Hearth and Home
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OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To finally flesh out the most important piece of Mordecai's character and backstory: his wife.
- Image Credit: Halani Lavellan by AnnaHelme
- Role: The One and Only™ wife of Mordecai Zambrano.
- Links: To be added later.
- Age: Middle-aged, although slightly younger than Mordecai.
- Force Sensitivity: Non-Force User
- Species: Arkanian-Human Offshoot
- Appearance: Carly Zambrano is, in Mordecai's opinion, the epitome of all things beautiful. Silky, platinum blonde hair crests her lithe and athletic figure. Deep blue, compassionate eyes full of sympathy and understanding. Upon her fair and freckled face are several white tribal tattoos, that tell of a life before she met her husband. A cute button nose and pointed ears laced with piercings only serve to further enhance her exotic look. Carly can often be found wearing traditional garb, to include robes and jewelry, of the Arkanian people although has been known to wear much more modern clothes at work. She appears much younger than she actually is, although she swears up and down that the youthfulness of her husband and pet dragon keep her that way - modern medicine too.
- Name: Carly Zambrano [Formerly: Carly Crete]
- Loyalties: Mordecai Zambrano
- Wealth: Carly is fairly wealthy personally. Her profession as a nurse, especially one in service of the Empire, earns her a respectable salary. This doesn't include the inheritance and earnings of being married to a member of the Royal family. Simply put, she is very well-off and comfortable.
- Notable Possessions: Mordecai's heart. Wedding band, keys to the house and the speeder. A pair of secret bodyguard droids that her husband bought for her.
- Skills: Carly is a healer by trade. Between delves into the more exotic and "witch-doctor" medicine and studies at the Medical School of Adascopolis, she has become very skilled at her work over the years. Kind and compassionate, she has an unyielding sense of pride and duty in her craft and works tirelessly to ease the pain and research cures for her patients. Aside from that, she enjoys gardening and herbalism as a hobby, and has picked up animal husbandry as well. She takes care of Rhaegos very well.
- Personality: Amiable, friendly, and endlessly cheerful. It's a rare day to see Carly down in the dumps, and she's usually caught a bug from a patient when that happens. She is a rare breed of her kind, tossing aside the arrogance typically displayed by Arkanians to instead show humility and sympathy for all forms of life in the galaxy. To some, her constant joy can be unnerving, but her husband appreciates it so. An astounding listener, independent in her own right, and even downright stubborn sometimes. She is not one to back down from a heated debate, though she is perceptive enough to understand multiple perspectives and formulate her own opinions. Super cuddly and fond of physical affection; she likes hugging Sith Lords and Imperial Troopers on a daily basis.
COMBAT INFORMATION
- Weapon of Choice: None.
- Combat Function: Carly has absolutely zero function as a combatant in any scenario. While she is not a pacifist and won't stray from a fight to save someone she cares for, her skills are exactly what one would expect when fighting a civilian. Instead, she relies upon her two MagnaGuards that Mordecai bought her to safeguard her home and private property. Despite her reassurances, her husband believed her safety was of utmost importance in a time of war and has ordered both of the bots to stay with her at all times. Carly usually kicks them out of work and makes them wait in the airspeeder, much to her husband's dismay. At home, they can be found being ordered around by their mistress to take care of household chores or simply watching over their home at night.
Strengths:
- [+] Super Cute: I mean, Mordecai sure thinks so.
- [+] Healer: Her life's goal has been to serve the weak and the needy. Ever passionate, teachings from across the galaxy fill her repertoire. From herbalist and tribal methods to state-of-the-art laboratory functions, Carly can and will find a way to heal someone. She has treated a multitude of wounds and ailments, to include that of ones sustained on the battlefield. Her service with the Imperial Medical Corps has seen her grow into an expert in critical care and trauma procedures.
- [-] Non-Combatant: Carly possesses exactly zero combat function anywhere she goes. She is a healer first and foremost, only placing herself in harm's way when a loved one's well-being is at stake.
- [-] Infertile: Her infertility is the bane of her existence. Despite their attempts, Carly is unable to bear children. Earlier in their marriage, this was the biggest cause of grief in their lives and still is to this day. Her deepest desire is to finally have a full family, children included, and to raise them in peace with her husband.
Being born an offshoot on Arkania is practically a death sentence. Many of them were bred for hard labor, to toil away in the frigid mines of the tundra world. However, as fate decided, Carly Crete was born and bred to be used for other purposes. On a world fabled for its academic prowess and advances in mathematics, sciences, and medicine, she became a tool for the latter. Fated to be an assistant to great medical minds on the world, she would never have her own practice of her own.
She'd never be nothing more than an assistant. A side character in another's story. She was too young to understand her place in life at the time, but the cogs kept turning until it all finally clicked. So, the young Carly dutifully and cheerfully carried out her duties. After all, that was what she was created for! Why not be the best at it, why not study and reap the benefits of specifically bred to do something? It was heaps better than being created to pick away in the diamond mines below, and she strove to master her craft lest she forget those that obtained worse fates.
For the majority of her youth, she spent her days in peace and comfort. Various medical schools, other academic trials and tribulations, and all of the social callings that came with it. Lo and behold, her skill and dedication soon came to rival that of full-blooded Arkanians. Her colleagues were typically split in their opinions of her: the ever gleeful hard-worker, and the absolutely disgusting sub-Arkanian piece of garbage.
She smiled through it all. Even as the tears came.
Over the course of her young adult life, she was called and whisked away to various planets across the galaxy. Many of them calls for aid - humanitarian assistance sorts of gigs. The most memorable of which was their rotation to Felucia, to ferry down planetside and perform routine in-patient care for desperate colonists there. The humid jungle world was rife with disease and predatory fauna, so much so that even the hard-nosed colonists began to doubt their dreams of fortune and wealth. The untapped riches of the world were far too difficult to get, so they summoned medical aid before plans for immediate vacancy took place.
It was on this trip that Carly met one Gal Zhunult, a Jungle Felucian shaman. Against the calls of her brothers and sisters, she stood alone to lend aid to the colonists with whatever resources she had. Intrigued by the use of the Force in healing and other medicinal methods, Carly practically begged the shaman to take her under her wing - at least for the time she was planetside.
So the pair worked together for weeks. Zhunult was still taken aback by her request but happily obliged in sharing some of her people's secret methods with herbal healing. From removing biotoxins, removing fungal growth, and staving off infection, it felt as if Carly had finally found her true calling. With sparse resources and only what they had at hand, the pair and the small team that accompanied them were able to save dozens of lives.
"I will never forget you." Is what Carly told Gal Zhunult.
Gal made sure that she and her people would never forget her either. The thought of tattoos both scared and excited Carly, but quickly made up her mind to accept them. A opportunity like this should never be squandered, lest she forget that billions of other offshoots perished in the mines while she saved lives.
After that, her longing for independence deepened with each passing day. Felucia had offered her just that, and she hadn't even been able to stay longer than a month or so. That is, until the war came.
The raging war between the One Sith and their Republic foes had been in full effect in the Colonies Region of space, and it spared no second thought before coming to Arkanian. Both sides came in swinging. Legions of Sith troopers and Republic marines fell upon the world as massive fleets fought for supremacy in the skies above. The destruction seemed to never end, with medical facilities being filled to the brim within the first hour of the fighting.
Carly had been in the forefront of the invasion, quickly establishing a battlefield triage area with her team to take care of both sides. They took in those that had been left for dead, those that were triage marked with red X's on their armor that simply said: "Fatality."
However, it didn't take long for the fighting to get closer and closer to their focal point of operations. With both banners flashing before her, Sith Knights charged into the fray and met the Jedi with heated aggression. Carly kept dutifully working, pulling troopers from whichever way she could. That is, until the artillery barrage saturated the area.
Hot lead rained from the sky itself for what seemed like hours. She should've died then but she didn't. In her moment of weakness, she had abandoned her post and sought cover in the closest building she could find. And then Carly cried, and cried some more. She must've been there for an hour, with tear-filled eyes, until the smoke and fire slowly began to loosen their grasp of the city block.
Right outside of her building lay a single body, largely unscathed from the hellish barrage that came from orbit. With what strength she could, Carly wiped away her tears and willed herself to take a chance to redeem herself. It was a chance for her to cleanse her sins, if only just for a few moments.
The unconscious body she pulled into the desolate building with her was none other than Mordecai Zambrano, a Sith Lord and younger brother to the then Emperor's Hand, Kaine Zambrano. She knew his face from the HoloNet. Despite that, she restlessly worked on treating his wounds and keeping him alive for as long as she could.
When the man woke, Carly was startled. The Sith Lord held her. The crimson lightsaber fell from his grasp and he collapsed into her, weeping away the sins of his life: of how war had turned his heart black, of how sorry he was for bringing slaughter and strife to her world, of how unimaginably thankful he was for her care. Smiling, Carly held him back.
As the war continued to rage just outside, the pair kept to their safe haven until the sounds of blasterfire and artillery faded. As the fighting began to die down, Mordecai gave her a choice. She was taken aback. Not once in her life had anything ever been her choice. Not her genes, not her profession, not her school, not even the very clothes she wore had been her choice.
"Will you come with me? Or will you stay?" Was the choice that was given.
She answered quickly. "I would love to come with you."
And so, the pair quickly spirited away after being picked up by Imperial Forces. Mordecai immediately took his leave of the front and spent the next few months with Carly. They had been opportunities for each other. For Mordecai, she was his opportunity to finally cleanse the darkness of his soul, to cherish and love something. For Carly, it was a chance to truly live for someone else, especially someone she had chosen.
They spent their numbered weeks in quiet and in peace. They traveled the galaxy, they explored various worlds together, and they met hundreds of people. For the first time in both of their lives, they truly felt alive. However, the choices for Carly didn't stop here.
"Will you marry me?" Came the question.
She grinned. "Of course I will."
The pair quickly and quietly consummated their marriage on the world of Sanctuary, tucked away and hidden from the rest of the galaxy. It was their own slice of the universe, without a care in the world and only each other to care and worry for.
Soon enough, the war and the Emperor beckoned for their warriors to return to the front. This time, Mordecai went with a purpose. He had something to fight for, someone expectantly waiting for him to come home.
So she did wait, with a smile on her face.
