Queen Niru Burakgazi

"'Darling, I respect you and your ability, but if you ever threaten my people again they will be wiping you off the marble walls, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.' -Niru, after a visitor insults her people."Niru is the wife of Aylanur and Linh, the mother of the Obsidian Trio, and one of the three Queens of Ursisa.

Biography
Niru and her brother were found by an in-labor Kerila, abandoned in a storm mere hours after birth. Once she had given birth to Huijin she also took the two foundlings in as her own. Lokur took to all three children as any father would, and the adults raised the siblings carefully throughout the years.

When Niru was around twenty or so, she met with Aylanur on the road to warmer fields, and the two struck up a romance. The courtship between the two lasted for a year, and most likely would have lasted longer if Niru hadn't unexpectedly gotten pregnant. The two left the band with warm farewells and settled in Nmon Lau for a short time, but while participating in a peaceful protest, Niru was horribly beaten by a police officer and miscarried. She also suffered from internal bleeding for several weeks, and to this day holds a distrust of police.

In grief, the two moved to America for a short while, where Niru met and fell in love with Linh Nguyen. While the two didn't start a romantic relationship, it became a source of contention between Ayla and Niru. The tension quickly evaporated when Linh came to them, badly wounded after escaping her abusive boyfriend. The next day the three women helped Linh gather her possessions and leave her boyfriend once and for all, and when Linh remarked that she didn't have anywhere else to go, Ayla surprised her wife by suggesting Linh move in with them. The two women welcomed her into their home, and once Linh was settled in they had a talk about the nature of the relationship between Linh and Niru. Eventually, after setting up boundaries and reconciling hurt feelings, Niru settled in with her wife and her girlfriend.

After some time had passed, Niru expressed a longing for her homeland, and once Ayla and Linh agreed the three moved back to Nmon Lau. The three managed to have a good life together, and Niru worked for a while first as a janitor, then as a boxing instructor. One night, Ayla came home with a young girl she found on the street and asked if they could keep her. Despite not having enough money to take the girl in, the three did their best to keep the child fed and safe, and within a month they considered the child as one of their own, as she slept in the same bed as the three women.

A year into their stay in Ursisa, Niru reconnected with her parents and siblings when they traveled south to sell their wares, introducing them to her partners and daughter. While unused to the relationship, Lokur and Kerala accepted the women with open arms. At some point, Hinu and Huijin had a conversation with their sister about the quickly-diminishing land that they used to travel, now swallowed up by factories and settlements, and the way that their traditional life seemed to become more obsolete as time went on. Niru promised to do everything in her power to protect her old band, and together with her lovers and her daughter, they returned to Nmon Lau.

In January of 2020, a failed assassination attempt on the First Lady of the United States led to a week of bombings on Nmon Lau, where there were over 4000 deaths, along with leaving over a thousand missing, nearly ten thousand injured and thirty thousand left without homes. Along with this was the destruction of the Crown Family along with several important government buildings. Before the dust had settled, Aylanur collected her family and, after a few minor incidents, was crowned as Queen of Ursisa.

During the reconstruction of Ursisa, Niru was the carrot to her wife's stick. She presented a public face of kindness and love and often would be seen handing out aid or working alongside nurses to help the wounded. In private, however, she often was the one to push for stronger measures, and she often handled matters such as traitors or dissenters personally. She came into conflict with Aylanur several times over not seeking retribution against the United States, and the stress only worsened when Niru realized she was pregnant again. When her wife suffered cardiac arrest, the shock of it made her go into premature labor right as the Aconi attacked. Despite the unfortunate situation, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. When the Aconi had been dealt with and Linh was able to go to her wife's bedside, the two agreed to name the boy Duc, after Linh's grandfather. When Aylanur woke up, Niru moved her hospital bed beside hers, and the two recovered hand in hand.

Once Ursisa was secure and stable, Niru shifted her focus to the integration of the bands into the rest of Ursisa, and their ability to retain their autonomy and traditions in a rapidly-modernizing world.

Personality
For all her fire and willpower, Niru remains warm and composed most of the time. Her kindness, empathy, and a strong sense of justice make her a fierce defender of her people, and she has been called "Ursisa's Mother Bear" from time to time. She has a short temper, but it is considerably longer for those who don't know better, such as young children, or for those she's affectionate with. She will often put a lid on whatever has her angry in order to help someone else in an emotional moment, as seen when a new server accidentally spilled hot soup all over herself and Niru and, rather than lashing out or leaving the area, she instead personally escorted the young girl to the infirmary.

Niru is also surprisingly ruthless, and will often push for things that those around her view as barbaric- she was the one who pushed for those tearing down the northern rainforest to be obliterated, and she once killed a would-be assassin by snapping his neck. She has little regard for those who are a threat to what she loves, and while compassionate towards those she has neutral feelings towards, those who anger or upset her are often treated with outright contempt and scorn.

Lokur
Niru loves her father, though her relationship with him is strained due to the distance between them and his distaste with some of her recent policy decisions. Despite this, he understands the burdens of leadership, and when Niru is lost he proves to be supportive of her.

Kerila
Niru views her mother as a sort of saint and deeply values her mother's approval. When she learned that her mother had killed her own siblings, she couldn't reconcile the idea she had built up in her head of her mother with the young woman who committed fratricide, and it took her a while to recognize that her mother wasn't perfect.

Aylanur
Niru loves her wife dearly and values her opinion over the opinions of those around her. As Aylanur was her first taste of the outside world, she tends to view Ayla as the baseline to which all other non-nomadic individuals should behave, and when a social convention confuses her she tends to seek out her wife for help. She tries to be a supportive partner, and when Ayla is stressed she becomes angry on her wife's behalf at anything else that might cause her stress.

Linh
Niru tends to lean on Linh when she's under stress but understands that her wife needs her space. She adores Linh, and will often go to great lengths to make sure that she has what she needs. Niru also tends to view her wife as a little helpless, as Linh lacks the combat training and hunting skills that Aylanur and Niru do, and in an emergency, Niru will prioritize Linh while trusting Aylanur to get the kids to safety.

Hinu
Niru is close with Hinu and treats him almost as a younger brother despite the fact that she was the runt as a pup. She is intensely protective of him and has been responsible for chasing away at least a few suitors for her brother.

Huijin
Niru and Huijin are pranksters, always bickering with each other and sniping at each other. Despite frequently getting into arguments and even full-on fights, the two never seem to hold grudges against each other, and any attempts to stop the two from fighting is met with hostility from both parties.

Minerva
Niru was originally the one most opposed to taking in the girl, but over time has become increasingly fond of her. Minerva became a sort of stand-in for the child she lost, and she is fiercely protective of her daughter to a fault. This caused some level of stress when Niru and Nadiah clashed, but since then mother and daughter have repaired their relationship.

Duc
Niru is much freer with Duc than she is with her other children, as he has the fewest issues in regard to either mental or physical health. She enjoys sparring with him, and she is frequently the person he goes to when under stress.

Chike
Niru adores her youngest son and is heavily protective of him. As Chike came from an abusive household she tends to give him more leeway than the other two and has taken great steps to understand both Varkan Sign Language and the Varkan Deaf community.

Trivia

 * Niru's name is derived from the Varko word for 'storm'. She was named as such due to both her circumstances of birth and for the fact that as a child she "cried often, loudly, and without rest".
 * While Niru loves all her children dearly, she harbors some small, secret favoritism for Chike, who is young and frail like she was as a baby.
 * It is suspected by those close to her that Niru falls somewhere on the Autism spectrum, as she has shown difficulty with social cues that others raised in the nomadic bands don't exhibit, has repeatedly shown aversion to rapid change without proper warning, dislikes loud noises and certain smells, and enjoys learning about new technology. So far, she has not received an evaluation on it, seeing as she can effectively manage in society.