Standing at 4’8”, fairly average considering all things, Tomo could be described by some as boyish, others waif-like, and by a few as absolutely needing good, honest food. As far as complexion, the less said the better - the tunnel work in mines have wreaked havoc on what would have otherwise been a fairly good tan, lending to the young girl a paler sense. Tomo does possess a not insignificant musculature, a product of long years earthbending and training to earthbend, though it can't be said to be impressive. Her dark brown hair is kept at shoulder length, often fairly loose and unrestrained, while Tomo’s eyes are light brown.
Cautious, fairly secretive, and forever observant, Tomo is one who only reluctantly parts with her secrets. To her, everything given is in one way or another valuable and so should be carefully measured before being given. Long years of hiding have likewise stunted Tomo's ability to make any sort of friend, with at best a cautious trust being the sort of thing one might expect.
Born in the capital city of the Earth Kingdom at the very end of King Xiong’s rule to a pair of exceedingly not-so-wealthy citizens of the fine city, Tomo’s early life would quickly be changed with the discovery of her bending capabilities amid the backdrop of King Wei’s appearance, the following disappearance of the Avatar. Seeking that their daughter would have a better life, they quickly began to call on old friends to train her in whatever bending they could. Visits by retired Army friends and training in a nearby courtyard would become common for Tomo at that young age, bolstered by the fact that her parents treated the bending like a wonderful, wonderful gift that could only mean good things. She would take to it more or less eagerly, the thrill of it all being intoxicating.
At just fourteen years, she would begin working in the Lower Ring on the Monorail system. Of course, that involved lying about her age, speaking very little, and rarely dressing as a young girl normally would, but the pay was halfway decent and Tomo, lacking the normal inhibitions which age applies, had more than enough energy to move through a shift with the best of them. Through this, she earned enough to keep the family afloat, pay back the kindness of those older retirees who had trained her, and even save up a small stipend though it was extremely, extremely small.
Years would pass in this role as the Earth Kingdom became worse and worse for all within. The more outspoken of those retirees, those who yearned for days before, things before, anything, disappeared while many who worked the monorail would be reassigned to other duties, ostensibly work on the roads leading out of Ba Sing Se. Tomo became more and more isolated, could see that things weren’t exactly going as well as before. There hadn’t been many visitors from the other lands before, true, but even that seemed to decrease. On her shifts, she could hear talk of relations being cut, trade being cut, from tight-lipped merchants. When Tomo was just eighteen, her father looked for some of his friends who had gone, optimistic that they had simply moved to another district, and he would disappear too without a trace. A day after, Tomo’s mother disappeared too, their little home ransacked.
She knew she had to leave, that things weren’t safe, that they would be looking for her. In a panic, Tomo fled to the Agrarian Zone before trying to form a plan. She was halfway successful in this, though only due to the Dai Li agents who were trailing her allowing such movement to lead to more potential dissidents. It was only when the girl tried to flee aboard the ferry to Full Moon Bay that such agents attempted to intervene, though Tomo would bribe a dockworker to pack her into one of the crates on its way to Full Moon Bay. The journey was surprisingly and fortunately brief compared to what it might be, and she made the whole way in that crate with the crew none the wiser. Once offloaded into a warehouse, the young girl made her way out, traveling west through the Divide to the coast.
Tomo would pause to make a living at a
small mining village on the coast, deciding that it was far away from the capital for the Dai Li to not find her. Fear would pave the way for her to accept that she would likely not see justice for her parents again or see King Wei removed for something better. Nevertheless, some part in the young girl held out the tiniest sliver of hope that she could help that.
The beginning of the war would only prove her parents and Tomo right. The town was swept clean of the young men by recruiters, her avoiding such by feigning illness as the soldiers moved through the tunnels. Production would lessen by the lack of workers in those following months, the representatives of the King always angry whenever they appeared. Not enough was their eternal answer, and they warned there would be repercussions. Soon after, the town was occupied as well by a smaller garrison of Earth Kingdom soldiers, production and shifts increased for the glory of the war effort. Tomo guessed things would only get worse, even as she lacked greater communication with the rest of the world, and worried that the Dai Li might even send agents throughout the kingdom to search for such dissidents. In the dead of night, again, the young girl ran away further north.
While away in the wilderness, however, Tomo was attacked by a group of Earth Kingdom soldiers. As a fairly benign bender, and one exceptionally unused to the techniques she had before been shown long in the past, the girl would largely succeed in holding the group off purely by virtue of their own inexperience. That they were trying to capture her also helped, of course, but as the two sides continued on their notable ruckus they were found by another group. A smaller rebel patrol would counter-ambush largely rescuing Tomo as she had been tired out by that point, and she was given an offer. The rebels had been impressed that she could fight as she had, considering how little training she had received.
With them, she traveled off and away to that distant port.
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