APinchOfSalt/Nadirah

Nadirah.

PC character for a "A pinch of Salt", she is so beautiful she's oft been mistaken for a passing goddess.

This may seem like a good thing, sometimes it is, it's also, very frequently, not! Her life can briefly be described as a series of those small moments that make life special, followed by a ten ton yeddim running in to wreck things.

The ten ton yeddim took the form of house Cynis Slavers, who burnt her little village in the neck to the ground and took it's populace as slaves. Noticing her incredible beauty, the first mate claimed her as his own. Frustrated and outraged by her captivity, Nadirah eventually strangled him with his own belt, freed the other slaves, and led them into bloody revolt against their captorss. At which point she felt the touch of the unconquered sun upon her brow, tendrils of essence screamed into existence above her head in the form of a hawk, and the deck bleached beneath her feet.

Needless to say, the slavers were no match for a very very annoyed Zenith Caste and a bunch of equally annoyed slaves. With her ...interesting display of leadership, Nadirah found herself with a ship, a crew of runaway slaves and no idea what to do next. Thinking that supplies might be a good idea she and her trusty first mate Kaleus set course for Abalone...which is where APinchOfSalt begins.

• • • Diary entries***

Session date: Wednesday 8th February 2006-02-08

Nadirah speaks

I am so low I fear I will not rise again. We left the island, but little fiax preffered to stay. Can I begrudge him the happiness of a full stomach and a lifestyle where he’s not being drowned every day? I cannot. We set out with no food, and little idea of our direction. For us that would not have mattered, but for lon…he would have died later rather than sooner.

Yes sooner,Kheim was never found, and probably floats at the bottom of the sea. Kaleus resides on his island, in what state I do not know, and Lon is lost to us. Lost to us because I failed to remember what I am, lost to us because I thought when I should have burned those foul things to cinders. Lost to us because I did not know what I could do.

Lost to us, in short, because I failed. I have sullied the memory of a husband I once held dear, I have led a good man to his death, and I still do not know what to do with the gift of the unconquered son. I thought to use it to protect people, but the others. Fiax thinks of himself as always, whatever schemes he’s working on now, I don’t want to know. Aravis thinks of profit, well in her case…she is a thief, and a night caste. And Zar, our new arrival a zenith like myself, has little care for mortals. How can a chosen of the unconquered sun care so little for others? And yet, he has fared better than I, where I have failed he has succeeded at what he’s set his hands to. Was I so wrong then? To believe that the sun does not shine only upon the strong but on the weak. Was I so wrong to believe in using my gift for others and not myself. Has the sun turned his back on me because the others are right?

I have tried to protect people, and I have failed, but I cannot abide the idea that we will wrest money from a ship in an act of piracy, and then leave the innocent people of the neck, MY people, to suffer for it. I want to convince the others this is wrong, but they will not listen to me.I want to protect these people, but I have failed so many times, how do I know I will not fail again? If the sun shines only on the strong, then I must teach the people I wish to serve to be strong also, but how may I do this, when I am so weak?

I am a zenith, I should shine with the fury and the certainty of the sun, but my mind is nothing but shadows and doubts. I do not know why the unconquered sun chose me, for my will to live freely when all others had resigned themselves? But I no longer wish to live at all. I wish this cup were taken from my lips, I wish the slavers had never come, I wish I had lived happily on the neck with vikram. I would have tended goats with him forever and been the happier for it.