Messalina Ardais

• a.k.a. "Meza" for short
• Age: 20
• Marital Status: single
• Occupation: Underkeeper at Neskaya
• Former Occupations: spent two years studying studying stellar navigation and propulsion at a Terran university on Alpha.
• Residence: is now returning to Neskaya Tower
• Laran: Ardais gift, Elhalyn gift -- can see and sort through multiple future time lines and can see into the past. She doesn't have sudden flashes of actual future events, but her laran is relative and responds to stimuli -- so if she sees a person or a place, she can percieve relevant past events, and also see what futures may be possible. If the future event is a simple one, under the control of very few factors, she can make a relatively accurate prediction -- if you do this, this will happen, if something else, then -- another thing. But most events are based on far too many factors, so the laran gives her a large number of mere possibilities. Strong telepathy and general laran.
• Politics: Terran -- anti- expansionist. Darkovan -- wants to preserve darkovan cultural ways and matrix science, and to expand possibilities of matrix work.
• Abilities
  • Unarmed Combat: good, Terran trained
  • Armed Combat: unfamiliar with use of darkovan weapons
  • Horseback Riding: good
  • Interpersonal skills: A serious young woman. Very dedicated to her laran studies and experiments and with much the same intense attitude to her terran studies. Appears withdrawn, but becomes animated once she is comforatble with people. When she first left Neskaya and went off world, she had a lot of trouble dealing with people, especially non-telepaths. She had only ever been close to people in her Circle. Now that she has had other experiences, she is more outgoing and confident in unfamiliar situations.
• Appearance: Black hair, very dark eyes, almost black, light skin, tall, strong features and medium build, In good physical shape from terran training, not wispy like a castle-bound girl.
• Romantic relationships: none. She has had some rather confusing interactions among the terrans, due to her sheltered upbringing, and she returns much more wordly than she was, but still remains dedicated to her calling as a keeper.
• Hobbies: 1) writing long boring theses on the use of laran to power and navigate starships. Of course she would never publish these for terrans to see and she doesn't yet know if there's a venue for her ideas on darkover. 2) terran martial arts (although she's only been at it for 2 years.)
• History: She is the daughter of Rian Mikhael Ardais, who is the brother of Fiona and Liriel. Like many of his forebears, Rian Ardais is not a well man, a few kireseth flowers short of a Ghost Wind, etc.... (actually he was what the Terranan would call a paranoid schizophrenic. Add laran and you can see why he got himself into trouble). Her mother Damrys Elhalyn was a nedestro daughter of the Elhalyn family. Damrys died when Meza was 4 and Meza was raised by Damrys' elderly aunt, Theolinda Castamir, a leronis who was living with the family. Until age 4 Meza lived at Ardais with her mother and father. Shortly after her mother's death, her father got into some kind of dynastic struggle over Ardais and came out on the losing end of it, which resulted in his leaving Darkover, and he hasn't been back since. Meza lived on a small estate on Castamir lands with her foster mother Theolinda until she was old enough to be sent to train with Myria at Neskaya. When she was 16 she was made under-Keeper. About 3 years ago she became interested in experimenting with using laran power for space travel. She took a leave from Neskaya to study terran space flight on Alpha. Before she left she was kind of fuzzy about the politcal implications of her pet project. After two years as a Federation citizen, she's more than a little scared by the consequences, but she wants to keep working on the project as long as it can be kept secret from the Terrans.
• Family Trees: Ardais