Nessa Lachina - A Spark in The Snow
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Birthday: 06/17
Sexuality: Gay
Special Characteristics:
Extreme Cold Resistance: Owing much to their Iser Heritage, Nessa shows an absurdly high tolerance for cold temperatures. This typically results in forgoing things such as winter clothes in cold climates.
White Pupils: In a normal individual, White Pupils are a sign of catastrophic visual problems such as cataracts. However, Nessa not only can see in spite of her white pupils, but has perfect 20/20 vision. Nobody is quite sure why her eyes are so strange, though.
Personality: Looking at Nessa, one might expect her to be a pillar of composure, always one hundred percent in control of her thoughts and feelings at all times. This expectation is often reinforced by her general demeanor. In most situations, Nessa is a very level-headed individual. Calm to an impressive degree, and filled with the compassion and patience to listen to the woes of others. But that doesn't make her a complete Stoic. In fact, she is quite willing to talk quite extensively, sharing stories she has learned happily. But one should be careful about letting her get into a story. Never one to mince words, Nessa has gained a reputation for being almost shockingly blunt and to the point--a trait that has come to define her communication with the people she works alongside. And yet, this blunt nature has yet to cross over into flat out rudeness.
Sure, keeping to a point is something most appreciate. But it doesn't come with an excuse to treat other people poorly! However while this bluntness sits on the borderline of being both a positive and a negative trait, Nessa does in fact have aspects of her personality that are quite firmly camped in the negative side of things. The most obvious comes up whenever she finds herself taking part in an argument with someone else. In any even slightly serious argument, one would struggle to get Nessa to bend and admit that her point of view could be wrong. It's not an impossible task, and pointing at the holes in her logic enough times will get her to concede. But the sheer amount of times you would have to poke holes is often a high enough number that most normal individuals might rather throw their hands up in frustration and give up on their argument entirely.
Along with this tendency towards bullheaded stubbornness in an argument, Nessa has occasionally displayed a slightly more concerning trait: Disobedience. However, this is not to say that Nessa is an outright traitorous individual. In truth, it tends to walk hand in hand with her own stubborn tendencies. While she is often fine with cooperating with orders given to her, she has displayed less than zero qualms with directly and openly going against them if she believes a better option is available. Typically this is what spawns the majority of her arguments with others, and often winds up revealing a surprising capacity for anger buried just beneath the surface.
Aside from those self-proclaimed 'minor' issues however, Nessa is a surprisingly cooperative individual, often being the one to step up and politely offer help whenever she sees that it is needed.
Likes:
- Birds: While not quite as intrigued with birds to be considered an ornithologist, Nessa vaguely remembers birds being a rare sight in her early childhood. As a result, she was intrigued by them from almost the word go the first time she ever saw one. Nowadays, they serve as one of the few ways to cheer her up on a bad day.
- Warm Drinks: Be it Tea, Cider, or even things like Mulled Wine and Buttered Rum. Drinks that are meant to be served warm are something that Nessa considers a type of 'comfort food', right up there with actual foods like slow cooked wyvern steak or deep-fried flying fish.
- Learning: While many people find the concept of 'learning' to be irritating--usually thanks to some systematic problem or another--there are people out there who find the very act of gaining knowledge to be not only a worthwhile use of their time, but actually somewhat fun. In this aspect, Nessa is very firmly seated in the latter camp.
- Reading: Be it through traditional books or alternative methods such as listening to recorded readings via ILac, Nessa is quite the fan of reading or being read to. It was even one of the defining traits of her extreme youth, reading to children that were even younger than her.
Dislikes:
- Brute Force: Particularly as it comes to dealing with issues, Nessa has always found herself quite irritated by those with the mentality of 'swing first, ask later'--and is actively quite infuriated by those who follow the 'Might is Always Right' philosophy. While she is no stranger to brawling and has even inherited a touch of the good old Iser battle lust, Nessa is more often an advocate for using one's head over their fists. However, even she can admit that there are times where her own biases need to be put aside for the sake of results.
- Ignorance By Choice: If you believe that there are only good things to be gained by learning, you are inherently put at odds with a certain type of person. The kind of person who picks an arbitrary point in their life as the point at which they 'don't need to learn anything else'. Otherwise known as those who remain ignorant and closed off by their own choice, rather than someone who has simply been subjected to unfortunate circumstances. Because of how stubbornly locked into their often incredibly harmful and negative ways of thinking these people tend to be, there is no quicker way to get under Nessa's skin.
- Being Called 'Sir': While the way that Nessa dresses is certainly more masculine than feminine, she still fully identifies with her own femininity. From where she stands, she claims that she doesn't look 'that much' like a young man. While it is certainly more of a mild irritant than anything to her, it does still actively get on her nerves if done frequently enough.
- Nihilism: While Nessa is by no means the pure opposite of a Nihilist, she does quite actively choose to stand at odds against those who align with that philosophy. After all, if life has no meaning then why make any choices at all? Why tell anyone that life is meaningless? Why not just lay down somewhere and let the universe take you? In her opinion it is because deep down, even the people who will fervently claim to their dying breath that nothing matters know that they are lying, and putting up a front in order to avoid the social obligation to put an effort into changing something they dislike.
Motivations:
- Iceberg and Sin: On the exact same day five hundred years ago, two separate countries that are all but a world apart suffered similar, but elementally opposed disasters. And yet, nothing has been learned of the how and why? That strikes Nessa as a strange decision. To that end, she has been gathering everything she can: Information, skills, power. One day, she will have everything she needs to venture into the unforgiving wastelands of each country to try and discover what in god's name happened.
- Defending Others: While she is a native Iser through and through, there are some personality traits that she has developed over the years that have led to slightly different ideals. Rather than pursuing strength and skill for the sake of dominating her opponents, she has been gathering these things in the name of defending the people who don't have what she has.
- Discovery: While the modern world is fairly well understood, countries like Iceberg and Sin serve as only the most obvious of examples that there are things in Ishgar that have yet to be understood. When all else fails, Nessa's drive to bring to light things that have either been forgotten or obscured has been there to be the secondary force that allows her to pick herself back up, working in tandem with her desire to defend and help others. After all, it's more likely than not that some discovery or another will be what comes around to help better some of the most desperate situations in the world.
Fears:
- Loss of Self: Iser children's stories are not known for pulling punches. In fact, they are traditionally known to be rather brutal--albeit laced with metaphor. However, some stories make such a lasting impression on a person that they become the seed that sprouts a deep seated, existential fear. In Nessa's case, she has a deep seated fear of losing the things that make her herself: Her memories and her personality. This has caused her to develop an incredibly deep seated distrust and even hatred for individuals whose magic focuses around either of these aspects of the self. Even if it is not outright Mind Control or Personality Warping, the sense of existential fear still has her heart pound like the war drums of the damned.
- Imprisonment: Going hand in hand with her fear of losing herself, Imprisonment is something that Nessa has a noted fear of. While she isn't quite able to put into words why it brings such anxiety and fear to her, it is obvious that the fear is quite strong--and quite legitimate.
- Losing Others: Defending people is Nessa's strongest motivation. Losing people is the logical result of failing in that goal. As a result, Nessa's reactions to grief and loss tend to stem towards the unhealthy side. Should that loss be her own fault, she isn't sure what it would do to her. But the thought of being responsible for failing people she promised to protect fills her with the same kind of deeply primal dread that the very concept of death does for most individuals.
General Appearance
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 148 Pounds
Hair Color: Emerald Green
Eye Color: Crimson Red with White Pupils
Skin Tone: Fair Skinned, bordering on Pale.
Appearance:
Guild: Sabretooth
Tattoo: Neck, Left Side
Tattoo Color: Green
Faction: N/A
Faction Chapter: N/A
