Zafirah Hashim

Zafirah Hashim is a Wild Child, and always has been, and probably always will be. Born under a New Moon with a strange bright red comet in the sky, she was constantly getting into trouble as a child, driving her mother and father almost insane trying to keep up with her antics. Everyone was surprised when she came up with the idea that she wanted to become devoted to the Pillar of Fire as a Priestess. Her mother, ever the practical one, pointed out to her that that particular path required dedication and constancy. Her father threw his hands up in the air and wished the Pillar of Fire luck, as he had no doubt she would do exactly what she wanted. She always did. Zafirah did not fit in well with priestesses to the Pillar of Fire. She felt the need to move, to dance, whenever she was in the presence of fire. As the path to learning to become a Priestess required one to be still first, so that one would listen and could hear the lessons and the platitudes and spells, she was never actually trained as a Priestess. The High Priestesses finally despaired of ever taming her, and shooed her out of the temples, with promises she would never be a priestess until she calmed down and fit in with the others. Zafirah informed them that she didn’t need to fit in. She needed to worship the Pillar of Flame the way it should be worshiped. Through her dances. And interestingly, somehow, she thought the Fires responded when she danced around and with them.

She lost herself in the dances of her people. It had been one of the only things Zafirah had ever taken seriously enough to impress her parents, so they kept her with the dance teachers, never realizing how talented she truly was. Zafirah now danced for the Pillar. Every dance, she dedicated to it. And she felt stronger in every way, and more focused, during and after every time she danced.

Another way they kept her busy was her fascination with alchemy. She was fascinated with herbs and chemicals, their properties, both alone and as they worked together. She had started, in all honesty, with perfumes, as she was unsatisfied with the cloying heavy sweetness that was typically found in abundance around her household. She preferred more natural scents. The smell on leaves after a rain, which she had smelled one time, long, long ago, while on a trip with her father in a foreign land. She didn’t know which one. She was too young. But she remembered the scent, and that had been the first she’d set about creating. Desert flowers were next. Only one at a time, though, as too many together were too much. Next, she’d set about cooking things in the kitchen, and the cooks had thrown many worried glances at each other as she’d begun learning their profession. After minor burns and cuts, most of them easy to hide from her status-obsessed parents as they healed, she had proven herself a rather adept chef, earning the approval of the head cook in their kitchens, and even earning a reputation whispered about in other tribes round about. From there, she took on potions. She’s just begun learning health potions, magic potions, potions for all things she can find. She’s been reading every scroll and book, and snagging every teacher and mentor she can find, all to better her craft.

She loves to learn. That’s why it was only with little surprise that she was found to be a Desert Mystic. The only surprise was how relatively late in life she had been recognized to be one. She’d been a young twenty-something; had already become an excellent cook, was progressing well with her dance and her alchemy, had been refused by the priestesses. And she’d gotten mad, finally, truly, mad, in a market place.

A stranger, a man, had thrown the young woman he was with to the ground, picked up a rock, and threw it at her head. The rock stopped inches away. It would have been very bad had it connected. It was a big rock, and it was aimed and so close to her delicate eyes. The rock spun in place for a moment as the crowd that had gathered around the yelling man gasped collectively. Then, with speed and precision, it flew at the man. It did not hit him only once; oh no, for Zafirah had seen scars and old bruises under new bruises. It hit, then retreated, hit, then retreated, til the man was on the ground in fetal position, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms attempting and failing to ward off the invisible attacker. Another man, older, with salt and pepper hair, a slender build, tall, with wide shoulders, across from the circle around the downed abuser, clucked once, and the rock flew to his hand. He chuckled as he tossed it up and down, catching it.

As his gaze locked with Zafirah, he smiled a wide smile, a genuine one. “You beat me to the punch,” he said, his eyes twinkled. “Now come. You have a lot to learn, and the first is control over yourself, then, this,” he said, as he raised the rock. He tossed a small pouch of coins to the battered woman, just now, wide-eyed, getting to her feet, staring at her husband. “Go now, Mistress,” he advised her. “Find a judge, and leave him. You’ve just been given a second chance at life.” She nodded, and dashed off, clutching the coins with both hands as she blended into the confused and dissipating crowd. The man smiled back at Zafirah, who, amazingly, did not find his smiles to be too much. He seemed at peace and happy. “That’s because I am happy,” he quipped. Her shocked face made his grin wicked. “And yes, this is something you can learn to do, too. Being a Mystic is all about learning. I would bet you’ve been searching for us as hard as we’ve been searching for you, yes? You jump about, learning everything you can about everything?” “Yes,” Zafirah said. “Then come with me. And we will begin your training.”

Zafirah took leave of her parents’ home that night, her most valued possessions in her bags with her. She’d come a ways since then. Training had proven something she could throw herself into. She loved reading the scrolls and books available, and listening to Mystic elders as they taught. She still sought the fires, though, and worshiped at the licking flames with her dance. The Pillar of Flame had not given up on blessing her. She would not give up dancing for it. Her mentor was the man who had found her. Akkan Harneen was a difficult teacher to impress, but gave praise where and when it was due. He encouraged her every day to be better than the previous day. She still hadn’t learned how he’d learned how to hear her thoughts. He said one day, he might teach her that trick. But not yet.

It was because of Akkan she now found herself traveling to a distant land to a boat. The word was strange to her. Boat. And other words: port, ocean, rivers, seas… He said it was time she went out into the world, and that she would learn along the way. He sent some scrolls with her, and a few books she hadn’t read yet, and enough gold and silver to book passage on the first vessel she would come across. That was important, he’d said. The first vessel, no matter what. He said she’d need them soon enough. She was sent with special armour which mimicked her typical dancing skirts and tops, and weapons to keep her safe as she crossed the desert. Of course she had her scimitar her family had given her when she’d become an adult. She had traded with a merchant from the Vinci lands, and had gotten her hands on a crossbow and a quarterstaff, which she had trained with as a child. She wasn’t an expert, but she was good enough as needed. Besides, they were excellent for walking across the dunes and for hunting small game as she went along. And as Zafirah watched the stars whirl and dance overhead, she knew something big was going to happen soon.

Gaming Personality: Tactician, Method Actor, Storyteller

Character Goals: Claim a birthright, Learn some knowledge that has been lost or hidden, Having nice/expensive/rare things (she loves shopping!)

Why is this important to my character? A quest for self-improvement, Searching for spiritual enlightenment, Seemed like fun, The money in it is just too good, I just feel that I must, a compulsion probably routed in a childhood experience.

Obvious Obstacles: It's really far away, I am missing a key piece of information, There are no clues whatsoever (my mentor said "Go get on the first boat at the port, and go for it!")