Name: Akasha Zarene, short Aki
Physical Description:
Akasha is a petite woman, of 5 ft tall with black hair, cropped short in small spikes on her head. She has a mocha colored skin, dark brown tilted eyes and she always wears powders and coal to change her true appearance. Akasha never shows herself without her powders and can change her appearance to fit the occasion by using wigs, make up and clothes she makes herself. In her ears she wears large golden hoops, one on each side and she wears a row of small golden pins in her right ear. She is dressed in black, a blouse with a low neckline and a skirt that hugs her legs, ending in high black leather riding boots. Akasha is considered gifted in the art of changing someone's appearance to make them unrecognizable. Few people know how to recognize Akasha by the birthmark on the back of her head, just above her left ear, which is shaped like a small star. She wears a blood red hilted silver marriage dagger around her neck, which signifies that she has buried one husband. And two silver daggers on her hip, which she uses as a weapon, though she is not trained in using them.
Place of Birth/Raising: Aki is born in Ebou Dar, Altara.
Character History:
Akasha was born as the only child of an older woman who worked as a seamstress in Ebou Dar. The woman's husband was cheating on his wife with her and had left their short relationship before Aki was born. The man was named Akiron and Aki was named after him. She grew up in the work place of her mother who had four apprentices she considered her daughters. Aki learned the trade and soon discovered she had a talent of creating clothes that could change a person's appearance. Make them look slender, which was something the women in Ebou Dar loved. Or make them look rich, while not even making use of expensive fabrics. She knew what women liked and how to please the customers, this worried her mother who went to look for a husband for Aki when she turned fourteen. Akasha was not to be left alone like her mother and married soon after with a man three times her age. The man her mother had met during a meeting of darkfriends in Ebou Dar, thus her mother knew that her daughter's secret would be kept. This secret of course is just in her mother's imagination, her daughter is just shy around other people.
Although Akasha did not love the man, she listened to her mother and married the man, Oberon Zarene. He did not treat her well and was often gone for days, leaving her alone in a small house that she had to keep clean. As her days were long and the small house was cleaned quite fast, Akasha studied her art as she called it, of seaming. She studied women's clothes and tried to find ways to change her own appearance by using color and fabric. With time she expanded her knowledge to wigs, made of horse's hair, which she could dye with natural products. Her mother had taught her about the use of herbs, and Akasha was glad for it.
One night, her husband returned with a large wound in his leg, Akasha by now nineteen years old asked him how he had gotten it. After he had pushed her off, she had told him she would tend to the wound. He was delirious from a fever and she put him to bed and stayed with him all night to care for him. Halfway through the night he screamed a woman's name and then dropped back in the pillow. Aki asked him in his dream state who this woman was and half asleep and half in delirium he confessed to having a mistresses on the side. Her husband had found out and had hurt him in the leg. Aki was angry and left the house, she went to stay with her mother who forced her to go back to her husband. This caused for a gap between the two women and for a strain on Akasha's marriage. Her husband survived the wound and walked with a limp from that point on. As her husband had sworn his Oaths as a young man, he felt his wife should officially swear in Shayol Ghul as well.
Together they went to Shayol Ghul to take the Oaths of a darkfriend and Aki met with Carmen Macaria there, in the Fortress. The woman took pity on Akasha after her husband tried to flirt with there dreadlady. Carmen asked Aki if she was willing to work for her, she would have to give up the man she called her husband. Aki had no doubt in her mind when she agreed to working for Carmen. The man was sent off to Ebou Dar and it was rumored that he never did arrive home from his trip into the Blight. Carmen took Akasha to her bed a few times and taught her about the art of using one's body to get what you need. Akasha became trained as a personal servant to Carmen but the dreadlady found Aki more valuable as a seamstress and as a trusted personal servant than as someone who could gain information for her from men. That and Carmen liked to spend her time with men, while Aki often felt disgusted when she had to give herself to someone. She still felt she was the wife of Oberon Zarene, even though in her heart she knew he had died.
One morning, Carmen came to her room with a marriage dagger that had a blood red hilt on it, she gave it to Akasha and said, "This is for the end of your marriage," and Aki put it around her neck instead of the one her mother had given her for her wedding. Akasha started to work for Carmen in gaining information in inns and in local stores where she would act as a tradeswoman, selling her fabrics and clothes. By now, Aki often wore a deep red scarf around her head, covering the short cropped black hair and thus changing her appearance from whom she had been before. By the time Akasha was done training with Carmen, the woman had spent time in many different countries and in different cities. She had perfected her skill with fabric and cloth and made Carmen's dresses for her. She was happy with this life and is considered a close friend to Carmen Macaria. At the time of her appearing in RP she is 26 years old.