Alya

Alya is a fox mechanic living in self-imposed isolation, known for her technical skill and her quiet, stubborn pride. She maintains equipment for the City Watch as well as other clients, though she rarely receives thanks for her work.

Addiction runs in her family, coming from her father’s side. Her brother has been to rehab multiple times, her sister is addicted to sex, her father was addicted to gambling.

The youngest of the three, Ayla’s early life was lived through financial instability and arguments between her parents. Her older siblings both dealt with this in their own way. Her older brother started drinking young, then moved to harder things. He taught her how to throw a punch. Her older sister began sleeping around, taking sex wherever she could get it, and eventually moving to sex work outright. She’s since become quite financially stable, even wealthy, although they don’t talk and her sister hasn’t visited the family in years.

Seeing what addiction had done to her family, Ayla stove to avoid it, and made her obsession mechanical things, which also happened to be something of a talent she had. He upbringing had been too rough to fully develop into feminine traits after all. Her sister had stopped talking to her, her brother had stolen from her, but she stayed with her parents and tried to keep things running. One night her father suggested she go work the streets like her sister and “bring in some real money”. She left home that night.

She got a job because she felt obligated to support her family, even after leaving home. She still sends a chunk of her paycheck back to them, not out of some naive hope it will help, but more out of a sense of duty that she can’t shake. She defines herself through work and contribution, even when the recipients don’t appreciate it.

She’s had sex once in her life. She had been dating the guy a few weeks and he suggested they try it. It was impersonal, neither of them fully undressed, foreplay was skipped and she couldn’t see his face. Afterwards, he said it was pretty good and they should do it again, but he broke up with her a few days later. She’s carried the question ever since if that’s all sex really is.

Ayla is a white fox, small for her species, with innocent blue eyes. Her face is narrow and sharp, with high cheekbones and a snout that’s a little too short for her size.

Her body is compact, wiry and lean, with small but dense muscles from years of blue collar work and hauling equipment she looks too small to manage. Her claws are worn and chipped from use.

Her fur is naturally soft, white and without marking, at least theoretically. In practice, it’s a patchwork of the stains of her trade. She cleans herself well when she gets home but the stains don’t come out easily and she’s started to care less and less.

Most of her clothes are more industrial and stained with dirt or grease spots. She does have some “nice” clothes, like a dress, but few. She also has spare work gloves, goggles, etc..

She likes to have her arms exposed (sleeves rolled to the elbow), and doesn’t like a constricting or closed collar.

Pajamas: A grey tank top, thin and soft, usually without trousers. She often comes home and changes into her pajamas directly.

She moves with her whole body when she works. Which sounds obvious, but I mean she’ll climb, crouch, lean, brace and haul with everything. She doesn’t care if it’s dirty, heavy or dangerous.

When she’s with someone she likes, she becomes smaller, not larger. She tries to pose herself in nice looking ways, angling her body towards them, tilting her head, rising her shoulder. When she does it, it’s a deliberate choice and an attempt to be seen as delicate, soft, and someone who is worth protecting and who needs to be cared for, instead of the rough mechanic who can lift her own weight.

Unselfconscious Body	She doesn’t care how she looks or sounds. Well, she does “care” she just usually forgets as she’s not monitoring herself and forgets others are around her. She grunts when she lifts heavy things, spits, if she gets filth on her face she’ll just rub it into her fur rather than wash it off and get on with her work. She’ll blow her nose clear with someone stood watching her, leaving it smeared and black on her cheek, and will look up with an uneasy smile when she remembers she’s not meant to do that in front of people. She’s not trying to be disgusting, or attractive, she’s just being herself.
Wants to be feminine	She does want to be seen as attractive and feminine, even if her natraul behaviours oppose that. When she remembers not to be disgusting, she attempts to be playful or sweet, rolling her shoulder or batting her eyes. She decorates her home with fairy lights, hangs model airplanes and CDs from the ceiling, grows plants. She bakes ginger biscuits. She tries to make her home environment beautiful, partly because she hopes of sharing it with someone someday, and having them call it beautiful.
Marginalized	She lives in the margins and goes unnoticed constantly. She doesn’t have the butch, noisy, confident masculinity to be “one of the guys”, and doesn’t have the decorum to hang out with girls. She doesn’t neatly fit into any group, and this combined with her social aqwuardness, leads her to marganalizing herself even further. Not to say she’s never noticed, but she’s only valued through her work, rather than socially.
Scatterbrained	Despite her mechanical compitance, she’s scatterbrained. She can lose a screwdriver she’s holding, is often 2 steps behind in a coversation, misses social cues, laughs at the wrong moment, forgets apointments, forgets her drink, forgets to stop work and go to lunch and doesn’t even notice the work room has emptied out of everyone else. She’ll clear out her nose or spit in public, because she’ll be thinking about something and forgets there even others around.
Proud	Deeply proud of herself, of her body, of her work. She has no sense of worthlessness. She sees herself as an idiot and knows she’s scatterbrained. But she won’t stand for genuine disrespect. She knows she’s a damn good mechanic. She knows she disserves a proper lover. She moved out from her family the night her father looked at her with a straight face and said she should work the streets. She has no time for people who try to fuck her around, and has more than enough strength and self determination to fuck off from such people and not look back.

• When she’s working, she’s unassuming and quiet. Someone can come in looking for her, walk around for a few minutes, can even call her name, and she’ll be in the corner or tucked away crouched behind a desk looking at something, and wont even notice her name being called or register someone came and went.

• She’s a red fox with white fur, not an arctic fox.
• She has a saying, “Mend and make-do”, which she applies as much to her social life as she does her work.
• She enjoys chess, although only gets to verse herself or work through puzzles from chess books.