Zephyaluu

Information

Player: c0rzilla

Character Full Name: Zephyaluu of the Hand

Character In-Game Name: Zephyaluu

Nickname(s): N/A

Association(s): The Exodar, Hand of Argus

Race: Draenei

Class: Paladin

Skills and Abilities: Zephyaluu specializes in the guardian aspect of wielding the Light.

Age: 10,450

Sex: Female

Hair: White, barely to her shoulders, and feathered around her face.

Eyes: Typical pale draenei glow.

Weight: 175 lbs

Height: 7'2"

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Her set of plate-mail has lasted her over the centuries, by now not unlike a second set of skin. Pale golden in hue, set with the crystal embellishments of her people. Despite its ornamentation, it bears many a scar. One arm bears a shield, just as old and faithful, the other a flanged mace, bronzed in color, etched with draenic and naaru symbols near its center. A simple face guard protects her skull.

Other: Her horns stick out horizontally, though one is jaggedly broken. The edges have been smoothed over time.

Personality

Alignment: Lawful Good

As befits her age and station, Zephyaluu is patient and honorable. Her training as a Vindicator of the Hand has molded her into a guardian, rather than a seeker of retribution. Her relationship with the naaru is the reverence a new monk holds for a revered elder. Times a few hundred. Worship, certainly, isn't the correct term. She also does not quite worship the Light. Its values are to be upheld, but she views it as something to attain from within rather than praise and be rewarded; the Gift of the Naaru aside. Her race's long history as arcanists also plays a part in the concept of worship being somewhat foreign. As well, the only god she had witnessed in her life (up until the Elune of the kaldorei) is Sargeras. And that is a being decidedly not worthy of reverence.

Her race's constant flight from planet to planet has ingrained in her a hesitancy to form solid, lasting relationships with races not her own. She does not dislike, or distrust them, so much as their impermanence. A growing exception to this is the night elves, as they too have tasted eternity, though that has been taken from them for the time being. The betrayal of the orcs also contributes to this hesitancy. Though the orcs were the only (recorded) race to betray them so, the results were beyond brutal, and she is not yet willing to risk it again, especially with them being present on Azeroth as well.

Her lighter side? She enjoys board games of strategy, though simpler, sillier games are enjoyed with the youth. She enjoys clothing and ornamentation with moth-styled details. Spicy foods are her favorite, even if they make her nose run.

History

Vindicator Zephyaluu was born and grew on the Oshu'gun during the long journey between the exodus off Argus and the arrival upon Draenor. Both her parents were arcanists in the tradition of Argus, the memory of its destruction still fresh in their minds. As such, they passed those memories onto Zephyaluu, alongside what traditions of their home planet they held.

One thing her parents did not pass on were their arcane skills. Though raised by the old, Zephyaluu was a child of the new generation; a true Draenei. Her childhood games were strategic board games with her father, followed by sessions of hunt-the-imp with other children, then being chastised by her mother for how disrespectful a game was to their history; the Legion was not a game, but a very real threat. But, such threats are best processed in the safe games of a child, so Zephyaluu was never harshly punished. Just made to study more traditions and manners.

Another favored game of hers was shadowing the fairly new ranks of the Vindicators and Anchorites—new compared to the ranks of the arcanists, anyway. Eventually, this shadowing bore fruit as she absorbed their techniques and values from her watching and mimicking when she hunted imps in the Oshu'gun's crystal halls.

As years passed, childish things had to be put away. The weight of a training cudgel replaced the rolled cloth she smote her enemies with before. A basic buckler was slipped onto her arm, in place of the bangles that tinkled when she clopped and ran. With her parents' blessing, she joined the ranks of the Vindicators, learning about the Light, the antithesis of the Legion they fled. There was much training, much routine, very few ways to exercise these gifts on the enclosed Naaru ship. Unable to let these gifts languish and stagnate, Zephyaluu would eventually join the lower ranks of the Hand of Argus.

The decades and centuries shot by like the stars in the Great Dark Beyond. Infrequently, the Oshu'gun would rest upon an untouched planet, and Zephyaluu would aid in the establishment of settlements thereon. Then the Legion would come, absorb new species, and take a few more of the draenei in death. The seed of guilt was planted, Zephyaluu never entirely sure that the draenei didn't lead the Legion to these worlds. This constant cycle of work and duty would see her slowly rise in rank and duty in the Hand.

Then, Draenor. Her people felt so certain about this world, that they even named it after themselves. As before, Zephyaluu aided in establishment settlements upon their first steps out of Oshu'gun into Nagrand, by now a respected member, able to oversee matters. She did not like the orcs, and their constant glory in fighting. So, once the draenei had erected Karabor, she settled herself amongst its terraces. The name of the land their great temple was erected in made the hairs on the back of her neck shiver—Shadowmoon. Perhaps, she thought, Velen was attempting some irony in establishing their bastion of Light here. A counterpoint to the orcs' most revered spiritual clan.

Life here, despite the untamed plains beyond, was the fairest it had been in centuries. Zephyaluu focused on her duties as a member of the Hand, eschewing the companionship of a mate. Celibacy wasn't necessary, or a vow—she just did not believe herself to have time or the drive for children. The most enchanting part of this world, to her, were the moths. Delicate little fluttery things unlike anything she had seen on other planets.

Then, too soon, this world that was almost home fell apart around them. She was not entirely surprised that Shadowmoon fell first, though she was horribly awed by the depths and speed. Her shield met the sword of the orcs, her mace cracking skulls while civilians fled to Shattrath as the Temple of Light was swallowed by darkness. One orc's axe caught her horn, cleaving it in half. Shattrath came next, Zephyaluu bitterly humbled by the sacrifice of so many civilians so that an essential number could flee to Telredor and the blue marshes. The Vindicator was again amazed that they hid for so long, and so well. The arrival of the Broken with their shamanism was met with bitter distrust. Shamanism had been a tool of the orcs. Had her brothers and sisters been so corrupted by the Red Mist, that they thought themselves orcs now? Slowly, she let her guard slip down as she watched Velen's approval. Perhaps the draenei could uphold nature where the orcs had cast it aside in favor of fel.

Word eventually arrived of new beings coming into Outland. Pink-skinned beings, tall and short, some with long pointed ears. A small number of what remained of her people met with these new warriors, though Zephyaluu remained in Zangarmarsh. The taste of blood from the orcs' betrayal was still too bitter on her tongue to allow her to rush off to new allies.

The naaru would again provide salvation in the form of Tempest Keep, and Zephyaluu would encounter yet another race from seemingly nowhere. An infestation of ruddy skinned long-ears with fel-green eyes. New agents of the Legion, by their lack of mutation, they were quick to ransack the Keep while the naaru spread the message of its presence to the draenei. Zephyaluu, as her duty bade her, acted as a guardian. The satellite the draenei were able to hold, the Exodar, possessed a number of cryogenic pods. Pods able to keep a body secure in case of an imminent crash—like the one they were experiencing right now, hurtling through dimensions to a little blue ball. She ushered in as many of her people as she could, adamantly refusing to hide in one herself. After slamming pod doors shut one by one, she ran back to the fight. Her mace met the rib-cage of a demon-eyed elf, and then...the Exodar spun in a way it shouldn't, and she floated for a brief time, gravity shunned. She watched the blood of the elf she just slew bead in the air. Then a cacophony of screeching, chiming alarms, her body thrown to the ground and rolling. She didn't know to be thankful for her shortened horn, that it did not catch on anything to break her neck as she was plummeted into unconsciousness.

Then she was awake again, the Gift of a stranger healing her enough so that blurry foggy consciousness returned. They ran off before she could properly question, tending to others strewn about the small, enclosed valley. Heaving herself up, she was amazed to find her shield (heavily bent) and mace nearby. Grabbing both like two security blankets, she spun. Spotting the draenei wreckage, and staggered over that way.

Such were her first steps on Azeroth. She would aid her people here as she had before. Time would be spent on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst against the sin'dorei. She discovered the long-eared purple people were called kaldorei, and their plight—orcs. Once some order was brought back to the Hand of Argus, Zephyaluu boarded a ship to Teldrassil, then Darkshore, then traveled to Ashenvale. The entire journey ran over a number of months as she adjusted, learned, and began to overcome her grief.

Eventually, she was stationed in a settlement named Nightsong. An effort to establish a draenei and kaldorei base and town, close to the Warsong camp. She would remain here and in Ashenvale's forests, her farthest journeys back to the Exodar. Her resolution and duty hardened further by the Cataclysm.