Qara Qalli
| Qara Qalli | |
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| Gender | Female |
| Race | Au Ra |
| Clan | Xaela |
| Citizenship | N.A. (native of Othard) |
| Tribe | Qalli (previously related to the Tumet) |
| Age | Late 20s |
| Marital Status | Single |
| Occupation | Witch doctor, medicine & drug peddler, herbalist, street performer |
| Server | Balmung |
"We are often two, and they make war in us." [WIP]
Contents
BASIC INFO
Qara Qalli is an Au Ra recently arrived in Eorzea. The self-proclaimed healer is almost never seen without a large, casket-like case in tow, and is quite happy to reveal its contents upon request - 'Chora', her zither (a yatga). This she plays on and sings to more than willingly to any poor, unfortunate soul who would lend his or her ears. Typically, the subject matter covered is grimmer or more morbid than would have been expected of the sweet, smiling (if overly cryptic) Xaela, who is likely afterwards to hand a perplexed listener 'dreamweed' from Othard. Visions are her mission - she'll read your pulse and what you see in slumber to lead you to your destiny. If you believe her...
Recent Events
She is mostly found wandering in areas in the Twelveswood and Thanalan, especially in areas of religious interest, such as the Church of Saint Adama Landama.
CHARACTER (IN-DEPTH)
Appearance
Qara's most recognizable feature is her waist-length red hair, kept long and mostly worn loose, only braided for prolonged hunts. Qara applies tribal concoctions and oils to her hair, smoothing out her curls for ‘civilization’. Days out in the wild, however, can produce a bright, oblong puff of red, likely a hive of tiny bits of leaves and grass too.
Her pale green eyes seem too large and staring for her face, giving her a deceptively forlorn, childlike appearance. Few see the ghosts lying just out of reach in them. Her complexion and liberal use of face paint also help to mask the dark eye rings she possesses from regular sleep deprivation. (“Sleep is a sacred space," or so she claims; she both fears and yearns for the visions in her dreams.)
Her skin is a dark loam-brown, adorned with the deep blue of Xaelan scales and tiny scars in places, liberally tattooed down her back, thighs and arms. Her left calf sports a large, wide scar from having been pierced through years ago. This is the leg she tends to drag behind her from a phantom pain, and which gives her a somewhat awkward walking gait.
While lean in physique, Qara seems awkwardly put-together. She is broad-shouldered, also possessing a generous chest and hips that do not seem quite congruent with the thinned-out rest of her from long periods on the move. She seems to be a woman stunted, not yet fully formed, yet not a girl anymore either, as if something happened to stop growth in its tracks. Her hands are another characteristic feature - small broad palm and long fingers with an uncanny grip. Tiny and dark overall, with her wrists and ankles adorned with jewelry and charms, Qara gives the impression of a webbed swamp creature jingling its way through tall grasses.
Personality
The musician is usually smiling and cheery, and always in earnest, though those who interact with her for some time may realize that she’s actually often nervous when interacting with people. She gets by on pure will. When speaking, Qara has a tendency to ramble and reveal a little too much about herself - details that most people might consider private or better kept secret. The common assumption is that this is innocence and naivety, but the real truth of the matter is that Qara doesn’t see herself as having anything to lose.
This, along with what Qara sees as a gods-given vision, makes her all too willing to put herself in danger for others without actually investing in or depending on them emotionally.
In fact, she doesn’t actually trust anyone with the important things. Those who are in closer contact with Qara may begin to realize that she hardly ever asks for personal favors. When someone gets a little too close emotionally, Qara may become curt and distant, wanting to spare herself inevitable hurt.
While Qara is mostly calm, she can lunge into violent rages if aggravated enough. Qara's religiosity and music serve to contain an erratic personality and what she considers her inherent ‘unruliness’. If deprived of these, one might observe a significantly crankier, bitterer Qara.
Beliefs / Values
Life is an ongoing battle against oneself, which is essentially a microcosm of what happens on a larger scale between clans, lands, polities. Qara does not believe in self-abnegation, rather, in balance, in harmony. She 'preaches', then, the necessity of both the monster and the leash. She is herself an often clumsy specimen of that ideal. She believes in the redemption of all living things, and that death can also be a sort of redemption. All lives and deaths have their purposes in the achievement of the will of the gods; she is but a servant of theirs sent to reveal the destinies of others.
Thus, while as a healer Qara is committed to alleviating pain, she can just as likely believe in the purpose or necessity of suffering, death, or even cruelty, and even deliver these things herself. On Her / her own terms, of course.
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HISTORY
(The following is likely to be common knowledge or hearsay for Tumet-related groups.)
Some of the older ones still remember this: Qara (as she was known as after) was born slow. 'Slow' for what it meant to a more esoteric offshoot of the Tumet clan, at any rate, and of course such an unfortunate distinction caused the girl more than her fair share of problems from young. At ten, she was the last of the children to free herself, and the last of them to reach the camp before it moved... she'd barely passed the test. She'd barely survived at all, and divine intervention alone, or so it seemed, ensured her survival. It was a better year by all accounts, and she alone did poorly.
Deemed 'unfit' for most direct battle, yet possessing a substantial amount of Aether, ‘Qara’ was taken under the wing of a prominent ‘Seer', or diviner, of their sub-clan. She taught her the ways of medicines, poisons, and dreaming; they took turns to play the war drums, and sometimes the Seer would let her sing the dirge, the only song of the tribe. It is said that after Qara's first bleeding, victory always went to the clan whenever she was behind a drum. There was considerable frenzy generated about this, and they called her 'walking death', 'singing death', then.
Not all of this attention was undesirable. Qara became the object of quasi-religious fascination for the angry and equally isolated Sarnai, a cloak-and-dagger assassin of the clan. Qara returned Sarnai's worship with a passion she hadn't known she possessed, and slowly, quietly, they amassed a list of strange crimes. The older ones aren't certain about the specifics anymore, and debating the facts through the years has become a favorite past-time - had the two mangled a couple of horses? meddled with their enemies' corpses once? - or tortured a captive indiscriminately when it came to their turn to watch the night? People observed, too, a notable rift growing between Qara and her mentor. The younger one had begun to question, challenge and make song, breaking her characteristic meekness in a manner undesirable to Tumet stoicism.
Still, Qara was useful. Until, for reasons still largely incomprehensible to all, she turned upon the Seer at Sarnai’s urging, and the spiritual mother of the tribe was slain.
Much of the whole affair remains an enigma. Whatever the pair’s motivations had been, the elders knew they could no longer turn a blind eye to their misdeeds. While Sarnai’s fate is unknown, Qara’s punishment was clear, and far more straightforward. There was the ritual performed to strip her of her given name, and, as per custom, she was speared through the leg and left to seemingly certain death in perilous territory.
Yet, somehow, Qara lived. And returned.
She has held on defiantly to her first name to this day. Those who come back in this way are chosen, and the Xaela are not wont to question the will of the gods, who had stayed death’s hand a second time for Qara. Qara drifted among various tribes for years, bearing a vision from the Dusk Mother, only settling with the Qalli a long time after. There she learnt and grew, in music and in her strange arts and philosophies - but remained, as always, the ‘odd’ one. It came as no surprise to anyone when she finally left them, and Othard, too, singing of blood, redemption, fate, and of herself... guiding those who care or dare to listen dream their own destiny into being.
MISCELLANEOUS
Some of these rumors are untrue or are greatly exaggerated. Please feel free to add your own rumors under PC! ◢ Common Rumors (Easily overheard)
◢ Rarer Rumors (Difficult to overhear)
◢ PC Rumors (Rumors from the character's of other players)
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