Name: Sarasa Zyakala

Age: 26

Gender: Female

Race: Naraga

Appearance: From the waist up, Sarasa appears to be an attractive, if incredibly pale, woman. Her skin lacks any scars or other discernible blemishes found on those who have experienced some hardship in their lives. Even though this upper body contains almost nothing but muscle--every major organ besides the brain being found elsewhere--it appears to have little definition and makes her look unhealthily thin. Her face bears the appearance of nobility: red eyes that seem to either curious or judgmental, a mouth either frowning in disappointment or curled slightly into a smirk with a rare hint of a fang, and the straight black strands that make up her hair are properly groomed and fall just below her shoulder blades.

Below this human waist, though, is a completely different story. A twenty-two foot long tail replaces the legs that most other races would have below the waist. Smooth black scales cover the entirety of this large extremity providing her with nominal protection on par with tough leather. The scales along the length of her belly, while certainly still black, are of a lighter coloration and shape, which enables her to move along the ground or grip surfaces with them. While normally shiny and dry, her scales do begin to fade every month or so when it becomes time to molt into a brand new set of scales, at which time her body becomes rather agitated.

As for clothing, she and her kin aren't really accustomed to it. While armor and extra layers are worn in situations that warrant them, jewelry is the only thing that Sarasa wears that could even be considered cloths. While normally covered in elaborate gold designs encrusted with precious gems, she has had to relinquish most of it for the journey to prevent someone from stealing them, leaving her only with a set of golden bracelets and a steel (for practicality) covering for the tip of her tail, all of which have loose pieces that rattle when moved about.

Personality: Sarasa has been raised rather oddly compared to all the others of her race. Her older sister was raised in what is considered the proper way, one that emphasizes ferocity, grace, cunning, and power, while all her other siblings were raised as subservient drecks with malnourished bodies and minds. She, on the other hand, was raised as a spoiled little sister who was given everything Hrdaya had except for the responsibilities and expectations that bound her. As such, she has little care for the consequences of her actions or the weight such care would bring. When she encounters a problem that she can't immediately solve, she grows very agitated and any composure that she had all but shatters in anger, or, in the event the problem is currently threatening her, fear.

With that said, she was taught how to carry herself as a member of a ruling family. She was taught, as a part of her training in magic, how to utilize and understand the nuances of speech and make use of them for manipulation and simply to be tactful in general. She's learned and considers herself to be an elite in the world, and has no trouble showing it in reproach to others, but will normally, so long as her composure hasn't been demolished by a pinprick, maintain a more curious demeanor brought about by her overall lack of interaction with unfamiliar situations.

Fighting Style: Sarasa, unless you're being rather loose with the term, has never really been involved in a fight. Certainly she's practiced how to move aggressively with her large body and has done her fair share of killing, but none of that could really be considered combat. As such, her approach to fighting is twofold once her attempts to avoid it through charm or illusion have failed. The first is to try to end it immediately by impaling them with the steel tip covering the end of her tail or lunging at her opponent and trying to tear them apart before they have time to react. If that fails, she resorts to a more defensive tact, wherein she will withdraw her upper body and rely almost exclusively on her large tail as a weapon. She thrashes it about with enough force to send pretty much anything mortal reeling or, in the rare event her tail manages to encircle someone, coils herself around her enemy before either crushing their body or snapping them like a twig. During this defensive flailing, she will occasionally use her magic to conjure a disorienting haze into the area that make sit much more difficult to avoid her attacks or land a blow. Her so called style is great for dealing with the unexpected foes or large, untrained groups, but put her up against a trained warrior with a pointy object, and she's probably not going to fair so well.

History: The city of Svariz was a city flowing with wealth. While it had originally been no better than its mercantile neighbors, occupying a small part of the rocky hills known as the Beastlands, the discovery of a large gold vein a few miles from the city walls changed all that. The ruling Zyakala family at the time exploited this new influx of gold for the benefit of themselves and their city. The Zyakala's immortalized themselves with daunting statues in the streets, grand offerings to the few gods that smiled upon them, and food in the stomachs of every citizen. Their once competitive neighbors now found themselves in great danger as the newly named Svariz's walls were raised, its army expanded, and its rulers wielded powerful lodestones. The birds of Hyezu fell first, then the elephants of Kigara, then the hounds of Zvuran. The rulers of the Beastlands fell one by one to a larger army than they could hope to muster and magic no god would aid them against. And, for the first time since their kind came to be, the Naran were united, and for over a century serpents reigned.

Unfortunately, the prosperity and power brought about through gold and lodestones couldn't last forever. While the gold mines near Svarlih still produced great wealth for the city, it was nothing like it had been in the beginning, and foreign gold began finding its ways into the hands of the other cities. Rebellions erupted along the borders as cities fought off their masters. The great army that the Zyakala family had created hundreds of years prior was sent against the rebels and their foreign allies, but desertion to the rebellion ate away at the great force, and the magic stones had lost their great power. 217 years of unity all came to an end when Hrdeja Zyakala was forced to sue for peace, relinquishing all but what they had held at the beginning.

It was shortly after this dissolution of her family's wide reign that Sarasa was born. She was the second brood her mother had given birth to after consuming her father, which meant that she, like her brothers, would go hungry and without luxury. Luckily for her, she managed to get away from the rooms in which she and her siblings were kept and was stumbled upon by her older sister, Hrdaya, who had been named heir only recently after slaughtering each of her five sisters. Seeing her little sister slithering around on the floor, nibbling on a piece of food she'd stolen from the others, Hrdaya took pity on her and took her to her mother to ask that she be properly fed. Even after being told that there was only supposed to be one heir, and that it would cause problems later if Sarasa grew power hungry, Hrdaya didn't relent and eventually succeeded in getting her younger sister named and given the thunderstone and training necessary to keep her properly nourished. No other sibling, not the ones she personally slaughtered nor the ones she watched be deprived of their full potential, were shown such mercy.

Sarasa, partly through personal loyalty and partly because everyone she had ever met began a conversation praising her older sister for her mercy, became fiercely devoted to her older sister and fears of problems arising from two viable heirs quickly faded. She was given anything she desired by her sister, and the magic stone allowed her to grow to a size that dwarfed her malnourished siblings within ten years. While she was given lessons in magic and fighting and other necessities required of a ruling house, she was also spoiled with luxuries by her sister and never put these lessons to use without her sister's say so. She reacted very negatively to threats, insults, or anything she perceived as such against Hrdaya, which gave her a special place amongst a court filled with potential spies and traitors. While no spy or traitor--for what competent person would reveal themselves in front of a deadly monster?--was ever torn apart by Sarasa, she did not like to people criticizing or speaking badly of her sister, often expressing this dislike through gory and cruel means.

This all came to a head when a emissary from Hyezu arrived in Svariz. He threatened the city with war and told Hrdaya to bow down before the birds she should be ruling. While greatly angered by this display, the older sister had restraint and wished to build up her power base a little more before setting the offending city on fire. Sarasa, though, had no such restraint and lunged from her sister's side and wrapped the frail bird in coils of slick skin. She crushed him within an instant and before her sister could command her to stop. After hurling the maimed body across the room, directly into the emissary's escorts, her sister ordered the escorts arrested and executed to prevent word from getting out. She scolded her younger sister harshly for violating the protection given to emissaries, but formulated a plan to keep word of this from getting out. She had several servants--birds like those that lay dead in her throne room--dressed as the emissary and his guards and sent through the city gates. They were to travel the roads and make their presence known at the stops along the way before discarding their disguises and returning, leaving the fate of the emissary up to speculation.

Though covering up the murder was not the only problem Hrdaya now faced, what with a war brewing with one of her neighbors. She had to gather her forces and prepare an invasion before Hyezu was able to respond or prepare. This was also the time that she heard of the large stone on the Naua Te archipelago, and knew that it would not only all but guarantee victory over the birds, but make the conquest of the whole of the Beastlands a viable option again. To this end she went to Sarasa, still reeling from the harsh scolding she had received, and asked her to go and retrieve the stone for her. Spoiled though she may be, she was still an incredibly large and powerful Naraga, and she was eager to do something to please her sister. She was given all the necessary information, as well as given one of the veteran guards of the palace as well as an entourage of others to guard her on her journey. A ship would take this expedition from the port city of Saridur to the archipelago within a week. Sarasa would be doing something productive for once.