Boomtown Profile

[dunequixote]

Player's Name: Kristi
Are you over 16? Yes
Characters Played Here: Snape, Jane, Loch Carnan

Character: Sadira
Series/Canon: Once Upon a Time and Disney's Aladdin (AU/OC)
From When? Post-Storybrooke Curse; non-compliant with Aladdin canon.
Previous Game(s): None

History:

Sadira doesn't remember her parents. She remembers living on the streets of Agrabah, thieving to survive, just one of any number of rats in the maze of sandstone buildings. There was nothing special about her, little urchin with a grubby face and unbrushed hair, save that she was quick, agile, and dexterous. She had no skills but evasion, no talents but stealing.

It was while evading the palace guards that she stumbled upon the lair of the remaining Witches of the Sand. She was only seven, small and quick, with the thin, bony limbs of a child who ate too little and ran too much, and when she fell into their cavern from the shack above, she was lucky it was full of sand or she would have dashed herself to pieces. They found her, three old women, still tall and strong for all that they must have been ancient. Their faces were weathered, tanned like old hides and lined with years, their eyes still bright and alert, and their hands - their hands! Their hands were rough and gnarled and strong as a man's.

She had thought the witches were a legend: a great, Amazonian clan of women who could draw magic from the sand that surrounded them. Sadira had heard the stories told to other children as she crouched outside their houses at night, as their mothers and grandmothers tucked them in to their beds and warned of the Unkhbut and great Fatima, leader of the Witches of the Sand, who would steal little girls and boys away if they were very disobedient and didn't go to sleep.

They didn't kill her. Razili, Farida, and Shakata studied her, conversing amongst themselves in a language that was older than the one she heard shouted each day in the market. The sand at their feet seemed to shift with their moods, spiking with anger or rippling beautifully when they were serene. There was something enchanting about it all, something that drew her to them.

She wandered the room while they argued and found that they didn't seem to mind. After all, there was no door, no way for her to leave; she was their prisoner, and only a child. However, after a few minutes of tentative but fearless exploration, she realized they had fallen silent: they were watching her, waiting to see what she would do.

In the end, they decided to keep her. Once, the witches of the sand had numbered in the thousands and ruled the Seven Deserts; they were a matriarchal coven, and most of them in their lives had eschewed the company of men. Their numbers had dwindled, however, and now there were only three. They needed her.

They raised her themselves, this threesome who could manipulate sand with a wave of their hands. They weren't loving to her, but they weren't cruel; they had their own motivations, their own drives and desires. From as far back as she can remember, they taught her their magic. Magic laces her better memories: a palace of colored sand and glass, higher than her head, gleaming in the torchlight. Animals that slithered and crawled and pranced in and out of shadows. Massive, silent golems that did the bidding of her guardians. Golems that cared for her in ways her guardians couldn't.

She learned, and she learned well. She was free to come and go as she pleased, first through the long tunnels that they revealed to her, hidden by sliding stone doors, which connected their underground lair to the marketplace above. Then, she traveled with magic, melting and reforming, dripping sand from every pore and feeling cleaner for it. She stole still simply because she could, because magic made it easier to collect little treasures and horde them or give them away to other unfortunate street rats; she darted from corner to corner like a mouse, or from clothesline to clothesline like a bird. She learned to lie and cheat and leap about the rooftops of the city; for all that the other witches were tall and strong, for all that she had enough to eat, she remained small and slight, a wisp of a girl.

They steered her away from friendships and forbade her from talking to boys: boys were the downfall of women, they warned. Though she had run of the streets, she could always feel their eyes on her, and so she kept to herself.

However, there was a time between childhood and womanhood that was rank with loneliness, when her coltish limbs were too long, too knobby, and she slouched too much in clothes that were too big and too small all at once. She thought she was fifteen, maybe younger, maybe older, but wasn't sure. It was in this in-between place, on a hot, bright day in the marketplace that was foul with the smell of fish and flowers - how much everything smelled when there was no breeze to make the air less stagnant! - that she saw him.

He was hardly older than herself, but his clothes fit well. He didn't look healthy; she admitted that from the start, but his limbs were long, and unlike hers, they fit him. Tired or sick, she thought he carried himself like a king - which was no good in the kingdom of street rats. He stood out. Sadira followed him. She had to know him.

Eventually, she learned his name. She learned that she wanted him to want to know everything about her. She learned what it was like to wander the streets and hope today she would bump into him. Despite her efforts to care for him, every night he found a new place to sleep as though fearful he would be found. She always found him; he was terrible at hiding. He was her secret, her pet, her friend - her first love.

Eventually, she confessed - bragged - to him that she was a witch of the sand, hoping to earn his affection. It worked, or so it seemed. He was kind to her: the first person who ever had truly been so. She thought he thought she was pretty, and the vanity of a teenaged girl is nothing to trifle with. Step by step, he led her along, straight to her own misery.

As coincidence would have it, it was not long after she met Mozenrath that her guardians began to plan a coup of the city. They wanted to restore their kind to their past glory: there would be other children, other women like herself who would learn to wield the very power that had so enchanted her. It made her nervous, a sentiment which she in turn expressed to her new friend.

Mozenrath took his chance. He told her the witches were dangerous; they would kill him one day, and her for consorting with him, and so she must protect herself. It took convincing, but not much. Not enough to justify stealing their sources of power - an amulet and a skull-topped staff - and turning their own golems on them. She didn't kill them; what she did was far worse. Sadira used the staff to open a portal to the Realm of Mists and trapped them inside, then snapped the staff in two, destroying any hope of ever retrieving them.

When she returned to him, there was someone else: another man who ripped the amulet right off her neck and commended his student on a job well-done. She'd been played, and it nearly cost her her life: Destane ordered Mozenrath to kill her, and he, in turn, left her for dead.

A single golem remained of the lot; mostly mindless in its servitude, it nursed her back to health. However, all the bandages and salves couldn't mend a broken heart, and certainly it couldn't ease the sting of humiliation she felt each time she thought of how she had been manipulated.

Eventually, she tracked Mozenrath to the Land of the Black Sand. It was a place of dead sand where her magic was useless, and so she used the other skills she possessed: the ability to sneak, to steal, to appear and disappear without magic. The Forty Thieves would have welcomed her, if she ever cared to risk her life for entry into their guild. For all that, she might as well have walked straight through the front door of his palace. No one was there; it was abandoned, and Destane's body lay decaying on the floor. Satisfied that Mozenrath, too, was gone (and good riddance), she collected her amulet and anything else she could carry - and fled.

From that day on, her life's sole focus was the search for others like herself, and for ways to undo the crime she had committed, thus freeing her guardians from the Realm of Mists. Hopefully, she thought, she would be able to find another witch like herself and with them, restore her kind to their rightful place.

She followed old maps to a place far in the desert, where a stronghold had been constructed long ago when the Witches of the Sand were more than three old women and a child. At the center of the stronghold was a tower, from the top of which she could see three cities along the horizon. Stored on dusty shelves were all the scrolls she could possibly want to study - and it would take her a lifetime or more. She made this her home, always returning to it after her long travels.

She kept to herself, spending more and more time talking to her golem; she supposed she was behaving a little oddly, but she was lonely, and her distrust of outsiders was so great that she was unwilling to welcome them into her life. What other people knew of her was exactly what she wanted them to know, and no more: it was how she protected herself. She relied on the golem's presence to keep herself somewhat sane, and over time, she came to wonder if maybe it was sentient. Maybe, though, that was just wishful thinking on her part.

As the years went by, she collected the odd magical artifact: it was better that these things were in her possession, of course, but always, she hoped that the next prize she claimed would be the one thing she needed to re-open the portal, or to mend her broken staff. If people had to die so she could take their little trinkets into her care, well, that was the price of protection. It was all for the greater good. When she was through, the Witches of the Sand would rule over the Seven Deserts again.

One trick she learned over time was to jump from world to world; it started with a little spell that opened up a portal into the realm of her fantasy. Turns out, that realm was the Enchanted Forest: a place of princes and princesses and dragons, and more sorcery than she could possibly collect in a lifetime. From there, she could access other places, other times, other sources of magic. She was careful, though; one false move could trap her in a world that wasn't her own. Through all of her travels this way, however, she never learned how to gain entry to the Realm of Mists.

Although she is an AU/OC from the OUAT universe, she has had little to no contact with canon characters save without permission from the players of those characters.

Note: The name I selected for the Witches of the Sand is "Vardat Lilitu", based on the Akkadian term for maiden demons associated with witchcraft. Sadira refers to herself as a lilitu; she may refer to a younger witch or apprentice as "hubaybaatu raml" (حبيبات الرمل), the Arabic diminutive term for a grain of sand. "Witches of the Sand" or "Sand Witches" is what they are called by outsiders, and it's unlikely they would use it as their title.


Personality:

Sadira is an unconventional villainess by Hollywood standards (as are most OUAT villains); though there is a piece of her backstory that deals with her being betrayed by a man, the main motivation for her crimes is a mistake she chose to make when she was young and now wants to rectify. Her disregard for human life is not something chosen for the greater good, but rather a learned behavior from the Witches of the Sand; she doesn't view it as evil to kill. Unfortunate, maybe, and regrettable, but not evil.

Sadira isn't the sort of person who befriends others easily; she's a user, someone who believes she has to manipulate people to get what she wants, and that nothing can be given of herself or it will be destroyed. Then, too, she simply doesn't share herself with other people because those other people aren't her own kind. Her life experiences have led her to become socially cautious. Everyone around her poses a threat simply because she has no idea what their true motivations might be.

Mozenrath's betrayal did have one large effect on her: she’s paranoid about men, and she doesn’t trust them in the slightest. Her one experience with romance burned her so badly that she treats all other potential suitors like dangerous animals. She has learned that sex is a weapon, another tool for manipulation, and in some cases, the ultimate currency. When she does have sex, it's for personal gain. She has been far too distrustful to let herself be emotionally vulnerable for a man, and has never had any close friends who could tell her that sometimes, love hurts, but it's worth it.

Arguably, most times love doesn't leave you for dead, of course - and she did love him. She won't admit it save under duress, but she was mad about him; she would have done anything for him, and that was her downfall. It's understandable that she feels so negatively about the ideals of romance.

Sadira's education is a little lacking in some areas, but she had her books and so she has bits and pieces of expertise that seem to have no place with her studies of sorcery. She can occasionally banter if she’s in complete control of the situation and feeling comfortable, and though she can pretty capably wield sarcasm, there are instances where she will fall back on temper tantrums, threats, and shouting. Once, she was streetwise, but now it manifests in an ability to maneuver people. She's very well-versed in her breed of magic; like the witches who raised her, sand at her feet reacts to her moods and curls into forms at the wave of a hand.

She’s a manipulative woman; she knows how to lie and lie well, and will use any angle at her disposal to protect herself, or to make someone do exactly what she wants. She has no problems with using magic to control or alter the memories of others, and similarly, she has no issues with theft, and kills indiscriminately if it means gaining access to some new form of magic or a macguffin she happens to decide she needs. She’s a good thief; she’s an ever better murderess.

Because she views people as potential enemies or potential victims, she hasn't had many close friends; this has made for a lonely life for her. Sadira distances herself from real relationships simply because all she ever knew as a child were Mozenrath, the golems, and the witches who raised her. Mozenrath betrayed her and the witches are gone, and of her army of servants, only a single golem remains. In the Seven Deserts she has no one; all her interactions with others are superficial, and never result in close friendships. She talks to her golem the way she would talk to a pet, expecting no answer but taking comfort in its presence. The golem, which she named “Asaan”, is a construct of sand and magic, with no self-awareness; to treat it like a friend as Sadira does is extremely odd behavior - like talking to a car. She's a little too attached to it for the relationship to be entirely healthy, but there's nothing questionable going on: she has simply been very alone for a very long time, and it has left her a little touched. She believes Asaan may have some self-awareness, and, though the normal shelf life of a golem is a few months, she has kept this one for fifteen years. Losing it would devastate her.

If she doesn't talk to the golem, she monologues to herself.

Infrequent though her encounters with him may be, Mozenrath can reduce her to an immature, flustered state. While around most people, she presents herself as being reserved and displays admirable traits like cunning and subtlety, around him she devolves into a boasting, petulant child. She is immensely frustrated by him because she knows he's smarter than she is, and probably much more powerful, as well. That said, there's still a level of attraction there that she can't quite reconcile with all the things he did; it makes her feel guilty and disgusted with herself, and that, in turn, contributes further to the tendency to behave like a mercurial teenager. For all that, she hates him; Sadira has spent years thinking about the things he did, and how she lost her only family because of his machinations. She fantasizes nightly about various forms of revenge; exacting that revenge on him would make her extremely happy.

On the aforementioned vein, Sadira has a melodramatic streak and can occasionally sink into a lengthy, self-pitying malaise, often lamenting her loneliness, her lot in life, how horrible Mozenrath is and was, and how no one will ever love her. She usually pulls through after a day or two and goes right back to her old self, but it can be worrying from an outside perspective, and it is virtually impossible to drag her out of it. Efforts to cheer her up result in more Woe Is Me dialogue and the occasional tantrum.

For all that she keeps other people at arm’s length, she doesn’t like being alone, and has some pretty strong abandonment issues. If she ever does befriend someone, she could potentially become clingy and somewhat troublesome, expecting that her new friend will be willing to take on the same role as her golem - and heaven help them if they don’t agree with her opinions, give her their full attention, and make themselves available at all hours of the day and night.

She does have an altruistic streak, particularly when it comes to young girls from unfortunate circumstances. She isn’t unnecessarily unkind to people, despite her willingness to commit crimes to get what she wants. It’s all very simple: she likes when people like her and hates when they hate her.

Her main fixation is finding some way to undo the damage she did fifteen years ago and bring her fellow witches back from the Realm of Mists. She has a lot of guilt attached to this, and it has driven her ceaselessly to seek a way to make amends. She lets nothing stand in her path, but is beginning to think that time may be running out, if it hasn't already, and with that comes a loss of hope that she'll ever succeed. Once she decides that there’s no pulling them back from the Realm of Mists, she’ll begin searching for young women to apprentice to perpetuate her magic.

Sadira won't remember her previous times in Boomtown.


Differences from Canon:

Sadira differs from her canon self in that she is much older and more tempered. In the TV series, she is simply very lonely and makes bad decisions that are motivated and influenced by her youth and hormones. She's otherwise a functioning, normal teenager. In this AU incarnation, I've simply aged her up, developing those personality traits that presented in her teenager years into what they would become in later life. The only major difference in her personality is her extreme distrust of people.

As far as her history, it's entirely different; this Sadira has never met Aladdin or Princess Jasmine. The attraction she felt for Aladdin is instead directed towards Mozenrath, whom she did not know in the TV series. Aladdin never tried to kill her; he did lead her on a little, but certainly not to Mozenrath's extreme.

Also in the series, the witches were long gone when she found their cave, and she trained herself to use their magic; I felt that was a little unrealistic for OUAT's setting and brought them back to adopt her and apprentice her. They did return in her final episode in the series, and she did shove them down a pit into the Realm of Mists and snap their Doom Staff in two because they were planning to take over Agrabah. That has remained the same in this version.

The golem is a character in her first episode, though Sadira destroyed the amulet that controlled it when it decided to stop listening to her. It had a horrible cockney accent. I made it mute, non-sentient, and completely in her control, as it would have been if she had been properly trained.

I think that's about it.

Does your character have any close ties to existing canon characters?

After briefly discussing it with Karra, we decided Jefferson and Sadira probably know each other. She may have known Rumpelstiltskin, but it's unlikely she would have had any dealings with him.

Sadira was not involved in the Storybrooke Curse.


Why do you think your character would work in this setting?

Sadira would want to come because there's so much magic there already - and she would have asked Eli specifically about that before agreeing. I think she would work because she did previously; I just needed to retouch her profile to make her mesh a bit better with characters in the game.


What will your character do for work?

She'll start a glassblowing shop called The Glass Menagerie.


Inventory:

- Clothes and shoes of varying style and dress inside a wardrobe trunk.
- A large, red amulet worn about her neck.
- Money.
- A broken Doom Staff.
- Sand. Lots and lots of sand, packed into bags and trunks.
- A metric shitton of magical artifacts*, tools (candles, stones, incense, torches, athames, etc), and scrolls inside of yet another trunk. All of the above will be carried by...
- A golem. This will be more of a pet than anything else: though it might look quite human, it's made of sand and has no free will or life. It can't speak.

*I'll list the magical artifacts as I need them, and run them by the players whose characters work in C&P to see if they might have been confiscated.

Samples:

Third-Person Sample:

[Sample is not compliant with her history. It was written before her history was completed.]

Eight years is a long time. From the other side of that divide, memories seem both so near they might have happened yesterday, and so distant, as though they belong to someone else. When eight years are full up of adventures, what came before seems like a lifetime ago. The memory of a stolen ladle plays like a movie, observed rather than experienced. It might have happened to a stranger.

He might have happened to a stranger. If the physical sensations of the first time weren't burned into her skin, he might have. If she didn't still wake every now and then long after the lamps have gone out and the moon has set, feeling as though someone has reached for her in the dark, and is so near she could find them if only she could bring herself to reach back. If she didn't bear the evidence of her youthful transgression, and if men didn't care about the impurity to which they wished to contribute, as though being the first to ruin a woman is somehow more of an honor than being the last. (But being the first choice and then forgotten is always better than being the one chosen now and for the future, isn't it?

She believed that once.)

What the mind distances from itself, the body remembers.

Being here does nothing to solidify any sense of belonging to or possession of her memories of the place. Some things are startlingly familiar, as though even time itself can't change them. Others, though - others are new, standing out starkly like new details painted on an old canvas by an unfamiliar hand. And in some ways, it isn't the city that has changed: it's her.

As she follows the main avenue of the marketplace, she pulls her hood higher, letting the cloth cast a shadow over her eyes; it's an act of comfort rather than a desire for anonymity. No one in the crowd remembers the dirty little urchin who ran barefoot through the marketplace. No one remembers the all too brief battle of forgotten witches; there's so much magic in Agrabah, she was and is just one speck of sand in a storm. Magic and poverty are the burdens these people bear each day, and one more urchin - or sorceress - means nothing. No one cares where the spell comes from; they care that their livelihoods aren't destroyed by it.

She can be as anonymous as she chooses.

For now.

First-Person Sample:

Sadira and Mozenrath on Dear_Mun