Persona Profile: Shalai (Inactive)

Writer: The Council

Name: Shalai
Age: 48
Birthday: m6 d26
Rank: Weyr Resident
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Job: Hears All Dragons

Awards
Crayon Awards: Favorite New Female Persona (February 2007)

Physical Description of Persona:
Shalai has the look of someone who is simply not quite all there. Her dark hair is long and usually hanging in wild curls down her back. Although she refuses to let anyone cut it, she also hates to have it pulled back, and tends to unbraid her hair no matter how often well-meaning people attempt to tidy her appearance up. Her clothing is mismatched more often than not, and she tends towards long, layered skirts and comfortable oversized tunics.

Huge blue eyes stare out from beneath thick lashes, and might be captivating if it weren't for the fact that they never seem to focus on anything. At least, nothing that is actually there. Even though Shalai has a surprisingly youthful face and figure for her age, no one ever mistakes her for being a young woman. There is an aura of weary sadness about her that weighs her down at all times.

Emotional Description of Persona:
Shalai is a woman on whom life has taken a heavy toll. Though always a bit odd as a child, recent tragedies in her life have driven her quite literally over the edge into madness. Even now, when the healers are starting to wonder if the voices she hears might actually be more than just a figment of her imagination, no one denies that Shalai certainly has more problems than just hearing voices.

In her quiet periods, Shalai can surprise people with sharp observations of things no one thought she was even paying attention to. Unfortunately, her quiet periods are often interrupted periods of extreme anxiety. During these times, Shalai reacts violently to the presence of untrusted strangers and sometimes must be restrained to keep her from hurting those around her.

History of Persona:
Born to quiet isolation, Shalai grew up the eldest of the eleven children that her father had with three successive wives. She got plenty of practice in being a mother to her younger siblings early in life, and was given no other training or education by her father, who believed that women were most easily kept in place by being kept ignorant.

Shalai was married for the first time at barely fifteen, traded to a neighboring cotholder in exchange for several sturdy runners. Her husband was not gentle or caring, but neither was he unusually cruel or harsh. He simply viewed Shalai as the latest addition to his collection of livestock and treated her with the same attention that he gave his favorite mare.

Things might have gone differently if Shalai had been as fruitful in bearing young as her husband's favorite mare, but three turns of marriage resulted in exactly three pregnancies, all ending in miscarriage before the third month. When Shalai failed to get pregnant again over the next three turns, her husband grew impatient and returned her to her family.

Her second husband was an old man with seven sturdy sons of his own who was looking for a pretty young lady to keep him company during the long evenings in his cold mountain cothold. Though their marriage started off well enough, things took a distinct turn for the worse when her eldest step-son returned home from the farmer crafthall. Three turns her senior, Thian fell quickly and passionately in love with his father's young bride.

Their affair was long and increasingly obvious to everyone around them. When her husband finally discovered her indiscretion, he beat his wife within an inch of her life before throwing both of them from the cothold.

Under the tender care of her lover, Shalai recovered quickly. Thian quietly accepted a post as a farmcrafter far from their previous life, posing as newlyweds starting a new life together.

Shalai passed over ten deliriously happy turns with Thian before tragedy struck. The exact details of Thian's death and Shalai's decent into madness are shrouded in mystery in confusion, but two things were known for sure: Thian was dead and Shalai was so insane that she was considered a danger to those around her.

Shalai spent the turns after Thian's death secluded in the special Mindhealer Hall, descending even deeper into madness as the turns passed. It was only recently that someone connected the emergence of Shalai's madness with the return of Thread--and the explosion in the dragon population. Now Shalai has been sent to the Weyr to find out if the voices in her head are perhaps more real than anyone ever suspected.

Family and Friends
Thian, 51, Senior Journeyman Farmer (Step-Son (Dead))
Yanthi, 80, Minor Holder (Husband)
Rizakol, 74, Cotholder (Ex-Husband)
Shanzer, 85, Cotholder (Father)

Approved: October 28th 2006
Last updated: December 22nd 2014

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Persona Profile: Shalai (Inactive)