Kassandra Aetos

Kassandra
Biographical Information
Race	Zeltron
Homeworld	Melida/Daan
House	Bes'uliik
Clan	Aetos
Mother	Tyria Zalku
Father	Shalo Zalku (Deceased)
Marital Status	Single
Partner	Amber Rays
Age	30 Galactic Standard Years
Born	Year -7 Day 39
Languages	Galactic Basic, Mando'a, Glóssa'aetoú
Physical Description
Gender	Female
Height	177cm / 5'10"
Weight	76kg / 168lb
Coloring	Pink
Hair Color	Aegean Blue
Eye Color	Hazel
Political Information
Occupation	Mercenary
Title	Aliit'alor Huntmaster
Affiliation	Mando'ade Bounty Brokers Association
Prior Affiliation	Cantrell Conglomerate Fairwind Exotics Auctions
Signature

Kassandra Aetos (Born Kassandra Zalku), often going by simply Kassie, is a force sensitive Zeltron Mandalorian mercenary, born Day 39 in the Year -7 on Melida/Daan to Tyria & Shalo Zalku. While her occupation takes her far into the expansive reaches of the galaxy, originally calling the planet of Ord Cantrell home. She primarily now resides on the planet of Manda after making a shift to bring her clan closer to her people, where she now works towards the construction of a new home.

After her path crossed a multitude of times with the Mandalorian Adeela Yannick over the years, Kassandra eventually came to embrace the lifestyle and ways of the Mandalorians and is currently the Aliit'alor of Clan Aetos, as well as one of the ruling heads on the council for House Bes'uliik.

Biography

Early Life

Kassandra was born in a small medical clinic in the suburbs of the capital city Zehava on Melida/Daan to parents Tyria and Shalo Zalku. While the facility was to be considered less than adequate at providing sufficient medical care, the birth proceeded without complications and the new family returned home days later with their new child. The years to follow during her infancy went by relatively normally, her father working as a scrapper brought home a mediocre wage which provided the family with enough to get by and allow the family the necessities of life, although luxuries were far and few. After the birth of her daughter, Tyria opted to stay at home to properly care for Kassandra while she grew to an age she could start to care for herself.

Coming from a family in relative poverty, Kassandras parents were unable to afford to send her to a communal school once she reached the age she could apply, due to this she was mostly home tutored by her mother until around the age of twelve, learning core values and necessary education so that she could survive on her own, including mathematics, reading and writing, and the current political state of play for the galaxy. During this time she also learned about her heritage as a Zeltron, and would often be serenaded with lavish stories about the famed idyllic planet of Zeltros.

Once Kassandra had reached the age of twelve her fathers health had deteriorated to some degree after a violent virus ravaged the poorer parts of the city one winter. Unable to work the family were able to survive off of saved up credits for a few weeks to follow, but with Shalo’s health still not improving, leaving the man bedridden the family eventually resorted to selling personal trinkets or appliances they didn’t consider a necessity, including an R3 astromech droid that the family had grown particularly fond off, this allowed the family to survive for a few more weeks on the credits it provided but it became clear that with Shalo’s health refusing to improve they would need to figure out a more permanent solution or they would lose their housing. Despite her young age, Kassandra showed a particularly strong physical strength and decided she would help provide for the family, taking her fathers place at the local scrappers guild to continue a steady income of credits to the household. This continued for nearly a year until Shalo’s eventual recovery from his ailments, after which he returned to work alongside Kassandra, who decided to stay in employment despite her fathers return.

Leaving Melida/Daan

As the monotonous years passed by slowly, Kassandra; now age sixteen, found she had fallen into stagnancy, her daily routine often consisted of working at the scrappers guild alongside her father Shalo. This stagnation in her life caused a desire to bubble deep within her core to leave Melida/Daan and the city she had come to grow overly fond of to explore the galaxy beyond the atmosphere encompassing her. Starting simply as a mild curiosity, Kassandra would often spend her free time when she wasn’t working to head into the cities civic centre, spending what little change she could muster outside of helping keep the family afloat on accessing the local holo terminals where she would read for hours on end via the publicly available archives about the vast number of planets that possibly awaited her beyond the stars. The visits became more frequent, almost to a daily occurrence during her evenings. This continued as normal until one of the days she went to visit the Civic Centre, she found herself barred access to the building; closed off due to a domestic terrorist situation, rumoured to be remnants of the long passed Young-Elders war that had ensued on the planet decades before. Leaving Kassandra unable to satiate her curiosity she wandered the streets of the city briefly unsure what to do with herself until she stumbled by the local starport. Caught off guard, startled by the loud bellowing engines of an AA-9 Coruscant Freighter leaving the port and ascending into the atmosphere, Kassandra stood in awe at the huge freighter when an idea sparked in her mind; a way off this planet, with a scheme brewing she quickly made her way home for the night.

In the coming weeks, Kassandra began to slowly put the pieces in place for her eventual departure from Melida/Daan; setting aside a small fund of credits to take with her once she left. She would also spend her evenings at the starport, watching the staff from the public areas and jotting down their work rotations, patterns in hope of finding gaps where she might be able to slip past. Eventually gathering enough information and credits, Kassandra decided it was time to take the leap and move on to bigger things. Finding a rare day off from working in the scrapyards she took this as a chance to sit down with her parents and reveal her plans to leave to them, and while initially displeased with plans, trying to convince Kassandra to change her mind, they eventually accepted there was no convincing her otherwise and agreed to let her leave. Wanting to ensure their daughter departed safely, they gave her what little extra credits they could gather together to ensure she could properly cover expenses enough to get on her feet wherever she may land.

Now ready to depart on what would be the beginnings of her interstellar journey through the stars, Kassandra handed her notice in at the scrappers guild the following day, work was slow and dreary as the only thing on her mind was the chance to finally see the galaxy. Later that evening, she returned home to gather her supplies, credits and any documentation she needed and headed for the Starport where she managed to pay one of the haulers; a young Coruscanti by the name of Adeela Yannick, to stow her away onboard their freighter, which was set on course for Naboo to drop off a shipment of cargo directly from Melida/Daan. Making her way safely on board the GR-75 Medium Transport piloted by Yannick, Kassandra made herself comfortable in the crew quarters and awaited her journey to embark for Naboo, which went by rather uneventfully. During the weeks in hyperspace, Kassandra spent most of her time shadowing Yannick in the flight deck, hoping to learn all she could about piloting a ship, quickly picking up the basics. Eventually arriving safely in Naboo, Kassandra parted ways with Yannick, finding her footing in a new world she looked on with enthusiasm as her journey began.

Personality and Characteristics

"I always finish what I've started" - A common catchphrase of Kassandra

Kassandra's personality is somewhat malleable, but as a mercenary, Kassandra originally had one prime goal - credits. Willing to go to extreme lengths to earn it, Kassandra had no qualms about choosing sides when the time was needed. Kassandra is also known to be impatient and quick to anger at times, and can frequently intimidate those who've angered her, which more often than not works to her advantage. Despite the lengths she would go to achieve her goals as a mercenary, Kassandra does still live by a code of honour that she holds dear and refuses to bend on for any job, one of which is her ardent refusal to bring harm to children. This code of honour she lives by has only being strengthened upon her transition to the Mandalorian way of life, going as far as to evolve her clan teachings around the core value of honour and walking the honourable path.

In more casual settings, Kassandra has been known to deviate from her relatively serious demeanour when found to be in close company with her companions, showing a more caring and easy going side of herself, and on rare occasion has been known to have crack the odd joke. She is known to care deeply for those who she considers family, going as far as to extend the same mindset towards protecting them as she would to her life as a mercenary.

Appearance

As a Zeltron, Kassandra shares the common physical traits found amongst her race, most notably the pinkish hue to her skin and her long Aegean blue hair, which she can normally be found to have tied back while on assignment for practicality purposes, though she has been spotted to wear it free flowing on rare occasions. Kassandra stands at 177cm, which is quite a common height for the female members of her race, with a stocky and well toned figure due to the rigorous physical requirements of the mercenary lifestyle. Her eyes are a rather uncommon light hazel that lay in contrast to her skin and hair, often causing them to stand out. Kassandra is often described by others as having a stern and serious looking face, mainly attributed to her strong jawline and strong facial features.

During hear earlier years as a mercenary, Kassandra would often attempt to keep her skin in pristine condition through the use of Bacta to heal any scars or marks that she had sustained throughout her career. Despite this her skin is still speckled in smaller scuffs and healed wounds upon closer inspection. After taking up the lifestyle of a Mandalorian, Kassandra's view on any damage she sustained changed, now seeing them as a sign of pride. In the years following, she now sports a number of scars across her body, including several claw marks from her time training her Nexu that cut across her right thigh and back. Several stab and slash wounds as well as a few faded marks to her face, one noticeably of which is a small line across the bridge of her nose. While her skin is normally a mild pinkish colour, it becomes visibly more saturated in hue when placed under stress or more negative mental states. Running along the breadth of her back is a large tattoo she received to show her alignment and devotion to her clan which displays the Aetos sigil; a Mythosaur skull under a spearhead, carried upon the wings of the Aetos.

Family

Being born to a small family on the planet of Melida/Daan, Kassandra is mostly unaware of any family past that of the immediate generation above her. Growing up closely living at home with Tyria and Shalo for the majority of her teenage years, her relation with them had the typical ups and downs that all families would experience. Due to Shalo's harsh work hours, most of her younger years were spent with her mother Tyria, who tried her best to instil a young Kassandra with the necessary cultural understanding of her race, their homeworld and customs. As well as the etiquette and social skills she would eventually need to survive on her own in the galaxy, which would stick with her through her growing maturity and years to come. Always supported by her family where possible, eventually after leaving the planet to pursue her own life, Kassandra ensured to keep in contact with them. Though this would eventually wane as the years grew and her responsibilities widened, leaving her only able to return to Melida/Daan a few times in a galactic year.

The shift in her family dynamic would eventually change in the early days of Year 22, when she received a holocommunication from Tyria, requesting that she returned home with haste as her father was bedridden and fallen fatally ill, stricken by a sickness that had brought his remaining days short and numbered. Immediately charting her way home after making aboard her ship, she quickly returned home where she stayed with her family for the next few weeks until eventually, Shalo succumbed to his illness and passed away. Grief stricken by the loss of her father, Kassandra remained at home with her mother for some time after his passing. After a turbulent year for the Zeltron, she decided it best to bring her mother closer to her so that she could eventually care for her moving forward, returning briefly to Melida/Daan, she told her mother about a city which she was the warden of on the planet of manda with her newfound family. The two then left to resettle in the mandalorian city under the wardenship of Aetos, where her mother was provided with her own home free of the poverty stricken worries of her last. Though her mother was not adopted into the ways, her clan see the woman as family just the same, as her blood is that of their alor.