djaq

Player Information
Your name/pseudonym: Micaela
Are you 18 or older at the time of this application? yes, I am 22.
What gender pronouns do you prefer?: she, her, etc. If you prefer not to use gender pronouns, you may call me Mike or Mickey.
Your email: rogueandiceman4eva AT yahoo DOT ca OR lissa.gauthier at aol DOT com
Your chat handles: lissa.gauthier is my AIM.
Do you currently have any other characters in this game? If so, please list them here: Nope.
Applying for: Djaq, From Robin Hood BBC.

Character Information
Name: Safiyya although she goes by her deceased twin brother's name, Djaq in day to day life.
Nickname/aliases: Djaq.
Canon: BBC Robin Hood
Canon Type?: television show
Character's journal: djaqthesaracen



Brief history of your character (100-200 word minimum):


Safiyya-or as her outlaw friends and partner know her, Djaq- was born five minutes after her twin brother Djaq, the second born child, but the only girl, to a wealthy Saracen physician and his wife. Growing up, Safiyya was most definitely not the typical Saracen noble girl that she was expected to be. She would sneak away from her mother and the women's quarters far too often and find Djaq, whatever he was doing and would often join in his lessons. Once their father saw how keen she was, even at seven, to learn more than just what it was considered important for a woman to know, he ordered Djaq's tutors to teach both his children the same lessons. Safiyya's quick mind soon caught onto their shared lessons and she devoured every book she could get her hands on. The first tragedy that would affect the rest of Safiyya's life came when she was 10. Their mother took ill and died three weeks afterwards, despite their father's best efforts to save her life. The family mourned and yet their lives continued on, as the war in their own land against their people and ways wore ever on. As time went by, the loss of her mother weighed less heavily on Safiyya's heart. She found solace in her paternal uncle Bassam’s messenger pigeon aviary. Her uncle was the Sultan’s official pigeon handler and at the time, Safiyya thought that when she grew older, she would live with her uncle and help care for the birds. But as she grew into a woman, these dreams faded to the back of her mind as she found new interests.

One day, almost three years after her mother’s death, when she was 13, she joined their father in his study and asked to learn from him about the healing arts. She argued that women had a natural gentle touch and she was ready for a new challenge, especially given that she would now soon be reaching a marriageable age. Their father agreed to her request and very soon she was spending hours upon hours each day with him as he worked. She learned about the different plants he used and their purposes and the medicines they could be made into. Soon she was mixing up medicines for him like she'd been born to be a healer. The years passed, and her father made her his apprentice. They served in battlefield hospitals, and soon Safiyya, once a headstrong young girl who escaped her mother to share her brother's lessons and never screamed at the sight of her father covered in blood, became used to stitching a man up, became used to burying her arms elbow deep on blood and organs to complete a surgery, became used to seeing men under her care die despite her best efforts. Djaq had joined the war as well, although in a different way than that of his father and sister. He fought in the army of their people and sometimes ended up under the care of his family in the hospital they worked in. And then, the second tragedy struck their small family, when the twins were 20. Djaq was fatally wounded in combat and brought to their hospital carried on a litter by four of his closest friends who had also joined the army. Safiyya and her father did all they could, working ceaselessly but at one point, they realized that their work was futile. Djaq died in his sister's arms, his father elbow deep in his wound, blood staining his arms and hands a very bright red. They buried him that night, and Safiyya barely slept or spoke except when necessary (and even then only with the minimum number of words required) for the next three months, heartbroken at the loss of her twin and closest and dearest friend in the entire world. She did her work, she ate, she prayed at the proper times and she slept an appropriate number of hours, but otherwise, she was inconsolable and closed off. Finally as the third such month drew to a close, she snapped out of it and was able to begin to remember all the good times she had shared with her twin.

When she was 22 (during a short visit to their family home), she had the misfortune to deliver yet another secret package-the contents of which her father refused to talk about- from her father to the Al Shu'janni (Saladdin's secret assassin squad) as he had begun sending them these packages though her shortly after Djaq’s death. What she saw there would change the rest of Safiyya's life for all time. She was shocked by what she observed inside that house. She witnessed four Al-Shu'janni brutally torturing a Crusader solider (who they obviously had kidnapped) and brainwashing him into joining them. Safiyya would later encounter this man again, in England. She managed somehow to hold her tongue while in the Al-Shu'janni's safe house, but the moment she returned home, her silence broke and the words tumbled out of her mouth like a sandstorm. She found out that day that her father knew full well what the Al-Shu’janni were doing with his deliveries. She was outraged that he would do such a thing and even argued that Djaq would never have approved. It was at this point that her father vowed to take up his father’s scimitar and join the fight in earnest, declaring that if Safiyya felt that what he was doing was not helping the war effort, then he would aid it on the battlefields and she could aid it in the medical tents. She was surprised at his words, given that his son had died fighting and his own brother–her uncle-was exempt from joining the fight only because of his highly important job as pigeon handler for the Sultan. She was horrified at this but as she felt responsible for his choosing such a course of action though her confrontation of him regarding his packages to the Al-Shu’janni, she said nothing. When they returned to the battlefield, she watched him join the soldiers and she stayed with the healers, among whom were a few other women with whom she would now be sharing a tent as it would be unseemly for her to maintain a tent of her own when her father was no longer among the healers but among the soldiers. She continued with her life much as she always had, treating the wounded and sending those well enough back into battle once she was satisfied that their wounds were properly healed. She buried many men over her years as a physician, but the second such death to break her heart was her father’s. He arrived barely conscious, and Safiyya pushed all the other healers away in her haste to reach him and try her best to save him. As she worked, he told her that he was dying and that she must never lie to a dying man. He had told her when she’d first begun to work with him in the battlefield hospitals that a healer must never lie to a wounded man. When she heard his words, she began to cry even as she worked her hardest to again try and pull a family member back from the brink of death. When her arms were stained red with blood to her elbows and her father’s breathing slowed, she surrendered to the losing battle she fought with death over her father’s life. She cradled his head in her blood stained hands and told him that she loved him and hadn’t meant the things she had said that day and she would always remember him as her beloved father. When he breathed his last, she called for the other female healers to help her prepare him for burial. That night she cut her hair, took her grandfather’s scimitar and dressed in some old clothes of Djaq’s that she had hidden among her own belongings. Then she quietly left the camp, carrying everything she could possibly could from her tent and her father’s on horse back to Bassam’s house and told him the sad news. She also begged him to look after their home and then she left, responding to him as she stepped out his door and he called out her own name to her with a light-hearted “Who?”, carrying only a few things to remember her father and brother by. She joined the army as a warrior and with every Crusader she killed she wondered if they had been the one to take her father’s or brother’s lives. For more than a year she lived this way, serving under Prince Malik, a nephew of Saladdin. Then a year later, she was caught by the Al-shu’janni while on a supply mission and sold as a slave. How they found her, she did not know until one of them hissed in her ear that her father had told them of her feelings on the matter she had witnessed and this was her punishment for speaking against them and their practices: to be sold as a slave and taken across the sea to the Crusaders’ lands, never to see her home again. When her journey finally ended, she found herself in England in the possession of the slave trader Brooker. He planned to sell them all to a man known only as ‘Gisbourne’ to work in his mines. Before this could happen however, a group of strange English men ambushed them in the woods and Safiyya, having been acting completely as Djaq for over two years by this point, was rather brusque with the man who spoke first to her and suggested she renounce her faith, for which she was sorry later. Then there was an accident in the mines and Little John was hurt and Djaq used her medical skills to save his life. As the day went by, she was discovered to be a girl, offered a place to stay, and a new group of friends. Time wore on and she became a true part of the gang and developed friendships with each of the men of Robin Hood's gang. Her closest friends were a youth from Locksley, Will Scarlett and a youth from who-even-knows-anymore, Allan A-Dale. When the Crusader she'd witnessed being tortured and brainwashed was rescued by Robin from a horde of angry villagers and placed under Much's care and given the name 'Harold', she was intrigued. Later when she was able to look at the tattooed markings on his chest, she recognized them as being made by the Al-shu'janni. However she said nothing to the gang because she did not want to frighten them. When he got a good look at her after Robin and the others returned with a really strange looking mask and she took it from Robin, he attacked her and held her at knife point, although Much was able to talk him down. Once Prince Malik was revealed to be in Nottinghamshire, Djaq was surprised and shocked. Here was not only her commanding officer but one of her princes. When the gang took him hostage, she was appalled. She bowed to him and Robin lifted her out of her bow and told her that 'nobody here kneels to anyone.' She was surprised. Even more shocking was when the Al-Shu'janni were spotted in Sherwood. She tried to explain how deadly they were, but Robin did not want to hear her. She was even more shocked when she realized that these were the same four who ultimately were responsible for her arrival in England, the same four she'd seen in the safe house, and the same four women who had personally sold her into slavery. When Harold managed to defeat the Al-Sh'janni, Djaq was relieved. They could harm her no longer. The rest of the year felt like a blur to her, even with the supposed return of the English king, Marian's 'death' and survival and the fight against the Sheriff's men that they most certainly would have lost had it not been for Allan and Will's return.

When the new year came, she was able to think more clearly. Several things happened that while important to the others in the gang, she could not understand. Somehow, Will had found time between their outlaw activities to create a permanent camp so they could stay in one place rather than move from temporary camp to temporary camp. When Will's father and brother came back to visit and convince him to come with them to Scarborough, she was intrigued by their family dynamic. When Dan Scarlett was murdered, she momentarily flashed back in time to her own father's death. She was the one person who was able to even remotely calm Will down, but only for a short while, it turned out. When the gang used the back way into Pitt Street to treat the sick people, Djaq had a feeling that Will would try something. When she overheard him tell Robin that he was going to take his brother back to Scarborough, she guessed that he was planning something. Later after they had managed to heal the sick-thanks to a woodsman's remedy of John's, Belladonna to combat a supposedly 'perfect' poison that the Sheriff's new physician had invented-and then found a way into the castle, and Robin said that they would do whatever they had to do to save Will from himself, even if that meant having to kill him. Djaq managed to find him, told him they'd found a cure thanks to Little John, and then begged him to tell her that he 'hadn't done anything stupid' and told him that the sick were getting better, he yelled that his father wasn't getting better and locked her into a small room. When he had to decide whether to give the sheriff the antidote or not, she was proud that he chose to do the right thing. Later she complimented the monument he'd built to honour his father and managed to steal a few moments to talk about how she had felt when her own father died. Then when Allan was revealed to be a spy for Gisbourne, she was shocked although she had guessed that he was the spy and had tried to get him to confess by reminding him of his brother's fate and telling him that she was sure if he confessed to Robin and begged forgiveness and changed his ways, Robin would forgive him. But he made his choice and she had to let him go. It was difficult to do so, but she found herself gravitating even more to Will's side after Allan's defection. They grew much closer still. When Robin was witness to a man's death, the dying fellow gave Robin a cryptic message of “Lardner” which Djaq eventually figured out was an English translation of “ La Denah”, the Sultan's prize messenger pigeon, and set off a chase between the outlaws and the Sheriff's men looking for the bird. She explains about how the Saracens use pigeons to carry messages, and she even talks about her uncle Bassam being the Sultan's official pigeon handler, but refers to him as 'my uncle's friend'. She wonders aloud how the Sultan's prize messenger pigeon is in the hands of King Richard, Robin opining that King Richard and Saladdin could have made a truce but Djaq thinks that King Richard and his men have helped themselves and that if they have La Denah, they have the Sultan and if they have the Sultan, they have everyone. When the Sheriff released his hunting hawk, the pigeon is immediately caught and killed. Djaq is crestfallen because this means all her hopes of peace in her homeland is now lost with La Denah's death. But Will reveals that he switched the birds and she feels a tiny spark of hope rekindle itself in her heart. When the gang was surrounded by the Sheriff's mercenaries in a barn in Nettlestone, Robin came up with a suicide at dawn mission to which they all agreed, she waited until Will said he was in, and she initiated a “kaliah and dimna night” which meant that no secret was left untold, no truth was held back and no dream died unspoken. She confessed that she admired and loved all of her fellows outlaws but that she did not love them all the same way. She confessed that the one she was actually in love with Will. Then he confessed he loved her in return. When dawn broke, she kissed Will and then prepared to attack the Sheriff's mercenaries with the others. Allan arrived and saved them, only to tell them that the Sheriff and Gisbourne were on their way to the Holy Land to kill the king and that they were taking Marian with them as a prisoner. When Robin heard this, he insisted that they go straight to the the ports so they had no time to go to their new camp and grab their weapons. While the others were interested in getting to see her homeland, she was rather torn between happiness and a strange sadness. Just before they enter the the Crusader camp, Bassam asks her at the crest of the dune above the camp if Will, who he calls 'the pale one', understands the meaning of flight. She tells him that she thinks he does, and he gives them his blessing. Once she and Will enter the camp, things take a turn for the worse, the King having been lied to by the Sheriff about Robin and that the way King Richard would know that Robin was not what he claimed because he travelled with a Saracen woman. They were sentenced to die in the desert but Carter saved them and then they set off to save the King and establish peace once and for all. Marian was killed by Gisbourne, trying to defend the king from Vaisey's lieutenant. Djaq decides to stay and Will decides to stay with her. They bid Robin, Allan, Much and John farewell and this is the last appearance of Djaq in the show.





Brief synopsis of your character's personality (100 word minimum):
Safiyya has always been a woman with a very clear idea of what she wanted and how she would get it. When she was a young girl, this quality best manifested itself on two separate occasions. She is strong willed and although she expects Robin to be concerned for all his men at all times, she can understand when his focus narrows to Marian, for there have been and are still ( and will always be) times when her own focus has been narrowed to Will. She can be very self-reliant. She is always ready to explain something scientific or medical as best she can. She is a smart woman who does not truly need a man to save her. Although she is not a leader in the gang, she is ready to follow orders although she will question them when she finds fault with a plan. Her reasons for joining the gang is simply that she does not want to go back home and reveal that she is actually a woman to her fellow countrymen due to her fear of what they would do to her. She stays because she has made friends with most of the gang members. She was angry when Allan's betrayal was revealed but she managed not to loose her vitirol on him when he appeared in Sherwood, looking for what Will called his 'blood money'. She finds herself loving Will soon after meeting him but is unable to admit these feelings until she believes they are all about to die. Choosing to be in a relationship with Will is a huge step for her-a woman who is wealthy in her own land, a woman whose closest surviving relative is a highly important official in the Sultan's employ, and who could be courted by any young man of status if she wanted. Will is poor and he is also English and a Christian, something that many of her people who have witnessed them together think is a betrayal of her people and her own faith.

Stats
Age: never specified in show but due to her experiences in life and that most fans would probably say that she's a little older than the youngest of the lads, I'd say around 26 or so when she last appears.
Appearance: Djaq is a Saracen, and in England this meant that she stood out among the much fairer-skinned English people. She has a petite frame and prefers to wear men's clothing. Her eyes are brown and she has black hair that is cropped short to just past under her neck but that has begun to grow out. Her left forearm bears a rather nasty scar from the one time she was captured and tried to escape Nottingham Castle's dungeons. This scar was inflicted by the Sheriff via Djaq's own acid which she had used in her escape attempt.


Icon (100x100 pixels, preferably textless, good quality icon for cast list):
What skills/abilities does your character have?: **12th century [mainly Saracen] Medical Knowledge, healing skills (gained on the battlefields of the Crusades, so in areas such as childbirth medical care is unsure of how to proceed) knowledge of 12th century [mainly Saracen] science. She is a skilled healer. She is a fairly capable fighter (having fought among the ranks of the Saracen soldiers against the Crusaders before being captured as a slave and brought to England to be sold to Gisbourne to work in his mines). She is probably one of the most educated members of the gang with the exceptions of Robin or Marian (who isn't technically an official member of the gang) [Also quite possibly Tuck (because the whole monk thing so yeah) but he wasn't in the gang when she was so I'm not counting him]. **
Game Information
What is the point of your character's canon in which you are introducing your character? :a few days after the second half (2x13) of the season 2 finale. few


Is your character alive or dead at the point of entry to the game?:alive


Your character will find 10 personal items in their room that the island has placed there. You may only include things that your character would have canonically. Please list them here:
1)'Crusader' Sword (a straight, Western , traditional knight's kind of sword) which she picked out from one of the outlaw's weapons stores shortly after joining the gang,
2)outlaw tag,
3)the shawl Will got for her on the journey to the holy land,
4)diary she wrote in as a girl (ending mere days after her twin brother's and father's deaths),
5) her mother's jewelry box and jewelry,
6) a medicine chest that belonged to her father containing the medicines he used,
7)a book of sketches drawn by her brother,
8) the gold/yellow dress she wore when she went undercover in the castle during the gang's break in to the Sheriff's strong room,
9) one of Bassam's messenger pigeons,
10) and a pigeon carrying basket/cage (i.e. the one we see in Lardner's Ring).


**Note: I wasn't sure what you meant by 'skills' so I listed everything I thought could be construed as a 'skill', in any way, in this section, if you think something listed there doesn't fit, please let me know and I will correct it. Also much of her pre-series history is mainly my head canon for her life pre-show with a very tiny bit of idea lifting from the BBC Robin Hood Fan Community Forum at Yuku (the Al-Shu’janni connection and the how and why of how the slave traders got a hold of her).**






Entrance post:

Who: Djaq and Open
When: Her time: ~1194 (-ish), game time: No idea..
Where: "sparsely wooded area"
What: Arrival


Djaq blinked as she awoke on the hard, cold ground. One minute she had been feeding the pigeons and the next, well she had no memory of the next moment. She had no memory of falling asleep. To make matters more interesting, there was an envelope marked with her name in both English and Arabic script lying by her head. She sat up, suddenly tense. She looked around for her sword, but it wasn't anywhere she could see. She slowly reached for the envelope and opened it very slowly, her scientific curiosity winning over her fear of the contents. She looks around but nothing seems familiar. She knows of the whispers of the desert robbing men of their minds but she doesn't think that this is what has happened to her. So something strange is going on. She has no choice now but to find out what the envelope contains and try to find anyone who might know what has happened to her and why. Could this be a dream? She has dreamed herself back to sunny Sherwood before, during their journey to her homeland and for the first night or two after the others had left to return there, but this is nothing like Sherwood. The only similarity is the amount of trees and dirt, otherwise Djaq is utterly unfamiliar with the woods in which she has found herself. She tips the contents of the envelope out into her hand and is surprised to find a key and a crudely drawn map. She stands, and tries to get her bearings but the map is less than helpful and she does not know where she is, only that she is not in Acre anymore. She takes a few tentative steps forward and is prepared to find some way to defend herself when she hears footsteps approaching. She whispers to herself, trying to keep her fear from rising, “Steady, Safiyya, steady. Stay calm. You are not in England, well, probably not. It therefore isn't the Sheriff or Gisbourne who is approaching you. It's probably just another lost person, like yourself.”