Yelena

[Katya]

Player Name: Katherine aka Katya

Name: Yelena Ovna

Age: 22

Race: Human

Height: 5’6”

Weight: ~130 lbs


Appearance and Personality:

When dealing with Yelena, the expression “the squeaky wheel gets the oil” ought to come to mind (and often does after little more than a few moments in her company). She is a loud, proud and haughty woman, not afraid to speak her mind and then some, even in situations where to do so would be a faux pas or worse. To aggravate matters even further, Yelena is a beautiful young woman and knows it; she has gorgeous, flowing chocolate brown hair which falls in gentle waves down to her shoulder blades, deep, doe-like blue eyes which draw people in, and soft, succulent lips which often sport an adorable pout. Her body is thin and toned without being hard, and though she lacks the curves which drive men wild, she has a modest bosom and figure. However, Yelena does not use her beauty as a way of manipulating people; to do so would be to acknowledge them as her equals. Instead, she flaunts her attractiveness as some unattainable prize.

However, all of her self-important posturing and vociferousness are nothing but a massive façade meant to convince others and—more importantly—herself that she really is a worthwhile person. When one goes a little deeper, it’s clear that Yelena hates herself for what she has become; for as much as she superficially denies the hold and effects it has upon her life, Yelena knows that Starshine has become an integral part of her life, and that she is just another junkie in need of a fix. She sets herself up for failure by quitting or messing up when she is doing well in order to justify her self-pity and her habit. The only thing Yelena truly excels at without sabotaging is her artwork, which she uses to further fuel her escapism. Additionally, Yelena has an obsession with finding “the Moment / Thing / Idea / Work” which will define her life. This ill-defined notion has taken over, and she has become a hollow person looking for something to shape her instead of going out and doing it herself.

She wears very traditional, high-neck and long skirt dresses in various colors which cling suggestively to her body without outright giving anything away, and dark brown leather ankle boots with a small brass buckle. However, it’s been difficult for Yelena to hide the fact that her dresses have become stained, or that she has had to patch them in a few places, or that her boots have been scuffed and no longer shine like they used to. The recent years have not been kind to Yelena, financially or otherwise, and she has been forced to make some concessions.


Possessions: (anything important they own or keep on their person)

- Needles for injecting her drug
- A kitchen knife (6”/1” single edged)
- A small apartment on the south east side of the Residential District
- Her journal / sketchbook
- A few small, charcoal pencils

Powers or Strengths: (including stuff like magic, money, martial arts, etc.)

- Intelligent: Yelena is a smart girl; she attended school for her entire youth, and as such is relatively well versed in mathematics, grammar, spelling, geography etc.
- Artistic Talent: Although by no means an artistic genius, Yelena does have skill with a pencil and paper; she can draw well, and given the opportunity could probably excel as an artist.
- Street Smart: A few years of living in the poorer part of Marn and associating with junkies and the like have taught Yelena more than a little about how the world really works.
- Pride: Even if Yelena’s pride is only skin deep, it still allows her to hold her head high and not let the little things or people get her down (at least not in public).

Weaknesses: (flaws, physical vulnerabilities, downsides, drawbacks, etc. This part can be tricky. )

- Lives an Act: Yelena essentially lives a lie, acting as though she were a strong and proud woman when in reality she is just a broken girl. This causes a great deal of cognitive dissonance, and leads to depression, frustration and confusion.
- Off-putting Personality: Yelena’s attitude of superiority really puts people on edge and makes it difficult to like her. She doesn’t have very many friends.
- Self-Sabotage: Yelena compulsively wrecks anything that starts to go well for her.
- The Great “Something”: Yelena is looking for something to define her life, the search for which has consumed her to the point where she loses sleep and no longer truly lives because she spends all her time waiting for that one “thing.”
- Junkie: Yelena is an addict, hooked on a drug called Starshine. As such, she is wasting her money, physically harming herself and running the risk of jail time etc. (I will post a description following this post)
- No Combat Training Whatsoever: Pretty self explanatory, she could hold her own against an untrained, unarmed opponent and that’s about it.

History:

It did not matter that they had no money. She could care less that they were of common birth. The fact that her husband had walked out on her and people whispered about her virtue were of no concern. Her name was Irina Ovna, and she would be damned if she let the little people (more like little vultures) take her pride away from her!

Irina Ovna was not a kind woman; she knew this. In fact, she was a fiery tempered woman with a strong history of holding grudges and a habit of being just a little tyrannical. However, she also knew that the world was not a kind place, and that only the truly strong survived when it came down to it. As such, after her husband left her to raise their child alone, she made it her life’s goal to ensure that her daughter never suffered such an indignity; that her daughter was a strong, capable woman who never let the world tell her “no.” And, in a way, she succeeded.

Yelena grew up as an only child under the constant glare of her omnipresent mother’s eyes; nothing she ever did was good enough for Irina (it was never mother, it was always “call me Irina, child”). Yelena was an obedient child, ever attentive to her mother’s needs, but that was not enough. She succeeded in school, proving herself to be one of the brightest students in her classes and passing with high marks, but that was not enough (in fact, her mother criticized her for not having the highest grades in the group). She even ridiculed Yelena’s talent as an artist, even though it was evident from a young age that the girl had a gift for drawing because art wasn’t good enough for her daughter. In fact, it seemed like the only thing that Irina actually paid attention to when it came to her daughter (the person, not the idea) was her failures.

One particularly traumatizing instance occurred when Yelena was ten years old. Her mother had saved up a little extra money in order to hire a private tutor to teach Yelena to play the recorder (in the hopes that her daughter would be a child prodigy). As it turns out, Yelena had no ear for music whatsoever, and as she sat there, trying desperately to imitate her tutor, she could see the anger and embarrassment growing on her mother’s face. After an hour, the tutor informed Irina that he simply could not work with the child, and after collecting his fee, left. Irina flew into a rage, screaming at Yelena about how much of an embarrassment she was; after all, she was better than that! She was her daughter, and no daughter of her would fail so spectacularly. Irina sat the girl, who by this point was crying her eyes out, down on the chair, and insisted she play the tune again. As she had not gotten it right the first time, Yelena continued to mess up, even as her mother demanded that she play it over and over again. Eventually, the girl fell into a blubbering stupor, and her mother finally stopped yelling, only to inform her that she was very disappointed. Yelena was not allowed to eat dinner that night.

Such occurrences became fairly common as the years progressed and Irina attempted to force her daughter into succeeding at something, be it instruments, singing, dance, sewing or any number of other fields. Every time, however, Yelena’s efforts were seen as subpar, and her mother could only convey her extreme disappointment in her. And every time, Yelena would say to herself that never again, never again would she disappoint her mother or herself. She was better than that.

The most important event, perhaps, in Yelena’s life thus far however, occurred just short of her seventeenth naming day. Yelena had just finished with her daily sewing work (her mother was a seamstress and required that Yelena help her once she was old enough) and, in a sudden and bold act of impulsiveness, decided she wanted to go out. Although her mother strongly disapproved of any sort of fraternization with the “common” people, Yelena made the decision to leave anyway. She walked around the residential district for a time before running into a small group of young people who were standing around someone else at the mouth of an alley. Yelena normally wouldn’t care about this, but she caught, out of the corner of her eye as she was walking past, a glace of the person in the middle of the crowd. Yelena was immediately dumbstruck; she was beautiful, but more than that, she was fascinating. Her hair was cut short and spiked up by some product, and her eyes were a bewitching color of green with more than a hint of mischievousness. She was dressed even worse than most commoners, in torn brown leggings and a stained un-dyed wool tunic, but she bore herself with such grace and strength that Yelena didn’t even hold that against her. She needed to know this girl.

She waited on the outskirts of the crowd until, one by one, the others talked to the girl and then left. As the last one was going away, the girl turned those emerald eyes on Yelena and smiled, asking her what she wanted. Yelena stuttered (stuttered! She never did that!) her name, held out her hand and said it was a pleasure to meet you…? The girl laughed at her, a soft but melodious sound, and said that her name was Betta, and she was a purveyor of dreams. Yelena just smiled dumbly, completely oblivious to what this girl meant. Betta laughed again, turned down the alleyway, and disappeared.

For the next several weeks, Yelena found excuses to go out at roughly the same time in hopes of seeing Betta again. And her luck panned out. Every week, Betta would meet the same people in the same spot, and every week she would smile at Yelena as Yelena made a fool of herself by gawking. Finally, one week, Betta came up to Yelena and said, “I know what you want…” Yelena felt her heart beating faster and faster as Betta leaned closer and whispered, “here, the first one’s on me,” and handed Yelena a small vial of blackish liquid. Yelena blinked, turning her big eyes on Betta in complete confusion. Betta stared back for a moment, and then asked, “That is what you want, isn’t it?” Yelena blushed and nodded emphatically, before running away with her prize.

Yelena spent the next few days staring at the vial, confused about its contents and what she was supposed to do with them. Finally, she got up the courage to go back to Betta and ask. She went back to the usual spot and waited, as she always did for Betta to finish with her friends and finally, once they were gone, asked. The girl laughed and laughed for a good five minutes, completely floored by Yelena’s ignorance. Yelena felt herself getting angry, and demanded that Betta show her how it was done. Betta, still whipping the tears from her eyes and chuckling softly, agreed. The two went down an alleyway, and Betta pulled out a needle and syringe. She looked Yelena in the eyes, leaned in close, and asked, “Do you trust me?” Yelena could only nod dumbly. Betta drew the liquid from a vial just like the one she had given Yelena a few days before, and said, “Hold out your arm.” Yelena complied, and shivered slightly as she felt Betta roll up her sleeve and lightly touch her arm.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp stab in her elbow. She let out a squeal of pain, only to have her mouth covered by Betta’s hand. “Shut up! God damn, shut the fuck up! Do you want to get caught?” Yelena managed to get her breathing under control and shook her head no. That’s when she started seeing the colors. Bright, white flashes suddenly started appearing before her eyes and she felt a tingling warmness spread throughout her body. She couldn’t help but smile and giggle like an idiot as the warmness reached her brain and she felt all of her cares slip away. No more worries about school, work, or even… Irina. She sighed and leaned against Betta, who just patted her arm with a big grin. “Good stuff, huh?” About an hour later, the two emerged from the alley, and Betta promised to be there at the usual time if Yelena wanted more. Yelena assured her that yes, she most definitely would like some more of whatever the stuff was. “It’s called Starshine hon; bring five bishani and you’ve got yourself some more.” As she was about to go, she turned around and handed Yelena something; it was the needle they had used earlier that day. “Keep it. I have a feeling you’ll be needing it,” Betta said.

Yelena went home and immediately begged her mother for five bishani, making up some excuse about needing more charcoal pencils. Her mother refused. Yelena began to panic; it wasn’t just that the… Starshine? had been the most wonderful thing she’d ever experienced, she also didn’t want Betta to be mad at her. So instead, she dropped it. That night, when her mother was sleeping, she attempted to steal the coins. Her mother caught her, and immediately flew into a rage, screaming and hitting Yelena, calling her an ungrateful brat. However, and individual can only take so much; finally, after years of being walked on, Yelena stood up for herself and struck back at her mother, slapping her across the face. Irina became deathly pale and quiet, staring at her daughter with absolute shock on her face. She stared at Yelena for a few moments, and then looked away, telling her that she was no longer welcome in her house. Yelena pleaded with her mother, begged and apologized profusely, but to no avail; Irina threw her out of the house and insisted that she never return.

Since that day, Yelena has found a job doing general housekeeping at a local inn, the Proper Lady. She has also begun renting an apartment in the south eastern corner of the Residential District. She has become completely hooked on Starshine, though she is in denial about how deep the drug has its claws in her. In the intervening years between that day and the present, she has used at least once a week and has recently started using more frequently than that (the only thing restraining her is her financial situation). Betta is still her dealer, but any feelings she had for her have long since faded into the love-hate relationship of buyer and dealer. Her habit is beginning to cost her more than her job can afford her, and she is realizing that soon she will have to make a choice between the drug and her current lifestyle.


Starshine:

Starshine is an extremely addictive, magically-derived narcotic drug similar to heroin in the real world. Its users take it because of the intense rush of euphoria in which the individual observes psychosomatic hallucinations, often of bright, shining lights (hence the name) followed by a pleasant, warm “numbness” throughout the body. It can be taken intravenously (the preferred method due to the more intense high), orally, or as a suppository. In its base form, the drug is a white, chunky solid which, when heated, is soluble in water. Once dissolved, the substance will stay in the form of a blackish liquid form without separating into its base components.

I hope this is sufficient? If not, I can write more about it.

[Saruna]

I like it.

Five bishani sounds like a good price. I've got my character able to make 400 bishani a month with seamstress work, with 300 being a more common average. That's enough money for her to maintain her 3 or four bedroom home, buy whatever food she can't produce with her garden (say maybe 50-100 bishani per month on average for food?), get supplies for her sewing, and still have some left over to tuck away. I also set prices at an expensive inn at 20-50 bishani per night depending on the room, so 5 bishani per single dose of high quality narcotic that is incredibly illegal (if caught go straight to the dungeon, do not pass go, and there's no coming out) due to its magical properties seems pretty reasonable (that'd be around 150 bishani per month, so it'd be costing her more than food to sustain a daily dosage).

If the drug is magical though, the dealer might need to be a bit more careful, as magical drugs are something you DO NOT want to be caught with.

One thing that niggles at me is that the mother tossed her out for trying to steal; with so much of her ambition tied up in Yelena it seems like she would just punish her harshly (try to beat sense into her?) and not kick her out until the drug habit was exposed through some or another means (successively larger attempts to steal?). But that's minor.

One more thing is that with such a proud and haughty demeanor do you think she would do well as a barmaid? That's up to you too, just a little something I noticed that seemed a bit out of sync.

Unless you want to change something, it looks good to go.

[Saruna]

Approved.