Aina
XXIII
Sex: Feminae
Occupation: Gladiator/Slave
Appearance:Aina is of an average height, though more lean and muscular than the common Roman standards of beauty might permit. She has long, dark hair, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her body is bronze from many days spent in the sun and painted with the geometric tattoos common among the Amazons.
Personality:Quick-Tempered: Before her capture, Aina was known among her friends to be quick to anger, but since it is hard to say she is “Quick Tempered” because she is nearly always angry, resentful of her captors. Her every movement has something of the caged tiger: one can’t be quite certain when she will lash out.
Intrepid: Aina is bold to recklessness, dauntless in the face of any danger to her person.
Clever: Aina is very poorly educated by Roman standards, but is quick-thinking in battle and when faced with problems or puzzles. She is good at finding the weaknesses in her enemies.
Capricious: The Amazon hardly ever makes much of a plan, but rather launches into action and asks questions later.
Equipment:As a slave, Aina now owns nothing, but her leather armor which she was allowed to keep in hopes of the exoticism drawing in more spectators. In the arena, she fights with a polearm.
Skills:“Swiftness”: Aina’s name roughly translates to “swiftness” and she lives up to the moniker. The Amazon is fleet of foot, flexible, and remarkably agile; her skill in battle is largely due to her speed, reflexes, and acrobatic feats.
Horsemanship: Like all Amazons, Aina was riding almost before she was walking and has great skill in managing horses. There has been some talk of placing her against the other Eques, or equestrian gladiators. Others think it’d be a shame to waste the spectacle of her fighting on foot.
Melee: Though she was trained in the use of bows as well, Aina’s primary weapon is the polearm. She fights like a dervish, using the weapon’s long reach and her own agility to carve her opponents.
Flaws:Uneducated: The Amazons teach their children the art of warfare, how to fight, how to hunt, and how to ride. Aina can read very little and has no knowledge of politics, philosophy, or art.
Reckless: Aina has no concern for her own safety or for danger of any other sort, not to mention the sort of attitude that is bound to get her in trouble.
Underweight: Compared to the other gladiators, and any other man Aina might find herself up against, she is small. The Amazon has little in the way of brute strength and must rely on other aspects to succeed in a fight.
Backstory:Spring had come some time ago to the plains of Scythia, but so early in the morning a bite of chill still lingered in the air and Aina shivered as she stepped dripping onto the northern bank of the Black Sea. Salt water ran in rivulets off her bare, goose-pimpled body, taking with it weeks of dirt and grime from her travels. The young warrior had made good time on her trek outwards from the heart of Scynthia and by that very afternoon, she believed she would arrive at her destination.
The chieftess of Aina's tribe had little love for the Romans and their relentless hunger for new territory, and they had been suspiciously absent from Scythia for some time. It was possible that the legions had turned their sights on the easier, more fruitful pickings to the south, but Aina had been ordered out to check the borders anyway. With winter’s grasp lifted from the land, it may once again look favorable to the damnable Romans.
As the warrior woman slipped her clothing back over her damp skin, she looked out across the expanse of mirror-calm water and at the tall black mare nosing near the shore. It was as still and peaceful as any scene Aina had laid her eyes on, with fog rolling off the lake in the grey light of a sun just beginning her day’s journey. It was high time Aina and Aba, the horse, began their journey as well. With a prayer of thanks for the morning’s beauty, Aina collected her few belongings. Aba pranced impatiently as her simple bridle was fitted, and with a wave of apprehension, the warrior woman noticed that no trace of paint remained on her mount’s sleek black body. Gone were the geometric swirls that matched the tattoos on her own skin, and Aina prayed that the blessings that had accompanied the markings had not faded as well.
The peace of that morning lingered within the warrior woman as she entered the pine forests near the Scythian-Roman border, singing a simple chant to the moon goddess and swaying with Aba’s gentle canter. With the overconfidence of a fighter who had never lost a battle, Aina did not fear the approach of Romans—she doubted she would find any on so quiet a border, and if she did she had no doubt in her ability to best them. What were Roman soldiers to the wild beauty of a tribeswoman in battle frenzy?
Then, the first arrow struck. It was a clever shot, not aimed at the warrior woman, but at the unprotected chest of her trusted steed. The big black horse seemed to cave in on herself, crumbling to the ground beneath Aina as the barbed tip found a beating heart.
“Aba!” the warrior woman let out one startled cry of grief as her animal fell. She had raised the sturdy beast from a filly, but there was no time for sorrow just then.
An East Roman Border Guard was welling out of the surrounding trees like so much blood, each soldier bent on attacking the one savage they had seen on the border after being stationed in so remote a place all the long winter. Aina whirled into action, slaying 4, 7, 10 of the soldiers with the cruel blade of her polearm, but the sheer number of soldiers soon proved too much. There was a sharp stab of pain in her left temple, and the warrior woman knew no more.
Aina is an Amazon warrior from the steppes to the East of the Black Sea, recently captured and taken to Rome to be sold as a gladiator. She has yet to be pitted in the arena but has already been installed in the Ludus Magnus Gladiator School.
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