TY @vietmyke for letting me borrow your CS layout!

Also, this image is very much not mine and I take no credit for it, that goes [url=https://www.deviantart.com/zephyri/art/Lanyra-698641148]here[/url], to the best of my knowledge.

--

[center][img]http://cdn.hasshe.com/img/s/19QceCfrpWQIuxNzaeRFKQHaJl.jpg[/img]
[h2][color=7ea7d8]Banou Adiah[/color][/h2]
[h3][color=7ea7d8]A Savage Turned Patriot, Eager to Serve the Land that Saved Her[/color][/h3]
[/center]


[color=7ea7d8][b]Age:[/b][/color] 18
[color=7ea7d8][b]Height/Weight:[/b][/color] 5'4", 125 lbs
[color=7ea7d8][b]Race:[/b][/color] Varyan, Ice Piratean - just don't call her [i]Godless[/i]

[color=7ea7d8][b]Appearance:[/b][/color][indent]
With pale gray eyes called, by turns, 'piercing' and 'unsettling' (or just 'haunting' if the mood is right), Banou is easy to overlook but difficult to forget. Her thick, dark hair is nearly always braided and twisted into a neat, no-nonsense bun, and her armor covers most, but not all, off the tattoos marking her body. The war paint itself was tattooed onto her skin as a young child, a process no doubt as barbaric as the people who birthed her. Fortunately, Banou isn't the type to dwell overmuch on the past, particularly her own, and so does her best to pretend the marks are little more than a sign of how far she's come in her time serving Varya.
[/indent]
[color=7ea7d8][b]Personality:[/b] [i]Patriotic | Reserved | Selfless | Loyal[/i][/color][indent]

For as long as she can remember (she does not count what little comes from those dark years on the plains), Banou has been happiest when she's working. Granted, it would take a close friend or confidant, of which very few exist, to distinguish a happy Banou from an angry Banou, or a desolate Banou, or a sleeping Banou. She is a soldier first and last, and if she feels she has a greater need to prove her loyalty to the empire than her more blood-worthy countrymen, well, it could only make her stronger -- like near everything else she does.

But.

Woe to those who attempt to draw shady lines between her childhood as one of the godless people on the plains. Banou has abandoned that life and title as cleanly as it abandoned her. Though she is slow to anger in most things, you'll find a quick and dangerous enemy beneath insinuations that Banou would do anything less than die for the Empire who has raised her.
[/indent]
[color=7ea7d8][b]Background:[/b][/color][indent]
As far as she's concerned, Banou's life began when she was five years old. On that day, she remembers vividly emerging from a ceaseless dark and cold into the unyielding, unforgiving, and yet ever-steady arms of the Varyan Empire. On that day, an Imperial scouting party met its quarry - a small and vicious band of Ice Pirates - and saw fit to rescue one lone survivor.

Banou's memories of her time before the Empire are few and fragmented, sharp and cold as shattered ice. She speaks very little of it, but in her dreams, she catches glimpses of who was, who her people were -- had been -- before her rescue. She does not speak of these dreams, or of who she was before. She does not remember, and does not want to. 

It has been her life's goal ever since to prove her undying loyalty to her rescuing nation. And perhaps also to herself.

Because her earliest memories were of her own freedom at the end of a sword, Banou had never seen anything for her future but becoming a soldier. Her childhood was spent drifting between families and estates, usually as a stablehand, once as a very short-lived kitchen girl. She was conscripted by age ten, two years earlier than most children, if only by virtue of her utterly relentless need to prove her own aptitude for fighting. 

And she was talented. Even in her earliest years of training, her strength, speed, and endurance marked her as a future commander, though in truth, she had no real desire to lead. She was perfectly happy working her way through the ranks until she was sixteen and taken to be personal bodyguard of the Sixth Dominion. Banou was skeptical for a time after learning the old woman had ruled over T'sarae, but Banou's former Captain Commander assured her even this could be of service to the Empire, and it was all Banou had needed to pour herself into it. 

Her loyalty only redoubled on learning the old woman, a noted historian of sorts, meant to travel to the untamed east. Banou said nothing of it herself, but somewhere deep inside she suddenly understood she had been training her whole life for this moment.

Never again would a fellow soldier, or anyone, assume Banou shared anything more than bad blood with the people who had raised, and just as quickly abandoned her.
[/indent]
[color=7ea7d8][b]Talents/Ethereal Abilities:[/b][/color][list]
[*][color=7ea7d8]Combat[/color] - If Banou wasn't the strongest or fastest soldier in her class, she was undoubtedly the most resilient. She is far from fearless, but nonetheless exudes unflappable calm on the battlefield, and is generally able to think a few steps ahead of her opponent. She's skilled with a number of weapons, both ranged and close combat, but her [url=http://knightsofvasteel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Frostbite-Spear.jpg]ice spear[/url] is her favorite, and she is deadly with a bow.
[*][color=7ea7d8]Ether'd Combat[/color] - She's no inquisitor, but years of practice and an indomitable will have made Banou slightly more gifted than the average soldier in manipulating her shallow store of ether. When in battle, she is somewhat stronger, and significantly faster, than her stature would have you believe. She also once staved off what would have been a killing blow with a paling that left her unconscious for two days. When she is not in battle, she practices smuggled secrets from the Seminary itself (or so she's been told) to keep her ether abilities sharp.
[*][color=7ea7d8]Cold-Blooded[/color] - Banou maintains a stubborn, and not entirely unsubstantiated, belief that she can handle cold better than the average Varyan. Whether this is true, or she's just stoic and willful enough to make herself and everyone around her believe it is yet unclear.
[*][color=7ea7d8]Luck[/color] - Alright, so it's hardly a talent, but Banou [i]does[/i] have an uncanny way of just...knowing things. She considers herself competent, intuitive, 'not fucking blind', and sometimes, yes, even lucky.
[/list]
[color=7ea7d8][b]Personal Seal:[/b][/color]
A crescent moon over two hounds. Or something like [url=https://dzasv7x7a867v.cloudfront.net/product_photos/29490756/THE-MOON-TAROT-PRINT_original.png]this[/url]. 


[color=7ea7d8][b]Character Relationships:[/b][/color] [WIP]
- Mother Yonah, Sixth Dominion of the Divine Order
- Mother Yonah's handmaid, probably