Post by Nasrin on Feb 17, 2008 13:31:15 GMT -5
General Information
Name: Nasrin
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Rank: Candidate/Asst. Headwoman
Appearance
Hair: Black
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 5'7"
Over-All:
There are some that would mistake Nasrin for a cook's apprentice, given the young woman's tendency to plumpness. She's proportional, with broad hips, a waist that appears slender in comparison and a healthy bust, but the additional weight on her frame gives her a lush figure that could very easily soften into Rubenesque curves.
At first glance, it's plain that she has unconventional features that fit no one's idea of classic beauty. Her face is soft and round, though with a heavily angled jaw and high brow. Her nose is far too pert and her lips too full. When not smiling, her hazel eyes are large and round, but slightly uneven and they disappear into crescents whenever she smiles. Thick black brows arch over her eyes, providing some balance to her too-small nose. Her hair is drawn back from her temples into a tumble of artificial finger-curls that go just past her shoulders. The rest is bound back by means of a purple scarf, knotted at the nape of her neck with the tasseled ends trailing down to the small of her back.
She's dressed simply and in sturdy clothes designed to withstand stains. A white linen shirt is laced to her throat, and tucked into a black skirt with purple piping along the seams. Its sleeves flare out in bells that are pulled in snug at each wrist, ending in lacy cuffs. The blouse is protected by a vest of violet felt, with thick black ribbon-embroidery decorating the back in a pattern of roses. The long hem of her skirt falls over a pair of scuffed boots. The knot she wears is the violet and gold of Sanctum Hold, twisted with white to signify her status at the Weyr.
(Note: Actress Zuleikha Robinson provided physical inspiration for Nasrin.)
Personality
If a person were made up of elements, Nasrin would be composed of earth and water in equal measure. She is warm, solid, dependable and flexible without giving up the joy of engaging in the occasional fit of whimsy. Even at eighteen, she tends to adopt a motherly persona towards those around her-- though it has sometimes rankled with those who aren't young enough to be properly mothered. When one manages to sneak past the facade of pleasant, servant-born manners, they would discover that Nasrin has a gentle but ever-present sense of humor, is a deeply superstitious person and has a treasure trove of folk knowledge. Love charms, how to cure warts or a broken heart, the future seen in dragon poker cards, even how to give a rival a bad case of the runs... Nasrin knows all of this and more. Whether she can be convinced to share that knowledge is another thing entirely.
Because of her belief in the sanctity of service, Nasrin also tends to act when under the influence of stronger personalities, and takes the most satisfaction when she can complete a requested task to perfection. This makes her both helpful and useful to have around, but has its downside as well. While she wouldn't commit acts that go against her morals-- of which she has many-- it also means that she's less likely to take charge of a situation and far more likely to follow the lead provided by the most senior rank present.
However, when ordered to take charge of a situation or event, Nasrin is extremely competent. It is, after all, what she's been born to do. In short, she is the very best second in command, but has yet to prove herself as a leader.
History
"I am ever mindful of the legacy of my grandfather, the founder of this Kingdom, who had said to me that he perceived his life as a link in a continuous chain of those who served our nation and that he expected me to be a new and strong link in the same chain." - King Hussein I
Nasrin was born two turns after her mother, Sibongale, was made Headwoman of Sanctum Hold. Her father, Casimir, didn't figure much into the girl's life in the early days; a guard sergeant for the Hold, he was a quiet man and seemed content to let the force of nature that was Sibongale rear their late-in-life child.
Where others might have fostered their child out to free them for the time needed to attend to their duties, Sibongale insisted on carrying Nasrin everywhere she went. She had never expected to bear a child, much less the girl she had long dreamt of having, so no one dared suggest to the woman that she separate from her daughter. Nasrin, whose nature was similar to her father's, was accepting of her mother's constant company-- and talking-- as she grew. She seemed a natural audience, not only in that she listened to the wisdom Sibongale had to share from her turns of experience but also because she believed what she was told.
It wasn't that Sibongale was a garrulous woman. It was simply that she believed herself to be a repository of knowledge and had despaired of ever having anyone worthy of sharing it with. Casimir wasn't interested. She might have shared with an assistant-- she had several, in fact-- but there were none she trusted with everything. Sibongale served Blood, and it was right and proper that she pass on what she knew to her own blood.
And she had so very much to pass on. Nasrin's first memory is of her mother lecturing her on the nobility of service. "We are as we are meant to be, girl," she told her daughter. "Every man, woman and child here is born into their proper place and the only creatures that can alter that fate are the dragons. You and I, we were born to serve the Blood of Sanctum. Maybe not all of them are worthy of that service but it isn't for us to say so." She paused here to spit off to the side, dirtying the rushes that covered the stone floor of the Great Hall. Then her hard, bright black eyes fixed upon Nasrin. "It isn't for us to question. We are necessary and valuable because we don't question. You understand?"
Nasrin had simply nodded and continued polishing the spoons arranged in a seemingly unending line on the high table. Her world, simple as it was, was made even simpler by her mother's explanations. She enjoyed being able to understand the world's workings. She liked that Sibongale made it all make sense.
"If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality." - Norman Cousins
The turns passed and it became one of Sanctum's truths that if Sibongale were to enter a room, Nasrin would be swept in behind her in the larger woman's shadow. The two were inseparable and were happy to be so. Nasrin learned how to plan a banquet feast for two hundred, and ways to use linens too thin and faded for even the most common bed, and how to deliver a child if the healer was late in coming. Through it all, every experience, every new piece of knowledge was delivered with one of Sibongale's nuggets of wisdom. Even the strangest things were made real by Sibongale's belief. For example, she taught her daughter to always tuck a sprig of lavender under the seat of the Blood's unmarried woman-- "It attracts luck in love, and assures many children." and that no important business should be conducted in the thirteenth month of the year-- "Contracts signed in this month will always be broken, and children born then will be sickly or weak-minded."
No matter how fantastic Sibongale's claims, Nasrin believed all of it. For, as she grew, she learned to watch for the effects of superstition and fact alike. True, there were exceptions, but belief in her mother became belief in what her mother taught her. Besides... if some of what Sibongale taught her was true, why wouldn't all of it be?
So Nasrin learned. She learned how to sew good luck charms into the seams of Sanctum's daughters' gowns, how to protect a newly delivered mother from the creeping despair of death, how to organize, how to delegate, how to smile rather than blush while accepting praise and most of all, she learned how to find satisfaction in service, in the performance of a duty to its perfect end.
By the time Nasrin reached her fifteenth turns, it was agreed that she had the makings of a fine headwoman. By her sixteenth, she had attracted the notice of Sanctum's Lord, and he suggested to her mother for the first time that perhaps they might have her knotted as one of Sibongale's true assistants.
That is when the bond between Sibongale and Nasrin began to sour.
"I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, all of us against the foreigner." - Bedouin Proverb
Sibongale looked at her daughter, truly looked at her for the first time in turns, and saw the quiet confidence she had helped to blossom. She saw how the people of the Hold brightened when Nasrin entered the room, and how many who used to come to her for help and advice were now turning to this unmarried, untried slip of a girl. She heard the words of the Lord in her ears, remarking on the "promise" that Nasrin showed, how she would "be a fine successor" to Sibongale. She felt how stiff her joints were in the cold mornings, and how difficult it had become to climb the stairs to the chambers of her precious Blooded masters.
All of these things finally made themselves known to Sibongale and for the first time, she felt less than generous towards her blood, her daughter.
Nasrin was unaware of the shift in her mother's feelings, her fear of becoming useless, of being replaced. She knew only that one morning, Sibongale approached her and informed her that she would be spending some time in the laundries, with the laundry maids and seamstresses. As she always did, Nasrin had nodded agreeably and turned to this new work without complaint. Sibongale informed Lord Sanctum that the girl was already committed to duties elsewhere. She was needed. Perhaps next turn. The man shrugged and moved on to other business.
So it went that turn, and the next, until two turns had passed. Nasrin was moved from the laundries to the kitchens. From the kitchens she went to the stables, and from there to the infirmary. Never far enough that Sibongale couldn't watch her from afar, never near enough that she might catch the eye of those with the power to place her over Sibongale.
But it didn't work. Nasrin had for so long been her mother's shadow that her sudden absence from the woman's side was noted. It was remarked upon. Lord Sanctum heard, and he saw, and he understood why his Headwoman had developed a sudden distaste for her daughter's presence. Before the second turn of Nasrin's exile had finished, he summoned Sibongale to his office. Those who passed by the Lord's door said that they heard the Headwoman wailing and sobbing and shouting at the man who she'd often claimed to love more than his own mother. No one heard how he responded. Hours passed and at their close, Sibongale emerged much subdued from the office and summoned Nasrin to attend the Lord.
A compromise had been reached.
"Do not be like servants who serve their masters expecting to receive a reward; be rather like servants who serve their master unconditionally, with no thought of reward." - Antigonus of Sokho
Nasrin was surprised to hear that she was being sent away. The turns she'd spent serving in various places around the Hold had been pleasant ones for her, however hard the work had been. She'd learned as much from Sanctum's unranked workers as she had with her mother, and considered her "exile" to be Sibongale's plan to further educate her on service. So it was with shock she heard that she was being sent to Sanctum Weyr as a prospect for the clutch hardening on the sands.
Should she find her partner among the dragonets hatching there, then she would remain, offering her skills to the Weyr and those within it. Should she not, then she will have the option of either completing her training amongst the Weyr's own service staff or returning to Sanctum... where she would be knotted as her mother's senior assistant, with the understanding that when Sibongale was no longer capable of performing her duties, Nasrin would take over.
There was little the young woman could do but agree. She nodded her acceptance, as she always had, and with the Lord's permission excused herself to begin her preparations for the journey, and her long stay in the mountain.
Less peaceful was her conversation with the young man who had become more and more a fixture at her side. There were some who had expected that Chaldais and Nasrin would announce their marriage shortly, for neither was growing any younger and it was agreed that they made a handsome couple. Nasrin went to him directly from the Lord's office and while what passed between them remained private, it was quickly known that the young woman spent the last of her time at the Hold pale and quiet, and that the young man went about with a look as grim as the sea before a storm.
Sibongale, repentant, was full of tears and advice for her child. "There is more misfortune than good fortune in the world, child," she told Nasrin as they packed what few possessions the girl owned. "That is why you must never look a green dragon in the eye, for they are the color of evil luck and they are as many of them as there are chances for you to go astray. Do not let them steal your luck. Write often. Remember that dragons, and their riders, believe themselves to be above the demands of Blood and service, but they are not your masters. Chew your mint in the morning and do not drink klah, however cold it might become in those wretched mountains."
But what she said the most, between the tears and the advice, was, "Come home to me. Remember me, and how much I love you."
Sibongale did not often speak of love-- her father and Chaldais had said those words more to Nasrin than her mother had-- and so she knew that everything her mother was saying must be true. She was loved, and she must remember everything she was told.
Most of all, she must make Sanctum Hold proud.
OPTIONAL STUFF
FOR CANDIDATES:
Honorific: n/a
Preferred Color: Gold/green
