Character Profile: Mira

Name: Mira
Species: Lamia
Setting: Jungle
Stories: Pretty-Eyed Peer Pressure, Led Lost by the Lamia, Led Confusing the Lamia, Led Found by the Lamia
Microstories: How Dare You, Forgive and Forget, April Fools 2021, The Knight and the Hunter, Queen’s Knight or Hunter’s Knight
Sexuality: Pansexual, but in a way she’s more attracted to the thrill of a hunt than the actual person and will usually only be interested if they give her a good hunt.
Ancestry: Indian, Belgian
Birthday: June 17th
Sections
Self-Sufficient
To the Ends of the Earth
Confident… or Not
Tricky Teasing
Lost in the Jungle
Bow and Arrow
Hypnotic Reality
Competitive Spirit
From Hunter to Chef
Human Issues
Seeking Partner
Hooded Secrets
Cat Friend
*Self-Sufficient
Mira is a hunter living in the jungle, chasing after her own food and supplies. Anytime she needs something she cannot procure on her own, she’ll never take it by charity—she’ll trade with the supplies she hunted down, or by doing something for whoever she’s trading with—usually cooking them some sort of meal, occasionally helping them sleep. Sometimes she won’t give them a choice on what they get, and then later they’ll remember asking for sleep and willingly trading what they have, but usually she’ll only do this if they’re being stubborn or annoying, or if she’s just feeling frisky. She’s never a thief, and will always trade what she believes to be fair—even if she needs to give them a little extra persuasion. (So she may not always be honest.)
*To the Ends of the Earth
Mira can be single-minded in her goals, especially when hunting something or someone. She’ll follow as far as she is able to, and then some. If her goal or quarry is interesting enough she might continue while ignoring things around her. This can lead to trouble, both from forgetting everything else and going further than she should, but it also results often in her goals being attained, so she’s happy about it.
*Confident… or Not
Mira is a confident lady, sure of herself and self-sufficient. She lives alone in the jungle, hunting down her food and resources, with only occasionally seeking help, and only when all other options are exhausted. She’s always the one to approach for help, though—if anyone offers she’ll usually decline. She’s reluctant to take help that’s offered, certain she can manage on her own—and she usually can, but this can lead to overconfidence on her part. If enough failures start to pile up, her confidence can take a big hit, leaving her something of a mess. At this point she may not even try; depending on what shattered her confidence she may need help regaining it, or she may grow indignant over it and start training to build her confidence back.
*Tricky Teasing
Mira enjoys playing games with her game, so to speak. If she has some time she’ll follow an animal for a while, sometimes taking notes to learn more about animal movements, sometimes intentionally scaring them a few times. Regarding humans she wants to trap, she will sometimes introduce herself gradually and come up with sneaky ways to lull them into her power. Most of them she could overpower easily, but she has much more fun teasing them, either with short bursts of hypnotic power to drop them slowly, or to lure them closer to see if she can convince them without hypnosis. She may keep her true nature concealed, or she may use her tail to tempt them. She’s often amused by the different reactions, especially those afraid of her.
Lost in the Jungle
Mira has lived in the jungle all her life. Not even a lamia village—in the jungle proper. She has vague memories of an elder lamia when she was much younger, but by the time her memories are clear she was living alone, hunting in the jungle for food. She eventually visited lamia villages across the jungle and found one where people recalled a baby born with her tail pattern, but no one knew what happened to her parents or who the lamia in her memories is. With no connection to the village though she’s since forgotten which village it even is; she’s much more comfortable in the jungle, so while she’ll visit lamia and human villages she never stays long. Her bow she obtained from some other village. It’s a good bow, but it’s not special or holds any sentimental value.
*Bow and Arrow
Mira’s weapon of choice is the bow and arrow. She uses a small and lightweight bow; it doesn’t have a lot of force to it, but she’s often able to strike at a critical spot that she doesn’t need much force behind the shot. The small size of her bow gives her extra mobility, allowing her to chase a prey easier. While she can fight with other weapons her bow is where she’s most skilled. (Disregarding, of course, her… eyyyes…)
*Hypnotic Reality
Mira’s hypnotic colors pulse in three colors: a fiery red, a deep ocean blue, and a green like the deepest, darkest parts of the jungle, as easy to get lost in as it is the jungle. She seems to have rather powerful hypnosis, warping a subject’s mind to attract them to her and believe the colors are the true reality they’d been blind to until now.
*Competitive Spirit
Mira is a fan of challenges, and one of the few reasons to bring her back to a lamia village are the lamia sports events. She participates in some and is known far in the jungle as one of the best archers. She’s even been approached to join some archery teams but always declines, staying solo. She enjoys other lamia sports as well, though her overconfidence and solo spirit has been known to do her in pretty handily.
*From Hunter to Chef
As a hunter, Mira has learned to tell when something is good to eat and when it’s dangerous. Once she learned that she went to the next step and learned how to combine stuff that’s good to eat and make it even better to eat. She’s tried combinations of meat, berries, nuts, whatever she can find in the jungle to cook into a delicious dish. A lot of it was trial and error, but she developed a knack for estimating what would be good. In some villages she’s even known more as a chef than a hunter, the alone jungle chef lamia. One of her specialties is fish dishes, learned over years of catching fish with her bow and arrow and attempts to cook them.
Human Issues
Local human villages are usually aware of Mira’s nature, but some people remain suspicious of her. In turn she usually doesn’t like the stares she gets—both kinda—and isn’t a fan of crowds or enclosed spaces, so she doesn’t spend much time in human villages. Those suspicious of her are either won over by her charm and cooking ability, or, if they’re troublesome for her, a little dose of her abilities. This can backfire, though, if someone begins pursuing her.
The most annoying thing is when she often gets at least one chucklehead per village who proclaims their love for her without ever meeting her or seeing her more than once. They just see she’s a lamia and instantly want to be with her, falling for a lamia, not Mira herself. She wants to earn love, not have someone push themselves in without even knowing her. Those people see her not as a person, but a long tail and a pair of pretty eyes, an imaginary person they believe her to be and not knowing who she really is.
For this reason she rejects all suitors who come forth—she has to make the first move. Often this involves molding someone’s mind to love her so she knows they love her and not just an idea of her (or at the very least they love her own idea of herself).
Seeking Partner
Despite rejecting suitors Mira is actually rather lonely and usually seeks out someone to spend her nights with, curl her tail around, kiss and cuddle and just maybe make her own… Between her hunting skills and single-mindedness it can be difficult to get away from her if she has her eye on you (even more so if she literally has her eyes on your eyes). Once she has someone she won’t let them go easily, and with enough of her hypnotic eyes she’ll make sure they won’t want her to let them go.
*Hooded Secrets
Mira’s hood is big enough that she can store supplies in it, most notably her bow and arrows. She’ll also typically have some sweet-scented flowers in there if she’s trying to attract someone, along with material she can use to set a trap like rope and stakes.
Cat Friend
In some settings Mira has a pet cat, a small jungle cat who became close to her after Mira found her injured and patched her wounds and fed her. Mira took to calling her Mahini, to show she thought of the cat as strong. While jungle cats are one of the biggest of the extant Felis species, Mahini is on the small side at about 30 cm to the shoulder and 60 cm long.
While Mahini remains independent and will stay alone for days at a time, Mira’s independence means she doesn’t worry and Mahini always returns for pets or a soft bed. Mira also uses her to assist in hunting, either slowing or taking down animals she hunts or distracting other prey for other purposes (read: humans for her coils).
Despite both having independent streaks they’ve become close and rather loyal to each other, one of the few beings Mira feels a connection to. While she won’t admit it, she will cuddle Mahini, but only when no one is looking.