Arana T'dora

**Vaara T'scala**, also known as **Arana T'dora**, is an Ardat-Yakshi, doctor, Eclipse mercenary and a member of the Council Recovery Corps.

## Biography

Vaara T’scala was born on August 8th, 2045, on the asari colony world of Agessia, in the Thyrum colony to Isarra and her bondmate, Sieldera. Unbeknownst to the two parents to be, they both carried the Ardat Yakshi gene - albeit, latently. When they had come together to create a child, the child had inherited an *active* Ardat Yakshi gene. Given how the condition does not manifest  until adulthood, there was no bias early on, and the young asari grew up normally, in the comfort of her home, rather than in some monastery thousands of lightyears away.

Vaara grew up in a nurturing environment, often being raised at home by Sieldera while Isarra worked, teaching her from home. Life in an underground colony was cozy and safe, but overall, quite boring. All in all, it was the perfect place to settle down, and start a family of your own, if you were a Matron tired of the hustle and bustle of Thessia, or the Citadel. Like any small ‘town’, the Colony’s affairs were pretty simple - people knew each other by face, and gossip was so prevalent, that saying ‘everybody knows everybody’s business’ was an apt description.

After starting the equivalent of public schooling, the young asari would start sneaking off to the hydroponics bay, after a field trip earlier that year, during which the little girl would try to ‘help’ the workers. Sometimes, they tolerated her presence, and she learned by watching them, but there were a few occasions that one of her mothers were called to come get her, and take her away.

Vaara volunteered her time at the hydroponics center when she grew a bit older and a bit more capable, and assisted with managing the sprouts and adding fertilizer to the appropriate seed batches, showing promise when it came to managing multiple tasks in a short span of time.

As time went on and Vaara grew older, her parents began having talks about moving to Thessia. Her mothers would often get into heated arguments, often cycling into Sieldera yelling, “Our daughter deserves to see the homeworld!”. In the end, Sieldera would win out over her bondmate, and the arrangements would be made to move from Agessia to Thessia, in an effort to ‘raise their daughter the right way’. Vaara would protest against it, but in the end, would have very little impact on her parents’ decision to resettle on Thessia. Finishing the school year - her last one on her own homeworld -  Vaara would write a few goodbye letters to her classmates, before the time came to get on the transit shuttle.

Vaara jolted a bit in her seat as the transit shuttle lifted off the ground, from Agessia’s spaceport. She’d never been in a shuttle before - big or small, and this...this was scary enough for her to have to hold her mother’s hand. She breathed heavily for a few seconds, before the view of her homeworld came into sight, through the viewport. Her mother gave her a reassuring pat on the back, saying that it was always scary the first time.”

Despite Agessia being a proper asari colony world, it never could have compared with the sight of the homeworld - even from afar, from the shuttle window. While Agessia had been a brown, boring planet, Thessia was a planet of teal green and blue, covered with massive clouds. It was enough to fill the young woman with wonder and awe beyond what she had when the shuttle had lifted off, and exited Agessia’s atmosphere.

When the transport had set down in the Spaceport, the exciting part of the journey had ended, in a sense. The sight of faraway stars had long faded, and now that she was on solid ground, her excitement had begun to fade as well. While the trip had been distracting, it didn’t take away from the fact that she had left her home, her friends - everything and everyone she knew were lightyears away. There was now an untraversable distance between them, and there was no going back.

If being inside the spaceport had been enough to take the thrill of adventure out of her, being outside it was nearly enough to rekindle it. The vast streets of Thessia were revealed to her the moment that she’d walked out the doors with her mothers to an awaiting cab.

The trip was fairly short - but Vaara’s gaze was glued to the window for the duration of the ride. The *size* of the city itself was enough to amaze her. The colony was nowhere *near* this big, so naturally, she couldn’t help but try to take in all the sights at once. This was enough to draw a chuckle out of Sieldera, who rested a hand upon Vaara’s shoulder. Seeing her daughter’s enthusiasm, Sieldera promised Vaara to explore their new home later.

Her new home proved to be much larger than her last; when she had seen her bedroom, she didn’t know what she’d do with all the new space that she had to work with. She didn’t own a lot of objects - and thus, the room was left feeling empty, somehow.

Vaara was enrolled in a public school in short order, and would receive the standard biotics training that everyone her age went through, with private tutoring on the side to enhance her education, and provide additional benefits.

For a while, Vaara would remain an outsider among her peers - it wouldn’t take long for her to make a friend or two, but she’d still be regarded as ‘the new girl’ for a while. There was some merit to being ‘new in town’ - it provided her with a pull, to bring in new people into pull. When you come from a whole other planet, people tend to want to know more about it - and more about you as well.

Vaara started attending Medical School at the young age of 90, in the year 2135, where she focused the majority of her studies on medical courses specializing in xenobiology and xenobiological studies. She  had every hope of becoming a doctor - and  even had the means to make it happen.

During this time, Vaara lived in a small but cozy campus apartment, that reminded her of home. While her parents didn’t understand the reason for choosing such a small apartment, they couldn’t deny that the rent was cheaper than the alternatives.

During one of her study sessions in the college library in the year 2172, a fellow student that attended many of the same classes, decided to join Vaara at her table. She introduced herself as Kallis T’Vora. Things seemed okay at first - they shared interests, hobbies, and even their specializations in common.

Over the course of the next few months, the two got closer. Kallis would often spend nights at Vaara’s apartment, and Vaara would often veg on Kallis’ couch; it was a mutual attraction, one that grew with time. As time came to pass, Kallis would start to ask more of Vaara. She wanted her to be “serious” about their relationship, and commit to it through melding - something Vaara was deeply uncomfortable with.

Vaara would start spending less time with Kallis as time passed, until being invited to her apartment one friday night in 2180. Feeling guilty for having avoided Kallis for the last few weeks, she reluctantly forced herself to head over to her apartment, ignoring the bad gut feeling she had. Stepping foot into the apartment’s living room, Vaara looked about, being just distracted enough that she didn’t notice Kallis, until she was already wrapped in a firm hug. She was enthusiastic about this encounter, albeit with a predatory grin..

Vaara blinked a bit, before shrugging, and pulling out of the hug, worried about their recent argument Vaara frowned a little, before shaking her head. Kallis seemed to sour at that, before heading off to the fridge. She mixed Vaara a glass of Elasa, but little did Vaara know that Kallis had popped in a Hallex pill into her drink.

Vaara felt...odd, once she drank from the glass. She barely registered that the drink was drugged; in the moment, she had simply thought that the drink was *really good*. Seeing her reaction, Kallis smiled in a way that expressed anything other than malicious intent. Euphoria was starting to spread from her chest, traveling upward, and spreading across her body like a warm glow. She felt so good - so happy. Everything seemed sharper and clearer than it ever had been before.

With her judgement impaired, Vaara didn’t think about the *why* of *why*  she was going with Kallis into her bedroom. She simply knew that it was happening. Before long, she was on the bed; and when she had come to, Kallis was unresponsive next to her. She was naked; she was confused; and she felt *extremely high.* It was a much different high than the Hallex - it was primal, superior, and utterly overwhelming. She felt extreme pleasure, but still felt distress at the scene she’d ‘woken up’ to. “What...what’s going on?” The words left her throat, but sounded so far away that she barely registered the words as her own.

It took her several minutes to gather her wits about her. The events that had happened some hours ago were blurry at best - but she had an inkling of what had happened. Reconstructing the evening in her mind, she put together the clues. She’d arrived here, Kallis made a drink...and then it started to feel fuzzy. She didn’t want to believe that she’d been drugged, but when she put it all together, there really was no other way to interpret what had happened.

When she took in everything else, she felt...violated. Looking at the limp form next to her, she felt conflicting feelings of guilt, anguish, and sheer resentment. She remained still, looking at the prone figure, until she realized that Kallis wasn’t breathing. Moving on impulse, her fingers pressed against her neck. There was no pulse.

Had she...murdered her somehow? There was no sign of blood, other than a dribble down Kallis’ nose. Getting up from the bed, Vaara would sluggishly redress. She felt so...out of it. Pressing a hand to her face, she squeezed the bridge of her nose between her index and thumb fingers, before letting out a ragged breath. This had to be a nightmare. This couldn’t be real, right?

Her mind raced as she tried to think of a reasonable explanation for why the hell Kallis was dead. There wasn’t any obvious trauma, but...the void in her eyes did remind her of a case study that she’d come across during her studies - a study on Ardat Yakshi. Offspring of two pureblood Asari carrying latent genes, the Ardat Yakshi were rumored to be insidious, remorseless killers who left their victims hollow and empty - not to mention very, very dead. The exact method was described as ‘burning out’ their partner’s nervous system. From the outside looking in, Vaara could find some truth in the description. Vaara stared blankly at Kallis’ corpse for several minutes, hand over her mouth.

The truth of the matter was that she had no other  explanations for the scene in front of her. She felt her mind start to slip into a dissociative state, a numb blanket falling over her mental faculties. She backed away, before starting to get dressed. She needed to run - she needed to run as far away from here as possible. She needed to leave this world - she needed to get as far from Asari space as possible. If she was Ardat Yakshi, then she’d be doomed to spend the rest of her days in some shitty monastery. She’d never be a doctor if she was forced to be some kind of shitty nun!

Shakily running a hand over her crested head, Vaara reached under the bed, and grabbed the shotgun that Kallis had kept around in the case of burglars. It wasn’t anything special, but it’d be better than nothing - and it was highly collapsable, so it wouldn’t stick out too much when it mattered. Her body moving on autopilot, she took off running, leaving the apartment door unlocked in the process. Making her way to the exit, she took off for a nearby cab terminal, and was quick to make a request for pickup; destination: spaceport.

It wasn’t long until the automated skycar arrived. Slipping into the passenger side, Vaara would find herself shaking as adrenaline started to fade, and real fear started to register. What was she going to do when she got out of here? Was it too late to just go home, and pretend that it didn’t happen?

The next twenty minutes of the cab ride were spent in agonizing silence, as she tried to go over her options. Eventually, her fear won out the desire to contact her parents.  The cab touched down in a parking space - and she was quick to get out of the cab, and take off in a jog toward the terminal, a stressed look on her face.

Once inside the terminal building, Vaara would look about, internally calculating the odds of her plan succeeding. She didn’t know what she was doing - not for sure, anyways, but she knew the plan was simple enough on paper. She thought it could not be that much harder in execution. Steeling herself for what was to come, Vaara pressed forward, creeping through an unattended door, out onto the tarmac. So far, so good. She felt anxiety grip her heart as she crept toward the closest freighter. It was currently being unloaded of its cargo, so it was a prime candidate to slip into.

All in all it went down without a major disaster along the way. Vaara was relieved to settle into a particularly dark corner of the cargo hold for a while. Leaving Thessia was like killing a part of her. A part that she desperately wanted to hold onto. She was leaving without even a goodbye note on the desk. Her parents would be *devastated*, but she thought it better that she live free, rather than as a prisoner. There was no good decision to make in the moment, and she’d done what she thought was best for herself. She was doing her best, all things considered - and that was more than enough.

When the freighter had touched down, Vaara was slow to make her move. While she could have simply taken off running down the boarding ramp, she wanted to make a smooth exit, rather than charge out like a bat out of hell. She bided her time for several minutes, before sneaking off the ship onto an Omegan dock, shotgun held firmly to her chest.

While walking through the docking area, an asari wearing a set of yellow armor grabbed her arm. “You’re here for orientation, right?” Bewildered, Vaara stared at the older woman, stammering for a few seconds out of sheer confusion. “Don’t give me that. You’ve got a gun and the look of someone running away from something. *Trust me. You’re here for orientation.*” The woman’s voice brokered no disagreement. Intimidated, Vaara nodded mutely - at which, the mercenary in front of her smiled, having recruited one more member. Normally, Vaara would have had some major objections to all of this - but she’d been through *a lot* today, and she just didn’t have it in her to object by this point. The day had been a traumatizing, disorienting mess - and she was starting to feel a bit numb to it by this point. Vaara walked to the car, before slipping into it, next to a couple of other women, close to her age - or so she guessed. She didn’t really look at them very hard, as she was content to dissociate in silence for the duration of the car trip.

Vaara arrived at an Eclipse base on Omega, after a short twenty minute trip. Vaara and the others in the car were brought to the front entrance, and examined by a sturdy looking mercenary. They were questioned about their abilities and experience, before either dismissed, or allowed to pass through into the base. When it came time for her examination, she was asked for her skillset, and her name directly afterward. Vaara gave the name Arana T’dora, impulsively making up her new name on the spot, after saying that she was a doctor.

While “Arana” had been trained to use her biotics in school before, she’d never been taught how to use them in combat, beyond a simple ‘push’. This was not school - this was much different. It was much, much harsher for one thing. The next few weeks of her life were hell - not only did they make her work doubly hard on combat skills, they made her learn how to be a medic on the field. The stress was almost enough to make her snap - but by the end of it, she’d come out a more talented doctor - and had the means and methods to defend herself with gun or biotics. While she hated the techniques, she couldn’t doubt the results or their effectiveness.

Arana hated herself when she decided to cut off all communication with her parents. Running away from Thessia had nailed the coffin in, but doing it for *real* was painful. She reasoned with herself that it was for the best - for their protection, and for hers. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t have any ties to home, or the people she came from. As an Ardat Yakshi, she was a *fugitive*, and any softness would be punished by a boot to the face - or more likely, being shot or dragged off to a monastery

The doctor was slow to adjust to her enlistment into a mercenary band. She’d considered being a mercenary at a point or two in her life, but those had mostly just been in fantasy only. This was far from fantasy. It took a month to get used to firing a gun on a regular basis, and it took several months for her to be comfortable with the act of shooting someone. In the end, the woman would adapt and adjust to her new lifestyle, but she certainly wouldn’t be happy about any of it.

Most recently, the Eclipse has contracted Arana, along with many other Eclipse mercenaries out to the CRC to bolster their ranks with ‘professionals’.

## Personality

Arana tries a bit too hard to be the ‘normal’ girl. She doesn’t try very hard to stick out, and is more the type to keep her head down in hopes of not being noticed. Arana is perfectly friendly enough in a working environment, but she doesn’t allow herself to get too personal, due to her fear of intimacy stemming back from the trauma of having killed someone she’d been romantically attached to.

Arana has an intense fear of being taken advantage of or drugged - and exhibits signs of post traumatic stress disorder. She has a tendency to only drink or eat food that she’s seen prepared in front of her, and as a result she is extremely slow to trust.

While Arana feels indifferent about using guns and biotics to kill people, she doesn’t view it the same way as she views her genetic predisposition for murdering lovers during sex. It’s more of a psychological thing than a practical one.

### Exceptional Skills

* **Quick Learner** - Many a day spent on the extranet looking at articles on a variety of subjects has left Arana with a predisposition to quick learning, given how she used to ‘collect information’. She’s become rather adept at getting ‘the gist’ of things from skimming information.
* **Blue Thumb: *The doctor will see you now*** - In another life, Arana wanted to be a doctor - and even took courses, hoping to reach her goal. With time came changes - and she couldn’t pursue her dream anymore. That doesn’t mean she can’t still be useful in a medical bay, though.

## Physical Description

Standing tall at six feet and two inches, Arana has a ‘beanpole’ figure. Arana has a deep purple colored natural skin tone. Her skin is somewhat rubbery in a way that is somewhat reminiscent of that of an octopus, but is also smooth and warm. Arana is in decent physical shape, considering the profession that she’s in - which is to say, she has a trim, athletic figure.

Arana has an oblong facial structure with a distinct lack of eyebrows, and bright blue colored eyes. Arana’s face possesses a sharp shapeliness to it that more or less gives her a ‘handsome’ profile. Arana has a bit of a large, long nose.  Tattooed on her face in purple ink is a number of jagged lines - along with a thick line running from the middle of her bottom lip down her chin.

For clothes, Arana wears a white colored leather jacket, which has a few iron on patches, mostly from first-person shooters or role-playing games - but the most obvious one is the large yellow colored Eclipse patch on the middle of the jacket's back. Underneath, she wears bright yellow t-shirt, with denim jeans for bottoms, and steel toed service boots for footwear. She’ll often wear the helmet from her Eclipse Armor with her civvies.

### Armament

* M-27 Scimitar
* M-12 Locust

### Abilities

* Lance
* Warp
* Pull
* Throw