Character: Nyalla the cat girl engineer
Jun. 9th, 2013 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lilfluffName: Nyalla "Just Nyalla" (original notes give Thedritch as the family name. Um... no.)
Race: Kellian (think anime/manga cat person)
Family: A (so called) brother named Levara, others known to exist but not identified.
Nyalla is thin and short, only just over five feet tall once she's full grown. She has salt & pepper gray hair and a very light covering of fur the same color through which can still be seen olive toned skin. She does indeed have a tail, which is more heavily furred than most of her body and looks more like and actual cat's tail. Her fingers and toes have small claws on them, but they're more useful for trying to pick or pull at things than for fighting. Her eyes are a bronze-red with a few copper-red flecks and like a regular cat her pupils have a more oval shape in bright light and can open almost to the point of hiding her eye color in very low light.
She tends towards functional clothing rather than fashionable. Snug fitting shirts and pants that wont catch on any of the equipment she works on, some of which can have gears and belts and other items that loose fitting clothes or dangling items could snag on. She often wears a vest or jacket to provide additional pockets beyond those on the tool-belt she also is commonly seen wearing. She has an old cloth cap she regularly wears with cutouts for her ears and a brim on the front to keep her eyes shaded. The latter formerly of great importance back in the days when she drank much of her pay.
Even after leaving the employment of mercenary ships to work as a ship's engineer for retired Major Tanisath, Nyalla has kept a mostly guarded life. Her childhood was rough, losing her parents at a young age leaving her orphaned on a mercenary ship to be raised by the other mechanics who kept the mercenaries equipment running. When the rest of that ship's crew was killed a member of the raiding party thought she looked like one of their mechanics and spared her. While her brother did take her in, at the start he treated her as a barely trusted apprentice rather than family and his attitude never thawed much beyond this. It's not surprising that both took to drinking much of their spending money or that when the mercenary company broke up Nyalla made certain to get on a different ship than her brother. This was not a time of her life that she likes to look back on.
Having lost so many that she cared about and not even being able to take shelter in family, Nyalla allows few to truly be close to her. She has cut back her drinking and no longer carries a flask or two of almost industrial strength spirits on her(kellians burn off alcohol much faster than most other races, which makes drinking away life a much more expensive proposition for them). She doesn't keep distant from the rest of the crew, but for the most part she maintains a professional relationship. She eats with them, will join in the occasional card or board game, but spends most of her free time reading, tinkering on personal projects, or writing up notes on the same. One exception to this is with the youngest crew members of the Major's ship, children and in some cases orphans of those who had served with him in the Imperial military. She doesn't coddle any of them, but does provide advice and makes certain the orphans needs aren't forgotten.
Race: Kellian (think anime/manga cat person)
Family: A (so called) brother named Levara, others known to exist but not identified.
Nyalla is thin and short, only just over five feet tall once she's full grown. She has salt & pepper gray hair and a very light covering of fur the same color through which can still be seen olive toned skin. She does indeed have a tail, which is more heavily furred than most of her body and looks more like and actual cat's tail. Her fingers and toes have small claws on them, but they're more useful for trying to pick or pull at things than for fighting. Her eyes are a bronze-red with a few copper-red flecks and like a regular cat her pupils have a more oval shape in bright light and can open almost to the point of hiding her eye color in very low light.
She tends towards functional clothing rather than fashionable. Snug fitting shirts and pants that wont catch on any of the equipment she works on, some of which can have gears and belts and other items that loose fitting clothes or dangling items could snag on. She often wears a vest or jacket to provide additional pockets beyond those on the tool-belt she also is commonly seen wearing. She has an old cloth cap she regularly wears with cutouts for her ears and a brim on the front to keep her eyes shaded. The latter formerly of great importance back in the days when she drank much of her pay.
Even after leaving the employment of mercenary ships to work as a ship's engineer for retired Major Tanisath, Nyalla has kept a mostly guarded life. Her childhood was rough, losing her parents at a young age leaving her orphaned on a mercenary ship to be raised by the other mechanics who kept the mercenaries equipment running. When the rest of that ship's crew was killed a member of the raiding party thought she looked like one of their mechanics and spared her. While her brother did take her in, at the start he treated her as a barely trusted apprentice rather than family and his attitude never thawed much beyond this. It's not surprising that both took to drinking much of their spending money or that when the mercenary company broke up Nyalla made certain to get on a different ship than her brother. This was not a time of her life that she likes to look back on.
Having lost so many that she cared about and not even being able to take shelter in family, Nyalla allows few to truly be close to her. She has cut back her drinking and no longer carries a flask or two of almost industrial strength spirits on her(kellians burn off alcohol much faster than most other races, which makes drinking away life a much more expensive proposition for them). She doesn't keep distant from the rest of the crew, but for the most part she maintains a professional relationship. She eats with them, will join in the occasional card or board game, but spends most of her free time reading, tinkering on personal projects, or writing up notes on the same. One exception to this is with the youngest crew members of the Major's ship, children and in some cases orphans of those who had served with him in the Imperial military. She doesn't coddle any of them, but does provide advice and makes certain the orphans needs aren't forgotten.
