Elyanna Mirielle

From An Evolution in RP :: Database

Character Name: Elyanna Mirielle Titles and or Nicknames: Occasionally referred to as 'Ely'. Affiliation Unaffiliated. Age: 44 Years Old (Born 43 BTP) Race: Corellian Relatives: Talen Mirielle (Father, Deceased), Alhara Mirielle (Mother, 68 years old)

Appearance:

Height: 5ft 11in/1.82m Weight: 143lbs Hair Colour: Blonde (occasionally Brunette, when dyed) Eye Colour: Light Blue

Other:

A typical Corellian in every sense of the word, Elyanna carries herself with a slight swagger that from time to time belies the fact that she is rather tall for a woman, being several inches above average for one of her race and gender. Her movements are often firm and confident, occasionally expressive of an inner aggression that only ever matches her expression on rare occasion. Her face can often appear severe, and when she is not particurly riled up by something, her eyes themselves can be cold and rather unforgiving, but this is mainly designed to intimidate people with whom she is not familiar.

Her dress sense is generally somewhat unpredictable and very much eclectic - she'll wear anything once, simply to see if it feels comfortable, or even just to see whether or not a particular article of clothing fits her. As a consequence, she can be seen wearing dresses, skirts, robes, flightsuits or even men's clothing, simply because it suits her whimsical nature to do so. However, despite the fact that she often picks out unusual items to wear, she is most often seen attired in typical smuggler fare: shirt, trousers, boots and sometimes a jacket to go over the top. As with most people in her profession, she is rarely to be found without the ever-present gunbelt draped around her waist.

Since smuggling often requires that the individuals involved run around in disguise, it can rarely be said that Elyanna ever has a single default appearance, since she can wear her hair up, down, short or even removed completely (though she has only does this once, and plans never to do so again). Indeed, her hair rarely remains the same colour for more than a few months at a time, as she switches between blonde and brunette on a whim, although she maintains that she simply cannot make up her mind as to what suits her better. The same also applies to her use of cosmetics and jewelry - sometimes, it suits her to use them, while at other times, she seems completely disdainful of the whole idea.

Character Avatar: Brenda Strong

Personality:

Despite her sometimes whimsical preferences with regards to her outward appearance, Elyanna has a surprisingly strong personality that usually tends to waver in that characteristically unpredictable manner only when she chooses to allow it - she has always been something of a control freak when it comes to her own feelings. That observed, she has a seriously erratic temper that is certainly not under her control, and since she can be quite easily provoked, it rarely does to irritate her, lest she decide to take it personally.

Still, when she isn't in the sort of mood that clears out cantinas, Elyanna can often display a quite amiable personality. She's everybody's friend, at least until they snub her or do something that causes her to take direct offense, in which case they are certainly not going to find her amenable. She has a somewhat flippant sense of humour, and often displays a biting sarcasm that makes light of pretty much every situation. This is not to say that she is an optimist - rather, she simply plans for the worst, but hopes for something better, though she seems rarely surprised when things suddenly go wrong.

Probably the most definable of her traits, however, is her more extreme brand of individualism. She likes to do everything herself where possible, and refuses to trust anyone quickly or easily, usually requiring people to prove themselves in some fashion, though the criteria by which she accepts people is known only to her. While she's happy to work with other people, often seeing it as an expediency rather than as a personal pleasure, she quite prefers her own company, and thus is not averse to silence, nor to being left completely alone. Under certain circumstances, that much is definately her preference, particularly when she is drinking (which admittedly makes many wonder why she drinks in crowded cantinas).

Age has served really only to make her cynical, and she rarely fails to make her feelings to that end known to others. Beyond that, she can be quite judgemental with regards to others. Her failure to make it into the Republic Navy served only to give her a particular sense of disdain for the military, and she is also fairly distrustful of men in general, considering the majority to be both shallow and in need of shooting, although inwardly accepts that such isn't a viable possibility, beyond the few she manages to get into fights with. She also rarely has time for members of the non-human races, although she has had to work extremely hard to overcome that particular issue, given that many of the individuals in her line of work happen to be of alien origin.

Possessions

Even as an independent pilot, devoid of all the restrictions one might find in a military organisation, it is rare to find Elyanna possessing much beyond the basic 'essentials' she requires. Beyond what would undoubtedly be considered a huge and eclectic wardrobe, she owns a DL-18 Blaster Pistol, as well as a small Vibrodagger that she usually keeps tucked into her right boot for her personal defense, although she can't shoot to save her life (or, really, anyone else's), thus carrying the blaster more for intimidation purposes - if you have a confident step and a blaster at your side, as she would say, few people are going to believe that you can't use it effectively.

Beyond that, she usually wears a chronometer on her right wrist, unless she's wearing something that lacks sleeves, as well as carrying a small comm unit on her belt, for those few rare occasions when she feels the need to talk to someone. And, since she has something of a passion for Sabacc, she also owns a deck of her own, although she rarely has opportunity to use it, since most establishments prefer to use their own cards to avoid anybody cheating.

History

Born to two parents of Corellian origin on the planet of Drall, itself within the Corellia system, Elyanna was raised in a society that was essentially an amalgamation of many different races, possessed of many different creeds, faiths and approaches to the galaxy. One might have thought that, in such a multi-cultural atmosphere, the only daughter of the Mirielle family might have developed a strong respect for members of said races, but this was not to be the case. This was primarily a consequence of her father's position within the Republic Military, itself a mainly human-controlled force, despite there being a fairly large number of aliens found within the ranks. Her parents had firmly established an anti-alien bias, on the basis that they felt humans were more intelligent, and that they were simply indulging the lesser races by treating them as equals.

It had always been expected that she would also enter the military, following in a family tradition that had been unbroken for generations. She was groomed for this by her strict father, who himself was far more of an influence on his daughter than his docile mother, who herself often seemed subserviant to her husband's demands and expectations. Although in other circumstances, this might have resulted in Elyanna developing a belief in the idea that women were naturally supposed to be subordinate to men, the fact that she was being encouraged into a primarily male-dominated profession negated this. She spent the majority of her childhood being schooled at home by her mother, her lessons there interspersed with the occasional lecture from her father on politics and military history.

As a result of this, it was only when she reached the age of 18 that she truly had opportunity to push away from the expectations of her clearly-overbearing family, as she sought to obtain entry into the Republic Navy, as had been dictated by her parents. Although certainly she was acting in accordance with their wishes, she also saw it as an opportunity to spread her wings a little, and see more of the galaxy than might have been possible in any other profession. Unfortunately, the lack of any formal education caused her particular difficulties with regards to the entrance exam that she had taken at the prestigious Raithal Academy, causing her to be failed in her admission.

This in itself came as a severe disappointment to Elyanna's parents, neither of whom had ever considered the possibility that she might not be admitted to the military. Although she was permitted to return to the family home, it was inevitably to a far colder reception that she had been used to before she had left - certainly, tensions between herself and her father were strained, although the burden of his disappointment with her found some relief in the fact that he was often caught up in his duties with those forces assigned to protect the system from external attack.

Remaining at home for some months thereafter, it was left to Elyanna to decide upon her new course in life, bereft of the opportunity to train at one of the Republic's military academies. True, she could well have simply focused herself on her studies and then reapplied in the following year, perhaps to negate some of the ire that was directed at her by her parents as a consequence of that failure, but the fact that the exam had served to enlighten her of certain shortcomings caused her to push aside the possibility of a military career, and thus to settle for something else. The problem, it seemed, was where to go from there.

Partly to mollify her parents to a certain extent, Elyanna began attending a flight school on Corellia itself in the seventh month of her eighteenth year, justifying the expenditure required to gain her admission by persuading her father that, although she could not be a full military officer, she could perhaps serve as part of a planetary defense force, or something of a similar nature, if only she were allowed to learn the skills inherent in piloting starships, starting from fighters and moving up to transports and their ilk. It took many months thereafter for her to determine that she actually had a fair aptitude for the disciplines of piloting, but moreso when such didn't involve having to concentrate on shooting down simulated attackers in their own starfighters.

When she graduated with her full pilot's license two years later, Elyanna made her final departure from her family home on Drall, since she had been lodging there when not engaged in her studies on Corellia, the rest of the time bunking down in the trainee barracks at the flight academy. Unsurprisingly, some quite bitter exchanges took place which precipitated this move, primarily as a result of her lacking any coherent idea of what she was going to do with her life, now that she actually had some qualifications that would help her find a career. Once leaving, she found herself an apartment on Corellia itself, staying there for several weeks while trying to find some gainful employment.

Her first experience within the working world came from freight transit on behalf of an employment agency that supplied qualified pilots to organisations needing new employees to fill the gaps in their manifests. Since she was but newly-qualified, she was not given work transporting people, but rather shipping bulk materials between various systems and sectors. During that time, she took the opportunity to aquiant herself with a good working knowledge of some of the main worlds that might be found on the shipping routes: Coruscant, Anaxes, Duro, Abregado-Rae, even right down to Nar Kreeta, in Hutt space.

This particular trend continued until she was 24, at which point, she signed on to work for Red Star Shipping Lines, upgrading to the transport of passengers as opposed to cargo. Although her aim, now that she had one, was to eventually go independent, and thus transport trade goods under her own power, she had nowhere the amount of credits to obtain her own ship, and she certainly wouldn't swallow her own pride and go asking her family for assistance. And she'd seen what happened to people who defaulted on their loans, and she wasn't about to risk it - she knew she'd never have gotten credit with any reputable bank, having little in the way of fixed assets herself, and she wasn't about to risk her freedoms or life by dealing with less scrupulous individuals capable of offering her the credits.

Her career with Red Star lasted 7 years, in which time she gained a fair amount of experience in piloting, and garnered sufficient respect from her fellow pilots, as well as from her superiors, to advance her in status within the company, which naturally included a decent rise in salary, though still not enough for what she had in mind. Using her earnings, spending sparingly the rest of the time, she took the lease of a small apartment on Rendili, where she often spent much of her down-time between transit flights. However, she never spent enough time ground-side to enjoy anything more meaningful than a few abrupt flings, and thus never quite got down to settling into a life with a family.

With enough credits saved away by the end of her tenure, she cancelled the lease of her apartment, and thus purchased a second-hand MC-18 light freighter, though the low price came at the expense of a significant decrease in the quality of the ship's components - the shield generator had been replaced with one of lesser quality, while the back-up generator had been entirely removed. Although the laser cannon aboard was still to be found on the ship's specifications, it was primarily to be found in pieces, little more use than spare parts, given Elyanna's lack of technical expertise.

Now possessing her own ship, though sometimes uncertain as to whether or not the damn thing would fall apart of the next hyperspace jump, Elyanna started out by leasing out cargo space to those with goods to be transported, often taking many smaller loads from place to place, rather than simply taking bulk freight. That in itself was the result of her ship not exactly being up to top spec, although with what money she could scrape together from these commissions, she did set out trying to improve the ship and bring it up to something approaching a decent quality, though she never quite got the laser cannon working, and since most of the work had to be done by professional engineers, a good deal of her funds went into paying them to engage in relatively-simple upgrade work.

Understanding that much to be the case, she also spent a significant amount of time, between flights, trying to work out the mechanics of her ship's design, without messing things up so badly that they would have to be replaced, further depleting her limited funds. As a result, she slowly gained a decent working knowledge of the ship's basic mechanics, although if the hyperdrive failed, she knew full well that she would be stranded between worlds without a hope in hell of rescue. As a consequence, it was quite the risk carrying just about any freight, at least until she was able to afford to have the entire drive checked out and maintained.

When she reached the age of 35, she received a rather terse message from her mother, informing her that her father had died from heart failure, something which little surprised Elyanna, knowing full well just how much of an obsessive-compulsive that her father had been. She didn't feel particularly grieved, however, and made no attempt to acknowledge the message, nor get in contact with her mother thereafter. To her, it was merely a footnote to a part of her life that she cared little for. Continuing what was something of an interesting but repetitive life as a freight trader, Elyanna slowly found her situation improving, partially due to the modifications made to her ship that brought it up to something approaching a respectable standard, as well as her own credentials supporting her attempts to gain more business.

Unfortunately, a weakness for sabacc was to prove to be the end of that little venture. Elyanna enjoyed her downtime as much as anyone, and found little else as engaging to her as a good game of sabacc and more than a few shots of Corellian Whisky with which to wash down the additional income she could make at the gambling tables. A little too much of the latter pushed her into a high-stakes game on Lianna, and she only found in the morning that she'd bet her ship on the wager of a somewhat unsuccessful hand. So, she had the clothes on her back, the contents of a diminished credit account and the two suitcases remaining to her.

Once again being forced to resort to working for other people, Elyanna swallowed her own pride and jumped rapidly back into piloting for freight agencies, though hating every second of it, and simply biding her time until she could either buy a new ship for her to continue her business, or perhaps to find a half-decent employer capable of offering her better opportunities than she had once had. Fortunately, there were opportunites other than those simply involved in basic freight available - it didn't take long for her to find that there was more money to be had in smuggling than in legal transportation. She signed onto several flights that involved less-than-honest piloting work, all in exchange for a bit more in the way of credits than she was used to getting from employed work. The added danger this lifestyle itself produced really only added to the flavour, to her mind, so she never considered the possibility of being shot down to be an issue. Anything that gained her credits, realistically...

These days, she can be found hanging around the local cantina, toasting her own misfortunes (or perhaps stupidity, if she would admit to it) and awaiting her next stroke of luck that might give her the opportunity to earn credits under her own steam.