To Look Closer

Her people call her a death shaman, a person who is skilled with the dead and dying. It is almost like she weighs the soul as she brings the dying back from the edge or shepherds them to their eternal slumber. Even the dead are treated by her hands, carefully cared for, and buried as per rites, rituals, and traditions. Yet behind her pink eyes lays a wayward soul, tied to her roots yet set adrift in an unusual world. No place remains home for too long, no one person knowing her true heart other than her verbal habit of calling everyone ‘love.’ She keeps much of herself under lock and key yet remains as emotional and wild as her magic. She is a strange and often intense being, with a heart far bigger than she likes.

To Hear her Heart

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••Playlist curated for Zava••

To Learn

Born to the local village trader, Zava didn’t get to know her birth mother well, let alone her siblings as she was given away. The reason being, her mother suspected that she had a type of natural wild magic, the same as her and feared that she would not be able to handle or raise the child when she had others to take care of and a trade to upkeep. But even under the care of her adoptive mother, her biological mother’s sister, she struggled. As she grew, the suspicions and fears came true, the wild magic that ran in their blood manifested within Zava, and because she was both young with a high-strung temperament it made it harder to control, for consequences and injury to be avoided which made the small Viera panic even more and those around her to look upon her with pity. The magic she had was simply labelled as ‘natures magic’ by her people; a form of blue magic that mainly encompassed nature around her. Learning from nature so her magic can mimic it and make use of it, be it flora or fauna.

As such, when Zava turned ten years old, she was once more given away out of desperation and hope that this individual she was being taken to would raise her and teach her correctly. This individual that Zava was taken to was the villages shaman and mortician, living beyond the boundary edge of the village as death is considered dark and taboo. This woman was often called a ‘dark mystic’ or ‘Death shaman.’ While there was some hesitation from the old Viera woman, she would eventually agree and take Zava on as her apprentice and ward, promising to raise and teach the child on the condition that she would eventually fill in her shoes.

Starting at a young age, Zava was introduced to the guttural world of helping the dying and tending to the dead. It was eye opening and fascinating for the small child, the cycle of life and death and the part in which they play to respect the soul and the body. As such, Zava was taught the ways of a ‘death shaman,’ helping the dying recover slowly, ease their final days and eventually tend to the lost where they would be returned to the earth, the place their souls have come from. Outside of this, the old viera taught her how to handle her magic to a degree, teaching her to harness it for protection and combat. However, due to the type of magic it was, where there was always consequence, the focus of their lessons were mostly what to do to heal and remove the negative effects from her body. Yet, to preserve her life, the old woman also taught her different combat skills, teaching her hand to hand in the event she is disarmed and how to handle chakrams, distance being something Zava is more comfortable with in combat. To this day, she isn’t adverse at looking for other means to protect herself, especially given how unpredictable her magic is.

However, when you live your life on the outskirts and are viewed as an outsider by the very village that you care for behind the scenes, tensions are bound to rise when there is a shift of power. In this case it happened when the matriarch of the village passed away, and a new matriarch filled their place. They were under the belief that those who live on the outskirts of their village will be their downfall, their weakest link especially when the threat of outsiders was a high concern for the village. So Zava, now grown, and the old woman were to be removed, the village not wanting such darkness and sickness near them. Initially the old woman suspected they would just be moved further away, deeper into the Golmore jungle where they would have to fend for themselves, but Zava was the opposite. She believed they will be killed, and her fears became truth.

They attacked in the dead of night, when both women were sleeping and due to the increasing age of the old viera, there was no chance of her reacting fast enough, let alone surviving the ambush. Even Zava struggled, she escaped their home but was later captured and no matter how much she fought she was nearly hung. Thankfully with sheer luck, fury and a combination of her skills she was eventually able to kill her captors and escape. With the smoke billowing high where her home was being burnt to the ground Zava fled. The young woman had nothing left and while she spent time recovering and surviving on her own in the Golmore jungle, she eventually left only with her staff and prized crystal. To her mind, there was no point staying in a place that no longer felt safe, so she started to travel, using her knowledge and skill to help and earn a living while trying to find that one place where she can feel safe and welcomed again.

It is through this mentality that she drifted from place to place. For a time, she existed on the steppe among the Xaela, even earing herself a Yol, an odd gift for helping out a tribe in desperate need. Of course, the bird tried to kill her, that was natural, but eventually she managed to tame the creature where they became inseparable. This made her journeys easier and after her welcome was worn out, she travelled once more, drifting from place to place. For a time, she was even in Kugane, a failed attempt at love. However, Zava is a woman who has now ended up with a never-ending wander lust, and while she drifts back to the regions of Thavnair and Dalmasca often, seeing those regions as her ‘home and comfort,’ she and her bell tents are often spotted in various locations around the world.

To Write

Hello! I go by the pen name of Mia and have been role playing for over a decade on forums and privately.

I am located in Western Australia so my Timezone isn’t the greatest (AWST/GMT+8), couple it with full time work and part time study, my schedule is like a roller coaster. However, I am patient and very dedicated so I will always try and make things work.

So what do I like to rp and what do I stay away from? To be honest there is very very little that I haven’t dabbled in so I am really up for anything that your heart desires. In order to establish boundaries and what we are comfortable with, its best done talking it out, and since I am a chatty person in general, I promise I don't bite. The only stipulation I have is that you are required to be 18+ due to my age.

I RP in discord and also RP in game. However, due to my timezone and lifestyle I prefer to schedule in game RP sessions in advance with discord filling the time in between. I like to blend them together as a way to help accommodate not only my schedule but yours to! I am chill as heck about it and know that IRL comes first, always.

Please note, IC does NOT equal OOC. I am not my characters, so if I see the lines blurring, I will cut things off immediately, no if, buts or whats. I also RP pretty much all themes but I will not write ERP for the sake of ERP. I am not against it, but it needs to make sense for the character, the story and the moment.

In terms of character relations, anything goes and I cannot ever say how my character will perceive your character as it will be up to them....As such I don't like to force things onto characters either as I like natural progression.

What’s the best way to contact me? You can either contact me in game or by Discord- Mia#9399