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ʙᴜᴛ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴡᴇᴀʀ ᴀɴ ᴏᴀᴛʜ ᴛᴏ ᴜꜱᴇ ᴀʟʟ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴇʟᴏQᴜᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴛʀᴇɴɢᴛʜ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀ ᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛ ᴍᴇ.

- calchas

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NAME

Zandra Kassi Alaseid

zandra (zohn-druh) - a name that means 'the helper and defender of mankind,' which Zan has always found ironic. Who was she going to help? It was nice and optimistic of the orphanage to believe her on Alexander the Great's level, but the reality was that they were running out of names to give all the kids found on their doorstep and had reached the end of the alphabet. There was already a Xandra (which sounds practically the same), so she was known as 'the smaller one.'

kassi - what her mother calls her, and yet another name meaning man's defender and warrior. It is also the diminutive form of the name Kassandra, a fairly popular girl with a rather unfortunate curse.

alaseid - though technically more of a stage name than a family name, it was still one created by her mother and given to her, so Zandra counts it. It's a combination of the names Alasd (meaning one who avenges) and Alseid (meaning blessed) to call her 'the blessed avenger.'

AGE

21

SEXUALITY

Heterosexual

APPEARANCE

Ashley Moore

PERSONALITY

What a frustrating girl... thinks herself above the Gods

Zandra is known far and wide as the blessed avenger, a noble fighter pulled from the legends of old that performs her acts of heroism for the adoring masses. It is seen in the confident tilt of her chin as she watches her approaching foes, heard in the victorious roar she lets out as she cleaves a mighty beast's head from its shoulders, the way she smiles through the blood splattered across her face to wave at the cheering crowd. A warrior born and bred for the noble and artful kill.

But the moment she steps out of the arena, Zan sinks back into her hard edges and sharp humor, crude and rough and everything the blessed avenger was not. She rolled her eyes at the very people who watched her perform, laughed haughtily at those who saw the Gods as their saviours, and fought dirty when there was no show to put on. Combative with a lilt of taunting laughter in her voice, she's the frustrating sort of girl that can goad even the most patient pacifist into wanting to punch her smug face.

She has a tongue for trouble, clever and taunting at the worst possible moments and souring the mood even in the best. Another quick jab at a powerful man's receding hairline is worth the resulting slap in her opinion, and she's made it quite clear to any and all that tell her to keep her mouth closed that she'll have plenty of time to shut up when she's six feet under. Pissing people off is a past-time for her, and she'll make a dramatic presentation of it if she's so inclined. Zandra makes a point of subverting expectations- the only exception, of course, being her mother. It's when Zan goes quiet that you should really start worrying.

There's something furious and righteous within her, hidden behind her touting pride and snarky attitude. It's a bitter anger at the unfairness of the world and the way it hurts people until the victims become the bullies to survive- and in a world sculpted by the gods, that's where a lot of her resentment lands. Zandra hates it when the weak or innocent are taken advantage of, but doesn't believe she can do anything about it- over the years, she's learned to turn a blind eye to the suffering that surrounds her daily.

Zandra is guarded from the world, and sees any kindness as a trick. It makes her extremely difficult to get close to, but once the impossible is achieved there is no more loyal friend. Zan brightens when she sees the few faces she stands against the miserable world with, and turns into a much happier person who loves physical contact and teasing them with adoration in her eyes. But above all, she becomes protective- almost at a detriment to herself.

WHY SHE WAS BLESSED

The 'why' of it was still largely unknown to Zandra, but she clearly remembers when and how it happened.

The first time Zandra had ever felt hatred for another was when she was eight years old. There was an older boy named Jason that spent his free time tormenting the younger children at the underfunded school the orphaned children attended. He enjoyed taunting the kids without parents, telling them everyday just how unloved they were and how no one would miss them when they finally died. Zandra would often snap back at him using the most creative swears she collected from angry adults while making fun of how awful his grades were, and earned the special attention of his ire.

The final straw had been the day Jason stomped on and killed the family of snails Zandra had been taking care of in the school yard, laughing as she cried out then shoved him to the ground, raining clumsy blows until a schoolteacher pulled her off the amused boy with a bloody nose. A fury ignited within her, a need for some kind of revenge, and once school was out Zan snuck away and followed Jason back home. She would destroy something that would make him hurt as much as she and the snails did. But before Zan could, hiding behind the open entrance to his house, she heard Jason cry out and peeked from behind the doorway.

The man was his father, but he was hitting and hurting Jason, yelling at him that no one would miss him when he finally died. Zandra had never seen a beast so evil, and cowered behind the doorway, clutching the crumbling brick as his roars and blows shook the foundation and rained down on Jason. She was finally able to tear her eyes away from the monster to watch Jason as he cried and covered his head, a bully turned to helpless victim- and though she hated him, knew it was not what he deserved. Zandra felt something burn inside her, a fury and desire to help him that overtook her fear. She grabbed the closest thing to her to use as a weapon- a single metal spoon- and ran out from her hiding spot to wield it at the man, voice shaking as she told the monster to leave the bully alone.

He only laughed and told her to piss off, shoving her to the side. But Zandra hit him hard on the knuckles with her weapon, and his expression turned annoyed. She moved back in front of Jason and felt the spoon she held defensively in front of her warm to a heat that was almost searing, but clutched it even tighter. Zandra saw a symbol of three entwined snakes with blood dripping from their eyes burn itself into the spoon before the man grabbed her violently.

This time, she did more than hit him with the spoon. Zandra's memories of the event were blurred at the edges, but she remembers the man's swears turning to screams, the warm gush of blood over hands as she used the dull end of the spoon to carve the flesh from his arms, legs, and every other piece of him that hurt others. Then the killing blow, a wet sound as she drove the handle of it deep into his throat. Pulling it back out and watching his eyes roll to the back of his head, empty forever, as the monstrous and bloody mess of a man finally had an appearance on the outside that had matched the monster within.

Before the carnage could overwhelm her, Zan grabbed Jason's wrist and took him out of there, away from the corpse of his abusive father to bring him home with her. They made the trek back in silence, and he had been the one to gently pry to spoon from her bloody hand. They didn't hate each other after that day.

BACKSTORY

ʙᴇ ꜱᴛʀᴏɴɢ, ꜱᴀɪᴛʜ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ; ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴀ ꜱᴏʟᴅɪᴇʀ; ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ꜱᴇᴇɴ ᴡᴏʀꜱᴇ ꜱɪɢʜᴛꜱ ᴛʜᴀɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ

- odysseus

Zandra was born in a slum town called Abydos (known as the City of Orphans), and spent her first few minutes in the lap of a woman who was deciding whether or not to drown her. Irena had never wanted a child, and was especially loathe to take on the responsibility while trying to satiate her ambition of collecting power through a crime ring. But Zandra had sat quietly and waited as she came to her decision, wide eyes on her mother as though she knew the choice that was being made.

In the end, Irena chose to let her try her own hand at survival, and dropped Zandra at the overrun Abydos orphanage that was filled with other unwanted children. There she had grown, passed from hand to hand of adults just waiting to put her down and among children who followed the law of punching down on those who had the misfortune of being weaker, forming small gangs as though practicing for the world they would meet when pushed out the door on their eighteenth birthday.

She was a complainer- that was what Zandra's caretakers would remember. Her first word was 'stop,' directed at one toddler who was shoving another over, and Zandra used some of her first steps to waddle over to one of the caretakers and pull on her skirt with a frown, pointing over at two boys that were ripping a crying girl's doll to shreds. She remembered quite clearly the day one of the caretakers had enough of her tattling and leaned down to hiss, 'listen kid, that's just how you'll all toughen up in here so you can face the real world- I'm not going to do a thing about it, that's just how things are.' And from then on, Zandra went up to the bullies herself- and often got a black eye for her troubles.

She occasionally played with the other kids, but usually preferred the bugs and other creatures she could find, gentle hands working overtime to move them out of the way of the trampling loud kids. Zan was small and thus a target, but fought with such ferocity that she was often dismissed as 'too much trouble.'

When Zandra was five, she was out in the sparse yard of the orphanage using a stick and some mud to entertain herself. She remembered so clearly drawing three wobbly figures side by side, herself with a mommy and a daddy like the caretakers told her a family looked like, what made her not quite whole. It never seemed to look right with her in it though. A woman called out to her from the other side of the fence, telling her to come a little closer. Zan ignored her, already mistrustful of strangers, but then Irena told her that she recognized the tattered pink ribbon in her hair- that she knew it was the same one that had been wrapped around her ankle when she was left at the orphanage door, because she was her mother.

The main qualification of any adoption in Abydos was that the adult actually wanted the child, and the ribbon was proof enough for them to give Zandra back to Irena. Her mother had need of a skinny little thing that wouldn't draw suspicion for a job she needed to do- skinny kids could get into crawl spaces and fit their tiny hands into stranger's pockets, and orphaned skinny kids would do nearly everything for the first grown-up who showed them kindness and gave them a sense of importance. And once the job was over, Zan was dropped right back on the porch she'd been picked up from with promises that she would be back for her again. Over the next three years the cycle would continue over and over, Zandra hoping every time that if she did a good enough job, this time her mom would keep her.

'My mommy's going to come back for me again.' She would tell the girl who'd taunted her for how she kept getting returned. 'Your mommy probably doesn't even know your name.' Zandra would wait at the gates every day, eager and waiting for the next time her mom needed her help.

Then the day came that led to her blessing, and everything changed.

If she were not eight years old, perhaps she would have been jailed for her murder. As it was, the people of Abydos always had their eyes out for a good blessing, and the ability of a young girl to take down a violent large man with nothing more than a spoon seemed nothing less than Goddess-sent. There were those who believed the real murderer had gotten away and pinned it all on the girl, but the guard in their town didn't care enough to keep the case open, and shoved it back into their filing system under a 'self-defense' stamp.

Irena had heard that the little girl who had accomplished such a feat was an orphan, and from the description of her and the dead-eyed way Zan was staring at the ground when Irena came to visit her the next day, she knew that it must've been her daughter. She told Zandra just how special she was, that Irena had missed her so much but Athena herself had visited her in a dream and told her to abandon her daughter to the orphanage- that only through strife would she become the warrior she was meant to be. Irena told her she loved her and that they could finally be together- that all of their 'outings' had been excuses for her to spend time with her daughter. Confused and frightened and craving a place to belong, Zan had clutched onto her mother's promise with both hands- her only condition being to bring Jason with them, who had not left her side since the day of her blessing. He had been the one who wrestled through all the other kids to grab her a meal when she turned uninterested in eating, who chased away the kids crowing at her for being a murderer. Eyeing the kid's potential to become a future bruiser, Irena accepted and officially adopted them both.

Everyone knew the trickiness in which the Gods liked to bless their mortals- in complicated and ironic ways that ensured no one person could approach their power. Zandra had been able to recognize the symbol shown to her during her blessing as belonging to the Furies, so Irena first assumed her fighting proficiency came when up against criminals as some kind of punishment. Since they were all criminals, the Kingpin Irena worked under told one of his lackeys to attack her- but Zan was unable to do anything but yell and squirm as he slapped her around. Irena's eyes had turned to the boy who struggled against another gang member as he tried to help her, and told the lackey to hit Jason instead. Zandra broke his arm with nothing but his own sweater before he could so much as touch Jason, and from then on they believed her blessing centered around the boy's protection.

Irena put them in the underground pit fights, sure where the bets would land against an eight year old girl and ten year old boy. She put them in as a 'team', placing Jason in the ring to draw the blessing from Zan and giving her real weapons so she could put on a show.

It was hard to control, especially at first. With a dagger in her hand and a menacing adult reaching for her only friend, Zandra was too scared to do anything but react, slicing through limbs like butter and breaking bones with her fists. Even the toughest criminals could not stand against the power of her blessing, but Irena was a creative woman. Five fighters at once, only a toothpick for a weapon, tying her hands behind her back- as years passed and the money rolled in, the dramatics and the stakes heightened. She became the most feared underground fighter, a child in bloody fights that took down men three times her size, a little murderess that reflected the warped evil and corruption of innocence that the Abydosians were hungry for.

Within the gang she was treated like a princess, never needing to lift a finger until the days of her fights- but Zandra trained regardless. She learned with Jason, who hated his position as a helpless punching bag within their fights and wanted a chance to help her. He'd always tell her that they should leave, and Zandra would always ask him where he planned to go. To another orphanage? Irena would follow them wherever they went.

And there was still the part of Zandra that loved her mother- that wanted to prove to her that she was useful and worthy of her love. The orphans of Abydos were born burdens- though the fights terrified her and the violence of it all made sleeping almost impossible, it was her only chance to become something more. So they stayed, and they grew stronger, and Zandra's infamy spread further than the back alleys and the sludge-stained streets from which they were born.

The Kingpin and Irena had some disagreements in where Zandra's fights should be headed- the Kingpin wanted to continue to keep them underground, profiting from the extensive criminal industry in Abydos, but Irena had big ambitions. To make her daughter into a fighter of ancient history, a theatrical performance that nobles would pay through the nose to see- a gladiator of days past, wrestling lions and taking down an army of men in an arena.

Zan woke up in the middle of the night when she was fourteen to her mother with a hand against her mouth, telling her and Jason that it was time for them to leave. Irena knew she would be unable to convince the Kingpin, and set to moving her investments to Atrytone's capital city, where he couldn't reach them. Zandra began her private performances to skeptical small nobles on the fringe of society under her mother's orders to keep the fights much cleaner- no biting, no spitting, no screaming if a bone snapped. The nobles were impressed and delighted with their performances and Zan's skill, and she quickly rose through the ranks from recommendation to recommendation.

But Irena had been wrong when she thought the Kingpin wouldn't be able to take his revenge- and it came for them a year later. It had been exactly in the unnoticeable and underground style he preferred- Jason found in an alleyway the day after he left to grab Zandra a birthday present, throat slit from ear to ear. The Kingpin believed that without him, Zan wouldn't be able to unlock her blessing, and Irena's grand plans would crumble to dust.

Zandra wanted bloody vengeance. It felt like her world was collapsing, the one person she knew that was on her side taken from her. The only thing that had stopped her from running all the way back to Abydos to tear out the Kingpin's throat was her mother- who at first locked her in her room like a prisoner until everything within it was broken from her attempts to escape and the ensuing frustration and pain, but then was kind for once as the exhaustion finally set in, holding her as she cried- and whispering in her ear of a plan of revenge. But that if Zandra wanted Irena to carry it out for her, she would have to do something in return.

That something was that she continued her fights. It didn't matter that Zan and her mother no longer believed she was blessed, that Zandra was unable to use her blessing- so long as the paying customers believed it, that was all that mattered. Where Zandra had once fought a legion of men and a horde of tigers, she now fought competitors one at a time and all the first time customers knew no better- her proficiencies with weapons were still incredibly impressive for a fifteen year old girl. The training with Jason had paid off, and though it was far more terrifying to fight with more presence of mind and the reality that she could easily be killed, she continued because it was all she'd ever done. Zan's renown grew with every fight, entertaining nobility and the general populous alike until she became a household name in Artytone and Irena grew rich with the profits.

FLAWS

ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴜᴅ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴇʀʀᴏʀ, ɴᴏʀ ᴛᴜʀɴꜱ ᴛᴏ ʀᴜɴ- ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ʜɪꜱ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄᴏᴜʀᴀɢᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴋɪʟʟꜱ ʜɪᴍ

- hektor

her need to prove herself

One of Zandra's biggest fears is becoming one of the dozen nameless graves that lined the churches, unknown orphans who lived a miserable and unremarkable life, dead and buried without a single person to care that they were remembered. She wants to become something more than that, to be cared for- and the next best (and more realistic) thing was to be admired, so that's what she strove to do, proving her worth and her skill and reveling in the cheering of strangers. And yet all of it still hasn't been enough- and Zandra will take stupid risks and stay even when it would be safer to leave if she thinks it will get her the admiration she craves.

borderline blasphemous

Maybe this would be less of a flaw in another story, but the Greek pantheon had always been extra sensitive to those that challenged them. Instead of the gratefulness Zandra is sure the Gods expected her to send them in droves after receiving her blessing, Zan has a habit of cussing them out. She gets irritated any time she sees the familiar symbol of the furies, three snakes twisted around each other with blood dripping from their eyes, as she feels like it follows her everywhere. On her cereal box in the morning and in the clouds whenever she looks up to the sky, it's a continues reminder that a Goddess owns her, that she was given a blessing she never asked for with the expectation that she would become a dutiful servant of the Gods. Used, like she has always been.

critically pessimistic

Zandra doesn't do believing in people- she's seen too much evil to give second or even first chances to a race she sees as fundamentally cruel, and doesn't believe pretty words. Actions are the only things that can get through to her, and even then she won't trust the good nature behind them unless they become a regular occurrence. Zan will see the worst in every situation and person until proven otherwise.

anti-cooperative

Zan would just call herself 'independent,' but there had to be a word for the way she picks apart and terrorizes her allies more than her opponents. She didn't trust that they wouldn't turn on her and fears a betrayal so much that she'll make getting close to her and working with her excessively difficult. The only people she could work with was Jason and her mother (though the latter was more following her instructions then cooperating, but in a list of two- now one- she couldn't afford to be picky).

KINGDOM

Atrytone

THOUGHTS ON THE ROYALS

What's there to know? They're the richest of the rich families, nepotism is one of their gods, and she doesn't think a single one cares about Abydos or her. They're too important for that- so Zandra typically pays them just as much attention as they do her.

The only thing she's certain about when it comes to their ruling family is that there's some juicy or scandalous reason why the royals have kept themselves so far from the public eye, some seedy or disturbing secret they want to keep away from the gossip-mongering masses. Maybe the selection will bring that ugly truth into the light, and maybe Zandra will get a front row seat.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO BE HERE

The glory promised in winning any competition. If Zandra could become the fiercest fighter in all of Atrytone, why not try her hand at becoming a princess? The very idea is laughable, but Zan can't turn down such an opportunity- and neither can her mother. Nothing's ever enough for Irena, even the lavish and comfortable life Zan's money has given her, so her eyes have now been set on the prize of royalty.

ABILITIES (when active)

- Can turn anything into a weapon

- Highly skilled fighter (superhuman speed and strength to aid skill) with any weapon in hand

- Perfect accuracy with any long-range weapon

OTHER

aesthetic

fun facts

- she loves to swim

- her favourite weapon is the spear

PASS

My fave is definitely the slow burn rule, I love watching characters grow and change with the influence and relationships of others (which is part of the reason why I made my girl so messy to start off with lol).

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ɪ ꜱᴀʏ ɴᴏ ᴡᴇᴀʟᴛʜ ɪꜱ ᴡᴏʀᴛʜ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ!

- achillies

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