Tija Aizala

Authored by Silke Fahl

Character Biography

Year of birth: 2363
Place of birth: somewhere in the Dahkur Province, Bajor

Physical Description
Eye colour: jade green
Hair colour: copper
Skin colour: apricot
Appearance: Aizala is a petite woman and has always appeared younger than she is. Her apricot coloured skin is covered with pale brown, almost golden looking freckles; especially on her face, shoulders and arms. Her thick copper hair falls in gentle waves just below her shoulder blades. While her hands are soft, you can still feel some calluses and a few faint scares, indication of the fact that she’s worked with her hands all her life. She also has a faint white scare along the hairline on the right side of her face from just above her temple to her ear.
(https://imgur.com/a/hWWsknf)

Personal
Marital status: unwed
Children: none
Parents: Tehiah & Chadur
Siblings: one older sister (Soanea *2358 - †2365)

Hobbies: reading medical journals, meditating, Yoga

Character
Aizala is friendly and kind-hearted, but very withdrawn. She hardly ever volunteers personal information that isn’t already in her personal file. Yet while she longs for true, meaningful connections and friendships, she is so afraid of rejection and being left alone, that she never lets anyone get close enough to really get to know her (and thus to hurt her).
Myer-Briggs: ISTJ (https://www.16personalities.com/istj-personality)
Enneagram: 2 (https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-2)

Curriculum Vitae
Aizala was born during the last years of the Occupation. Her parents were members of the resistance and thus the first six years of her childhood were marked by secrecy, guerrilla attacks and hiding in the mountains. When she was only two years old her older sister Soanea died. The two sisters had been picking berries together, in a place where they weren’t supposed to go, and while Soanea peered over the edge of a cliff, she lost her footing and fell to her death.

Aizala’s mother never recovered from the shock of losing one of her daughter. While some parents might become over-protective as a result, Tehiah withdrew more and more; often neglecting her other daughter. At the same time her father found his own means of coping with the loss by putting all his energy into fighting the Cardassians.

While the other members of their resistance cell made sure that Aizala was cared for and wouldn’t starve because her parents were too preoccupied, the child missed the loving care of a parent nevertheless.

Once the Occupation was over, the family moved to a small town in that same region. Both her parents remained very withdrawn not only from the other people in the town, but from their daughter as well. As a result, Aizala was mostly brought up by their neighbours.

One of them was Rinyet Inuma. The old woman was very knowledgeable with regard to herbs and natural remedies to heal all kinds of ailments. Showing interested and aptitude in that area, she taught Aizala all she knew and fostered her curiosity in that area.

It was due to Inuma’s encouragement that Aizala left her home in the Dahkur province when she was about 15 years old. A relative of Inuma, Tahrva Zajil, who lived in Ilvia took her in. There she received further medical training at the local medical facility.

But as she grew older, she longed more and more to leave Bajor. So at the age of twenty Aizala decided to to join Starfleet. Since she’d already received a fair amount of medical training, albeit be it mostly in what is often called alternative medicine, she decided to stay in that field and to become a doctor.

At first she had some problems to settle in in this very strange and unfamiliar new environment. But she did and the more comfortable she felt, the more she excelled in her classes. So when she graduated from the Academy, she was among the top graduates in her class in medicine. Yet while she wasn’t exactly anti-social, she never really made any deep and meaningful connections with fellow cadets. This continued at all her postings after leaving the Academy as well.

[…]

Starfleet Record
2383 – admitted to Starfleet Academy
2387 – graduation from Starfleet Academy and posting on USS Rickmer Rickmers
2390 – promotion to Lieutenant junior grade and transfer to the USS Krusenstern
2394 – transfer to the USS Challenger and promotion to Lieutenant and Assistant CMO
2395 - promotion to Chief Medical Officer
2396 - medical leave on the USS Ogawa; will be assigned there after rehab and being cleared for duty again

Medical History
mostly just small injures as minor cuts and bruises
head injury during her childhood that left a scar on her forehead
broke her left wrist and a few ribs during an away mission on the Krusenstern

Psychological History
During the last away mission on the USS Challenger Doctor Tija got severely triggered by a cadet’s comment. This brought back a lot of partly suppressed childhood memories, which Counsellor Korczak had already had started to bring to the surface during their last counseling session. During and after the mission she was showing clear signs of PTSD and it was more than recommended that she’d go on medical leave to receive proper treatment and take care of herself so that she can continue taking care of others.