Zarina

• **Please be aware: I do not support the artist of this adopt due to their concerning behavior; I purchased secondhand; and I still like my character and their design. I plan to make a different reference for them and dissociate them from their creator

Zarina tends to come across as smug and egotistical. She isn't selfish, but has an air about her that makes people think she doesn't care about others. Whether its her quickness to be a smartass, or her general go-with-the-flow to a fault attitude, it makes her come across as overly laissez faire to those who don't know her well. 

In reality, Zarina has the opposite problem. She cares too much. So much so, that it's historically gotten her in a lot of trouble to care too much about strangers and their problems. As a result, she's trained herself to play off any situation as something nonimportant to her...poorly. If you ignore her words, and what air she puts on to look past to her actions, you'll find someone working very hard behind the scenes to try and help people. Especially those she considers friends or deserving of her help.

She struggles with her curse, and the implications of it- she has a lot of insecurity about what it means for her and what it makes her. She feels like she deserves to be a monster, questions if she truly deserves it, and laments her fate all at the same time. She wonders if putting an end to the curse by letting it transform her may somehow be a better option. 

Despite being willing to give help in times of need, she's not very good at accepting help. Even with her condition. She gets quite upset by the thought of others wasting their time on her when she's not got a very high opinion of herself. Even if she puts on a facade that she is very confident- it's nothing more than an act, and she'll quickly change her tune if people really give her their attention at all. 

While she'll get to know other people, she keeps other people at arms length from herself. She doesn't really know how to respond to company and doesn't trust herself enough to let people in. Ages of having to survive with a condition out to destroy her very sense of self and force her to do things to get by for fear of that has made her reluctant to let her guard down.

Zarina has always been cursed, since her birth. One of her ancestors many generations ago tried to steal from a dragon's hoard, as a result- their lineage was cursed with a need to eat gold. She has always had this condition, and has such-learned to live with it the best she can. Since her family left her nothing to manage it-for fear of their own safety they pushed her out to find her own sources, she spends her life on a constant timer, in search of trade and bartering to try and obtain the smallest amounts of gold. 

She works a simple job at a local grocery store. All of her money goes to her home-and the small snippits of gold she can afford. (usually cheap earrings and anything with small slivers of gold she can find at thrift shops and the like). She has resorted to theft in the past when desperate, but does everything possible to avoid this. She resents having to reduce herself to being a problem to other people just to deal with her own curse.