Basics
Name: Isa Cortess (ee-sa, kor-tes)
Title/Alias: Initiate/Padawan/Master/General Cortess, Little Fire, Katya Cortess, Isabel Taahm (post Order 66)
Species: Human
Home World: Alderaan (Current Home: Coruscant)
Birthdate: 54 BBY
Occupation: Jedi
Lightsaber Colour: Yellow
Skin: Pale
Hair: Red
Eyes: Pale green
Height: 5'9
Weight: 127lbs
Distinguishing Features -
*She’s noted for being strikingly beautiful in an stark sort of way. As a child she was pale and awkwardly skinny with big eyes and a wide forehead. But as a young woman she grew to be tall and slender with elegant features and an deep gaze.
*She has a birth mark on her right shoulder blade in the shape of a sickle, a jagged scar across her stomach and multiple fainter scars across her upper back.

Personality:
Isa is a difficult personality to understand at face value. Outwardly she seemes quiet and reserved, almost fragile - but beneath the guise she has an incredibly strong mind, and an even stronger will. As a child she rarely voluntarily spoke aloud to those she wasn’t close with, and even as a young adult she was not quick to open up to others until they first earned her trust. She has a passionate thirst for knowledge and wisdom, and a fierce desire to do well in anything she was taught; even in her least favorite subjects. She prides herself on her intelligence and smarts rather than her skills in combat, and retains a mild distain for those who place too much value on brawn rather than brains.
Despite her very strong mind she has always been a little quiet, even as an adult. She tended to shy away from conflict as a child, a feat that she was often reprimanded for by her masters. As an adult she is more than capable of holding her own in a fight, but her first port of call has always been to find a peaceful solution to any problem. Despite being a naturally very emotional person she rarely looses her temper or becomes truly enraged. She is capable of empathising with others very deeply, which makes it easy for others to trust her quickly. She is also genuinely kind and loving, valuing every life she comes into contact with - a feat that magnified greatly after the loss of her first master who she was very close to.

Weaknesses:
- Reserved
- Overly critical (of herself and others)
- Judgmental
- Passive Aggressive
- Emotional

Strengths:
+ Compassionate
+ Wise
+ Kind Hearted
+ Modest
+ Resourceful

Quote Samples:

“My Rodian is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure she said something along the lines of ‘eat flaming nerf dung, you pig.’” - Isa

“I lied...of course.” - Isa

“You stupid, stupid man, Obi-Wan Kenobi! You scared me to death! Damn you!” - Isa (shouting at Obi-Wan)

“Force! If I’d known you were going to look like that I have brought you a stronger sedative.” - Isa

“You planned for this? With respect Master Cortess, I’ve never met anyone with that level of paranoia before.”
“It’s not paranoia if someone is actually trying to kill you. But I see your point.” - Anakin & Isa

“Did you tell her that he was going to do that?”
“I may have given her that impression, yes.” *smirk* - Plo & Isa

“The healers said I’d recover faster if I try to stay active. I got this far and needed to rest.”
“You look-”
“Like hell. I know.”
“I was going to say tired. Isa, when was the last time you slept?”
“Two days ago. Maybe three. I can’t remember.” - Isa & Obi-Wan

Trivia:
= When Isa was still training as a padawan, her first master used to teach her to sharpen her senses by making her preform tasks or dodge attacks (without a lightsaber) in either pitch darkness or extreme weather conditions like freezing cold or very dense fog. Because of these constant and intense exercises, Isa became very skilled at techniques that require strong and precise Force focus. Her Force push/pull and telekinesis abilities were near unrivalled by any other padawan her age.

= Because of Isa’s particularly strong Force sensitivity and perceptive mind, she is susceptible to frequent premonitions that come to her in the form of extremely vivid dreams. When she was still a young initiate she was frequently plagued by these dreams and was sometimes afraid to go to sleep at night. After a once incident when she fell asleep during a meditation session and woke up shrieking in terror, she was instructed to report to Master Yoda three times a week for one on one training in calming her hypersensitive mind. This training helped her clear and compartmentalise her thoughts and also helped her to strengthen her own mental defences, helping to shield her mind from unfriendly invasion.

= Isa’s biggest strength as a Jedi is in her mind. Even as a young child she had an unusually strong and flexible mind, able to focus the Force with natural ease. As an adult, Isa has honed and perfected her already strong mental abilities. She not only has the capable of bending weak minds to her will, but she can potentially overpower even some of the strongest minds that would normally by unsusceptible to Jedi manipulation. Despite this raw strength, she is also mentally flexible enough to preform powerful mind tricks without her targets even knowing anything is happening. However she explains that tampering with someone’s mind (at least more than a few superficial mind tricks) is incredibly dangerous for both the target and the one doing the tampering. Normal Jedi mind tricks work on thoughts that are at the surface of consciousness, but deeper thoughts, memories and feelings are often far more ingrained into what makes a person who they are. You can damage someone’s mind irreparably if you’re not careful, or even become lost in another person’s consciousness altogether. Isa only dared try to forcefully manipulate another person’s mind once; Obi-Wan’s mind. During a join mission together with him and Qui-Gon, she accidentally caught a glimpse of some of his deepest memories while she was healing him. What she saw scared her so much that she tried to forcefully erase the memories from his mind. However despite her efforts and care, she failed. After Obi-Wan eventually figured out what she had done to him, he never fully forgave her until shortly after Qui Gon’s death.

= One of her biggest weaknesses is her hesitation during combat. Despite a skilled practitioner of Niman lightsaber form, she genuinely dislikes confrontation and would rather avoid it at almost any cost. However, Isa’s hesitation during fights (as frequently pointed out by Master Yoda and Master Antilles) means that she often left herself open to attacks. As a padawan, Malak deliberately trained Isa in the more aggressive form of Djem So to encourage her to become more assertive in her stance - but the teachings never truly sank in until after she witnessed her master’s death. She still struggles with the remnants of her hesitant fighting style as an adult but uses her strong emotions of help combat it.

= Despite her quiet disposition, Isa is an accomplished actress having spent a lot of her early padawan years learning from her first master who specialised in covert operations. She is able to convincingly pull of an array of different personas depending on the situation, from a modest slave girl to a spoiled nobleman’s daughter. She has often done work whilst under an adopted identity, and on occasion has acted as a decoy for the daughters of senators or noblemen when their families were being targeted. One of the things that makes her so good at keeping up a facade is her ability to shield her mind from intrusion. The ability allows her to completely hide her internal emotions and thoughts from being sensed. It also makes it nearly impossible for anyone but her master to tell when she’s lying.

= Her two favorite places in the entire Jedi Temple as a child were the Star Chart Room and the Room of a Thousand Fountains. During her early years as an initiate she could often be found there, half way up a tree with a book during her free time when she really should have been meditating.

= Prior to her first master’s death Isa typically fought in the relatively tame Niman style of lightsaber combat, with a low guard and more focus put on Force related abilities. However after her Djem So training with Master Plo Koon and a lot of training to make her stance more assertive, she adopted the unorthodox reverse lightsaber grip and a much more aggressive (and creative) style of combat. She was one of the few padawans that the Masters felt had the mental capabilities to master Djem So without the risk of being seduced by the sheer strength of emotion needed to use it.

= After her first master’s death, Isa was held in captivity for almost a two standard months before she was rescued. In that time she was subjected to a battery of cruel and humiliating forms of torture by her captors. She was starved until she was too weak to fight and was beaten on a regular basis. When she was given food it would sometimes be deliberately laced with toxins that made her sick or temporally blind so she couldn’t defend herself from them. She managed to break out once during her time as a prisoner, but she quickly recaptured since by then her body had grown far too weak to carry her far enough away to really escape. Although she never verbally admits to it, it is heavily implied from her behaviour and the temple healer that she was repeatedly abused by her captors. When Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon found her she was half starved, almost blind and delirious from her wounds getting infected. At first she wouldn’t let either of them near her because she couldn’t distinguish the anger radiating from Obi-Wan (less so in Qui-Gon’s case) from the sadistic glee of the people who’d been hurting her for so long. The scar on her stomach was from a vibroblade wound that she managed to heal herself during her early days as a prisoner.

= She's partially deaf in her left ear. She perforated her eardrum in an explosion when she was being held captive on a spice freighter. Although the temple healers did the best they could, she didn't get medical attention fast enough to completely restore her hearing.

= Her full birth title is: Isa, first of her name, eldest daughter of Arys and Hasansa and second heir to the noble House of Cortess of Alderaan. Her mother made her memorize it before she left for the Jedi Temple so she would never forget where she came from.

History: Way too long and complicated to post on here. If you'd still like to know more, note me and I'll send you a copy.

Family:

Father: Arys Cortess (Alderaan Nobleman)
Mother: Hasansa Cortess (Alderaan Noblewoman)
Siblings: Tygen Cortess (older brother), Katya Cortess (younger sister)
Master(s): Yoda, Malak Antilles (deceased), Plo Koon
Padawan: Cato Fendari

Close Friends:

Siri Tachi
Bant Eerin
Obi Wan Kenobi
Quinlan Vos
Kit Fisto

Ages:

3 - Isa taken to the Jedi temple by Master Windu.
11 - Isa is taken on as a padawan to Master Malak Antilles.
18 - Malak Antilles is killed during a mission and Isa is held imprisoned.
19 - Isa fully recovers and is taken on as a padawan to Master Plo Koon.
22 - Phantom Menace
23 - Isa is elevated to knighthood at the recommendation of Master Plo Koon.
27 - Isa takes on Cato Fendari as her padawan learner.
33 - Attack of the Clones
36 - Revenge of the Sith
55 - A New Hope
58 - Empire Strikes Back
60 - Return of the Jedi

Actress:
- Bonnie Wright (youngling - teenager)
- Rosie Leslie (teenager - young adult)
- Kelly Reilly (adult)
- Michelle Fairley (elderly woman)