ago.

Captivity

One day, the pickings had been slim. The children hid from her bullying, and unable to mug or steal anything from the Domans' store rooms and fish pots, she became acutely aware of her hunger and desperation set in. She set eyes on a tanned, grim woman missing an eye, sitting in a rude street front tea shop. Her build was strong. The way she carried herself, and the grisly tattoos on her arm would have normally been warning enough to tell her to keep a wide berth from the stranger, but she was too famished to notice. She gambled. With an eye missing, she was doubtlessly blind on that side and pickpocketing should have been easy.

After slipping her hand into the woman's robe around her waist, where all the Domans kept their coin purses, Virara found herself on the ground, beaten raw, her arm numb and unmoving. The woman bore down upon her. "Steal from me, would you? I've never met a child so eager to die. I shan't oblige you." Carried off to no objections by the locals, the girl found herself bound and collared like a dog in a house larger than most on the largest island in the Necklace.

The woman who enslaved her stated simply that since the girl conducted herself like an animal, savage and comprehending no human rule, she would be treated like an animal, and thus was given the epithet "Wakuwa," which in her peculiar dialect from an island near Doma, meant simply "pig," in reference to her Lalafell build and size.

The slave hated this woman. She intially took every attempt possible to escape, but in all cases found herself thwarted and beaten horribly. Eventually her rage over boiled. She had thrashed a few refugees hard in her years, sometimes until they stopped moving, but this was the first time she wanted to do purely out of malice. The woman seemed aware of this, and one night opened the store room door to the small, stuffy chamber "pig" was tied up in.

"You hate me, don't you?"

"Yes!" She snarled at her captor, eyes stretched to their limit with murderous rage. Though she was smaller than her, the girl's violent nature, contrasting with her inhuman glare, utterly devoid of remorse or empathy, provoked a flinch in the older woman. With every reckless blow the captive girl threw, fuitile as it was, her eyes took on a quality the Doman lady had seen before in shark infested waters off the coast of the Necklace. The look of pure emptiness before the fatal bite, something she herself knew all too well.

"Enough to kill me?"

A few wild, restrained swings and pawing at the room's dirty floor were answer enough.

The woman hunkered down, nursing a long, smoking pipe, as she was wont to do.

"You're not the first. Many men and women came before you, and all have failed. I was stronger, better than them. And you, a bloody pig, have the gall to think you've got what it takes to retire me?"

Clearly interested, the woman undid her collar... and immediately pinned the flailing child to the floor, foreseeing her obvious assault before it came.

"Only a Spoken can kill me. A pig doesn't have a name to call their own. You are... Lalafell. Right. Let's find you a suitable name."

Combining some haphazard syllables in a manner roughly resembling her race's typical rhyming name scheme, Virara was born anew as a person. The woman, who demanded Virara merely refer to her as Sensei, immediately reversed her way of treating the girl. What once was arbitrary, vicious behavior for no other purpose other than reprisal, focused itself into an intense reformation of her character. She took on the Doman language and lifestyle, as taught to her by Sensei in between puffs on her long pipe. Virara was no more than a servant, but she ate better than she had in years. Though Sensei knew she was hated by literally everyone in every settlement in the Necklace, she sent her out anyway on errands, and Virara often had to find and pay merchants and traders for foodstuffs and goods as secretly as possible.

With time Virara grew hale and strong, and when obedient, Sensei didn't harm her, though she was casually dismissive and rarely spoke to her conversationally. While Spoken now, Sensei still did not regard Virara as anything approaching her equal. She demanded more from Virara, and Virara obliged, giving up her life of theft and violence for one of constant study and dutiful toil. Her personality radically changed, molded as if she were an infant again in the hands of her watchful master. There were times when Virara forgot that she desired to kill this woman altogether, and her seething hatred slowly evaporated into a mist of forgotten grievances and an undercurrent of dissatisfaction.

Slowly but surely, her master was rebuilding her from the ground up, mostly sane and healthy, if a bit overly dependent. These years Virara would come to cherish as the first time she came to experience the feeling others called 'hope.'

The Labyrinth Fist

Virara began to exhibit an unnatural constitution. She was constantly hungry and required more food than Sensei initially intended to give her, eventually forcing the woman to train Virara to fish for herself. Vira helped Sensei plant a small orchard in the uncleared land behind her home, and they dried apricots to save them for the fall.

In addition to this strange metabolism, Virara seemed to have no real grasp of her own strength, which was already disproportionate to her size. When chopping wood, Vira would often hew the logs straight through, and leave deep rend marks in the stone beneath. Her arms would be red and sore afterward, and sometimes even needed medical attention. Sensei believed that something in Vira's mind was shattered from since she was castaway, transcending exhaustion and pain, but her servant didn't fully understand anyway.

Vira's unnatural constitution piqued Sensei's interest once again. "You've become Spoken now, Virara. Far from the pig you once were. An animal does not kill out of hatred, nor for some flimsy concoction of 'reasoning.' You recognize a distinction between right and wrong, a quality most Spoken either possess or claim to possess. A thinking being has the ability to choose to do so. Do you wish to become fully Spoken, with all that truly entails?"

From that day forward, something in the woman's eyes changed. Virara could tell, merely by looking at her, that Sensei had recognized her. No longer a servant or an animal, she was a true student.

Sensei was the inheritor of a style of combat from Doma, compiled from many nations' martial arts long before their nation was formed, long before Garlemald and the occupation. This style was Rokakku Meikyuuken, or the Six Sided Maze Fist. She had left for reasons she wouldn't divulge during the early years of the Rebellion. In her own words, it was a method of fighting, unarmed or armed, that would render its masters either a god or demon. This sounded like an excellent tool to kill her master with, so she agreed outright. Virara felt an unfamiliar, rising sensation in her chest when her Sensei gazed at her more softly than before, and her face began making an alien expression, lips curving upward, none of which she understood to be a sense of acceptance and pride.

The training was harsh, almost as much so as the mistreatment she endured during her early stay with Sensei. Five years were spent in enhanced study; both her civilizing and fighting training became feverishly intense. Virara learnt of Eorzean language and rough biology of most Spoken races at the same time she was shattering iron spheres with her palms and cutting down orchard trees with her forearms. Eventually Virara was honed into a fistfighter of prodigious skill. A natural, her abnormal muscle power and hyperactive metabolism meshed keenly with the explosive, lethal blows of the style.

In time Sensei also conversed more with her student. She told of Doma's history and its culture, the war with Garlemald. She mentioned in passing that she once had a family, and that she was the only student of the style left. Sensei expressed a disgruntled hatred of both Garlemald *and* Doma, and stated in vague terms that her nation "betrayed" her, but in what way she never said, and she only spoke of the matter when thoroughly drunk. Sometimes Virara could her her master sobbing alone in the grove outside at night.

The two increased in strength together as summers and winters passed like migratory birds. Eventually, Sensei's past in Doma caught up to her. Often she would leave the house late at night to deal with 'urgent business.' She often came back disheveled and scratched up. Sensei's excuse was that she fell down, drunk, which Virara typically believed because she was very much addicted to rice wine, but eventually the excuses stopped flowing and the injuries became more severe. It appeared not all of the past she'd left behind in occupied Doma wanted to be forgotten.

One night, a man dressed in black and wearing curious weapons greeted Virara as she rose groggily from her sleep to relieve herself. A desperate struggle ensued, in which Virara's life nearly ended, if not for Sensei's intervention. The killer was obscenely skilled, and quickly had even her Master on the defensive, but he hadn't counted on Virara breaking his knee in twain from behind. Without feeling even the slightest sense of hesitation, Virara brought her tensed palm down on the man's throat as he fell, silencing him forever. A muddy, dark film seemed to cross the iris of her eyes as she locked gazes with her Sensei. Something lay there in her Master's single eye, something nostalgic and painful, a sense of agonizing recognition. That brought Vira back to reality, but before the significance of what she'd done set in:

"Virara, your training, as it has been until now, is over. You're not ready to face me and kill me yet, not until you've inherited the art from me fully."

Days later, Sensei prepared a satchel full of supplies, some rugged traveling clothes, and a pair of bone hora, meant solely to protect Vira from her own freakish strength, and told her to go to Eorzea, as a test of worthiness to begin learning the succession techniques of Rokkaku Meikyuuken. Told to seek out a man that Sensei supposedly crossed paths with in an arena years ago, Virara set out on a trade vessel bound for Ul'Dah's bay of Dha'Yuz, hunting for the man known as "Holyfist" to challenge him. But Virara did not leave without a final, taxing "gift" from her exacting Sensei...

(... Backstory RP currently in progress, will update as it continues.)

Miscellaneous

'Wakuwa' is an epithet and only really known OOC. (I derived it from an Okinawan word.) In the unlikely case your character can use it for her, remember that it's derogatory and Vira only adopted it as her name out of respect for her master and a feeling that her maturation as a person rather than a beast has only begun. Other people are most definitely not allowed to use it.

Virara wears eye patches because she imitates her Master. Her pigtails were styled by her master, who despite herself found Virara cute after softening to her somewhat. Virara continues to dutifully do her hair in pigtails even though not a single feminine bone exists in her body. She also dyes her hair (poorly) to emulate her master.

Virara's abnormal strength won't stop her from being disadvantaged in reach and size against other races, but they can't test strength against her directly and expect to win handily. No matter how strong she is or how bizarrely efficient her body is, she still has less overall muscle mass than a larger individual. It is her *explosive* sudden bursts of strength that are most dangerous.

On that note, she used to kill livestock in a single blow as a method of practice when still living in the Necklace.

Virara was severely weakened by 'something' on arriving to Eorzea, thus reflecting her low level in game. She is currently rehabilitating herself. She claims the injury was due to falling off a cliff after her caravan was waylaid by bandits.

Vira has some cooking talent, some fishing talent, and some botany talent. Her cooking however, is unorthodox, to say the least. Nothing is wrong with the food, it even tastes good, but she usually uses her bare hands, with very few cooking tools other than a hot fire...

Her education is incomplete due to Sensei's incredible laziness. She just didn't bother to teach Virara about a great many things, but what she did focus on (Language learning, money management, anatomy, fighting and cooking) Virara learned voraciously, if in unorthodox manners.

RUMORS Some of these rumors are untrue or are greatly exaggerated. Please feel free to add your own rumors under PC! ◢ Common Rumors (Easily overheard) ■ "There's a strange brat down at the docks I'vn't seen afore. Looks hungry... and mean. Frownin' like she was suckled on Han Lemons." Lominsan Merchant at port in Dha'Yuz. ■ "Yeah, right up tip-top. A rather large Lala was doing the strangest set of exercises, right up on top of the wall o'er there. I've seen folk 'mongst the rabble outside the city playing a similar dance. But not the same." Monetarist bodyguard ■ "That urchin was petting a cat outside the Quicksand. She looked at it in the funniest way. All sisterly like. It was rather fetching, I'd say. How old was she, anyway? I could hardly tell." Local stablehand. ◢ Moderate Rumors (Moderately difficult to overhear) ■ "She once beat a fellow straight out of Lil' Ala Mhigo in an arm wrestling competition. Word is he had to get his limb set right before sun up, the pain was so fierce." Drunkard in the Quicksand. ■ "I've seen youngsters from around here who had the same look about them. They were always the strongest and healthiest of the refugees. And their eyes reminded me of a starved jackal. Twelve help children like that find a new home before... 'those people' find 'em and think them useful, for one reason or another." Acolyte of Nald'Thal ◢ Rare Rumors (Very difficult or rarely overheard) ■ "I've seen that stance before. It is heretical. Let us not speak of it." Doman veteran. ◢ PC Rumors (Rumors from the character's of other players) ■ ■ ■ ■

RELATIONS ♥ Romantic Interest    ♥ Platonic Love     ● Good Standing     ● Poor Standing     ● Fixation ● Chachanji Gegenji : Perhaps it is because he's the first other Lalafell she ever met, or because of his glowing demeanor, but Virara seems to be fascinated by him. His prowess in combat, having won a tournament at nearly the same age as her, interests her far more. Yet his words and softheartedness agitate Virara in a way she doesn't understand, and for as much as she is fixated upon Chachanji, she wants to cross fists with him in equal measure to find an answer. ● S'datih Nunh: One of the first Miqo'te Virara spoke to. She pulled his tail out of curiosity, and he was quite a good sport about it. Another pugilist like her, he similarly mentioned he wore fist weapons largely to protect himself from strength and overexertion-related injuries. ● Warren Castille: Chachanji's mentor, and thus a person who Virara innately respects. But in Virara's case, respect can sometimes also mean 'wants to drub mercilessly.' Ser Castille is a prying sort who seems to be aware that Virara came from an abnormal upbringing. His keen eyes put Virara on edge. ● Sei Castille: Another one of Chachanji's mentors. Virara is totally unaware she is married to Warren. Keenly aware that the Miqo'te has the same atmosphere as her Sensei's assailants, she bares her no malice, but the same could not necessarily be said of Sei in her regard. ● Memeli Meli: Another Lalafell, the diminutive girl is very energetic and bubbly, but also a little rapscallion. Vira is naive and believes practically all her tales of combat prowess, eating out of her hand. It may have something to do with the direct hit Memeli dealt her by calling Vira "cute."

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Footnotes