Ratima-daro

## Character Name

**"Eyes open and walk with the shadows."**

*- A Nightingale's farewell*

## Description

Ratima-daro is a rather short woman, standing at approximately 5'0" even, with deep neutral skin and afro-textured snowy white hair, often worn in braids. Her feline eyes are a pale icy blue, reflect light, and glow in the dark. Her ears are humanoid and pointed at the tips. Black feline markings are painted on her face and body. A notable scar runs diagonally along her left cheekbone and across the corner of her mouth. A lattice work of whipping scars cover her back from her time as a dunmeri slave. She has a very athletic pear-shaped build, and frequently appears busy and slightly grumpy.

### Armor

Ra is typically seen wearing light to medium weighted armor fit for her rapid pace in combat and exploration. She is known to bind her chest and take great pains to cover as much of her skin as possible when going on an expedition. Otherwise she tends to dress rather modestly in terms of garb, saving the splendor for her jewelry and other accessories.

### Arms

Ratima is known to prefer daggers and quick paced hand-to-hand action while in combat. She is proficient with one-handed weapons like scimitars and hastas.

## History

Ra’tima-daro was born to a Baandari peddler in a merchant caravan, the third in a set of four sisters. She grew up on the road, in the saddle of a camel, and made her play time in the backs of wagons, enamored with gazing at the various trinkets they picked up along the way. However, the whimsy of childhood was cut short with the sharp realization that life was not always easy, or comfortable, or fair.

At the age of six her caravan had stopped in the port town of Senchal, only for the city to be attacked by mormeri pirates in a slave raid. In the conflict, both her parents and her oldest sister were killed, leaving her and her two siblings to be snatched. They were cuffed, collared and corralled onto the ship like livestock, and when they made landfall in Deshaan the siblings were separated, never to see each other again.

Ra was afforded the comfort of a few small exceptions as a slave, privilege of her looking more akin to an drenamer than any of the other fuzzy-faced furstocks, though it did not spare her the whip if her Dres masters thought her dallying. Eventually she managed to pull off an escape that resulted in the freedom of a dozen fellow slaves and the death of her cruel masters.

After her escape she lived rough, and quickly turned to a career of black market smuggling and general thievery, her natural khajiiti grace giving her an edge up on the average human ruffian she tended to mug. Eventually she fell in with the eponymous Thieves’ Guild in Hew’s Bane and polished her shadowy skills to professional levels of competency. She is noted as being a very technically gifted lockpicker, and is incredibly good with math, numbers, and money. She made most of her infamy breaking clients out of jail, and most of her profits from altering ledgers.

Eventually she was sent on a mission to help establish the Guild’s presence in Senchal. Only about a week into her trip the boat she traveled on, The Prowler, was blindsided by the most fearsome hurricane the southern seas had seen since the mythic era- the product of a hateful marrmer spell, woven of entirely unholy blood magic. The savage waves battered the boat, sweeping its crew into the dark ocean before capsizing the vessel. The last thing she remembered was breathlessly sinking into the bitter cold salt water.

She awoke when an exiled Captain found her washed ashore. The two hit it off quickly, finding that they worked well together, and ran a tight crew and ship with her serving as his first mate. Under them, the northern jungles flourished as they beat back the bilge-swilling Black Hand that called themselves ‘pirates’, her Captain becoming a lord (as well as a cherished friend and lover of hers) in the process. She ended up in Arvandor when an ally’s arcane magicks failed to “land right” while attempting to get themselves and the crew all out of the Exiled Lands.

### Skills

As an active merchant and Bandaari descendant Ra is naturally good with money and other economic endeavors. She has an eye for value and quality, able to effortlessly pick out a real from a fake for the goods she normally deals in. She can accurately count coins by weight alone in reasonable circumstances. Ra'tima may not be the best at working a silver-tongued litany on people, but she is acutely aware of what a good deal is and isn't.

Ra is not what one would distinctly call 'booksmart'. She is streetwise as a counter to her poverty stricken adolescence, and as such totally lacks any formal education. Due to her history of being a dunmer slave and time spent as a well-travelled merchant, she is very quick at picking up new spoken languages but struggles with reading unfamiliar written alphabets. She is not a strong reader and often takes a while to thoroughly read over important things. Ratima tends to get uncomfortable and frustrated if tasked with reading lengthy passages or needs to read aloud for long periods of time, often resorting to skimming text for only the most relevant and important information.

Despite this, she has a strong photogenic memory. She can place objects back exactly as they were if she takes more than half a second to pay attention before moving things, which she always does due to her criminally inclined career choice and strong desire to not alert enemies. Ratima can pick a lock in record speed and never break a lockpick, something that consistently astounds the dark characters in her professional circle to no end. Recently this skill has translated very well to her art practices.

She is an absurdly talented cook and brewer, having picked up the skill during her time spent as a slave on a dunmeri saltrice plantation. Ra has a gigantic sweet tooth and can often be found making desserts like crème pastries, moonsugar cookies and brownies. She likes savories just as much, and can throw down a mean meal, often carrying a small collection of spices with her whenever she travels the wilds. Her favorite delicacy is freshly cooked sweetbreads in a thick sauce or stew.

Before she found herself acting as First Mate to the Gilded Hand Crew, Ratima-daro was a notable khajiiti smuggler-merchant with a history of successful assassination jobs. She was considered a master in all things stealthy, as was said to have been blessed by the Mother of the Night herself, Noctra.

### Vices / Flaws

**Envy/Greed:** As an ohmes khajiit and a life-long thief, Ratima is particularly prone to distraction by way of 'shinies', ie precious metals, coins, jewelry and other such valuable trinkets. Often she envies the material comforts of others, seeking to either take them for herself, build her own, or attempt to gamble for what she wants.

**Pride:** There are a few things in particular that Ra is overtly proud over: her khajiiti heritage, her crew and home, and her crafts. Disrespecting any of these puts one on the fast track to her bad side.

**Hedonism:** Ratima-daro heavily enjoys drinking and partaking in various types of pipe-weed. This tends to make her more talkative if she is in good company. At times it is challenging for her to curb her imbibing, though she is able to if presented with an important task.

## Personality

Ratima-daro is a dryly humored and impatient twenty-seven year old khajiiti merchant, hailing from the Bandaari tribe. She loves money and is usually found being deathly serious with a resting bitch face from hell. She is best described by her contemporaries as an aloof and cold woman that they can't get a reliable read on. She is known as one who has little qualms about stating her opinions, regardless of the sensitivities it may offend.

A notable tidbit about her is that she'll often slip into Ta'agra, the khajiiti language, and that she also has the strong habit of referring to herself in third person. She is tired of answering the question of why and will often let her ornery temperament show if insensitive comments are made about her feline nature. She takes a lot of pride in her heritage, and it should be noted that she is very tired of dealing with both outright racism, and perpetual microaggressions over being khajiiti.

She is rather introverted and cautious, leaning into heavy skepticism and often demanding that people prove themselves beyond a doubt before being able to trust them, sometimes to unreasonable or irrational levels. She is someone who has been betrayed several times before and is deeply disturbed by the idea of being emotionally vulnerable with strangers but especially with men. She will quickly distrust closer associates of problematic people and it is near impossible to earn her trust once this happens.

She is someone who loves slowly, but deeply, and will do anything for the people she has dedicated herself to, but she will only ever give her trust once. Betray it, and you become enemy number one on her shitlist. She has loved and lost before, both in terms of family and romance, though the romantic aspect is something she would be hard pressed to admit to anyone.

Ratima-daro spends at least a few solid hours a day training and keeping in shape, and likes practicing freehanded parkour and other absurd post-olympian level gymnastic feats. She enjoys sitting under the moon and stars at night and meditating for long periods of time, just listening to the world around her. She is one who completely understands the importance of silence and stillness.

She enjoys drinking and can often be found relaxing in a tavern with a sweet honeyed mead, listening in on the interesting secrets that drunks let spill after the booze flows or participating in some gambling be it cards or dice. Ra is typically a busy woman, and therefore values enjoying her time while she’s free. She can be downright playful when in a good mood or tipsy enough, and enjoys flirting with people that actually manage to keep her attention. To her, sex is an activity done to relax and feel good, and she doesn’t tend to attach much romantic importance to it. It is usually easy for her to move on from flings like nothing, often leaving long before her partner is awake.

She is someone who is normally unphased by physical appearance or blacker histories. She is absolutely not a moralist, or a humanitarian. Ra’tima is incredibly direct and efficient: if the path of least resistance and greatest ease includes turning someone into a missing person's case, she has little issue managing it without so much as flinching or any moral waffling. There is nothing sacred or special about death in her eyes, and she does not fear her own demise. There is very, very little that Ra actually regrets.

### Beliefs

Ra is a legendary Nightingale of Prince Nocturnal, and a heavy worshipper of the Khajiiti gods. She is particularly devoted to her spiritual communion with Jone and Jode, the twin moon gods. She takes her luck and the state of her soul very seriously and is meticulously superstitious as a safeguard, as she has experienced great loss before. She has a vast respect for 'kodeshiit'- *shadow-walkers*- and others who walk beneath the moons.

### Relationships

#### Captain Demetri Malius

Captain of her crew and keeper of her heart, Ratima is extremely loyal to Demetri and rather enamored with his humorous charms.