Character Profile - Doctor Avira zh'Kenarh

Doctor Avira zh’Kenarh
Andorian Female

Place of Origin: Andor

Physical Description

Avira her physical upbringing and training has made her rather broad-shouldered, even though she was trained in medicine more than anything else the ranks of the Andorian Imperial Guard are relentless for all their conscripts. More than muscular, though, she’s agile and likes to keep it that way with a well-balanced cardio routine. Her pronounced violet eyes are slightly more sensitive to light than what is normal for Andorians. Her hair is always kept tied in a bun, a braid, or keeping it out of her face with bands and clips in some other fashion. If wearing it loose it would reach to the small of her back. She prefers to keep it slightly darker than her natural hair colour. While nowadays she no longer wears the standard-issue Andorian uniform she always keeps her professionality by wearing neat and tidy clothes covered with a long white lab coat. She never leaves her quarters without a first aid pack since she was trained as a combat medic. While she doesn’t do off duty particularly well, she’s been known to wear simple loose hoodies and sweatpants, choosing comfort above all else she’s rarely seen wearing shoes or socks when in this mode.

Personality Profile

The training and her experience in the Imperial Guard have formed Avira, giving her a stern outlook on life. Her medical advice is usually direct, she doesn’t like to mince words, and isn’t afraid to be confrontational when in a discussion. At a certain level her personality is what’s expected of her being in the Andorian Imperial Guard, but it stems mostly from a difficult childhood, which she doesn’t discuss with anyone, not even close friends. She has a loyalty to her brothers and sisters in arms, and would do anything to protect them from harm (or save them once harm is done).

Early years Biography

To the outside world the bond between the Kenarh bond was a stable and happy one. The bond had given birth to six children and Avira, or more accurately Chiyaviraghlin, was the fourth of those six. Her fathers and mothers ran a buffalo farm on the southern hemisphere of Andoria prime. There was a rigid hierarchy maintained between the bondsmates and Thyr ruled the household with an iron fist, especially when he had indulged himself in one ale too many. The bond was meant to protect the clan from outside influence, but it turned out to be very ill-equipped to deal with threats from inside the house.

From an early age, the kids in the household were expected to work on the farm and earn their keep. At this time both Jishe and Ekenaass had returned to their earlier life in the Andorian Imperial Guard, leaving just Thyr and Tosha to deal with the six children. Thyr started to slip more and more into alcoholism as the years progressed and violent outbursts had become a daily occurrence. When Avira was about 15, her father got furious with her oldest brother Kahr and beat him to within an inch of his life. The reason for his fury was the fact that one of the pens for the bison wasn’t properly locked and sealed, something that Avira should’ve done that day, but her brother took responsibility and the subsequent beating. During the beating her brother took an unfortunate fall from the stairs and stopped moving.

Kahr was rushed to a hospital and the doctors were able to save his life. It prompted the arrest of her father and the return of her other two parents to the household. It was clear that they were unhappy with the situation, especially now that Kahr needed special attention because even with rehabilitation he was unable to regain his former mobility. Avira felt guilty over the whole ordeal, even though Kahr never held it against her and told her on multiple occasions that if he had to go through all of that another hundred times to protect his little sister, then that’s what he’d do.

After two years of incarceration Thyr returned home in 2139. He immediately got back to his old ways, being especially verbally abusive towards Kahr. This prompted Avira to run away from home and enlist in the Imperial Guard at the age of seventeen. She underwent the heavy physical entry exams of the Guard, but was able to pass them through sheer determination and the physical prowess she had gotten from tending the bison farm from an early age.

History

Soon after joining the Guard Avira was able to carve out a place for herself in the platoon. She took on several additional tasks as a field medic and was trained in combat first aid. She kept expanding her skills as a medic during several tours of duty until in 2145 she retired from the force and returned to her old homestead to live the civilian life. Tired of the conflict the Andorian government seemed to get in with all of their interstellar neighbours. She never returned home to the farm, and never reached out to her parents blaming them for a lot of her psychological trauma, something that was only exacerbated by her time in the Guard. She still kept in contact with her brothers and sisters, although some of them didn’t wish to speak to her anymore. She enrolled into a university and with her Imperial Guard experience was able to get herself into a prestigious medical university.

It was hard work for her to get through the medical training, but she had her heart set on becoming a full-fledged doctor. She started to develop herself as a medical practitioner, first in the general field. Once her professors witnessed her steady hands, and her ability to remain collected under pressure, she was pushed towards the surgical track. She finished her residencies in 2151 and became a fully licenced trauma surgeon in one of the larger metropolitan areas on Andor.

Despite the safety and steadiness of her job Avira started to feel uneasy, news was coming in from the Andorian expeditionary force speaking of contact with new alien civilisations, establishing footholds far away from Andor. She was never quite able to settle down in civilian life on Andor and the ghosts of her youth were still haunting her. The trauma of that time was only amplified from her experiences in the Guard. The nights in the city were too quiet, the days too bright. She needed to get back out in space. Among her brothers and sisters in arms, finding new places to distract her from her every day emotions.

The Imperial Guard reinstated her as a medical officer in early 2153, and she served aboard a small cruiser for a little over a year. When in 2154 Andor was attacked by a Vulcan fleet she was on one of the vessels defending the homeworld from alien aggression. The ship was hit hard and she was once more in the thick of it. She did what was expected of her, a lot of lives were lost, and in the aftermath it made her start reconsidering her life and future. She wanted something more for herself than to die a heroes death and be put in the Hall of Warriors.

While many of her contemporaries were suspicious of the Pink-skins as they called them, Avira rejoiced when the Andorian government decided to join in the newly established Coalition of Planets. She immediately wanted to take the opportunity to move away from the Imperial Guard and applied for an officer exchange programme on one of Earth’s NX class vessels. With her military background and civilian experience it wasn’t difficult for her to get accepted and she was assigned as the Assistant Chief Medical Officer to the NX-05 Atlantis in the early months of 2155.