Concept
Likes: The sea, music, dance, writing, language, conversation, Gods, the stars
Dislikes: Rudeness, selfishness, stubbornness, sweets, high heels, her own pride
As a person, Naia is a difficult person to grasp. Her personality is very easily altered by her attitude, however she has as of late become much more relaxed in her nature. As a teenager, she was intense and incredibly quick to anger, her temper simmering to dry wit and transparency as she stepped into the world and began to let her pride crumble. As she came in Alvadas, she was forced once more to let go of many long held prejudices, and her attachment to what was material in the face of illusion.
Her later time on The Mischief instilled within her a stronger sense of going with the flow, and willingness to see with a child-like gaze once more. She is very much more willing to let loose and take enjoyment, however she still needs to knock herself back down from time to time.
She is, in general, the kind of person who just needs time and willingness to grow into things- cities, jobs, skills, relationships. She finds it difficult to admit her own fault, or ask for help when she needs it, and still struggles constantly with her pride. She is bitterly self-inflicting a “have a go” philosophy, as she ever attempts to improve and get over herself.
Religion
LavikuNaia sees Laviku as the All Father, however the few Gods and Goddesses she follows otherwise, she follows closely. Although paying frequent tribute and prayer, she often feels estranged from the God of Seas whenever her feet have been on dry land for too long, and has a nasty habit of invoking his name when dealing with the pressures and peculiarities of land customs.
ZulravNaia began praying to Zulrav when she left Nyka - being separated from the sea, it was the wind and weather that she soon took comfort in, and she quickly revelled in storms and winds. Since this initial connection, she has furthered her faith in a number of smaller wishes and prayers, usually damning or lifting things to his name when she finds herself in need of clarity and higher thought.
ZintillaSince beginning to learn of navigation and astronomy techniques after joining the crew of
The Mischief, Naia has come to start revering the Alvina of stars. She knows little of her, however, and is not in any position where she is about to start some perilous pilgrimage to Lhavit.
General History
The Whitewater pod of the north eastern oceans is a hardy one, and one of few vessels that travels so far north as Novallas, occasionally making the trip so far as to Avanthal.
In the time before current Lia Mila, Lia Talassa's tavan was a great Bowhead Whale. The relationship between these whales and the pod is vital to life, with the ship often following the path that a Tavan whale breaks in the frozen seas come the very few winters they dare to spend north. Most commonly, however, they are used when Morwen's grasp lingers in the icy water longer, or stirs quicker, than the Lia anticipated.
White whales are the most frequent Tavan, and was one of Naia's own, with the smaller whales often following after the same broken paths left in the wake of the Bowhead.
In this, Naia lived a standard Svefran's life, though one more centred on fishing, dancing, and fighting the fierce storms and cold of the North. She thus grew up hardy, foul mouthed, and stubborn- if her pod was not obstinately opposed to freezing and starvation, then they would not have survived. Naia still does not understand the mentality of the life she grew within, why they chose boundless icy waters over the Suvan, or why no one seems to even consider leaving for more temperate seas.
At fourteen, her father Rylan fell ill and Lia grief stricken. As a consequence of the young Svefra's own guilt at the man's sudden turn for the worst, Naia's relationship with her father quickly grew, and she became detached from the rest of the pod, given how unconventional their relationship was by Svefra standards - a child is raised by all, not just those that caused their birth.
It was quickly evident that Rylan would not recover, and he placed the request to be taken ‘home’. This prospect shook Naia at first, upon hearing the words complaining to Lia that her father
was home, indeed – and that his fever was making him deluded. It was only then that Naia became privy to the fact that although
she was a Svefra, her father was Nykan born - his own father a Svefra that settled in the city, along with a native Nykan wife. As the story went, Rylan sated his curiosity of the Svefra (His grandfather raising him on tales both tall and wide) by joining in on one of their famed parties, earning the good graces of the late Lia Talassa, and soon becoming amorous with Naia's mother LMila.
Although it didn't change anything in practicality, it hit her with a new perspective. Naia’s opinion of land dwellers was challenged, and the cause for her extreme closeness with her birth father made sense – as such a close relationship was uncommon for her people. Further sense was soon established, the more she thought, with Naia finally making key familiar links that she'd prior taken for granted.
By the time the pod reached Nyka, Mila was quick with child to another of the men in the pod, and Naia made the choice to stay in the city to wait out her father's death, largely after meeting her grandparents and being shook further by the alien customs of those who lived on land (and the guilty curiosity that spurned).
The first year was difficult for her, the ways of Svefran and Nykan life in dire conflict. For the first few weeks, her father was well enough to walk among the city of his home and ingrate the most key of teachings:
steal and you die. Of course the reality of the situation wasn't so drastic - you at least get a warning and a pretty new brand before they took your life.
The following month he passed away, and her primary care was taken over by her grandparents, who were happier than ever to have a 'child' back in their lives – the young woman had intended to join a new pod, but dysphoria took her whenever she walked the docks. She didn’t mean to stay ‘forever,’ it just kind of worked out that way. It was a further two years later that her Svefra grandfather also returned to the seas, and Naia balanced studies and work with the caring of her grandmother.
Life was difficult, but it was moving forward, and she soon moved from home to her own cramped apartment.
One of her first matters of business was the hunting down of one her rather absent uncles, and ensuring that her grandmother was in some form of care - and had someone other than herself to constantly check on her, with her age nearing that at which death is imminent. The young woman’s harshness managed to unnerve the useless man to take up residence with the wizened old woman, and Naia was finally able to take her first steps unbound by crushing responsibility.
Post CreationHer grandmother's eventual death is what lead the woman to drive herself from the city of Nyka, and it was the blindness of grief, guilt and an act of self-harm that had her choose to venture with a pycon onwards to the city of Syliras by land, the woman having a near mental break down in the middle of the journey. In this period she clung to Zulrav, her extreme disconnection from the ocean having her feel as though Laviku was deaf to her prayers.
Although she bore it well, the disconnection from the sea has given her lasting, though diminishing, psychological damage.
From Syliras she took ship to Alvadas, and later joined with the region's trade ship
The Mischief as a sailor.
She eventually left
The Mischief, too, deciding once and for all to set new roots and rebuild in Syka.
A Teen in Nyka
Unflappable, stoic, and brutally honest, Nyka became the home of a bratty Naia at the beginning of her 15th year. Old enough to be considered an outsider, but young enough to assimilate quicker than most, she revelled in the fights that frequented the city with enough fervour to worry her grandparents.
Though never the most beautiful, it was always her forward business and stern way of going about things that often spoiled the quiet sweetness of her looks. It did not help that upon taking up a proper residence in the city, it was to the Eastern Quarter that she lived, where her opinion of the monks tool an immediate nose dive. She calmed down as years went by, and sometimes ever she forgets her turbulent youth, her grandmother only just having managed to pacify her in the later years by throwing her into studies that she could relate back to the teenager's love of the sea.
In terms of things she detests above all else, she had an avid fear of heights and well known dislike for those that live selfishly and for themselves, and give little thought or care towards those they routinely take advantage of.
Even with all her apparent coolness and severity, and dislike to freely display her emotions, she did not live without her passions, and indulged herself with them when she can. She took pleasure in her work, and an obvious joy in weaving hearing tales alike. She'd never turn down the opportunity to spend a day by the sea, or sit in quiet merriment as she listens to the cooks and workers of the Halls of Robes gossip and giggle as they go about their duties - though she personally is not one to joke too much outside of dry wit and sarcasm.
The Later Years
Disarmingly sweet and unearthly charming, Naia lends herself to the picture perfect servant in her work as a crewmember, and takes little issue with selecting the traits she presents to those that she works with, her habit of half-truths having her happy to weave herself a life that doesn't truly quite exist. This is also partly due to the fact that she has taken much closer to the arts of speech and politics, with her words honeyed and intentions near never pure when in the dealings of words and wit and business; her childhood nature of blatant honesty often seeping through when she sees herself as 'off duty,' when the work is done for the day and she lends herself to her truer nature, the way she has learned to portray herself to those she works with and opposes nothing less than a mere survival tactic.
She is both a daughter of the winds and the oceans- her time torn away from the waters blue and deep scaring her with an almost PTSD, and leaving her with an almost compulsive habit to telling only half truths, an irrational fear of being taken too far from the sea, and driving an avid love of the whispers and salt spray of the ocean that is brought with every coastal breeze and storm.
Her time in Nyka let her see the 'true' horrors of the world, so the battles of speech and blade that come from encounters with men will never rattle her. She doesn't fear death - she fears whatever it is that comes from the Gods Forsaken hell within Nyka, though she will scarcely admit her guilty love of the supernatural city and the mystery of the heart of the world.
Timeline and Charter
492: Naia was born in the winter, with the Ice Breaker vessel dipping a little more northward than usual for the winter months, east of Ravok, at the time.
493
494
495
496
497: Naia celebrates her 5th birthday
498
499
500
501
502: Naia celebrates her 10th Birthday
503
504[b/]: One of Naia’ podmates, Illan, dies in childbirth
[b]505: Lia Talassa passes away at the breaking of the new year, and Mila steps forward to take the woman's place as Lia of the Whitewater pod
506: Springtime, the Ice Breaker vessel drifts just north of the White Isles
507: By the winter Ice Breaker has drifted, with its Tavan, south to Abura, beginning its journey further southwards to the White Isle.
508: Naia moves to Nyka early in the year, and then celebrates her 16th birthday at the end of the year
509
510
511
512
513
514: Naia, with a companion, travel from Nyka to Syliras by caravan, earning their way through guard work.
515: Naia finds herself settling in Alvadas
516: Naia lives on board The Mischief
517: Naia decides to leave The Mischief due to exceptional circumstances, seeks to start fresh on Syka