[Jedi Knight]

Name: Sheharazhad
Nicknames: Shehar, Razzy, Razzyhad, Charizard, Sith Lady, Sherry
Occupation: Jedi Knight
Age: 24 (Approx.)
Race: Sheikah
Height: 5'11½"
Eyes: Blue/Gray
Hair: Dark Brown
Likes: Nature; flying; the colors blue and silver; her job; spacecraft;
Dislikes: Several different people; cities; the color pink; getting dressed up; having her name spelled wrong; being embarrassed; stupid questions; small children;
Abilities: Force-sensing and other related capabilities; shape-shifting; healing; dimension-hopping (Sheharazhad would like to note this as a misnomer, as Sith do not 'hop'); telepathy and resistance to poison. She also requires little sleep (only three or four hours a night) and can hold her breath for exactly four minutes and fifty-six seconds. She has excellent reflexes and manual dexterity (not a result of her Force sensitivity) and an incredible sense of balance, which also plays into her ability to 'stick' to any mountainous surface.
Skills: Various styles of armed and unarmed combat, centering around her Jedi/Sith training which resembles Kendo; technologically, musically, and linguistically gifted; healing;
Weapons: While her main weapon is her lightsaber, Sheharazhad has been known to use various and sundry sword and dagger-like weaponry. Overall she prefers light, quick implements like her spear and bow. Due to the versatile nature of her martial education, she's pretty lethal with just about anything that falls into her hands. Is rumored to have successfully neutralized a wanted criminal, herself armed only with a plastic cafeteria spork (or, in some retellings, a foon). A similar incident was later reported, this time involving a ballpoint pen.
Armor: Relying primarily on speed and agility to keep her out of tough situations, Sheharazhad rarely wears any armor besides a magic kind that lives in her skin and may turn the edge of a blade. She does have a shield and plastoid body armor, however.
Strengths: She uses the Force to manipulate her environment, often causing natural phenomena that resemble magic. She wields both sides of the Force and is skilled with a lightsaber. Because of her strange physiology, she is able to hear sounds outside of the normal range and her vision is crazy-good; comparable to a bird of prey's, even. She also has excellent night vision and an acute sense of smell. Sheharazhad is strong, quick, agile, and clever as time.
Weaknesses: Sheharazhad tends to blame herself for anything and everything that happens which upsets her, believing that if she had only tried harder it could have been averted. She has her capabilities pretty much figured out, but nonetheless refuses to believe that she cannot improve. The best way to get her attention is to attack the elect few she calls 'friend.' As far as attacks go, she is especially sensitive to psychic attacks and they tend to do a lot of damage. She lacks the serious firsthand battle experience that some people like a certain 25,000-year-old sorcerer named Wyborn have, and even though she's studied past tricks which succeeded and been in her fair share of skirmishes herself, it is her cleverness which has gotten her out of many a difficulty.
Quotes: "'Jedi do not threaten; we inform.'" · "Nedrach, if you don't stop singing that, I WILL come to Nedrach's. And I promise you I WILL have fun." · "No, I'm not going to use my 'sparkle power.'" · "I'm surrounded by idiots." · "Thank goodness for universal translators. I don't speak idiot." · "That's a quality fountain." · "What, is this some kind of new torture technique where you lock people up and babble at them?" · "I always pictured hell with more flames." · "Are you not impressed by the durability of this wall? I sure am." · "Why don't you go stare at something shiny for awhile." · "Sith are not required to use conventional means when entering a building." · "Don't give me that 'good doggie' nonsense. I'm going to bite your hand off." · "Bite me, the Dark Side can." · "Sith do not 'just want to have fun.'" · "I am the light from which the moon collects its wealth, but if you follow me, I will lead you into darkness." · "Come here so that I may relieve you of the burden of your obviously useless head." · "I will always come to you when you need me... for as long as life lasts." · "I am fluent in over a dozen languages and I can read a book from a block away. So yes, I assure you that I CAN read it."
Personality: Sheharazhad's one of those people who you can't quite seem to figure out, but who seems to have you understood all too easily. From an early age she learned not to show weakness, so she has a tendency to put on her 'tough girl' attitude to keep people at a distance when she feels threatened. Sometimes (often) her comments can seem insensitive, cruel even, but when you get right down to it she's just as clueless as anyone. She is sarcastic most of the time and really very witty, but at other times she can be very sincere and philosophical: she had an excellent education and is very bright.

There are several underlying contradictions in Sheharazhad's personality that she struggles with in the sense of trying to figure out which one is really her. She also subconsciously believes that if she is no longer of use to people they will cease to care about her. One of her most valuable talents is knowing exactly what to say to people in order to get them to do what she wants; she's a great manipulator, but is herself capable of being manipulated, as shown through her interactions with Ragnarok.

Sheharazhad does not necessarily believe in violence, but rather in the value thereof as a tool. She has the ability to see the most direct route from point A to point B at first glance, and to take into consideration the fewest moral distractions en route. It is not that she is callous against life, per se; it has just been her experience that if you go out of your way to avoid violence, it usually comes back twice as bad later. Her morality always returns, however, almost before it has left, and she adds it into the equation after the fact. Her identification with the Jedi cause and principles has caused her to adopt them as her purpose in life and kept her from a menial existence.

She is a realist who nonetheless looks for the opportunity the world holds, with the heart of a philosopher and the soul of a poet. She experiences the world differently than anyone else, through both her shape-shifting ability and her heightened senses. Sheharazhad is also pretty volatile, and will change without warning between sweet and sour, though generally it takes a long time to get her good and mad-- but after she loses patience with someone, it's a short leap from there. Although her cold manner is what reflects, Sheharazhad is a genuinely caring person who desires to be of assistance, although universal popularity is unimportant to her. She looks only to a select few for affirmation, and when she makes a friend, keeps them for life.

Sheharazhad's personality is easier to understand intrinsically than it is to capture on paper, and despite the fact that she is a study in contradiction, after you know her for a while it is possible to predict how she will react in certain situations.
Background: After Darth Maul was killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Naboo, his master, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, took Sheharazhad as his next Padawan learner. He never recorded, or told her, her age or home planet, so anything I say in regards to her age is an approximation. She was very young at the time-- not yet five years old. Thus began the nightmarish eight years of her life during which time he crafted her into a living weapon.

It is unclear what the result of some of Sidious' methods was supposed to be, but her daily regime was a combination of exercise, training, education and psychological molding. Because of Sheharazhad's shape-shifting ability her injuries heal fast and her scarring is minimal; as a result, most of her battle wounds are not corporeal. The reason for the psychological molding is unknown; perhaps it was designed to break her spirit, or perhaps so he could dictate her thoughts and feelings, perhaps so he could tear down the walls and rebuild them how he wished. Perhaps it was just for fun. Whatever the case, Sheharazhad emerged as a haunted and dangerous instrument of the Sith Lord's power. He is the direct cause of many a dark and faraway look.

He taught her to hate him above all else and also to respect him, taking on both roles as the bringer of pain and suffering, but also the bringer of life and purpose. They had a strange relationship: she, hating and fearing him; he, hating and fearing her. It is possible that Darth Sidious, disappointed after his promising former apprentice had failed his first big test, had decided to take his anger out on her. Whatever the case, as she began to grow older she became less fearful and more defiant, seeming to flout all laws of probability. The more pain he dealt her, the more she lashed back. He never did find out how much pain it would take to reverse this rule. She was a match for him, if not in size and strength, in speed and intelligence. Unlike Maul, who had bent to his will and served him as a serf its owner, she seemed to regard him more as an equal who she assisted because she agreed with him, or at least saw the benefit of his plans. This time he had found an apprentice worthy to rise up and strike him down.

The Jedi intervened. Elections for delegates of the Galactic Senate had just recently rolled around and a cleanup effort was in progress on the streets of Coruscant, which the candidates were using to gain popularity. Through a number of undercover spies and inside people, the Jedi managed to track some illegal purchases to a Neimoidian, who in turn directed them to an apartment in the wealthy section of Coruscant. Thing is, it seems they didn't know just how important this apartment-guy was. While they thought he was only a component of one of the numerous criminal organizations operating on Coruscant, he turned out to be Darth Sidious himself. Completely by accident, they stumbled upon their worst enemy. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were dispatched to neutralize the operation and bring in the criminal alive. When they got there, Sheharazhad fought them off, buying Darth Sidious time to escape, but eventually she was captured. The Jedi Council evaluated her and decided they would attempt to turn her from the Dark Side for the obvious reason that they hoped she could provide them with information on the Sith. Then thirteen (approximately), she was apprenticed to Thracia Cho Leem and studied with her for a standard five years.

Despite her eminent prowess and wide range of skills, Sheharazhad is often dispatched on deep cover missions which provide minimal contact with the Temple. It has also prevented her from ascending to the rank of Master, though she took a Padawan learner at one time-- the partnership fell through on the first mission. Her first and perhaps most interesting solo mission involved masquerading as one of Queen Amidala's handmaidens (Eirtaé, to be precise) for a short time because several threats had been made regarding the Queen's safety.

After the Jedi Temple falls, when she is about twenty-seven, Sheharazhad lives with Master Yoda on Dagobah for a short time. Where she goes from there, however, I haven't a clue.

[ September 11, 2004, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Jedi Knight ]