Yuku

Yuku

- lean mean killing fishine -​

Name: Yuku​

Race: Zora

Age: 30

Gender: Female

Place of Origin: Zora's Domain

PWC: 2/4/3

Treasures and Rupees:
Wall Scaling

augmented with Ease of Use and Wall Walking
Using her trained agility combined with the suckers on her feet, Yuku is capable of skilfully navigating any surface, regardless of orientation.​

Nayru's Affection

A momentary glass shield that shatters into large shard projectiles, this spell is useful for deflecting projectiles and harming foes in close proximity.​

Spark

With the snap of fingers, this spell will produce a small flame above Yuku's hand, useful for aiding low-light vision and for lighting her pipe. It doesn't burn her, luckily.​

Drift Quill

A lovely pewter quill with a light-brown owl feather, capable of producing its own mystical ink that can write on any surface including the air, leaving brightly glowing messages.​

False Quill

A neat pewter quill with a burgundy hawk feather, capable of producing its own mystical ink that is invisible to all but Yuku unless she addresses her writing to them. Its power is thwarted by the Lens of Truth.​

Tidy Pouch

A silken white drawstring bag that cleans anything placed inside, handy when living rough. The bag cleans itself when left alone, making it the best glasses-cleaning cloth Yuku could ask for.​

Goron Tunic

A pretty red tunic belted at the midriff, this item of clothing allows Yuku to withstand intense heat and even fire when worn.​

Drowse

With the touch of a hand, this spell allows Yuku to make a person tired, the effect increasing the longer she stays in contact. Ten seconds is enough to put any enemy to sleep - or a stubborn child who won't stay asleep!​

Vial of Winds

A corked vial of brown glass, unassuming until it is unsealed. The winds that gush forth are strong enough to be a gale, but aren't very useful as a weapon.​

Pure Water

By placing her hand into a liquid, Yuku can purify it into clean water, making it useful for drinking, cleaning her childrens' tank, or soaking her scales.​

Green Potion

A handy potion that can relieve fatigue and replenish magical energy, Yuku carries one of these in a clear glass jar at all times. She only has one jar, and can only use this potion once per quest.​

Magic Bean

A magic bean..? A green pod with colourful pea-like seeds inside, this bean can create a moveable platform when planted and watered. She only has the one and it isn't part of a supply, so she can either use it as a Material later or use it up once.​

Transform Ego

A spell allowing Yuku to create an illusory clone of herself, wearing whatever she was wearing the last time she deliberately changed the clone's clothing. It's only an illusion, but it's a handy double.​

Lonomeru (Splinter Crystal, 3 Ice Gems, Piece of Power and Tune Crystal)

Yuku's prized halberd, crafted in the Zoran fashion. The materials within allow its strike to freeze what it touches, and it contains a stone allowing it to become exceptionally powerful for a few minutes. When damaged, Lonomeru is able to regrow its broken parts.​

95

Perks:
Amphibious (Innate)

Being a Zora, Yuku has no trouble breathing underwater.​

Zora's Weakness (Innate)

Being a Zora of the Sea variety, Yuku's skin is very sensitive to fire.
​

Electric Aura

A talent of the Zora, Yuku is gifted with bioelectricity that can be focused to crackle around her skin.​

Magic Proficiency

Yuku is trained to have embraced the magical arts, through study and focus.​

Aquatic Birth

In touch with her watery heritage, Yuku's PWC is boosted by one point when obtaining treasures of the Water field.
​

Languages: Zora (native), Hylian (fluent).

Equipment:

•Traveller's Clothes

An orange garment to protect the scales, ending at the hips with a tabard embroidered with an emblem of water and a crest derived from the symbol of Nayru. She may also wear a fur-lined leather skirt on land for warmth, which can be quickly undone to allow her to dive into the water.​

•Armoured Corset

A golden-coloured armoured corset; handy against attacks and good for posture. Despite the narrow slits to allow water flow from her gills, no-one is quite sure how she breathes in this...​

•Zora's Glasses

A pair of rectangular glasses, the frames carved from a surprisingly resilient coral material favoured by Zora. They're tightly fitted to stay on during quick movement, and the lenses are coated to keep water droplets off.​

•Yuku's Bag

An old messenger bag, lovingly repaired over the years. Great for storing anything, and tightly sealed to keep water out.​

•Tadzora Tank

A warm, miniature water tank to keep Tadzora in. Similar to a baby carrier for Hylians - although her children have very nearly outgrown it.​

Pet: No pets, but is often accompanied by her three children; still young enough that their limbs are short and stubby. All three are from the same clutch. Saku, the firsthatched, is blue like his mother and has a long dolphin-like fin; Taku, the middle child, is an emerald green like his father and sports tentacles atop his head like his mother; Maku, the youngest, inherited her grandmother’s purple hue and her father’s stingray-shaped fin.

Appearance: Yuku is a thin and graceful Zora woman who habitually wears fiery orange clothes and a golden-hued armoured corset - one part practical breastplate protection, two parts vanity. Wear and tear has stripped the once ankle-length dress and forced Yuku to cut most of it off, forming only a hip-length garment with a tabard upon which is carefully sewn the emblem of the water element and a crescent reminiscent of the Mark of Nayru. Below this, when in Hylian company or in frigid weather, Yuku often wears a tough leather skirt with long slits up the sides for mobility, the inside lined with thick pale fur. The skirt is easily removed, ready to be tossed aside whenever Yuku needs to enter the water. She also wears a plain black choker necklace, wrapped against her slim throat. Yuku chooses not to cram her flippers into Hylian shoes - her respect for Hylian clothing standards only goes so far, and it doesn’t involve sore feet! When not around Hylians, Yuku often dresses in the far more comfortable Zoran fashion, although she cannot afford the silver jewellery many enjoy wearing.

Her most distinctive feature is likely her crown of long tentacles; in place of where many Zora bear caudal fins, Yuku sports a squid’s hood, complete with the appendages framing her face. The forward four are short and stubby - clearly her biology has respected her need to be able to see - while the other six are long and rudimentarily prehensile - more useful as a swimming aid or for holding large objects than for any fine mobility. She has several piercings; a coral spiral piercing and a stud in her squid's hood, and several coral hoops in one tentacle. She also wears a silver fish-hook piercing, eye-catching as well as somewhat of a hazard.

Yuku may be slim, but she has the evident shoulders and back muscles of one who spends a great deal of time swimming, and is fairly athletic and graceful from a lifetime spent dancing. She has a slender fin along her back. Her arms also bear fins on each arm; they are shorter than typical for Zora, but dappled delicately. All of her tentacles, as well as the soles of her feet, are covered in round suckers that can latch onto almost any object, allowing Yuku to walk, climb and run on walls and other surfaces as swiftly and agilely as she would on flat ground.

Yuku’s face is fine-boned, heart-shaped with a pointed chin, offset slightly by her pointed nose typical of Zora. Her black eyes are often alight with mirth, framed with a pair of coral-rimmed glasses hooked snugly behind her finned ears. Her scales are the powder blue common to black-eyed Sea Zora, speckled with darker greens and blues along her hood, fins, and the ends of her tentacles, paling to a soft white on the fragile underside of her tentacles, hands and feet.

Artwork (open) Artwork (close)

this one by CleverBot101

Personality:
High-strung and nerve-y, Yuku’s personality rests on an odd mix of high-minded maturity and second-guessing anxiety, somehow living her life in the fine line between the certainty that she is bound to failure and the concept that she is the best-equipped for her own life. This results in a timid but quick-witted countenance, as she is reticent in what she deems necessary to be said but eager to say what she sees fit to. She places high value on the concept of responsibility to others; her reckless childhood and later experiences have left her with a protective instinct towards others, particularly those she perceives as being younger than her. This isn’t always well-received or appropriate, but Yuku does her best to manage her urge to mother-hen or support others. She feels a sense of duty; in owning and being skilled with the use of her Zoran-style halberd Lonomeru, Yuku feels that she is honour-bound to use her skills for the good of others and the good of her people.

Yuku’s pregnancy and subsequent egg-laying were a fundamental change in Yuku’s perspective and experience. While in her youth and pubescent years she had been impulsive and overconfident, suddenly bearing the direct responsibility of other lives was an eye-opener into the reality of duty and obligation, and Yuku began to understand herself as one part of a much larger whole. Part of this manifested in spiritual and religious faith; while she had not previously given much attention to the subject, Yuku’s veneration of Nayru and Jabu-Jabu grew. Faith in others and faith in the self were intertwined, she felt - and the very real presence of these deities was a stabilising influence in the turbulent change from irresponsible youth to mature adult.

For the first few years after leaving Zora’s Domain, Yuku aspired to return home eventually. Once her children were older, and her mother’s anger at her bastard children had cooled. As time went by, however, Yuku placed less value on returning to her family home. While she still intends to settle in Zora’s Domain - or perhaps Great Bay - long-term, Yuku finds that travelling the land has helped educate her in a way her schoolmistresses and tutors never could, and that there is great value to be found in sharing her journey with other travellers. Yuku finds it difficult to be separated from Zora culture, and tries to manage her connection to her people and racial identity while away from her ancestral home.

Background:
The Altamont house of Zora were long known as purists, a lineage that as far back as records could trace had been disciples of the healing arts. Yuku, however, had been exactly the kind of headstrong young girl to spit in the face of her family’s traditions and embrace her own dreams. To the chagrin of her mother Astrid, Yuku opted to spend most of her time and allowance on music. Initially, Yuku did not own any instruments and instead spent her time singing; in her younger years her voice was not the strongest but as she grew she learned to make do. She managed well enough that singing outside her house would sometimes net her a few rupees tossed by passersby. Then she discovered that one of her schoolmates owned a whole entire piano, and that was the end of that. Astrid would find Yuku was rarely ever in the house, instead borderline moving into Ephora’s house to play on their piano. Astrid tolerated her daughter’s wandering for a year and a half before finally relenting and finding a piano to buy for the Altamont home.

Yuku’s delight at encountering the instrument when she returned that night was all the leverage Astrid needed, promising her daughter lessons in the instrument if she could sit still long enough to sit through lessons on the family’s trademark healing magic. And for sure, Yuku sat through them - but her mind was always elsewhere as her mother gently lectured about blood purity and tradition. The five Altamont children each had their own distractions, and for Yuku that distraction was keying out songs on her own leg, running through the music of famous Zora musicians and even a few Hylian ones where she could find them. Astrid learned that withholding access to the piano was an easy punishment when Yuku misbehaved, an effective disciplinary measure but not one that inspired studious attitudes for the young Zora.

Yuku’s escape may have been music, but her siblings acted out against the stifling nature of their family in other ways. Her older brother Grimmau was somewhat less conservative in his defiance du jour, known for slipping out of the house and returning barely ahead of the dawn chorus. On one fateful night when he snuck out to visit the high-energy nightlife district some streams northward of the Domain, he shook Yuku away from her wide-eyed midnight scribbling and took her with him. Grimmau later told Yuku that he’d foolishly thought that the social atmosphere would bring her out of her shell; he had been barely three years her senior, and Yuku had been eager to prove herself as grown-up as he was.

Yuku took to the nightlife like… well, a Zora to water. She was very notably young, a slim lass with her fins still outsized and her eyes wide, but with her brother to chauffeur her she had her passport to the whole world in front of her. On the nights Grimmau didn’t feel like going out, Yuku often convinced her other brother Phidon to take her out instead - Phidon wasn’t much one for parties, but he did have a habit of stealing their father’s Hylian wines every now and then, so the nightlife district wasn’t too harsh a jump. The first time she charmed her way onto the piano in the corner of Grimmau’s favourite bar, she sat down, stared at it, then stood up again, sniffing and deciding she’d come back after she’d practised. Only perfection from the Zora of house Altamont, after all.

If Astrid noticed the redoubled intensity of Yuku’s pounding on the keys in the following months, she said nothing, and soon enough Yuku wasn’t even waiting for Grimmau of a night before she swam from the house to go and perform. She struck the keys with such force as she played that on some nights she went home cradling her hands from the pain, but that was far outweighed by the euphoria of knowing that this was what she was good at. Her studies were suffering from her nightly exploits, yes, but what did a schoolmistress’ classroom have to compare to this! Yuku had never been skilled in her family’s healing magic, but here was something she excelled in, something she could give to and share with others. She found delight in playing for more legitimate venues as well, and by the time she was approaching maturity she was being offered payment nearly every night to perform. She felt incredibly mature, already happier than most of the grown Zora she knew, and she was a cocky young thing who thought herself the most talented and clever little Zora she knew.

Once she started taking notice of other Zora her age, it took no time at all for Yuku to abandon the Altamont standards of purity that Astrid had drilled into her children’s heads since they’d been old enough to breathe air. Her first childish fling was with a bright-eyed Zora boy her own age who’d been brought to see her by his father; when she grew bored of him, she picked up with a young red-scaled girl who’d been too shy to even approach the possibility of courtship. Nothing was more spiteful to Astrid’s insistence on blood purity than not only dating outside highborn black-eyed Zora but dating girls, and the thrill of such freedom and defiance only made Yuku’s tentative exploration of romance all the sweeter.

Looking back, Yuku would later find herself shocked that no notice was taken of the way all five of the children in house Altamont were so poorly adjusted. It wasn’t exactly tragedy, their household was stifling but not cruel, but nonetheless none of them had developed the way their peers seemed to have. The older pair of brothers were the worst of them, and while Yuku found she couldn't blame them for sharing their ways of coping with the pressure there would always be a quiet part of her that felt they'd dragged her away from the shore with them. Her sisters had not struggled as much as she had, probably because they'd had the sense to not do the same things Yuku did. Her brothers became much more responsible as they aged, but in some ways the damage was done. Life moves rapidly at a young age, and the speed at which they'd all gotten tangled in each other's and their mother's nets would be something Yuku would find difficult to explain. It was easy to look at the maybes, but Yuku found it was easier to look ahead than behind.

It was, poetically, Ephora who dragged her one night to the party down the river. It was a proper adult party, Ephora had excitedly said. Classy and safe, she’d thought. Ephora had ditched when the drinks were starting to get heavy and Yuku was more than comfortable sharing a pipe of kelp weed with the other guests. Without Ephora to occupy her time, Yuku wandered around, somewhat lost without a piano at hand. She had resolved to head home when she bumped right into a young Zora with the fin of a ray and an earnest smile. His family were visiting the Domain. He had heard her play before, and liked it. They talked. Shared a pipe. Watched the stars. And then she woke up the next morning.

It was hardly different from any of the other times she’d woken to guiltily realise she'd made some questionable choices the night before, aside from the rather longer distance she had to swim breakneck to get home before Astrid noticed her absence. Grimmau had waited up for her, ushered her inside frantically and shoved her into the bed mere moments before Astrid came to wake them. She’d gotten away with her escapade, by the skin of her teeth. She searched for him, but was never able to find the ray-finned Zora again, and life went on.

Her sister Moira was the one who realised Yuku was carrying eggs. It wasn’t a scandal by ordinary standards, but Yuku certainly had not intended this outcome and her mother would be shocked that Yuku had been dallying with other Zora at her age. To make matters worse, Astrid would certainly be outraged should she discover the father to be the ray-finned Zora - he was not of the high-born black-eyed sort. Moira helped her hide that she was gravid, at first, and Yuku spent the nights she’d once dedicated to musical pursuits instead curled up, questioning first her life, then her own sanity, and finally Nayru’s intentions. She finally began to pay attention when the family prayed, adding snatches of her own words in the gaps between the rehearsed sentences, begging the intangible for guidance. Where she could, she slipped away to visit Jabu-Jabu, to look upon him and reflect. It helped, to think that there was a reason that these things were happening to her. And so she believed, because only Nayru could be Wise enough to understand why Yuku's life had taken the turn it had, and how Yuku might learn to live through it.

(Grimmau was the one who found the father, later. Who told him to stay away from his sister, that he had no idea what their immature fling had done to Yuku and her family. The ray-finned Zora never returned.)

When Yuku’s body parted with the eggs she kept them in a large bowl of clean water in the top of the dry closet, hidden behind the more formal garments and cloths she owned. She’d been lucky, by Zora standards. Only three eggs. Yuku found Moira poised one day ready to smash the eggs with a pestle and had burst into hysterical tears, grabbing the bowl with her eggs close to her chest just in time for Astrid to walk in to ask what the commotion was. The fight that followed was monumental in its ferocity, the entire Altamont family hoarse with screamed emotion, and Yuku’s cheek bruised from where Astrid had slapped her for her impudence. Yuku ran away, after that. She packed her bag with whatever she could think of and, with a mournful look to the piano in the hall, fled.

The time that followed was hard. Yuku slept on couches, for a while - most Zora didn’t mind the young mother, thought the Altamont house somewhat stuffy to begin with - but eventually she wandered further afield. There was more to life than just surviving, damn it. She cast her prayers diligently to Nayru and set out across the land. She found a thick tank to keep her children in when they hatched, named them each - the firsthatched named Sakuvi, the middle child Takupha, and the youngest Makulena. The names were shortened by habit, as Yuku’s own had been, and soon they were simply Saku, Taku and Maku. She'd never particularly paid attention to her mother's lectures on blood purity anyway, but her children's bright scales brought her joy and she felt no fault could ever be placed on them for the circumstances of their hatching. It was her responsibility to make sure they'd never know any of that, and as much as she still craved adventure, she found that these little tadzora were suddenly at the heart of her worldview.

She was ashamed, but the need of her children to eat meant she did not regret it once she began stealing to support herself. Her tentacles were the perfect thief’s aid; while her marks’ eyes were on her hands, her tentacles would be in their bags suckering up their rupees and prized possessions. If she was caught, she’d flee, up walls and across ceilings, whatever it took to escape. She was careful to never make enough of a nuisance of herself to become a person of interest to Hylian authorities, but that often meant living very rough; when she had the money she slept in dingy inns or halfway-houses, and when she didn’t she slept in whatever rivers or streams she could trust not to wash her children away. Times were hard, and she went without even food many times for the sake of the triplets, but seeing the world was a sort of joy in itself.

As the years went by, and as she found the support of others, Yuku turned her rusty ability with a blade into true skill, training with a halberd gifted to her by a guard who had truly held faith in her despite her novice’s talent. Her treasured Zoran-style halberd became part of her identity, something that allowed her to fulfil her sense of responsibility. Work as a guard for hire was often less stressful than theft, and gave her a much more legitimate place in society. More often, she could stay with a roof over her head, and put her children to bed with full bellies. She wasn’t above stealing when it was needed, but the ability to have honourable work was transformative. Once again she felt appreciated, her use of her halberd valuable for others. It was a difficult balance to strike as a parent, and her brother Phidon was invaluable in caring for them while Yuku put her skills to use for money, but Yuku felt that she was repaying her debt to fate by pursuing more honourable challenges and fighting to defend others and the land.

Yuku was more timid than she once had been, and perhaps applied her motherly instinct where it wasn’t welcome far too often. But she was free, with her children and friends and the trust of others around her. She was a learner, a fighter, a mother and a friend. She was maybe even, dare she say it, learning how to be Wise.

Roleplay History

[/spoiler]

Swimming Pool of Death (open) Swimming Pool of Death (close)

Swimming Pool of Death - Making a Friend, The Hard Way
In Progress - In an effort to connect to her culture and ensure her children are raised under Nayru's and Jabu-Jabu's eyes despite their dishonourable birth, Yuku contacts the Cult of Nayru to bless her children in the sacred pools of the Great Bay Temple, under the syncretic depiction of Jabu-Nayru as protector of the Zora. The Hylian priestess Judith Vilcaron attends, delighted by the beauty of the offerings to Nayru and intrigued by the world beneath the waves. Despite having very few people to invite - she didn't want to invite her siblings lest her mother catch wind - the ceremony attracts the attention of the merciless River-Zora, who break into the temple and attempt to kidnap the triplets. Yuku and Judith fend them off and protect Maku and Taku, but Saku is grabbed by the creatures and taken further into the temple.

Luck of the Draw (open) Luck of the Draw (close)

Luck of the Draw - A Gift from a Mighty Warrior
The festive market days held in the country's capital are a welcome opportunity for Yuku to swipe what rupees she (hopes) thinks are the excess of those gleefully purchasing at the stalls. The Zora woman stopped when she saw a small crowd outside a modest blacksmith's shop, and she was stricken with fear for a moment when a Hyrulean Guard spoke to her - she thought she'd been caught thieving! Instead, he excitedly told her that within this shop worked a famous Captain of the Guard who forged the best weapons in Hyrule, and was prone to fits of philanthropy. He was holding a completely random giveaway, that ten lucky people would be given a weapon of his for free. The cheery Guard beside her was chosen, and bustled forward happily.

Yuku was blindsided when her name was one of those drawn, and when the old knight saw her wandering his store he took pity on her. The Zora was usually fairly suspicious of strangers, but he won her favour immediately when instead of calling her inexperienced he said that she had a lot of battles left. He saw her awkwardness with these weapons and was unfazed, offering to make something custom for her. The resulting weapon was a gorgeous halberd even she had trouble telling hadn't been Zora-made - the smith had crafted with Zoran smiths before, his own armour Zora-made, and it showed in the authenticity of the weapon. Captain Surgate had crafted it with the ability to cast frozen magic, to be empowered by a mystical force, and to regrow itself when broken. She named it Lonomeru, and the knight gave her a quick lesson on how to use it. Yuku was deeply grateful for his charity, and swore that if he ever needed another blade at his back, she would come.

The Windy Sand Goddess (open) The Windy Sand Goddess (close)

The Windy Sand Goddess - The First True Dungeon
In Progress - Empowered by the drive to prove herself to Nayru, Yuku strikes out into the desert in search of a rumoured treasure of the Wisdom Goddess hidden deep in the sands. She hadn't expected that to be literal, finding a castle buried below the ground, only the turrets emerging. She wasn't alone, though, and inside she found the very capable Rika, joining forces to venture through the monster-ridden castle.

Edited! I've given her Nayru's Affection and touched up the personality a little.

Thanks to an OOC change, Yuku has learned the Electric Aura, become innately gifted with Amphibious, but is now weak to fire thanks to Zora's Weakness.

After a desperate quest to reclaim her children, Yuku gained 20 rupees in Chasing Fairies.

Plus one Wisdom for promotion to Veteran

Yuku gets Drowse, Vial of Winds, and Pure Water from the Holiday Moblin!

Somehow, Yuku wins a competition held by Julius Surgate, earning herself 50r and a custom-made halberd.

The Harvest Festival saw Yuku learning a strange spell, giving her the ability to cast Transform Ego.

Forgot to add the gifts from the 2021 Holiday Moblin, a Green Potion and a Magic Bean.

Yuku gained a Goron Tunic and 20r from the 2022 Holiday Moblin.