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Diya
Mod: Madi (

runawayballista)
Full name: Lady Diya d'Zefyst, formerly Diya Navarr
Alignment: Cetaganda
Age: 84
Appearance: Like all haut, Diya's genetic makeup was engineered with great aesthetic achievement in mind, and shares the ethereal beauty that they're famous for. In keeping with haut custom, Diya wears her hair long, never having had it cut, though when she is at work she is more often seen wearing it up in elaborate hairstyles. Cetagandans routinely live up to around 150 years, and despite her advanced age, Diya looks no older than around her 50s.
(PB: Ming-Na Wen)

Personality:

Diya is reserved and even impassive at times, as is typical of the haut. She plays it close to the vest, and is generally difficult to read. However, she does at times seem a little touched with sadness and longing.
She is nothing short of civil at all times, and she can be quite warm in demeanor as well. On the rare occasion she smiles, it's stunning.
Until five years ago, she spent her entire life in the seclusion of the haut women, very rarely interacting with anyone outside the haut in any direct fashion. While she did go out in public, she was always cloaked in the haut lady fashion – on a float chair encased in an opaque force bubble, so that she could see out, but no one could see in.
She is still not quite used to interacting directly with non-haut, although this is not to say she lacks social skills. The haut have just as much social complexity as the rest of Cetaganda, and she is no stranger to subtlety.
She has that classic Cetagandan brand of haughtiness, even more so as a (culled) haut. If you think the ghem have a superiority complex, just wait until you meet a haut lady.
She is exceedingly patient. When you expect to live to at least 150 years, you get comfortable with waiting. She isn't easily fazed by shouting, harsh language, or ad hominem attacks.
Diya is ambitious, in the typical haut fashion – her aims are vague, her intended methods even more so, but she's fiercely driven. She lives, of course, to serve the Cetagandan Empire.

Background:

Diya was conceived as one of the children of the Navarr constellation close to a century ago, and was raised along with her numerous crèchemates in the Navarr crèche, including Haut Sei Navarr.
Always an ambitious one, Diya pursued her education and excelled in her genetic studies over the years. After a few decades of hard work, she was finally appointed to the Star Crèche, though not within its inner circle. Even after the next half century, she was no closer to being appointed to the inner folds of the Star Crèche, while Haut Sei was appointed as Handmaiden to the Star Crèche, second only to the Dowager Empress herself despite the innocuous-sounding title.
But Diya settled for a different aim. Instead, she focused her talents to try and build her career to an eventual satrap consortship. The haut consorts work closely with the Star Crèche, each charged with managing the gene bank of their own satrap. It's not the Star Crèche, but it was an ambitious goal nonetheless, considering there are only eight satrapies and these appointments are, more or less, for live.
By the time Diya hit 80, it was starting to feel like the fruits of her labor were within reach. Her career was abruptly cut short five years ago, however, when she was culled from the Navarr constellation to be married to Zahal ghem-Zefyst for his efforts in the war. She was no longer Haut Diya Navarr, but now Lady Diya d'Zefyst.
There was, of course, a serious political bent to this appointment, and not merely a marriage. Her work of renown made her an excellent candidate to oversee a new branch of the genetics research spearheaded in Vorbarr Sultana -- the silver lining. Because when a haut woman is culled from her constellation, she is relegated to the arena of ghem society for life.
This isn't a rare occurrence -- many ghem lords have haut wives -- but on the military base in Vorkosigan's District,wormholes and wormholes away from her home on Eta Ceta, Diya isn't only the haut wife, she's the only haut period.
So she exists in the space between castes, no longer haut but not quite ghem either. She has no one to relate to.
But there is a benefit to her posting on Barrayar. Social protocol for ghem with haut wives is to treat them as though they are still haut -- to avert their gaze as they she were still in an opaque force bubble, never addressing her directly. But in a position of leadership and power, she cannot be ignored, however graciously.