Shayla Deverell

About You
Name: Raeka
Age: I'm a teenager.
How did you find us: Google.
Rules Password: [Password Accepted ~Melissa]

Character Basics
Name: Shayla Deverell
Alias(es)/Nickname(s):
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Race: Human
Status/Title: Lady of the Court
Affiliation: Officially Telmar, but secretly Shayla believes in Narnia.

Character Appearance
Hair: Very dark brown, nearly black.
Eyes: Blue.
Overall: Shayla is slim and slightly tall. She holds a sort of peaceful, elegant appearance, and has the posture of a well-trained Lady. Her hair is thick and wavy, reaching in dark folds just past the middle of her back. Her features are dark and very much like a Calormene, but everyone simply attributes it to her father's side of the family, not realizing it comes from her real mother.
Portrayal: Megan Fox

Character Personality
Likes:
.| Stories
.| Her brothers
.| Babies/Children
.| Peacefulness
.| Old Narnia
.| Singing
.| Dreaming
.| Breezes
.| Gentle sunshine
.| The forest
.| Water (rivers, ponds, the sea, etc)
.| Reading

Dislikes:
.| War
.| Anger
.| People with no imagination
.| Keeping her secret
.| Forced conversation
.| Strangers
.| King Miraz (though she would never admit it to anyone but her brothers)
.| Speaking with men
.| Coldness (in weather, people, and castle walls)

Strengths:
.| Loyal to her brothers
.| Quiet
.| Gentle
.| Keeps secrets well
.| Wonderful with children
.| Beautiful singer
.| Eager to learn
.| Intelligent
.| Fascinated with history

Weaknesses:
.| Shy
.| Social mingling
.| Too scared to trust
.| Daydreaming
.| Over thinking
.| Too reserved
.| Unable to defend herself (mostly verbally)
.| Easily embarrassed
.| Doesn't want to show her talents

General Personality: Shayla is naturally shy and reserved, but her lifestyle has called her to be even more so. Keeping the knowledge of her own history from everyone she knows (not including her brothers, that is) makes Shayla secretive and reserved. To actually tell someone everything about her is a scary idea; only Shayla's brothers are allowed to know all her secrets and fears. She is extremely scared to let anyone see inside of her completely, perhaps for fear that they will turn on her in the end, as she feels her own parents did somehow. Because of her lack of trust, Shayla has never really had a true friend outside of her closely knit sibling circle. While she is actually quite good at listening to other people's problems, she rarely does, simply because she's scared that they might become to close. Shayla is too scared to share her secret.

This lack of trust almost becomes an insecurity, and Shayla constantly has a sort of fear in her mind that, if anyone should discover who her real mother was, she would be sent back to Calormen. She knew little about Calormen except what her brothers would tell her, and they never wanted to talk about it. The little she knew of it was enough to make Shayla never want to go there, more for the idea of her parents than the actual place. Even so, Narnia was a better place for her. Green trees and fields were much preferred to a hot desert climate. Shayla wanted to listen to a gurgling river flow past her, not watch a storm of dust fly by her window. Her fear might seem somewhat unfounded, except that if anyone knew that her mother had not been Sabrina, she would not live where she does. And she knows nothing else.

Shayla makes up for her lack of friendships in her great bursts of imagination. She tends to daydream of going beyond her small world and the Castle life, and, someday, to find the creatures of Narnia. In her heart, Shayla believes they exist. It was her grandmother that told her the stories of Old Narnia first; they could be found if one searched for the right books. And the stories were beautiful - Shayla could never get enough of them. She felt they were too real and perfect to be only myths, and she was sure of their existence still. At least, she liked to suppose that they were still alive, hiding off beyond the forest somewhere. After all, why were the Telmarines all afraid of the woods and the old ruins by the sea? To Shayla, they were enchanting. She always felt that a tree would suddenly speak, or Aslan would suddenly appear.

Beyond just Old Narnia, Shayla loves literature of any kind, and is a very intelligent girl. While the other girls complain when they are forced to study, Shayla thrives on learning, especially history. The one kind of people she loves with all her heart is children. Their innocence snatches her heart, and she could spend hours sitting with them, singing and telling them stories. That is always saved for children, though. Shayla may have a beautiful voice, and the gift of story-telling, but she would never share that with anyone but a child. She feels that their sweetness and innocence is more trustworthy than the rest of the world.

Character History
Parents:
.| Keir - father {whereabouts unknown}
.| Jazella - mother {deceased}
.| Sabrina - {deceased} mother of all Shayla's brothers. The people in Narnia think Sabrina is Shayla's mother; they no nothing of Jazella.
Siblings:
.| Anaan - half-brother {35}
.| Thal - half-brother {33}
.| Cuyler - half-brother {29}
.| Drostan - half-brother {24}

General History:
Keir Deverell was from Telmar. No, not the Telmar in Narnia where King Miraz ruled, but the real Telmar which seemed to have been forgotten by so many in Narnia. It might be a stretch, however, to say he was actually from Telmar, though he was born there. His mother was a native of the real Telmar, while his father was from Calormen. That story is quite long and confusing, and even Keir himself did not know the whole of it. However, it came to be that his parents met and Keir was born in Telmar, though they moved when he was a very small child and he hardly remembers living there at all.

So, Keir grew up in Calormen, and seemed to be more from there than anywhere else. It was strange though, in the end Keir married a young Telmarine girl from Narnia. Sabrina, his new wife, had grown up mostly in Narnia, but her mother had also been from Archenland. It was such a strange combination of roots and heritage that it nearly confused even themselves. But they did love one another and that was all that mattered to them.

The next few years were spent in Narnia, Archenland, and Telmar. In Telmar Sabrina became deathly ill, and wished to return to her homeland of Narnia, that she might be with her family and friends before she died. It was no use, the lady died before they had traveled two days. It broke her four son's hearts, and crushed everything she had loved about Keir into smithereens. After Sabrina's death, Keir took his four sons and planted himself in the city of Tashbaan, in Calormen. It was there that he met, and in very little time - without consulting his children in the least - married Jazella.

Keir was almost always traveling, no one knew to where. In his absence Jazella was rather cruel to his sons; taking out her anger at her husband and his negligence, and her own inability to bear him a child, on his boys. They would often escape when she became especially oppressive, and would not return for a few days, a week even. The older brothers felt a desperate need to care for their younger siblings, and it created a tight bond between them all.

The boys were eighteen, sixteen, twelve, and seven, when their step-mother finally gave birth to her first child. At first they wanted to dislike her, but little Shayla was sweet and precious, and her brothers couldn't help themselves. She was quickly added to the sibling's tightly knit circle, the brother's forgot who her mother was and took her in for themselves. Keir began spending longer times out on his 'travels' -- no one knew where he went, or why. It seemed that ever since Sabrina's death, something had snapped and he was turning into a wild man. He still came around, however, just a few times a month or every other month or so. It was on one of these 'visits home' that Jazella announced she was pregnant again. Shayla was nearing two years, and so far Jazella was treating her seemingly fine. The boys were twenty, eighteen, fourteen, and nine and spent little time at home at all. Anaan and Thal were already desperate to leave and live their own lives, but they knew they couldn't leave nine-year-old Drostan alone.

But the decision was made for them. A few months later Jazella began a terrible miscarriage. Too much blood was lost, and she was already too weak. By the next day she was gone. Keir buried her with a face as hard as stone, not shedding a single tear. He spent an entire week at home, seemingly staring at nothing the entire time. Shayla and Drostan seemed scared of him, and the older boys tried to keep them quiet and entertained elsewhere. It was harder than they had thought, taking care of a two year old, and keeping her quiet. They began to wonder what would ever happen to the poor child. At the end of the week their father suddenly took up the bag he always took when he traveled, kissed each of his children (which was unusual, to say the least), and stood staring at them from the door. He whispered a hoarse sounding goodbye and was gone. His children never saw him again. They weren't at all surprised.

Because their father had deserted his young children, it fell upon the older ones to take care of them. Eventually they decided that they would return to Narnia, where their mother Sabrina had once been known and loved. Someone had to help them there; it was the closest family they had left. They did find help there, in the form of their grandparents. Cuyler, Drostan and Shayla began living with them, in the King's court, while Anaan and Thal wandered aimlessly about the world. Sabrina’s parents took the children in and always treated them with the greatest love, something very different in their lives. Shayla grew up there as if she truly was their granddaughter. They were never told that she wasn’t, and Shayla often wished that they actually were. But they could not be told anything different, it was too risky, her brothers told her. Not that they would kick her out, but that no one else would know the truth. The story had been told that Sabrina and her husband had died, and now their children needed a home; it was true, to a certain extent. It was only not true of Sabrina. The only reason Miraz had allowed the Deverell children to live in his Court was that Sabrina's father had always been held in a high esteem.

And so, Shayla grew up in the King’s Court, always rather silent and drawn back because of her true story. She had never been back to Calormen, and could not even remember it. Narnia was very much her home, and she almost felt that Sabrina had been more of a mother to her than her own, though they had never laid eyes on one another. Her brothers and their grandparents were her family, and when her grandparents had both died by her fifteenth year, her elder brothers returned to be assured of her safety.

Other/Notes: Sister to Thal Deverell

Sample
RP Sample:
Please see Myrrine, Thal, and my old posts for Shayla and Weylin.