| Name: | Chaksa Halikas |
| Bond: | Mioneth |
| Bonded At: | Serpent's Reach Caer |
| Age: | 12 |
| Sex: | Female |
| Height: | 4'9" |
| Hair: | Dark brown, nearly black |
| Skin: | Coppery gold, Arabian |
| Eyes: | Sharp golden-brown |
| Father: | Ortome Halikas |
| Mother: | Leoco Halikas |
| Siblings: | Sidek Halikas, younger brother; Ashana Halikas, baby sister |
| Place of Birth: | northern plains, Serpent's Rech Isle, Alskyr |
| Description: | A first look at Chaksa would lead one to
assume she would make a poor candidate for much of anything, much less a
dragon bonding, as she is severely handicapped by a joint and muscle
disease that makes movement difficult-- and it shows. She is so short as
to be considered stunted and walks either very carefully and slowly, or
with jerky, painful motions, depending on the day, the weather, and how
active she has been. She has a gnarled staff to use for support, and
though she refuses to use it more often than not, it is still a permanent
part of her daily habit to carry it with her. She bears the features of
the people of the northern parts of Serpent's Reach Isle: skin a coppery
gold color; lips full and nose broad, slightly crooked from having been
broken when she was very young; eyes almond shaped and a sharp golden
brown; and hair very dark, almost black, very thick and full and roughly
textured so that with only a little encouragement it will easily stand on
end. She keeps her hair short, bobbed at the base of her neck to her jaw line,
and no matter how she attempts to tame it, it usually ends up looking wild
and unruly.
Chaksa wears dark colors more often than not, as if trying to be inconspicuous, but secretly loves the more brazen reds, golds, and whites her self-conscious pride will not let her wear. Most commonly she can be seen in a black tunic and brown trews, devoid of embroidery, with the sash of dark crimson tied around her waist her only concedence to color. Despite her small stature and difficulty moving, Chaksa walks with her chin raised and her eyes daring people to laugh at her when she stumbles, winces, or grimaces with the pain of her movement. Go ahead, she seems to say, see how much pain a laugh will get you. |
| Personality: | As a daughter of a clan of horse-traders in the cold plains of the north, Chaksa is fierce and proud, despite her difficulties. Caksa is the victim of a crippling disease that makes it very painful for her to move quickly or for long periods of time, which is difficult in her large family group, who are largely very mobile and active. She hates to seem weak, but really can't avoid it, so is fairly frustrated and embarrassed most of the time. She loves her family dearly, but feels distanced from them by her handicap; she can't participate in most of her cousins' and second cousins' games and contests, she can't work as well as the adults, and she must constantly endure the pitying or disdainful looks over those who can do everything better than she can. Perhaps the worst of it all is how athletic and talented her younger brother is. On the whole, she feels rather lonely. Her one true love is horses, because on a horse's back she can move about with much less pain, and the motion of a good gallop makes her feel free. |
| History: | The Halikas family is large and travels
together as a clan group, raising, breeding, and selling their horses.
Chaksa's parents are actually the youngest of the Halikas line, but they
married young and bore Chaksa, their oldest, almost immediately. The child
seemed perfectly normal and healthy until age four, when the as-yet
unnamed disease that is such a debilitating handicap first started to show
signs of emerging. At that point, her pain and stiffness was small, and
her family and teachers ignored it, giving her the beginning education any
child of the Halikas family would receive: mainly the care of horses and
the necessary basic knowledge of the plains.
Around age six, however, her joints started complaining more often, and actions and duties that other children performed flawlessly she could no longer do. It grew steadily worse as she got older, finally making it impossible to walk and very difficult to ride. It was when Chaksa was ten, when her family was forced to offer her the choice between being considered an invalid, kept from hunting and riding, and finding some way to cure herself, that she shook off the depression she'd been living in and decided to take some action. Now, at twelve, Chaksa has regained some of her flexibility, but not nearly all of it, and some days are worse than others. She pushes herself hard, working mainly with stretches and on her family's horses, and by swimming whenever the clan is near the shoreline. Her own hope is that she can learn to do everything she'd ever need to do on the back of a horse, but so far she's had only minimal success-- there is more to running the trading clan than just riding, unfortunately. |
Webpage Design by Terry
Background borrowed from Jkatkina