Zai Yao

18

Fire Nation Capital

Fire

A young man of average height, like many of his neighbours, Zai has clearly seen better days. While it is clear he was once fit and strong, his cheeks have grown sallow on long days and short rests, and a few visible ribs attest that it's been a long time since he's seen a hearty meal. His dark brown hair hangs limp and lifeless at his shoulders, chopped raggedly with a knife, and he often wears it pulled back in a ponytail or stuck up in a bun. He dresses like any Earth Kingdom peasant down on his luck, his clothes weather-stained and well worn, and often wears a wide-brimmed straw hat to ward off searching eyes. Underneath, although often rimmed by tired circles, his topaz eyes contrast his tired frame, remaining at all times sharp and alert.

"Firebending has no training wheels. Learning requires boldness. You have to step beyond the limits of your control and trust in your ability to wrest it back again. Every time you bend, you walk a razor's edge between control and chaos. It is not for the faint of heart."

Zai is a true son of the Fire Nation: proud, strong-willed, and driven. What little that dares to stand between him and what he wants is met with ferocity and uncompromising resolve. Similarly, his experience shadowing his father in diplomacy has shown him to approach problems from many angles, and given him an appreciation for solving problems with words as well as actions.

However, most of his shadowing was done in talks with existing allies, and they rarely involved truly opposing interests - in almost all cases, a deal could usually be reached to mutual satisfaction. As such, his skill in diplomacy is still lacking when it comes to an obstinate adversary, and Zai can quickly become frustrated with them, too proud to concede too much in the name of compromise. Zai also knows that his instincts and discipline need work; try as he might, he is still vulnerable to letting his own feelings get in the way of getting a truly insightful read on a situation.

Above all, Zai loves his country and his heritage, and chafes bitterly under the yoke of the Earth Kingdom. Anxiety over the fate of his people plagues him, especially as he experiences firsthand the same trials they've been enduring for years. Anger and insult over his father’s disappearance and his own attempted arrest festers in his heart, fueled more by every grueling day and hungry night he spends as a fugitive on their soil, but nothing incenses him more than the betrayal he feels at his core. The idea that the Earth King could outright lie to him, his father, the Fire Lord himself... it turned his world upside-down. As if the disrespect alone wasn't enough, Zai now realizes the cynical truth that there is nobody - at least nobody in the Earth Kingdom - that he can trust.

“Dad, why do we get our food from the Earth Kingdom?”

“It’s a beneficial relationship, Zai. We have things they want, and they have something we want. Through trade, both nations are made stronger and more prosperous than they were before.”

Zai’s father was a highly ranked government official in the Fire Nation. As the dignitary of foreign affairs, he worked closely with the Fire Lord himself to arrange trade agreements and other dealings with the other three nations. It was a good gig; the nations had always been at peace and maintained amiable relationships, and it was rarely very difficult to finalize deals - there was rarely friction, and most of his job was just a matter of negotiating the minutiae to every party’s satisfaction. He travelled often and had many friends across the world, and considered himself very lucky.

Until things started getting… tense.

By the time Zai, his first son, was born, the Fire Nation’s relationship with the Earth Kingdom was starting to get a little strained. Prices of imported goods, especially food, began to rise, and proved something of a stumbling block for their relationship. It seemed like nothing at first - the Earth Kingdom had a weak harvest this year, the seas were rough that year, and so on - and later, reports of strife inside the Earth Kingdom seemed to confirm that the trade interruptions were simply the result of a series of unfortunate events befalling the Fire Nation’s long-time trade partner.

By the time Zai was 10, the effects of poor trade were becoming noticeable even in the Capital. Shortages were taking their toll even on the aristocracy’s dinner tables, and high inflation was sparking the beginnings of civil unrest. However, the people of the Fire Nation did not easily yield to stress, and their strong sense of unity and patriotism allowed them to band together and maintain order even as their situation grew more and more precarious.

Fortunately, as the son of a dignitary, Zai was shielded from much of his Nation’s growing suffering. He never went hungry, never felt unsafe, and never had to go without. He enjoyed a happy home life and a fine education, receiving firebending training from the same Master who trained the children of the Fire Lord. He took to bending readily and with great enthusiasm, and it wasn’t long before he became an accomplished firebender himself.

But as the years wore on, the Fire Nation’s position only got worse. Trade slowed to a trickle, and although Zai was still sheltered from the worst of it, his Nation’s hardships were always present to him. He was not blind to the suffering of his people; his heart hurt for them, and he wanted nothing more than to learn all he could from his father to follow in his footsteps and serve the Fire Nation.

When he was 17, his chance finally came to make a real difference. Things were becoming desperate for the Fire Nation, and increased reliance on the Water Tribe and Air Nomads was not enough to effectively ease the strain. Zai had shadowed his father for a few years on stop-gap measures with the two more friendly nations, but now the Fire Lord tasked him with his most important job yet: to visit the Earth King and negotiate an end to the trade interruptions. To his delight, Zai was allowed to accompany his father on the trip to observe his father working his magic when it mattered most.

Ba Sing Se was a marvel to behold, and Zai and his father received a royal welcome. Many meetings were held with Earth Kingdom representatives - of agriculture, shipping, fisheries, and many more - and before long, Zai’s head was spinning from the complexity of it all. It was over a month before the Earth King himself would meet with Zai’s father.

But when the time finally came to see the Earth King, Zai's father told him to stay behind. Confused and hurt, Zai tried to argue, but begrudgingly agreed to wait in their guest mansion in the Upper Ring, wondering why his father thought he was unworthy.

But his father never came back.

In a single evening, Zai turned from guest of honour to fugitive - and worse, he didn’t know why. He had to escape the clutches of the Dai Li in Ba Sing Se and flee on his own, his father’s royal escort nowhere to be found. By the time Zai reached the coast, and was turned away, he learned the horrible truth: the Earth King had declared war on the Fire Nation and launched a brutal assault, only barely held off with the help of their allies in the Water Tribe. As a result, the coast was locked down, and Zai was stranded.

It’s been a year since then, and Zai has been barely scraping by, bouncing between small Earth Kingdom villages near the coast and forced to conceal both his identity and his bending under threat of internment. He does not know what became of his father, and he has no way to contact his mother. He watches anxiously from the other side of the sea, scratching for any information he can get on the status of his home, but powerless to do anything to help. All he knows is that somehow, he needs to find his father - and make the Earth King pay for what he's done.

Tianshi

24

Western Air Temple

Air

Tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built, Tianshi strikes a distinctly imposing figure, and one at distinct odds with the layman's image of an Air Nomad. His mien is stoic and at times, severe, his steely grey eyes often cold and detached despite the distinctive mirth known to belong to his people, though there are times when a gentle empathy bleeds through his stony demeanor and makes itself evident. Atop his head, where there once may have been thick, wavy black locks is nothing, as, despite his differences with his monastic brethren, Tianshi is diligent in keeping his head cleanly shaven. While his skin tends towards a natural paleness, years of travel and harsh conditions have stained it a rich shade of peach. Those years of travel have marred his flesh in more severe ways as well: he has a litany of small scars over much of his upper body, tokens of esteem from various brigands and other evildoers encountered throughout his journey.

"Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere in the world is there a place where one may escape from the results of evil deeds."

Often likened to a particularly stubborn bull bison in his youth, Tianshi is a complicated man. On the outside he is the very model of a monk, calm, collected, indifferent to his surroundings, and utterly unflappable in the face of adversity. Within, he is a kind, empathetic man, who struggles with notions of detachment and the uncaring nature of the world around him. He is a man driven by a strong internal sense of justice and a powerful dedication to doing what he believes to be right, which often contradicts the doctrine he has been raised to conform to. Unusually willful and courageous, Tianshi is the sort of man to throw himself wholeheartedly into whatever endeavor he sets his mind to, similar in some ways to the Earthbenders to whom he stands so diametrically opposite.

"Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere in the world is there a place where one may will not be overcome by death."

Tianshi's earliest years were blissful ones, as they were for many of his contemporaries among the Air Nomads. He was born to a humble nomad of no great acclaim, cloistered away in the Western Air Temple during the later stages of her pregnancy. There he was cared for by both his mother and her fellow nuns until he was old enough to begin his education in their monastic ways. As his father had hailed from the Northern Air Temple, it was decided that he would be sent to the Southern Air Temple such that he could develop away from both of his parents, internalizing concepts of community and personal detachment as he grew from acolyte to monk.

In the idyllic isolation of the temple, he spent his youth amongst his fellow acolytes, learning theological principles and airbending at the knee of the more veteran monks in the temple. It was in the latter that Tianshi found himself excelling—the physical aspects of bending seemed to come naturally to him, though he did lag on matters of spirituality as he grew from boy to man. It was with his lackings in mind that the first truly transformative experience of his life was formulated: upon completing his education and coming of age, Tianshi would leave the Air Temple not of his own volition, but as part of a group of fellow monks seeking to engage in acts of charity within the neighboring Yokoya peninsula.

It was thought that by seeing the outside world firsthand, Tianshi might gain an appreciation for the connectedness of the world. That he would grow insightful as he garnered worldly experience and come to understand the importance of the monk's sacred oaths.

Instead, Tianshi found himself shocked and appalled by what he saw.

Secluded away in the Patola Mountains for much of his life, he had been blind to the suffering of the people beyond the monastery he knew and loved. The people went without food, shelter, or safety, as their overlords demanded steeper and steeper prices from them. Communities would live in squalor, preyed upon by bandits and pirates who themselves fell into villainy and ruthlessness to stave off the deteriorating conditions of the world in which they lived. The convoy of nomads did what little work they could, bringing food from what places had abundance to those that had none, providing spiritual guidance where there was none, and doing their best to mediate disputes whenever they came upon them.

It became clear to Tianshi, the longer he traveled, that the cruelties of the world he was made to reckon with were not simple happenstance. That the conditions he found himself so distraught by were purposefully inflicted upon the people by their rulers. A worse realization came in the understanding that his own leaders—the monks who had raised him and taught him the inherent sanctity of all life—not only knew of this but chose not to oppose it.

The epiphany that he came to was not the one his teachers had hoped for. If all life was sacred, he came to reason, it was the duty of those who could safeguard life to do so whenever possible. In the same way a monk was expected to go without food so that a starving man might eat, it was the duty of the monk to use his abilities to not only defend himself but to also defend those who could not defend themselves. His return to the Southern Air Temple was a short one. After making his intentions to aid the struggling peoples of the world more directly, the young man bid farewell to his masters and set off into the world to bring about whatever change he could with his own two hands.

The years that followed only further entrenched Tianshi's thinking. The desolate villages of an Earth Kingdom struggling under the weight of tyranny were already difficult enough for him to reconcile. Further trips abroad, to the ailing Water Tribes and starving Fire Nation hardened his position all the more. Something had to be done to restore balance to a world that, in the absence of its Avatar, hurdled ever closer to calamity. And in his twenty-third year of life, that calamity struck when news reached the Temples that the Earth Kingdom had formally declared war on the Fire Nation.

The councils reacted as they always had in times of turmoil and declared neutrality, doing little more than condemning the actions of the Earth King and his tyranny. This proved a breaking point for a man who had spent much of his young life fighting for the good of all. Weeks after the monk's declaration, Tianshi declared that if his elders would allow indecision and dogma to paralyze them in the face of evil, then he would go and face that evil without them. Like many brave young nomads of the South, he formally severed ties with the Air Nation and left upon the back of his bison for the Earth Kingdom, intent on doing whatever he could to halt the tragedies to come.

Huo

19

Foggy Swamp

Water

Huo is tall, but not altogether imposing. He leans more on the lean side, and is almost always seen in the travel garments of his people. He sports a hat made from a leaf sourced from the swamp, along with natural fiber wraps around his forearms and shins. He keeps his hair cut roughly to shoulder length, but does little to style it. The rest of his garments are assorted basic earthbender attire with the sleeves removed, as Huo finds them too restrictive. The most notable addition to his outfit that he prefers to keep intact is the wooden plate on his chest, a symbol of his pride in his homeland.

Huo is, for better or worse, a child of the Foggy Swamp Tribe. He has remained fairly sheltered from the politics and culture of the outside world, and was instead instilled with the virtues of his people: community, generosity, joy, and a deep respect for the natural world. Some may call it immaturity and innocence, but Huo has a deep love of people and the world that he is experiencing for the first time. He wishes to see the best in people. In terms of his general beliefs, Huo ascribes to a simple philosophy: we are all branches on the same tree. The best way to solve any problem, in his book, will involve cooperation and different perspectives, and is quick to acknowledge alternate views in influencing his decision or approach.

That is not to say Huo is soft and unwilling to fight now. He had let Chi fall at the hands of the Earth Kingdom the first time he had truly faced adversity, and that shame dwells in his heart. He hopes to make it up to her through his actions going forward, but does his best to note let the shame turn to hate. He would rather fight for his love of others than in retribution for their failures... though that is a line that he finds tough to balance. His shame and desire to see the best in others does carry with it naivety and a predisposition to be manipulated.

Huo was born into the Foggy Swamp Tribe, and has remained somewhat disconnected from the politics of the world as a whole. While Earth nation kingdoms have bickered and fought, and even as a coup occurred early into Huo's life that installed King Wei into power... the Foggy Swamp Tribe has remained relatively remote and isolated. They had little to offer the changing world outside, and Huo felt a strong connection to the values he was raised with. He believed in a harmony and connection with all things that lived in the swamp, and with those he considered to be family. He was a strong and brave kid, picking up bending from a young age. Since he was nine, Huo was racing skiffs alongside grown adults through the expansive reaches of the swamp.

That is not to say Huo was a reckless child, or entirely ignorant of the outside world. Even in somewhere as remote and independent as the swamp... it was noticeable when the communication trickled to a near dead halt. It was even more noticeable when guardians of the Foggy Swamp tribe who would patrol near the very fringes of the swamp began going missing. A tension filled the air year by year, as it became clear that something very wrong was afoot. Even as that anxiety was clear to a young Huo, he remained sheltered from the true horrors of what was to come. They all were.

Until they weren't.

Huo was a gifted water bender, and was trained from the age of twelve in more complex waterbending forms. Back then, it always felt like playing. Water whips, octopus form, even surging up waves of water to defend against getting pelted with a torrent of water... it all felt like games then. It was fun, and Huo enjoyed his training. One of his "instructors" was just... gone one day. She had been selected as a messenger, to simply travel to the nearest town to get some answers about the state of the world. She was only supposed to be gone a few days... but Huo hasn't seen her since. Huo's training became more intense after this. It was becoming clear that he wasn't being trained for the sake of learning or education: this was more about survival than anything else.

Huo was sixteen when the first confirmed spirit attack occurred in the Foggy Swamp. Spirits had become somewhat more of a frequent sighting before this... but a frog spirit growing in size and crushing a grown man underfoot was a change. It was the first serious injury in some time. Huo was, understandably, shaken by the sudden turn in the status quo within the swamp itself. The tribe had only one elder trained in the art of healing, Yi. Given more injuries of a serious nature and an inability to do much about the spirits directly, several young skilled waterbenders were trained to help tend to the wounded. Huo was one of the few who volunteered immediately. He hated seeing his people in pain... and hated more that there was little he could do to stop it. So, he did the best he could to provide some healing and comfort to his brothers and sisters who had been harmed in their own homeland. But the more fellow members of the tribe were injured, the more clear it was that something had to be done.

Huo, a few months shy of turning 18, was in attendance when a meeting was held among the Foggy Swamp Tribe about how to deal with the growing threat. For the first time, the adults and elder of the Tribe discussed openly their growing predicament. All attempts to get answers from the outside world yielded nothing. However, it was becoming clear at this point that if anyone was going to help solve their current predicament with the spirits and help secure the safety of the free people of the swamp... it was the Avatar. Before they could even find the Avatar, though... the people of the swamp would need more information. Their best bet would be to make a beeline for the Southern Water Tribe and hope to gather more information. They would need strong, swift waterbenders. Three volunteered, all relatively young and competent benders. Huo was one of them. Even he could tell there was a greater poison... a greater disease at the tree of humanity at large. If anyone was going to help his people, it would be the Avatar. The last two had decent relations with the Foggy Swamp Tribe. Certainly this next Avatar would be no different.

The three scouts travelled swiftly south by night, using the cover of darkness to avoid whoever they could. They relied on hunting and gathering in less populated regions, and slept in caves during the day. It did not take them too long to reach the coast. Though it took several nights camped out in a cave not far from the coast in the Xing Fuhua province to cut down several trees and fashion together a makeshift skiff... a right of passage they had all undergone at a younger age. Of course... the stakes were much higher this time around. By the fourth night, the scouts were ready to disembark.

Of course, four nights was one night too many to stay in one place so long.

They were caught on the beach by a small patrol of Earth Kingdom soldiers. Huo tried to speak for the group, and tried to explain simply they were just heading for the Southern Water Tribe. He wasn't able to say much before the rocks started flying. The eldest of the scouts, Chi, quickly took command of shielding her companions. She ordered them to get to the water with the skiff, swearing she would catch up. Huo and the other scout followed their orders, and quickly disembarked. Huo wheeled his arms around, propelling the skiff out into the choppy waters as quickly as he could. Only two Swamp Tribe scouts made it to the Southern Water Tribe, and among them... Huo was the only one conscious when they were found.

A little over a year ago, Huo discovered from his cousins in the Southern Water Tribe the truth of larger scale politics. He learned of the invasion against the Fire Nation, and the efforts the waterbenders made to defend them. He made allies with his cousins, and explained his desire to find the Avatar. Needless to say, he was less than pleased to discover that there was no Avatar. He knew trying to return to the Swamp would have been a suicide mission, given recent developments... and as he lived in communion with the Southern Water Tribe for a few weeks (whilst heavily bundled and recovering from hypothermia), it became clear that Huo's mission would have to change. Spirits were little threat when it came to the intense suffering that would come from an invasion into the Swamp by the Earth Kingdom. And if the Earth Kingdom was bold enough to attempt an invasion against the Firebenders, it would only be a matter of time. Huo committed himself to aiding the Water Tribes in repelling any attempt by the Earth Kingdom to invade by boat, biding his time until an opportunity would arise to do something more proactive.

As of three days ago, a new plan has formed. The second murmuring had begun that an Avatar had awakened, Huo knew this would be his best opportunity. The growing Rebellion would be his best chance to find the Avatar, and the Avatar was easily the answer to both threats facing his people.

Huo constantly talks to animals as if they are people. He thinks he understands them when they chirp back.

Huo has some training in healing as a waterbender. However, he has not come close to understanding how some elders were capable of plantbending.

Huo has been tried hiding his accent, but has made little progress.

The only physical possession, besides his clothes, that Huo has maintained since leaving the Foggy Swamp Tribe is his banjo. It is unclear if he is bad at playing it, or if that's just how it sounds.

Temujin (affectionately, Jin) Jochi

22

Ba Sing Se

Earth.

Temujin is perhaps a few centimetres above average in height, mostly a product of exceptional diet and health that all high born people can claim the benefits of rather than any exceptional genetics. Jin's skin is the light brown of a river beach's sand with increasingly many minor scars from burns and cuts. His raven hair is left long, messy (sometimes bound up to not get in his eyes), and he has eyes that are dark brown, almost black like rich volcanic soil. He is clearly built to be a soldier, possessing an impressive musculature if on a somewhat average frame.

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 joke 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.

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 tunes of the Earth Kingdom's army.

Though born a relatively powerful bender, and particularly well trained at it, he also takes a particular interest in martial arts. 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 the blade 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.

Usually, this meditation he masks as another favoured pass-time if caught in it: excercise. Since he was a teenager he was told he would have to maintain his physique, and he did not wish to become one of the rotund generals that rested on their laurels. He always believed he had to be a warrior-paragon, and this hasn't changed since.

Something that keeps him up at night, and often daydreaming, is a constant concern about the future. He is always afraid that it is too late for him to amount anything, that qualities he thought were good have lead him to abandon a chance at anything but being a vagabond. Is scraping by to be his entire life? Even as he joins the rebellion, this does not leave him. While he cares not for noble privilege that he once had, the thought that he can no longer influence the lives of so many people as he once had by worrying about his men brings terror and shame alike.

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.

At the age of eleven he was signed up for cadets of the Earth Kingdom's army, the future profession of a soldier increasingly prestigious as the culture of the nation shifted. Excelling in both theoretical and practical lessons of the military academy, young Temujin was able to graduate ahead of schedule with honours straight into an officer's position without his family even having to pay the bribes they were already setting aside money for.

Marching proudly in the Earth Kingom's army it was not very long before war came, and Temujin was called straight to the front. He swiftly made a name for himself there. While a highborn officer he ate meals with his troops, listened to their concerns, and marched and sang together with them rather than haughtily looking down on them from the back of a mount. Where other officers threw their troops to their deaths to complete an objective, the mere suggestion of such a practice sickened Jin.

But he did far more than merely respect his men. He always honoured his promises to treat surrendering foes well. He respected the property of civilians in conquered villages, and made sure to pay off any farmers and the like for food and other supplies requisitioned from them. The foemen that fell to his commands were always given proper burial.

Some would have claimed this was sympathy to the enemy, but this was far from the case. Temujin did his duty with brutality, ferocity, and efficiency. To go about this he quickly gained a reputation for inventive stratagems. From using tunneling engineers and Earthbenders to bypass the waters that defended an enemy stronghold, to using captured Waterbenders to heal both his troops and other prisoners he quickly earned the respect of more senior military staff.

Yet, as impressive as his career was with all the medals and promotions he got, it would come to an abrupt end when he quarrelled with a General Long after the destruction of a Fire Nation colony. The refugees leaving the burning ruins were accosted by the troops of Long, shaking them down for anything from jewellery to cutlery that could be sold and made Long wealthier. Temujin put an abrupt stop to this, believing that was the end of the matter. After all, looting the defenceless and defeated was a dishonourable thing to do, and as far as he was concerned he was in the right.

He was very, very wrong.

What he didn't know was that just as for anybody in his family, there were rumour-mongers compiling lists of everything he did that somebody in the Earth Kingdom might object to from the trivial to the most egregious. General Long in his rage obtained this, and published it to the Dai Li and anybody else wishing to defame and harm the Jochi family.

A dishonourable discharge came, and to avoid ruination his family disowned him. He was de facto exiled from any meaningful part of the Earth Kingdom's society. Thus he wandered briefly, a bitter, lonely, hateful sellsword scrounging up money the only way he knew how. He was so young, and yet he felt his entire life and future were stolen away from him as punishment for doing the right thing. He raged at himself, his people, his family, his friends, his oaths and duties and the entire world.

When the Avatar awoke, so too did some semblance of hope in Temujin. He cleaned himself up, shaved, sobered, and sharpened his blades. 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. But just as much as he sees opportunity, Temujin is deeply scared of the future. What if for who he was, and who he is, he will be betrayed again? What if he fails to find belonging, and is simply cast out? With rage and fear simmering in equal proportion within, Jin has a concern that if he fails now he will never get a chance at anything again.

Going for a more Manchu & Tungusic feel with the fella, i.e. his sword is a Mongol sabre.
listened to this while making him

Ryschi (Pronounced Rye like the bread, and schee like you're a snake saying the first part of Cheeto's. Rye-schee.)

24

The Northern Air Temple

Air

As pictured above, Ryschi is a young man with brown hair and gray eyes and a non-airbending tattoo he got from a Fire Nation friend of his on his left arm. It's meant to look like a coiling flame, but his friend wasn't a particularly good tattoo-artist at the time. He stands at 5'4" and weighs 120 lbs with little musculature.

Ryschi is a man of action with a fierce personality, allowing himself a freedom of expression and movement before fully thinking of where the wind intends to take him. His spirituality leans towards a belief that the gentleness of tradition is restricting the flow and pressure of air. Peaceful clouds may have their place in the sky but so do tornadoes. Because of this viewpoint, he's become rather abrasive with the pacifists of the Air Nomads which has further led him to become quite defensive of criticism. Though, they put up with his antics because he and his sky-bison, Kimo, are the only ones willing to fly through storms to deliver messages. He does however quickly become friendly towards Fire Nation citizens since he understands their passion and feels bolstered by the heat to rise to greater challenges. Ryschi values the opinions of the spirits, and tries his best to connect with them when he finds a particularly angry one in the hopes of solving its problem so it may calm itself down in time.

Growing up in the Northern Air Temple, Ryschi was 4 when the Avatar Korra passed away. As he grew, Ryschi felt the change in the air, witnessed the growing anger of the spirits, and sensed that bending had shifted fundamentally. All the elements are tied to the spirits, but airbending is deeply connected to them in a way the others aren't. Ryschi began searching for places of spiritual power to train or meditate and often found places full of rage and hatred. Instead of trying to quell the anger of the spirits, Ryschi embraced it and began to teach himself a new style of airbending where anger generated power. While others meditated within the peaceful snow, Ryschi found strong winds and harsh colds to balance himself. When it came time for him to travel, he bonded with a particularly rambunctious sky-bison that he named Kimo and left for the Fire Nation to train in the heat the way he did the cold. During his visit, Ryschi would meet firebending students and teachers who would lead him down the path of incorporating his style of airbending into a fighting form reminiscent of firebending. When there was no one available to teach him, Ryschi would either go hunting for spirits or he could be found at a sparring arena. Combat was his passion and he found a sense of peace in the chaos. Here he would find Shaw-Fe, the man he would still consider his best friend to this day. Shaw-Fe was an aspiring artist and would paint the fight scenes at the arena. Ryschi would speak with him only briefly before he returned to the North for the first time. When he returned, those who knew of his antics before found him to be even more riled up. For the first time, the young student had more than just powerful yet unconnected attacks. There was a rhythm that he gained from his time in the West, and his attacks had an even greater flair. When he went for his second journey, he chose the Fire Nation yet again and having learned how to refine and balance his techniques, he began his search for new ones. He began talking with Shaw-Fe more, and found his art to be lacking but fascinating. To capture a moment in time, to freeze the wind in place and view its form was breathtaking, and Ryschi found himself trying to "play to the camera" during his spars. He thought it was because of a growing pride in him that he needed to meditate on, but he would come to realize after many years that, in truth, Ryschi wanted Shaw-Fe's attention due to a growing affection for him. Ryschi began to study other forms of art, and found that a soft flute paired well with the image of an ink-brush painting. This was the only practice of his that the Elders showed any approval of, and it originally made him want to practice it more. Now though, he really only plays the flute when he misses Shaw-Fe. Ryschi would continue this pattern for some time, flying to the Fire Nation to heat up his passion for bending and combat and then returning to the cold north to sink back down and center himself and his spirit. This cycle would create a current within him, a need for movement, for action. The Elders were not fond of his intensity and found him to be unbalanced, there was fun and being carefree and then there was eternal restlessness. Thus, he was passed over for certain trainings, or would fail to be "centered" or "aligned" enough for the teachers liking and would be suggested to do the training again. This caused a greater stir within him, and a new cycle would begin as Ryschi would begin to work harder, meditate in crueler climates, and spend longer times within the Fire Nation. Of course, this was exactly what the Elders didn't like and as such, he never earned his tattoos and was never seen as a master. His closest friend, Shaw-Fe, attempted to reassure him by tattooing Ryschi himself saying that "You fight like a firebender, and I'd consider you a master." So, when the Earth Kingdom attacked, Ryschi felt a need to defend the Fire Nation and his dear friend. However, the Elders of the North threatened to refuse to teach him further if he did so which would effectively keep him from ever earning his tattoos. The loss of their teachings isn't what he feared, Ryschi feared all his effort meaning nothing. The tattoos would symbolize that his path was a valid one to walk, and that his life wasn't lived in vain. If the ability to earn them was lost, then so was he. Ryschi relented, and instead offered to be a messenger between the Water Tribes since they at least were doing something to help. It was the first time he went somewhere besides the Northern Air Temple or the Fire Nation as he actively tried to avoid the strife present in Earth Kingdom territories. The Water Tribes were a different experience for him. When he visited the Fire Nation, there was tension between them and the Earth Kingdom, but they had decent relations with the Air Nomads since they tried to help with the increased taxes on food by providing some of their own. But now, public opinion of the nomads had shifted in an unpleasant direction and the Northern Water Tribe proved as much when Ryschi arrived to be met with scorn and "It's the least you could do's" as if he wanted to be doing nothing. Ryschi learned that people could become quite biased towards individuals due to the actions, or inactions, of a larger group. This is when he began to fear a different threat, that Shaw-Fe would resent him for not showing up to help against the Earth Kingdom. With the awakening of the next Avatar, Ryschi refuses to sit still and let the Earth Kingdom have their way hoping that he could redeem himself and his tribe, prove that he walks a worthy path despite giving up his opportunities to earn his tattoos, and maybe, just maybe, earn back the right to stand next to his dear friend yet again. Besides, someone will have to teach the Avatar airbending, and it's unlikely to be any of the other Nomads that want nothing to do with the war.

Ryschi has endured many storms and has thus become familiar with lightning, leading him to become quite jealous of lightning benders for wielding a powerful force of the sky that he cannot.

Tao Huangzi

18

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom

Water

Tao is a foreigner no matter where in the world he goes. Though he has the striking blue eyes of a Water Tribesman, his complexion is far more at home in the northern Earth Kingdom, and his features aren't quite typical in either. His face resembles both and neither of his parents' at the same time, with his father's sharp eyes subdued by his mother's demure eyelashes, and her soft jawline sharpened with his father's chin. He has a lithe build atypical of a hardy Earth Kingdom native, born of a life of leisure rather than hardship or starvation, and accustomed to the dancelike flow of the waterbending arts. This is accentuated by his attire; outside the frigid poles, he prefers the flowing attire of the Earth Kingdom, both for its familiarity and its helpfulness in blending in, though he's still petulantly fond of blues and whites.

"You are not a child of the earth, Tao. You are only as rigid as you need to be. Water has no shape. Water is flexible. Be as the flowing river. Be as the raging tsunami. Be as the stalwart glacier. Be whatever you must to suit the moment."

Tao is no stranger to the role of the outsider, and has thus embraced it. He has a friendly nature, even if it can be hard to see under a reserved and awkward exterior, but he rarely considers himself truly integrated into a group. To this end, he tries to be very adaptable. He believes he cannot find a space for himself through commonality, so he weaponizes his differences in order to ingratiate himself to others. As his father would say, every group has a weakness, whether through their values or simply the combined shortcomings of those that compose it, and Tao aims to fill these weaknesses as surely as water fills the vessel it inhabits. He is the unconventional solution, the Vaatu's advocate, the fresh perspective to a tired problem. Failure is simply the result of one lacking the fluidity to attack the problem from another angle.

Expectedly, he finds it all rather lonely. The only people with whom he's ever felt as though he truly fit in was with his family, which now stands in jeopardy due to the war. Beyond this, Tao has a tendency to cling to those who are nice to him, though he's thankfully a bit too shy to be overbearing with it. He also despises liars, and the dishonesty demanded of returning to the Earth Kingdom, much less taking part in a rebellion, unfortunately grate heavily on his patience, even if his misgivings are ultimately overwhelmed by his drive to end the war and return to Ba Sing Se.

"The clever bird chooses the branch whereon to perch; the wise servant selects the master to serve. Seize the chance when it comes, for repentance ever comes too late."
Though a waterbender, Tao was born in Ba Sing Se, and spent his childhood in a luxurious apartment in the Upper Ring of the city. His mother was an immigrant from the Northern Water Tribe who left to ply her healing arts in the wider world, and his father was a native-born agent of the Dai Li under King Xiong and later King Wei. The family knew little of his work, only that he was a peacekeeper for the crown and the city, and that his frequent fishing trips to Lake Laogai were probably more work-related than he let on. Tao was shielded from many of the worsening conditions for foreigners across the nation by his father's position, but he felt like no less of an outsider, especially in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, where foreigners were rare beyond visiting dignitaries. His mother was the only waterbender he'd ever met, and her womanly education in the north could show him little more than the fundamentals. Attempts at practicing with other children left him with little choice but to try and replicate earthbending with ice, to limited success.

This seemed like it would change six years ago, when Tao's father cryptically announced that dangerous events were in the works, and he was moving the family to Northern Water Tribe territory until it all blew over. While Tao was hesitant to leave the only home he'd ever known, Agna Qel'a promised a new beginning; for the first time, he'd be among fellow waterbenders, he'd have a role in a collective united by more than just geographic location. At least, that was the idea. The reality was less than ideal. While never one to enjoy the heat, the biting cold of the north pole was still a far cry from a Ba Sing Se winter, and the local cuisine left a lot to be desired. Likewise, his father's status meant nothing in the frozen city, and he was reduced from pampered gentry to just another tribesman. It was a hard adjustment. The one saving grace was that he was formally enrolled under a waterbending master for training, and he took to it swimmingly. The initial learning curve was rough, as Tao had to unlearn his earthbending-inspired philosophy and relearn how to be a waterbender proper, but the lessons were far more engaging than his mother's rudimentary teachings.

Still, he was even more of an outsider among the other students than he was in the Earth Kingdom. He didn't know how to hunt a seal or dive for sea prunes - he barely knew how to swim before moving to the north. His culture was foreign and nonsensical to the traditionalist Water Tribe, which made him an interesting visitor but not an accepted member of a tight-knit tribe. They were polite, friendly even, but it was clear that Tao was not one of them. Nor did he want to be; with the reality of the north falling short of his hopes, Tao longed to return to his home in Ba Sing Se. He trusted that his father would not steer the family wrong, but he couldn't fathom what threat could possibly justify leaving the eternal walls of Ba Sing Se for a shoddy replica carved from ice and snow.

Tao thought he received his answer when the war broke out. The real answer came months later, when his father was brought before the chief on charges of espionage. Though the ostensible reasons for their relocation may have played a role in Tao's father's decision to flee the Earth Kingdom, his primary motivation was to act as a spy for the Earth King in the Northern Water Tribe. He and his mother naturally fell under suspicion as well, and any good will he had accumulated evaporated nearly overnight, and with it left any ties Tao had to the Water Tribes. He wanted to return home with his family, even if his father was a liar who broke his mother's heart, but that was impossible with the Earth Kingdom's descent into tyranny and his father's new status as a prisoner of war besides.

The solution was simple; he'd have to help end the war. Since his mother was barred from participating in military affairs, Tao had volunteered for a blockade run to the south pole to help prove his innocence. The expedition took damage during one of their encounters with the Earth Kingdom navy and docked in the southeastern edge of the continent for repairs when they heard the news of the Avatar's alleged return. That seemed a far more prudent method of ending the war decisively than merely ferrying messages between the Water Tribes, so Tao, now back in his homeland, set off in search of the elusive resistance. Wary of Tao being a saboteur to their own mission, his fellow warriors from the Water Tribe did little to stop him.