[hider=No rest for an old soldier.][indent][CENTER]Jin
[img]https://i.imgur.com/b41eQ3i.jpeg[/img]
[sub][color=lightgreen]"I returned from war to find myself a foreigner in my own home."[/color][/sub][/center] 
[color=lightgreen][sub][u]NAME[/u][/sub][/color]
[indent]Temujin (affectionately, Jin) Jochi[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]AGE[/u][/sub][/color]
[indent]41[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]BIRTHPLACE[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Ba Sing Se[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]ELEMENT[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Earth.[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]APPEARANCE DETAILS[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Temujin is perhaps a few centimetres above average in height, but a leg ruined in battle makes his posture bring him a little lower than most people. Jin's skin is the light brown of a river beach's sand with increasingly many wrinkles and a collection of minor scars from burns and cuts. His raven hair is tinted with streaks of grey, and he has brown eyes of a light tint that could be likened to gold. Once mighty musculature has been somewhat withered away with age and some disuse but still good tone remains for a man in his early forties.[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]PERSONALITY[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]
Temujin is a person with very strong principles. He will not lie about who he is, what he plans to do, or really anything unless a very convincing case is made that the life of a good person depends on it. He epitomizes what nobility is meant to be, rather than what it is in the Earth Kingdom. As a thinly veiled slight, he would often be told he belonged more in the Fire Nation, perhaps being adopted from a lost child of theirs. Though he has a certain haughty arrogance to himself that all people of privilege bear, he very deliberately makes a point of being charitable and kind to those less fortunate than he even now as he has little more than the clothes on his back, dropping silver pieces into the cups of beggars even as his stomach growls. All the while, he tries to do such good deeds as discretely and anonymously as possible, fearing that if he does it publicly he would be doing so insincerely, vaingloriously, for the spectacle of charity rather than its literal purpose.

Beyond that, Jin is a deeply hurt person. All of his values and beliefs that he assigned to the Earth Kingdom were brutally crushed as he was stripped of his rank and position and de facto exiled from anything but the recesses of the the nation's society. This fear of betrayal manifests almost as a paranoia, employers of the now mercenary treated with constant suspicion that they might not pay him out or will send him to his death with glee. This learned behaviour contradicts his natural predisposition to trust people and take them at their word, this conflict within leading to many a tearful night. Unfortunately, he often downs these sorrows with drink or other substances, though he has so far been sufficiently disciplined that after consuming them he ceases for at least a week to ensure he does not become dependent on them. Sometimes, when he is not looking, he writes letters to his lost family. To his former wife, to his children some of whom would now likely have forgotten his face, his name. He never sends them, but he reads and rereads them and edits them before inevitably burning them. Over time this has passed into somewhat of an appreciation of poems, prose, poetry. As a soldier he had always sung along with his troops when it came to marching songs, or stuck around with them to sing drunkenly at campfires. Now with great nostalgia those memories bring him yet more interest to that, and even now he oft hums jingoistic tunes of the Earth Kingdom's army.

The familial nostalgia also has him often search for newspapers, books, and any sort of gossip so he might learn what is happening with his children. Sometimes successful he manages to read their name in a list of students graduating from some academy or the likes, but this is rare and far from enough to stifle his ever increasing homesickness.

Though born a powerful bender, and particularly well trained at it, he also takes a particular interest in martial arts, a fact that has intensified when the injury in his left foot much worsened the precision if not quite the power of his bending. Thus Temujin in much of his spare time will practice swordplay, archery, javelin throwing and more. While not a legendary warrior, he has still come to appreciate swordplay and be quite a duellist in his own right. 

Meditation has come to be a rare solace to the warrior. He used to dismiss it as sentimental hooey for weaklings from the Air nomads or for some lily livered water benders. In public, he still does so. But when alone, it has come to at least clear his mind from his worst thoughts, the violent, the self indulgent, the self-destructive.

[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]BIOGRAPHY[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Honour and duty above all, tell no lies, stand for your homeland, and many such platitudes well rehearsed in adolescence were taken dearly to heart in Temujin, even if the rest of the socio-economic elite of the Earth Kingdom tended to disregard such things the moment they were old enough to have a concern about personal finance. Perhaps ironically, even as a teenager he was seen as a black sheep of his family for his refusal to partake in all sorts of schemes and intrigue that the aristocracy of Ba Sing Se indulged in. He was a problem they knew not what to do with, but when he kicked up his first stone and sent it airborne there was a very obvious path for him.

But Temujin refused an officer's comission that his family wished to give him right away, instead enlisting as a simple soldier. Still, with the combination of his privileged education, his natural talent for earthbending and his disciplined determination he was able to assume the position his father Altan Jochi wished to fast-track him to anyway.

Dutybound, as an officer he grew through the ranks of the Earth Kingdom's Marines participating in engagements both on land and sea to expel the occupiers of Earth Kingdom soil be they taking orders from the land of Fire or from the two poles. Brutal, efficient, he still had a strong code of honour. Any promises of clemency to surrendered foes were followed through with. Slain enemies were always given proper burials, and he thoroughly respected the property of people living in 'reclaimed' territories. Honour and glory were his, medals on his uniform gleaming proudly all the while he was free to not partake in political nonsense. 

This was changed when his family had arranged for him to be married, his status as a then-Captain that had got there on his own quite endearing to other prospective families. He flailed and raged to be forced into such a thing, until he met the lady. Their love was instant, and the marriage soon followed. 

But though he was happy, this meant quite bad things for him. His wife was of a similarly powerful family, and now he had far more scrutiny upon his every action. Every mercy given to the foe, every time army supplies were used to feed starving captives after a siege, all was quietly recorded into a ledger of blackmail that might one day be used against him.

That day inevitably came when on a campaign wherein refugees of the Fire nation were accosted by troops of another general, things from jewellery to clothes and utensils stolen to be pawned off for his personal wealth. Temujin found such to be a disgrace, and put an immediate end to it. Incensed, General Long immediately paid the rumour-mills to obtain the compilation of these transgressions and had it delivered to the Dai-Li and every important person that would be interested in it. His refusal to partake in courtly life had finally caught up to him.

A dishonourable discharge came, his family was ruined, his name in every black book on the continent. He divorced his wife in a vain effort to preserve her name and to let his children bear one that wouldn't bar them from any opportunity in life. Still in uniform, he became a roving mercenary ever more bitter towards his own countrymen, his oaths, the uniform that kept him warm in the lone rainy nights. 

When the Avatar awoke, so too did some semblance of hope in Temujin. Washing, shaving for the first time in years, he marched proudly as perhaps now there was a chance to pay back all those that stabbed him in the back. Perhaps he wouldn't be welcome by those that recognised his face. But his hopes were high that his practical knowledge of the workings of the Earth Kingdom's armed forces would be much appreciated in the coming struggle.[/indent]

[color=lightgreen][sub][u]TRIVIA[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Going for a more Manchu & Tungusic feel with the fella, i.e. his sword is a Mongol sabre.
listened to this while making him
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0hYYphr4S0[/youtube][/indent]
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