Post by Azureth on Jul 9, 2014 2:03:56 GMT -5
Name: Adriael Lythdrayk (Fierfek)
Age: 19
Race: Arkanian Offshoot – Arkanian/Human
Birth place: Utapau
Height: 5’7
Weight: 149lbs
Eye Color: Electric blue
Hair Color: White
Appearance:
Blessed with the best of both races she belongs to, Adriael is a striking sight. Stark white skin, unmatched pallor and hair of a similar shade cascading down her back, almost always loose and wild. Those are perhaps her most striking features, and the ones that scream of her Arkanian heritage. Her eyes are a bold, and occasionally chilling, electric blue. Human eyes, the very same eyes as her father. Her features are near pixielike, a button nose and lush lips.
You could not say she has a slender figure, she is sturdy and rather curvaceous. Unlike many of her kind her fingers are not clawed, she sports five elegant and lengthy typical human fingers on each hand.
In terms of apparel, well it's not something she's particularly concerned with. Modern and professionally, standard affair civilian wear. Though she does have a fondness for the colour blue. The first Fierfek always insisted it brought out the true colour of her eyes.
Personality:
A vivid, eccentricity, an oddity with more inner conflict that outward appearances suggest. A naive, sheltered girl left to take the mantle of a web of lies and secrets. A mysterious figure behind her shield of screens and guards. An idealist, who would change the world for a better, but who is fuelling conflict around the galaxy. An outcast, living a double life. Living a lie.
All of the above apply to Adriael. In short, she is a little girl lost, far out of her depth, with a duty she hardly understands.
Some say curiosity killed the cat, but Adriael has lived nineteen years and counting with an insatiable curiosity regarding life and living. She was blessed with a shadowy mentor and a surrogate father to encourage her curiosity, dedicating an insurmountable effort to teaching her everything he knew and furthering her own passion for learning. This kind of an upbringing lead to her having a somewhat sheltered nature. This shows in a lot of everyday interactions, her general lack of experience with life. In socialisation outside of business dealings, she is rather inexperienced. An academic understanding of culture and a practical understanding are very, very different things.
Violence is perhaps one of the only commodities she has been fully and practically exposed to, it simply doesn't shock her anymore. In the name of self defence she has been driven to commit some pretty violent acts herself, although she half holds the belief violence is wrong her mentor often instilled the fact that it's a means to an end. An example of the many moral conflicts she struggles with on a day to day basis. Her duty demands she stand in an endless grey, the legacy she swore to preserve. A power she wields now, and hopes to somehow use for good.
Perhaps her greatest weakness is her idealistic, trustful nature, the few who have ever achieved closeness to her could manipulate her as they pleased. Though it is difficult to get near her, with her personal guard around, and her busy life taking her from planet to planet with no reprieve. Not to mention, she almost completely rules out business associations as potential 'friends', as anyone dealing in secrets and shadows is, in her eyes, not to be trusted.
It is mostly the fault of the belief instilled in her, squashing her natural faith in other beings At it's core this faith still exists, it is simply suppressed and kept locked away for those few closest to her. Matters of the heart are kept locked away, her true self rarely shown but always there. Always making mistakes. Perfection in her brokering is something she strives for, but can never achieve.
In her spare time, which is not common, she has an addiction to surfing the holonet, learning what she can from whatever she can. New systems, new places, all races and languages. She has a passion for words which cannot be denied, linguistics is by far her favourite hobby and one of her most valuable professional assets. Honestly, someone should introduce her to the idea of a true leisure activity. Such things are foreign to her.
So she’s calm? It’s a bluff. So she’s menacing, it’s a bluff. Honestly, Adri has always been a bundle of emotions inside, feeling everything all at once, pulling her all over the place. Her bluff is not impervious, it can crack under pressure, but it is a shield all on its own.
To be quite frank she hasn’t found many personal triggers yet. A plus side to being well educated was that she was schooled in moral ambiguity. Though she finds it hard to deal with slavers and murders, she does, as it is always from a distance. However exposed to the horrors of slavery in practicality though, it would surely horrify her. Anger her, considering her roots. Even theoretically...but such disputes she shoves deep down. All this pent up emotion could lead to quite an explosive temper tantrum, if anything ever managed to negatively capture her passions.
Sheltered and exposed, harmless and dangerous. Not entirely a contradiction, simply confused and entrapped.
Profession: Information Broker
Previous Faction/Rank: N/A
Equipment: Her notable personal affects consist of a a trusty blaster pistol, a various datapads containing various business tidbits and reading material and a locket given to her by her mentor. The locket contains the core of Fierfek's first datapad.
Starship: Queen Edessa (Edessa being the Arkanian word for triumph, formerly Lord Edessa)
Skills:
Multi-Linguist (Huttese – Fluent, Arkanian – Advanced, Twi’Lekki – Intermediate, Mando’a – Intermediate, Rodese - Basic)
Etiquette - High Societal, Criminal, Scientific.
Enhanced Memory - Through a combination of genetics and training, Adriael has gained a near impeccable memory, retaining detail and information far more effectively that your average human, or even Arkanian.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 4
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 4
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 2
Melee Weapons: 3
Ranged Weapons: 5
Bio:
Prehistory
It may come as no surprise that the subject of discussion never knew either of her biological parents. That is not to say they never existed, she was no immaculate conception. Just a girl, born of a union of flesh and blood. Two slaves, under the stars, indulging in a moment of tenderness and solace. If the consequence of that night had been less dark, perhaps it could even be considered a romantic notion. Peace in the arms of a loved one.
A peace that was not to last. He had worked in Utapau's neuranium mines from the moment he was strong enough. Just another packhorse, to be bought and sold as one. Helien, a human-Arkanian offshoot did not know another life, only the safe monotony he was living. For the most part content to live and die an instrument of construction. A mere tool. What a miserable notion.
Whereas she was a woman of means, a brilliant and disciplined Arkanian mind who was once thought to have the destiny of a genius. Bright eyed and eager, she left the cocoon of her homeland to explore and discover. Only to fall prey to pirates, in territory uncharted. Sold to the same mining giant as Helien, forced into servitude as a systems engineer. Her brilliance was never wasted, nor rewarded. Simply used.
And there was never any hope of escape, although it took Adriael the Elder quite some time to relinquish this hope. By the time she had let it go completely, her former conviction and belief in hope and inspired more of her fellow slaves than she was ever aware of. Sparks, she was the stone against stone that started the fire in it's primal nature. Although it took a love so profound to ignite her own inner fires once more. A beautiful love. A secret best kept inside the warmth of it's own bliss.
Until a swell in the stomach appeared of a certain engineer. It wasn't quite a secret then, the love she had shared with some beautiful soul. Who was the father? She'd never tell. Oh, but she didn'tneed to, this was no planet of bumbling primates. The tests told all the secrets her heart had held, the father of this life inside her was caught in a desperate attempt of escape. Valiant, it seemed, to steal a ship and bring back a chosen one to free all the slaves. Until his innards were splattered all over the hangar walls. Truly, how valiant can stupidity be? All it caused was sorrow. The rest, really, is history. A babe was born and raised with as much care as could be given. As much live as could be mustered, until Adriael was four years of age. It was then she was ripped from her mother's side, and into a world unknown. Sold at a market in Nar Shaddaa, of all places, under the table at a higher price than expected.
Sold to a broker of secrets. Raised in a palace of lies.
A Man Called Poison
A nameless man who wove a web of spies and spiders. Rarely seen, always heard and perhaps one of the most successful information brokers in existence, or at least one of the most long lived. This was a man who made himself a lord of shadow, from the gutters of Nar Shaddaa arose an Arkanian man who professed to know it all, and made a profit from sharing the knowledge...and misinformation. A high functioning sociopath, with a photographic memory and a vicious business sense. A visionary. A genius. A criminal. A man who had carved a legacy for himself and his own, respected and hated in voluminous quantities. Plenty tried to rid the world of him, they all seemed to fail. Making this man notoriously hard to kill. All of his dealings were on his terms, through transmissions or aboard his private and heavily guarded personal vessel. Naturally, it didn't start this way, once he was as desperate and willing to compromise. Affluence and too many mistakes beat that much out of him, for sure.
But this is not the history of the first Fierfek. You are here to read of the second.
Why, you might ask. Why would Fierfek want to purchase a little girl, a four year old slave with wide eyes and white hair? Be assured, his intentions were not malicious as some of the other bidders had been. Nor were they entirely benevolent. This was a question of lineage, of a legacy unfulfilled. No 'breeding partner', as he would have put it, fulfilled his requirements for a the gene pool of a potential sucessor, and the time for 'breeding' had passed. Fierfek, as they called him, was getting desperate, and this four year old's dossier on a battered datapad said all the right things. Talking fluently after eighteen months of life, extremely early mental development, reading by the age of three and a half. Excelling despite her environment. And part Arkanian at that. It was one of the few irrational decisions that man ever made, and the best or the worst depending on your outlook.
Either way, he never expected a little girl to get under his skin, so to speak. He had it all planned out, he would raise her from a distance, be cold and calculating. Instill discipline and skill in his successor. No emotional attachment whatsoever.
How wrong he was, how misguided. What little he knew of children.
Curious and Curioser
The little bundle of sunshine had Fierfek wrapped around her finger without even trying. Bright, adorable, inquisitive.
Why was the question of her childhood. In fact, why couldn't Adriael's entire progression through childhood could be told in a succession of whys? Why is it so? Why can't I go outside? Why is the sky blue? Why are people bought and sold? Why are you telling me this? Why are you so secretive? Why can't I stay up any later? Why can't I drive?
Ever curious, her thirst for learning made her the bane and apple of her surrogate father's eye.
As he had planned, her entire childhood consisted of datapads and holovids, her ability to drink in and retain knowledge was phenomenal and he took full advantage of that. A natural linguist, a practical sponge. Not to mention, even as a small child and in the years beyond, she was never happier than when learning. When challenging herself and moving forward. To love knowing was an instinct to her, more curious than your average cat, with a natural and instilled intelligence that was far beyond any expectations, exceeding even the boundaries of her natural racial affinities. The wide eyed child truly was the perfect choice in some ways, the only drawback to get existence being the way she captured the heart of the usually icy man. With her innocence, her questions, her eternal optimism. Originally he had planned to leave her on Nar Shadda whenever business arose that called for leaving his base of operations...but he could not stand to have her out of his sight. Not his precious linage. His darling baby girl.
A small girl, forever deprived of a normal life. Spacebound or housebound, the thing that puzzled the young girl the most for many years was why she was never allowed outside. Barring a few chaperoned occasions, she spent the first ten years of her life with him either in his manor or on board his ship. Although she was coming to know ever so much about the outside world, she'd never experienced it, sheltered to the emotions of misfortune and fear. The only fights she's ever been in we're simulated, the only places she'd seen were from a window or from a hologram. Such an upbringing encouraged a wayward and all too vivid imagination.
The chaperoned occasions mostly included their visits to Coruscant, in which they paraded as Tirael and Adriael Lythdrayk, a wealthy merchant and his loving daughter. Galas, events, intrigue Adriael tasted high societal life more so than any other kind outside of her sheltered world. Towards the end, these visits of mysterious purpose became more and more frequent, as tensions escalated between Jedi and Sith. It became almost synonymous to the feeling of a double life, one in which she was the shadow of Fierfek, in the other she was but an innocent girl.
Either way, she was never far from his side. Even whilst living her double life on Coruscant.
It was such an oddity that it is difficult to explain, such a sheltered yet exposed upbringings. Sheltered from the world and it's apparent evils. But not from the Huttese hisses of her surrogate father as he threatened death for the families of failed agents. Violence, she has seen, again and again. A witness to acts that would horrify many normal people. However anything of a sexual nature was completely hidden from her in her youth.
Such are the trappings of being raised by a man of an unsound mind. Possessive, harsh and crazed yet brilliant and the founder of an information empire.
Such was Adriael's life, until the age of fourteen. It was then, she began to pester her father. All she wanted was her questions answered, to see the world and explore herself. In it's stead, she got inducted into the family business.
A Family Affair
It was not as she expected. Life as the shadow of the Fierfek. Doing as he did, watching his every move. Learning from the master. The art of observing, body language. Collating information, to study and to calculate. All of her life had been leading up to this succession, watching the taller, colder man with eyes whiter than could ever be natural, do what she would have to do. A greater understanding of his purpose came with time. Selling information, and the art of misinformation. Fueling conflicts between all warring factions, occasionally finding a peace. Betraying and aiding criminals, vagrants and pariahs. His services were open to all who could pay, his reliability making him a man highly sought after. By Mandalorian. Jedi, Sith, it didn't matter.
Such a complicated position, that was only one side of the business. The other was simply a game of control. Threatening, lying, cheating, beating...any way to ensure information. Any means justified the end of knowledge in Fierfek's eyes. His job, his game, his spiders, his mice. He would never stop unless he knew it all, so the game would continue for as long as he lived.
And longer still.
No knowledge could save him from a vibroblade through the stomach. A curse falling to his knees. Tears from eyes electric blue, as she shot mercilessly at the Rodian killer even as she could not see. Her first kill, her first loss. She held him tightly as he bled all over the grey hull of the hangar bay. The smell of exhaust fumes and chemical disasters. The taste of failure and a life that faded. The sound of a dying man, who whispered a word.
Daughter.
It was I love you, I'm sorry, it's your time. In a single word that caused a storm heaving sobs from the white-knuckled girl, gripping onto his sleeve like the little girl she was inside. She wasn't ready, she'd never be. She wasn't Fierfek, she had to be. The Shadow Queen of Nar Shaddaa. An idealist in the place of a man who'd held a space that was morally grey in every way.
Picking up the pieces of a legacy so daunting...who knows where it shall lead. Near a six months since the death of Fierfek, or rather the first Fierkek, and Adriael was managing to pick up the reigns and masquerade amongst the varying kinds of people her mentor did business with. At first she kept it entirely anonymous, as the old Fierfek had done with many of his clients, speaking through voice filtered, image distorted in the screens and holograms. This worked well for a time, staying put on Nar Shadda and managing her vast network of spies from the safety of her room of many screens. No one even so much as guessed that anything had changed...that the Fierfek had passed. Aside from the occasional discrepancy.
It was a man of her own network who sent the first assassin, believing her to be a usurper. As Fierfek's death had not been made public, a small few whom obviously knew her not thought her to be hungry for his power, having killed him in impatience. Though Adriael stopped this said assassin, it opened her eyes to the fact that Nal Hutta was no longer truly safe, to be stationary was not an option. The guards she had dismissed on her assent returned to her side, and she began to move around. With a guarded heart she began seeing some of the more sensitive clientele, and growing closer to the agents of her intelligence. Queen Edessa became her base of operations, always moving from place to place, becoming far more hands on than the first Fierfek ever was. Always seeking to expand her vast web of information, make new connections and gain influence; the balance between anonymity and presence being a hard one to maintain.
How can a shattered girl who hardly knows herself lead an empire of truth and lies? She'll need some good friends, to balance the hoard of enemies left to her name. All the money in the galaxy can't change the world for the better, and that is the true dream of this naive creature.
To make a difference. To leave a legacy of light, rather than one of darkness and violence.
RP Sample:
Lithe fingers toyed with a most precious locket, Adriael Lythdrayk's favourite nervous habit. Not much time was left for the girl, not much time to prepare for the coming storm. Aboard her comfortable ship she was safe, especially considering her guards were stationed just outside her office. Former mercenaries, another one of her predecessors inheritances. As of yet she couldn't be sure whether she liked it or not, being guarded. It took away a certain freedom...
Three minutes and counting. The chair spinning started. Stark white hair whipped around as she did so, indulging in her second favourite nervous habit. Adriael had too many nervous habits.
Fierfek had none.
One. Quickly she stood up and put her hair back in it's natural state, taking a deep breath. A calming breath. The familiar surroundings of her clean-cut office, all glass and blues and greys...it should have been calming. But it wasn't. It wasn't calming. Reading was calming, though she had just spent the last twenty minutes pouring over this agent and his background. Was there point in doing that again? Not really.
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Hutt agents were always difficult to deal with. Sharply she sat down, and assumed what bravado she could. Fierfek didn't care about such things. Hutts, Sith, Jedi. Senators, Mandalorians, civilians. It didn't matter.
"Niuta, be cotma!" she called out in greeting, remotely unsealing the doors. The words came easily to her, as natural as if they were her spoken in her given tongue. Even though Huttese was by far her least favourite of the languages, she felt dirty just for speaking it. A strange sensation. But having done her reading, the blue eyed girl knew this man preferred to deal in Huttese.
A Twi'lek, taller than most, lithe and the red subspecies. Renown for his aggressive negotiation skills, a brilliant haggler and silver tongue extrodinaire. The basic read up said as much, she'd prepared accordingly of course. Though the meanness in his looming green eyes was a bad sign. Especially given the nature of this business.
Nasty business, as most of her business was. Just another day at the office.
Age: 19
Race: Arkanian Offshoot – Arkanian/Human
Birth place: Utapau
Height: 5’7
Weight: 149lbs
Eye Color: Electric blue
Hair Color: White
Appearance:
Blessed with the best of both races she belongs to, Adriael is a striking sight. Stark white skin, unmatched pallor and hair of a similar shade cascading down her back, almost always loose and wild. Those are perhaps her most striking features, and the ones that scream of her Arkanian heritage. Her eyes are a bold, and occasionally chilling, electric blue. Human eyes, the very same eyes as her father. Her features are near pixielike, a button nose and lush lips.
You could not say she has a slender figure, she is sturdy and rather curvaceous. Unlike many of her kind her fingers are not clawed, she sports five elegant and lengthy typical human fingers on each hand.
In terms of apparel, well it's not something she's particularly concerned with. Modern and professionally, standard affair civilian wear. Though she does have a fondness for the colour blue. The first Fierfek always insisted it brought out the true colour of her eyes.
Personality:
A vivid, eccentricity, an oddity with more inner conflict that outward appearances suggest. A naive, sheltered girl left to take the mantle of a web of lies and secrets. A mysterious figure behind her shield of screens and guards. An idealist, who would change the world for a better, but who is fuelling conflict around the galaxy. An outcast, living a double life. Living a lie.
All of the above apply to Adriael. In short, she is a little girl lost, far out of her depth, with a duty she hardly understands.
Some say curiosity killed the cat, but Adriael has lived nineteen years and counting with an insatiable curiosity regarding life and living. She was blessed with a shadowy mentor and a surrogate father to encourage her curiosity, dedicating an insurmountable effort to teaching her everything he knew and furthering her own passion for learning. This kind of an upbringing lead to her having a somewhat sheltered nature. This shows in a lot of everyday interactions, her general lack of experience with life. In socialisation outside of business dealings, she is rather inexperienced. An academic understanding of culture and a practical understanding are very, very different things.
Violence is perhaps one of the only commodities she has been fully and practically exposed to, it simply doesn't shock her anymore. In the name of self defence she has been driven to commit some pretty violent acts herself, although she half holds the belief violence is wrong her mentor often instilled the fact that it's a means to an end. An example of the many moral conflicts she struggles with on a day to day basis. Her duty demands she stand in an endless grey, the legacy she swore to preserve. A power she wields now, and hopes to somehow use for good.
Perhaps her greatest weakness is her idealistic, trustful nature, the few who have ever achieved closeness to her could manipulate her as they pleased. Though it is difficult to get near her, with her personal guard around, and her busy life taking her from planet to planet with no reprieve. Not to mention, she almost completely rules out business associations as potential 'friends', as anyone dealing in secrets and shadows is, in her eyes, not to be trusted.
It is mostly the fault of the belief instilled in her, squashing her natural faith in other beings At it's core this faith still exists, it is simply suppressed and kept locked away for those few closest to her. Matters of the heart are kept locked away, her true self rarely shown but always there. Always making mistakes. Perfection in her brokering is something she strives for, but can never achieve.
In her spare time, which is not common, she has an addiction to surfing the holonet, learning what she can from whatever she can. New systems, new places, all races and languages. She has a passion for words which cannot be denied, linguistics is by far her favourite hobby and one of her most valuable professional assets. Honestly, someone should introduce her to the idea of a true leisure activity. Such things are foreign to her.
So she’s calm? It’s a bluff. So she’s menacing, it’s a bluff. Honestly, Adri has always been a bundle of emotions inside, feeling everything all at once, pulling her all over the place. Her bluff is not impervious, it can crack under pressure, but it is a shield all on its own.
To be quite frank she hasn’t found many personal triggers yet. A plus side to being well educated was that she was schooled in moral ambiguity. Though she finds it hard to deal with slavers and murders, she does, as it is always from a distance. However exposed to the horrors of slavery in practicality though, it would surely horrify her. Anger her, considering her roots. Even theoretically...but such disputes she shoves deep down. All this pent up emotion could lead to quite an explosive temper tantrum, if anything ever managed to negatively capture her passions.
Sheltered and exposed, harmless and dangerous. Not entirely a contradiction, simply confused and entrapped.
Profession: Information Broker
Previous Faction/Rank: N/A
Equipment: Her notable personal affects consist of a a trusty blaster pistol, a various datapads containing various business tidbits and reading material and a locket given to her by her mentor. The locket contains the core of Fierfek's first datapad.
Starship: Queen Edessa (Edessa being the Arkanian word for triumph, formerly Lord Edessa)
Skills:
Multi-Linguist (Huttese – Fluent, Arkanian – Advanced, Twi’Lekki – Intermediate, Mando’a – Intermediate, Rodese - Basic)
Etiquette - High Societal, Criminal, Scientific.
Enhanced Memory - Through a combination of genetics and training, Adriael has gained a near impeccable memory, retaining detail and information far more effectively that your average human, or even Arkanian.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 4
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 4
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 2
Melee Weapons: 3
Ranged Weapons: 5
Bio:
Prehistory
It may come as no surprise that the subject of discussion never knew either of her biological parents. That is not to say they never existed, she was no immaculate conception. Just a girl, born of a union of flesh and blood. Two slaves, under the stars, indulging in a moment of tenderness and solace. If the consequence of that night had been less dark, perhaps it could even be considered a romantic notion. Peace in the arms of a loved one.
A peace that was not to last. He had worked in Utapau's neuranium mines from the moment he was strong enough. Just another packhorse, to be bought and sold as one. Helien, a human-Arkanian offshoot did not know another life, only the safe monotony he was living. For the most part content to live and die an instrument of construction. A mere tool. What a miserable notion.
Whereas she was a woman of means, a brilliant and disciplined Arkanian mind who was once thought to have the destiny of a genius. Bright eyed and eager, she left the cocoon of her homeland to explore and discover. Only to fall prey to pirates, in territory uncharted. Sold to the same mining giant as Helien, forced into servitude as a systems engineer. Her brilliance was never wasted, nor rewarded. Simply used.
And there was never any hope of escape, although it took Adriael the Elder quite some time to relinquish this hope. By the time she had let it go completely, her former conviction and belief in hope and inspired more of her fellow slaves than she was ever aware of. Sparks, she was the stone against stone that started the fire in it's primal nature. Although it took a love so profound to ignite her own inner fires once more. A beautiful love. A secret best kept inside the warmth of it's own bliss.
Until a swell in the stomach appeared of a certain engineer. It wasn't quite a secret then, the love she had shared with some beautiful soul. Who was the father? She'd never tell. Oh, but she didn'tneed to, this was no planet of bumbling primates. The tests told all the secrets her heart had held, the father of this life inside her was caught in a desperate attempt of escape. Valiant, it seemed, to steal a ship and bring back a chosen one to free all the slaves. Until his innards were splattered all over the hangar walls. Truly, how valiant can stupidity be? All it caused was sorrow. The rest, really, is history. A babe was born and raised with as much care as could be given. As much live as could be mustered, until Adriael was four years of age. It was then she was ripped from her mother's side, and into a world unknown. Sold at a market in Nar Shaddaa, of all places, under the table at a higher price than expected.
Sold to a broker of secrets. Raised in a palace of lies.
A Man Called Poison
A nameless man who wove a web of spies and spiders. Rarely seen, always heard and perhaps one of the most successful information brokers in existence, or at least one of the most long lived. This was a man who made himself a lord of shadow, from the gutters of Nar Shaddaa arose an Arkanian man who professed to know it all, and made a profit from sharing the knowledge...and misinformation. A high functioning sociopath, with a photographic memory and a vicious business sense. A visionary. A genius. A criminal. A man who had carved a legacy for himself and his own, respected and hated in voluminous quantities. Plenty tried to rid the world of him, they all seemed to fail. Making this man notoriously hard to kill. All of his dealings were on his terms, through transmissions or aboard his private and heavily guarded personal vessel. Naturally, it didn't start this way, once he was as desperate and willing to compromise. Affluence and too many mistakes beat that much out of him, for sure.
But this is not the history of the first Fierfek. You are here to read of the second.
Why, you might ask. Why would Fierfek want to purchase a little girl, a four year old slave with wide eyes and white hair? Be assured, his intentions were not malicious as some of the other bidders had been. Nor were they entirely benevolent. This was a question of lineage, of a legacy unfulfilled. No 'breeding partner', as he would have put it, fulfilled his requirements for a the gene pool of a potential sucessor, and the time for 'breeding' had passed. Fierfek, as they called him, was getting desperate, and this four year old's dossier on a battered datapad said all the right things. Talking fluently after eighteen months of life, extremely early mental development, reading by the age of three and a half. Excelling despite her environment. And part Arkanian at that. It was one of the few irrational decisions that man ever made, and the best or the worst depending on your outlook.
Either way, he never expected a little girl to get under his skin, so to speak. He had it all planned out, he would raise her from a distance, be cold and calculating. Instill discipline and skill in his successor. No emotional attachment whatsoever.
How wrong he was, how misguided. What little he knew of children.
Curious and Curioser
The little bundle of sunshine had Fierfek wrapped around her finger without even trying. Bright, adorable, inquisitive.
Why was the question of her childhood. In fact, why couldn't Adriael's entire progression through childhood could be told in a succession of whys? Why is it so? Why can't I go outside? Why is the sky blue? Why are people bought and sold? Why are you telling me this? Why are you so secretive? Why can't I stay up any later? Why can't I drive?
Ever curious, her thirst for learning made her the bane and apple of her surrogate father's eye.
As he had planned, her entire childhood consisted of datapads and holovids, her ability to drink in and retain knowledge was phenomenal and he took full advantage of that. A natural linguist, a practical sponge. Not to mention, even as a small child and in the years beyond, she was never happier than when learning. When challenging herself and moving forward. To love knowing was an instinct to her, more curious than your average cat, with a natural and instilled intelligence that was far beyond any expectations, exceeding even the boundaries of her natural racial affinities. The wide eyed child truly was the perfect choice in some ways, the only drawback to get existence being the way she captured the heart of the usually icy man. With her innocence, her questions, her eternal optimism. Originally he had planned to leave her on Nar Shadda whenever business arose that called for leaving his base of operations...but he could not stand to have her out of his sight. Not his precious linage. His darling baby girl.
A small girl, forever deprived of a normal life. Spacebound or housebound, the thing that puzzled the young girl the most for many years was why she was never allowed outside. Barring a few chaperoned occasions, she spent the first ten years of her life with him either in his manor or on board his ship. Although she was coming to know ever so much about the outside world, she'd never experienced it, sheltered to the emotions of misfortune and fear. The only fights she's ever been in we're simulated, the only places she'd seen were from a window or from a hologram. Such an upbringing encouraged a wayward and all too vivid imagination.
The chaperoned occasions mostly included their visits to Coruscant, in which they paraded as Tirael and Adriael Lythdrayk, a wealthy merchant and his loving daughter. Galas, events, intrigue Adriael tasted high societal life more so than any other kind outside of her sheltered world. Towards the end, these visits of mysterious purpose became more and more frequent, as tensions escalated between Jedi and Sith. It became almost synonymous to the feeling of a double life, one in which she was the shadow of Fierfek, in the other she was but an innocent girl.
Either way, she was never far from his side. Even whilst living her double life on Coruscant.
It was such an oddity that it is difficult to explain, such a sheltered yet exposed upbringings. Sheltered from the world and it's apparent evils. But not from the Huttese hisses of her surrogate father as he threatened death for the families of failed agents. Violence, she has seen, again and again. A witness to acts that would horrify many normal people. However anything of a sexual nature was completely hidden from her in her youth.
Such are the trappings of being raised by a man of an unsound mind. Possessive, harsh and crazed yet brilliant and the founder of an information empire.
Such was Adriael's life, until the age of fourteen. It was then, she began to pester her father. All she wanted was her questions answered, to see the world and explore herself. In it's stead, she got inducted into the family business.
A Family Affair
It was not as she expected. Life as the shadow of the Fierfek. Doing as he did, watching his every move. Learning from the master. The art of observing, body language. Collating information, to study and to calculate. All of her life had been leading up to this succession, watching the taller, colder man with eyes whiter than could ever be natural, do what she would have to do. A greater understanding of his purpose came with time. Selling information, and the art of misinformation. Fueling conflicts between all warring factions, occasionally finding a peace. Betraying and aiding criminals, vagrants and pariahs. His services were open to all who could pay, his reliability making him a man highly sought after. By Mandalorian. Jedi, Sith, it didn't matter.
Such a complicated position, that was only one side of the business. The other was simply a game of control. Threatening, lying, cheating, beating...any way to ensure information. Any means justified the end of knowledge in Fierfek's eyes. His job, his game, his spiders, his mice. He would never stop unless he knew it all, so the game would continue for as long as he lived.
And longer still.
No knowledge could save him from a vibroblade through the stomach. A curse falling to his knees. Tears from eyes electric blue, as she shot mercilessly at the Rodian killer even as she could not see. Her first kill, her first loss. She held him tightly as he bled all over the grey hull of the hangar bay. The smell of exhaust fumes and chemical disasters. The taste of failure and a life that faded. The sound of a dying man, who whispered a word.
Daughter.
It was I love you, I'm sorry, it's your time. In a single word that caused a storm heaving sobs from the white-knuckled girl, gripping onto his sleeve like the little girl she was inside. She wasn't ready, she'd never be. She wasn't Fierfek, she had to be. The Shadow Queen of Nar Shaddaa. An idealist in the place of a man who'd held a space that was morally grey in every way.
Picking up the pieces of a legacy so daunting...who knows where it shall lead. Near a six months since the death of Fierfek, or rather the first Fierkek, and Adriael was managing to pick up the reigns and masquerade amongst the varying kinds of people her mentor did business with. At first she kept it entirely anonymous, as the old Fierfek had done with many of his clients, speaking through voice filtered, image distorted in the screens and holograms. This worked well for a time, staying put on Nar Shadda and managing her vast network of spies from the safety of her room of many screens. No one even so much as guessed that anything had changed...that the Fierfek had passed. Aside from the occasional discrepancy.
It was a man of her own network who sent the first assassin, believing her to be a usurper. As Fierfek's death had not been made public, a small few whom obviously knew her not thought her to be hungry for his power, having killed him in impatience. Though Adriael stopped this said assassin, it opened her eyes to the fact that Nal Hutta was no longer truly safe, to be stationary was not an option. The guards she had dismissed on her assent returned to her side, and she began to move around. With a guarded heart she began seeing some of the more sensitive clientele, and growing closer to the agents of her intelligence. Queen Edessa became her base of operations, always moving from place to place, becoming far more hands on than the first Fierfek ever was. Always seeking to expand her vast web of information, make new connections and gain influence; the balance between anonymity and presence being a hard one to maintain.
How can a shattered girl who hardly knows herself lead an empire of truth and lies? She'll need some good friends, to balance the hoard of enemies left to her name. All the money in the galaxy can't change the world for the better, and that is the true dream of this naive creature.
To make a difference. To leave a legacy of light, rather than one of darkness and violence.
RP Sample:
Lithe fingers toyed with a most precious locket, Adriael Lythdrayk's favourite nervous habit. Not much time was left for the girl, not much time to prepare for the coming storm. Aboard her comfortable ship she was safe, especially considering her guards were stationed just outside her office. Former mercenaries, another one of her predecessors inheritances. As of yet she couldn't be sure whether she liked it or not, being guarded. It took away a certain freedom...
Three minutes and counting. The chair spinning started. Stark white hair whipped around as she did so, indulging in her second favourite nervous habit. Adriael had too many nervous habits.
Fierfek had none.
One. Quickly she stood up and put her hair back in it's natural state, taking a deep breath. A calming breath. The familiar surroundings of her clean-cut office, all glass and blues and greys...it should have been calming. But it wasn't. It wasn't calming. Reading was calming, though she had just spent the last twenty minutes pouring over this agent and his background. Was there point in doing that again? Not really.
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Hutt agents were always difficult to deal with. Sharply she sat down, and assumed what bravado she could. Fierfek didn't care about such things. Hutts, Sith, Jedi. Senators, Mandalorians, civilians. It didn't matter.
"Niuta, be cotma!" she called out in greeting, remotely unsealing the doors. The words came easily to her, as natural as if they were her spoken in her given tongue. Even though Huttese was by far her least favourite of the languages, she felt dirty just for speaking it. A strange sensation. But having done her reading, the blue eyed girl knew this man preferred to deal in Huttese.
A Twi'lek, taller than most, lithe and the red subspecies. Renown for his aggressive negotiation skills, a brilliant haggler and silver tongue extrodinaire. The basic read up said as much, she'd prepared accordingly of course. Though the meanness in his looming green eyes was a bad sign. Especially given the nature of this business.
Nasty business, as most of her business was. Just another day at the office.
Not a formal review, but just my 2 cents.
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