Post by iola on Sept 21, 2008 22:34:16 GMT -5
Name: Iola
Age: 9
Gender: Female
Group: Igni Islander
Nation: Igni Islands, Fire Nation
Bender?: Yes
Physical Appearance: Like the majority of her fellow Igni Islanders, Iola is tall for her age at 5'1''. A lanky young girl with sharp, angular features, her diamond-shaped face retains virtually none of the natural baby fat found in children her age and compliments her thin lips and wide mouth very well, as well as her long, rounded nose that hooks down just ever-so-slightly. Her tawny gold eyes, large and quite expressive, are spaced evenly between her thick, pin-straight eyebrows and often glitter with mischief. Iola's ears are small and taper off to a slight point at the top, generally adding to her imp-like appearance.
Her dirt-smeared skin is a tanned wheat color and free of any embarrassing blemishes--being nine and out in the cleansing sun all day does have its perks--but that isn't to suggest she's free of any other distinguishing marks. Her bony knees and round elbows are caked with old scars and countless scabs ranging from fresh to crusted over to ready to flake off. On the inside of her left forearm is a half-inch long V-shaped scar from when she accidentally cut herself on the end of a freshly-made spear, and the backs of her legs are dotted with thin scars brought on by crashing through the forest for a lifetime and having plants whip her back.
Because of her almost non-stop physical activity, she has very little fat on her body, which is quite odd considering she isn't even in the double-digits yet. Her twig-like body is all limbs with its thin, coltish legs, thicker thighs carved by lots of running and climbing, and long, spindly arms. Her hands, when not covered by her usual wraps, are calloused and rough from swinging on tree limbs all day, and her feet, which are rather large for someone her age, are absolutely filthy, being barefoot nearly all the time. Her bust is flat and her stomach is taut.
Lastly, Iola's hair is thick, layered, the color of semi-sweet chocolate, and cropped in a stylish pixie-cut. Because it‘s so short and because she has very little interest in appearances, her hair looks like it‘s in a perpetual state of bed-head. She pulls two sections on either side of the nape of her neck back into two low-riding spiky puffs with two thin strips of elastic wrapped in fraying cloth; two thick locks hang from the side of her head just in front of her ears and end just after the curve of her jaw. Her bangs, haphazardly trimmed, are an absolute mess, and are often falling over her eyes and obscuring her vision.
Clothing/Armor: Factoring in the Igni Island's hot, muggy climate, Iola must keep things very simple. She starts off with light khaki gauze weaved around her barely-there bosom and nether regions, serving as underwear. Next is a scarlet halter top that stops below her bellybutton. An x-pattern in faded gold is threaded along the bottom hem and sides of the two strings tied around her neck and knotted in the back. Baggy, dark maroon shorts sit just below her hips, creating a gap between the shirt and shorts that exposes a section of her belly, and is patched on one knee and fraying through in a few places; the same design on the hem of her shirt can be found along the waist line of the shorts and the leg holes, which droop to her knees but can be cinched closed with twine to prevent any unwanted critter from sneaking in there.
Wrapped around Iola's hands are strips of cloth similar to her underclothes, although considerably more worse-for-wear: a few shades darker, they're looped around her palms and just up her wrists as well as her otherwise bare feet and just past her ankles, protecting them from any sharp rocks or jagged bark she may come across in the jungles. Dark leather guards are pinned beneath the wraps, effectively shielding the tops of her feet and hands from poisonous snake bites.
For jewelry, a cheap steel cuff is wrapped around the top of her left ear and two more in top right. Multiple bangles, thin and golden, are linked around her right wrist and left ankle.
Weapons: Iola's technique for firebending isn't really much of a technique, to be honest. She has had some formal training when it comes to attacking and defending herself with a teacher hired out from the Api tribe, but a combination of her garish, overbearing personality, resentment towards authority figures, even those trying to help her out, and general lack of control has proven to be quite the obstacle--so much of an obstacle, in fact, that both the firebending sifu and the village chief have advised her to just give up all together.
As such, since her firebending is useless without practice, Iola is forced to rely on other methods of protection, and so uses the spear. A simple weapon, she had her uncle carve it out of sturdy, dark oak. From tip to end, it's a solid piece of wood and about five and a half feet long, coming up to just over her head. It's straight as an arrow and the tip has been filed down to a deadly point and dipped in poisons that induce seizures, paralysis, and possible respiratory failure. A hand grip section, which takes up about three inches of the whole body, is wrapped in dingy gray cloth for a better hold.
Personality: Iola is pure energy. Bouncing off the walls, crashing into things, climbing trees to hang upside down from the limbs, hiding under bushes only to jump out at unsuspecting victims shrieking and giggling moments later...yeah, it's her bag. Truly larger than life, she does everything in the biggest way possible, whether it's eating (she'll practically inhale the food on her plate), playing (she plays rougher than the girls can stand and tougher than the boys would like to admit), and even sleeping (even in a deep sleep, her face is set with a determined little frown, and she twitches and shudders often). When she flies off the handle and becomes angry--a common occurrence--her fury burns hotter than the sun and no one is safe. Her temper tantrums are the stuff of legends and is prone to violent outbursts if she doesn't get her way, often kicking or punchingt...but alas, as her anger burns hotly it also burns quickly. If the offense isn't dire, she'll usually "get over" it and go back to jumping in mud puddles within a few hours. Not one to hide her misery, she cries loudly when upset and could pout, whine, and tantrum for hours.
Eccentric to a fault, Iola has been known to delve into strange conversations and perform even stranger stunts all for the sake of attention. In fact, the girl thrives in the spotlight. She loves being the center of attention and soaks up every second of it, but if all eyes aren't on her, then she becomes very jealous and will go out of her way to "feel the love" once more. Bull-headed to the point of no return, she has quite the little ego on her, especially regarding her abilities as a firebender. Since they are few and far between, she sees herself as slightly better than those who can't bend, especially the warriors. To her, what's the point of calling yourself a true warrior if you can't even bend? As a source of amusement and to show off to friends, she's got a bit of a reputation around the tribe as a real jester, often pulling simple yet effective pranks with the use of her firebending. A favorite right now is burning away the ropes that keep the penned tabipara tethered in a clearing and watching and laughing hysterically from afar as they wander and create thirty-seven flavors of hell for the village folk.
It's no secret that she herself wants to be a warrior one day, but the odds of that ever happening are rather grim. Her attention span is terminally short, not to mention she has quite the budding smart mouth (it comes with the territory), and her short fuse hampers her chances even more. These facts are sore spots for her, and if anyone were to bring them up while she was within earshot, there's a good chance she'll fly off the handle and attack the poor soul. Indeed, she offends very easily, just as easily as she gets mad, in fact, and exacts her revenge with, what else, violence.
Iola is a total, complete and utter tomboy: she picks her nose, digs around in her ears, scratches her ass, spits, and doesn't mind getting a little dirty (or a lot dirty); in fact, she prefers it. She hates the idea of being cooped up in her hut all day, and so wastes daylight playing rough games and burning away some of her excess energy. Her friends who have known her since they were babies are able to stomach her exhausting charm, but it's adults and strangers who have a hard time processing just how loud, rude, and crude this kid can get--and, to be honest, Iola wouldn't have it any other way.
Background: Born the fifth child to the already bursting-at-the-seams family to mother Kala and father Maleko, without a doubt Iola was the noisiest, most difficult baby the Ken'ichi tribe had ever seen. She shrieked when forced to wait for a meal for too long, cried when not picked up and rocked almost constantly, and threw earth-shattering temper tantrums, that often times ended in some sort of violent act, over the smallest thing.
Since she was the baby of the family--for the time being--she was constantly doted upon, spoiled rotten for the first three years of her life, and practically got away with murder. She had four older siblings, two sisters, Iekika (7) and Apikalia (5), and two brothers, Mikala (6) and Peni (5). They, too, lavished the enormously loud Iola with endless streams of attention; the "den mothers" of the Ken'ichi tribe often gossiped about the sweet-natured children of Kala and Maleko and how lovingly they treated their newborn sister. Kala and Maleko, however, were soon worn down by their youngest child's extremely overbearing personality and sometimes left the responsibility of feeding the tiny terror to the eldest children.
It wasn't that they were terrible parents, it was just that by the end of the day, they were usually too exhausted to even balance Iola in their laps. Maleko was a sailor who made infrequent exchange trips to the Fire Nation docks, haggling with weathered sailors over the enormous rubies mined from the caves on the Igni Islands. He would often be gone for weeks, rarely months, and when he returned home he was usually too exhausted to do much else but sleep and eat. When his energy did pick back up he would play with his children until it was time to leave again. Kala was a home maker and occasional seamstress for the tribe. If someone needed a shawl or perhaps a shirt and they needed it very quickly, they usually went to Kala. She had learned long before Iola's birth how to take care of the children without a father and took his long absences in stride: when he was gone, she cooked, cleaned and cared for the children at a manic pace; when he was home, she had a few more chances to rest but still, on the whole, cared for her family. She didn't complain, though--such is the life of a house wife!
Iola's transition to being a toddler saw very little change in her being. Still being the baby of the family and therefor paid the most attention, she still took regularly to having hissy fits over spilled tea and tearing the heads of her homemade dolls at the drop of a hat. When she was three, however, her younger brothers, maternal twins by the names of Iakopa and Kimo, were born. Instantly, all of the cooing and and spoiling was redirected to the new babies. Her reign of terror did not come to an end, but was merely suppressed and greatly ignored.
At first, Iola was furious--how dare her parents not have time for her! How dare they fawn and gawk over those tiny, worthless creatures! They should have been feeding her, bathing her, tucking her into bed at night! When it became clear that she was no longer the family super star, Iola took to redirecting her jealousy, anger, and boundless energy to playing with the other children in the tribe. She spent literally the entire day playing, crashing through the jungles, and, once she got a little older, following her older brothers and their pack of friends around to watch what they did. Usually it was some kind of prank in store for members of the sister tribes, specifically the Tengu since their neutral ground was nearest. Before long, she and a handful of other kids got together and began warring on other children, yet they focused the most on the children of the Tengu tribe, just as her brothers had. Precious daylight was lost to mud-singling skirmishes, stealing crops, vandalizing makeshift ports. Since the Tengu tribe lived so far away, they battled it out in violent, bloody "games" in neutral territory over who had the toughest gang, who had the best weapons, who could throw their spears farthest; Iola would often literally crawl home at the end of the day, scraped up and battered fairly bad but utterly satisfied. It was war and she loved every second of it. Pretty soon Iola became the Ken'ichi tribe's infamous wild child.
Later years blended into one another as she settled into something barely resembling a routine: she would wake up in the very early mornings, perhaps help her mother putter around the hut for an hour or so, then escape into the jungles after a quick breakfast of smoked meat and sweet juice. There, she would craft crude strategies for the counter-attack on the Tengu tribe...or, on occasion, act like a normal child and play a game of pretend. She received no formal education, mainly never learning how to read, write, or count past ten, as the Islanders weren't very big on education. They learned what they absolutely needed, and a lifestyle living in dense tropics didn't exactly call for knowing how to spell "clandestine".
Iola was seven-years-old when she learned she could firebend. After accidentally setting a stock pile of dried grass and wood ablaze with a spastic flail of her hand, she rushed back home and showed her parents. They were overjoyed, of course, since benders were extremely rare between the tribes, and she was the only one in the entire family. Once a constant headache, her status in the household skyrocketed. No longer were Peni and Mikala the favorites; it was all about Iola. She developed quite the ego and a bit of a strut as she paraded around the village, showing off her gift to anyone who was foolish enough to give the beastly girl any sort of attention. A week later, she was sent to firebending academy, a sort of "boarding school", to learn how to firebend, or at least control it...and was promptly kicked out two months later. During that time, she missed her family and friends dearly, and was often on the verge of tears (she usually held them back, though, in favor of not looking like a total baby in front of everyone else). After yet another failed lesson in which she set another piece of furniture on fire and back-talked another teacher, it became clear that she was not going to get better and that, possibly, it was because she wasn't letting herself get better due to her disregard for rules and authority figures and over-all lack of discipline. As such, the novelty of learning wore off for both Iola and the teachers, and they sent her home in disgrace...but not without first forbidding her from ever using her firebending again. Their reasoning was that if she didn't know how to control it, then there was a good chance she could burn down the village.
While on the docks one day stocking a ship in preparation for another trip to sea, Maleko overheard the voices from a nearby sandbar of the Chief and a young, fidgety-looking young man, who stood on a satin pillow that lay on top of a satin rug, explain to the Chief that he had been sent by his boss, a nobleman and minister of trade by the name of Dinesh who had made an agreement with a friend and business partner named Ajit to adopt a poor Igni child and raise it properly by educating him/her and teaching him/her how to be a civilized person (it should go without saying that some of this was a lie; while Ajit did intend to raise whatever savage brat he could get his hands on, it was less for the goodness of improving someone's life and more to increase his revenue: Ajit had bet his friend and business partner that if he could train one Igni child to be a "real" person, he would get a hefty share of Dinesh's income from his own Igni port on the Fire Nation; if Ajit failed, then a portion of his share of the exports would be given to Dinesh). In short, Dinesh wanted the loudest, most difficult child the Chief could think of, and in exchange, both the tribe and the family that the child came from would be rewarded handsomely. If they supplied the child, Dinesh would cut the taxes for that tribe, plus offer more chances to move around the docks.
It didn't take long for the Chief to make his decision: Iola. He reasoned that she would probably have a better life in the far-off lands of the Fire Nation, their almost-forgotten ancestors...and besides, it was the glorious absence of the tribe's biggest headache. With the decision settled upon, not to mention a hefty bonus given to Maleko and Kala to soothe their fears and fatten their pockets, it's only a matter of time before Iola leaves. Unfortunately for her, she has no clue of what's in store for her, but it should be noted that when the time comes and she must leave, her reaction to the upcoming news will be something to remember.
Sample RP: The harsh, jagged cry of a nearby crow-boar rang through the otherwise still muggy air. He had been waiting in the bushes for nearly three hours, crouched low and unmoving, his eyes fixed to the clearing just four yards ahead: in there lay a simple trap of a box hoisted on its side and supported by a stick, which had a length of twine tied around its middle that led back to the hiding spot; positioned beneath the box was a small pile of spoiling meat. It had started off fresh, of course, skinned right from the bone of the vampire-ocelot by the muscle-bound men in the huts nearby, but spending three hours in direct sunlight in hot, sticky air had warped the bait to something, well...not so pleasant. It was all for the sake of their prize, however; it was worth it. Anything was worth the thrill of the hunt, even the aching calf muscles, sweat-sticky skin, and countless mosquito bites dotted along his spine.
The thrill of the hunt.
"Krrra-koo!" A sharp voice sounded off in the distance, followed by a snapping twig.
He paused, tightened his grip along the length of his spear, and slowly, methodically, painfully, as his legs strained under the effort, shuffled over to a closer hiding spot, still crouched low to the ground. His gaze darted from the clearing to the edge of the jungle, where another piercing call went off, this time closer. Perhaps this was it...this was his chance to catch his family's meal once and for all and prove that he was a man. It had to be timed just right.
Another cry, another snapping twig, and the leaves that masked the dense jungle began to rustle and shake.
He stood very, very carefully and wiped a bead of sweat out of his eyes. He BAD!ed back his arm, taking aim with the tip of his spearhead. He poked the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. The air was thick, tense, suffocating, poised on the brink of a creature's life that was about to end, a creature that would sustain and feed a family for a short while before another creature's life had to be taken. It was the circles of life within circles of life, and he was just glad to be part of his own. He drew his arm back slightly further, drummed his fingertips on the shaft, chucked it forward--
And whipped his arm back at the last moment as his younger sister Iola came crashing through the foliage and directly into his line of fire, hands clapped around her mouth as she cawed and cooed and shrieked with laughter. "Krrra-koo!" she cried again to no one in particular, obliviously kicking the painstakingly-assembled trap with her bare feet into the jungles. She spied the rotted meat left untouched and came in for a closer inspection.
"Ohh, dat's gross..." she breathed, poking the lump with her bandaged fingers. Glancing from side to side to make sure no one was there watching her (oh, how wrong she was), she licked her contaminated fingers and cast her gaze skyward, as if dutifully mulling the taste over, and promptly hawked back and spat into the dirt. "Yuck!"
Iola stood up, brushed her knees off, and planted her hands on her hips. She had a feeling someone was out there...but just where were they? Oh-so-animatedly, she dropped to all fours and began sniffing the ground like some sort of bloodhound-snake, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. She cut a winding trail from the clearing to its edge, where she eventually peeled back the wide leaves and crawled in there, too...and where she bumped right into her brother Mikala, arms folded over his broad chest and foot tapping in annoyance. His spear was rested against the trunk of a nearby tree. "Hello," he intoned, obviously not happy.
Iola grinned and leaped to her feet. "Hello, bruddah!" she chirped, obviously not not happy. "How are joo on dis fine mornin?"
Mikala's aggravated silence spoke volume; a quick glance for Iola around the ruined trap site spoke even more.
"Ohhhh," she whispered, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head and rocking back on the balls of her feet, "dat was me?"
Mikala nodded slowly, looking all the more intimidating with his amber eyes, dark hair, and vivid face tattoos.
Iola nodded as well and sucked her teeth in sympathy, as if her older brother had just regaled her with a story about catching the biggest, meanest fish ever to be caught...and only to have it wriggle off the dock the minute he reached land. Sucks-to-be-you kind of situation, only both parties were involved and it was only one party's fault. "Weeeeeellp," she said after a few moments of silence, stretching her arms into the air and relishing in the way her back popped, "I guess I'll be seein joo at home, den." She turned to leave, making plans to already duck back into the jungle and ride out the punishment she was sure to receive for interfering with her brother's hunt, and shrank back as his heavy hand fell on her shoulder.
"Oh, no, little sister. Joo'll be 'elpin me clean up."
In a flash, she turned on her heels and shot a shower of sparks in Mikala's face. It wasn't nearly enough to hurt him, not even singe his eyebrows, but it was enough to startle him. He dropped his grip as his hands flew to his face, and in that one moment, Iola made a decision. She snatched her brother's spear and took off at a wild sprint, holding her bounty over her head, screaming and laughing and hooting. "Joo'll neva take me alive!" she taunted, galloping into the dense foliage where at first her image was clear, then dim, then disappeared all together as the shadows and leaves and roar of the jungle creatures swallowed her up.
Age: 9
Gender: Female
Group: Igni Islander
Nation: Igni Islands, Fire Nation
Bender?: Yes
Physical Appearance: Like the majority of her fellow Igni Islanders, Iola is tall for her age at 5'1''. A lanky young girl with sharp, angular features, her diamond-shaped face retains virtually none of the natural baby fat found in children her age and compliments her thin lips and wide mouth very well, as well as her long, rounded nose that hooks down just ever-so-slightly. Her tawny gold eyes, large and quite expressive, are spaced evenly between her thick, pin-straight eyebrows and often glitter with mischief. Iola's ears are small and taper off to a slight point at the top, generally adding to her imp-like appearance.
Her dirt-smeared skin is a tanned wheat color and free of any embarrassing blemishes--being nine and out in the cleansing sun all day does have its perks--but that isn't to suggest she's free of any other distinguishing marks. Her bony knees and round elbows are caked with old scars and countless scabs ranging from fresh to crusted over to ready to flake off. On the inside of her left forearm is a half-inch long V-shaped scar from when she accidentally cut herself on the end of a freshly-made spear, and the backs of her legs are dotted with thin scars brought on by crashing through the forest for a lifetime and having plants whip her back.
Because of her almost non-stop physical activity, she has very little fat on her body, which is quite odd considering she isn't even in the double-digits yet. Her twig-like body is all limbs with its thin, coltish legs, thicker thighs carved by lots of running and climbing, and long, spindly arms. Her hands, when not covered by her usual wraps, are calloused and rough from swinging on tree limbs all day, and her feet, which are rather large for someone her age, are absolutely filthy, being barefoot nearly all the time. Her bust is flat and her stomach is taut.
Lastly, Iola's hair is thick, layered, the color of semi-sweet chocolate, and cropped in a stylish pixie-cut. Because it‘s so short and because she has very little interest in appearances, her hair looks like it‘s in a perpetual state of bed-head. She pulls two sections on either side of the nape of her neck back into two low-riding spiky puffs with two thin strips of elastic wrapped in fraying cloth; two thick locks hang from the side of her head just in front of her ears and end just after the curve of her jaw. Her bangs, haphazardly trimmed, are an absolute mess, and are often falling over her eyes and obscuring her vision.
Clothing/Armor: Factoring in the Igni Island's hot, muggy climate, Iola must keep things very simple. She starts off with light khaki gauze weaved around her barely-there bosom and nether regions, serving as underwear. Next is a scarlet halter top that stops below her bellybutton. An x-pattern in faded gold is threaded along the bottom hem and sides of the two strings tied around her neck and knotted in the back. Baggy, dark maroon shorts sit just below her hips, creating a gap between the shirt and shorts that exposes a section of her belly, and is patched on one knee and fraying through in a few places; the same design on the hem of her shirt can be found along the waist line of the shorts and the leg holes, which droop to her knees but can be cinched closed with twine to prevent any unwanted critter from sneaking in there.
Wrapped around Iola's hands are strips of cloth similar to her underclothes, although considerably more worse-for-wear: a few shades darker, they're looped around her palms and just up her wrists as well as her otherwise bare feet and just past her ankles, protecting them from any sharp rocks or jagged bark she may come across in the jungles. Dark leather guards are pinned beneath the wraps, effectively shielding the tops of her feet and hands from poisonous snake bites.
For jewelry, a cheap steel cuff is wrapped around the top of her left ear and two more in top right. Multiple bangles, thin and golden, are linked around her right wrist and left ankle.
Weapons: Iola's technique for firebending isn't really much of a technique, to be honest. She has had some formal training when it comes to attacking and defending herself with a teacher hired out from the Api tribe, but a combination of her garish, overbearing personality, resentment towards authority figures, even those trying to help her out, and general lack of control has proven to be quite the obstacle--so much of an obstacle, in fact, that both the firebending sifu and the village chief have advised her to just give up all together.
As such, since her firebending is useless without practice, Iola is forced to rely on other methods of protection, and so uses the spear. A simple weapon, she had her uncle carve it out of sturdy, dark oak. From tip to end, it's a solid piece of wood and about five and a half feet long, coming up to just over her head. It's straight as an arrow and the tip has been filed down to a deadly point and dipped in poisons that induce seizures, paralysis, and possible respiratory failure. A hand grip section, which takes up about three inches of the whole body, is wrapped in dingy gray cloth for a better hold.
Personality: Iola is pure energy. Bouncing off the walls, crashing into things, climbing trees to hang upside down from the limbs, hiding under bushes only to jump out at unsuspecting victims shrieking and giggling moments later...yeah, it's her bag. Truly larger than life, she does everything in the biggest way possible, whether it's eating (she'll practically inhale the food on her plate), playing (she plays rougher than the girls can stand and tougher than the boys would like to admit), and even sleeping (even in a deep sleep, her face is set with a determined little frown, and she twitches and shudders often). When she flies off the handle and becomes angry--a common occurrence--her fury burns hotter than the sun and no one is safe. Her temper tantrums are the stuff of legends and is prone to violent outbursts if she doesn't get her way, often kicking or punchingt...but alas, as her anger burns hotly it also burns quickly. If the offense isn't dire, she'll usually "get over" it and go back to jumping in mud puddles within a few hours. Not one to hide her misery, she cries loudly when upset and could pout, whine, and tantrum for hours.
Eccentric to a fault, Iola has been known to delve into strange conversations and perform even stranger stunts all for the sake of attention. In fact, the girl thrives in the spotlight. She loves being the center of attention and soaks up every second of it, but if all eyes aren't on her, then she becomes very jealous and will go out of her way to "feel the love" once more. Bull-headed to the point of no return, she has quite the little ego on her, especially regarding her abilities as a firebender. Since they are few and far between, she sees herself as slightly better than those who can't bend, especially the warriors. To her, what's the point of calling yourself a true warrior if you can't even bend? As a source of amusement and to show off to friends, she's got a bit of a reputation around the tribe as a real jester, often pulling simple yet effective pranks with the use of her firebending. A favorite right now is burning away the ropes that keep the penned tabipara tethered in a clearing and watching and laughing hysterically from afar as they wander and create thirty-seven flavors of hell for the village folk.
It's no secret that she herself wants to be a warrior one day, but the odds of that ever happening are rather grim. Her attention span is terminally short, not to mention she has quite the budding smart mouth (it comes with the territory), and her short fuse hampers her chances even more. These facts are sore spots for her, and if anyone were to bring them up while she was within earshot, there's a good chance she'll fly off the handle and attack the poor soul. Indeed, she offends very easily, just as easily as she gets mad, in fact, and exacts her revenge with, what else, violence.
Iola is a total, complete and utter tomboy: she picks her nose, digs around in her ears, scratches her ass, spits, and doesn't mind getting a little dirty (or a lot dirty); in fact, she prefers it. She hates the idea of being cooped up in her hut all day, and so wastes daylight playing rough games and burning away some of her excess energy. Her friends who have known her since they were babies are able to stomach her exhausting charm, but it's adults and strangers who have a hard time processing just how loud, rude, and crude this kid can get--and, to be honest, Iola wouldn't have it any other way.
Background: Born the fifth child to the already bursting-at-the-seams family to mother Kala and father Maleko, without a doubt Iola was the noisiest, most difficult baby the Ken'ichi tribe had ever seen. She shrieked when forced to wait for a meal for too long, cried when not picked up and rocked almost constantly, and threw earth-shattering temper tantrums, that often times ended in some sort of violent act, over the smallest thing.
Since she was the baby of the family--for the time being--she was constantly doted upon, spoiled rotten for the first three years of her life, and practically got away with murder. She had four older siblings, two sisters, Iekika (7) and Apikalia (5), and two brothers, Mikala (6) and Peni (5). They, too, lavished the enormously loud Iola with endless streams of attention; the "den mothers" of the Ken'ichi tribe often gossiped about the sweet-natured children of Kala and Maleko and how lovingly they treated their newborn sister. Kala and Maleko, however, were soon worn down by their youngest child's extremely overbearing personality and sometimes left the responsibility of feeding the tiny terror to the eldest children.
It wasn't that they were terrible parents, it was just that by the end of the day, they were usually too exhausted to even balance Iola in their laps. Maleko was a sailor who made infrequent exchange trips to the Fire Nation docks, haggling with weathered sailors over the enormous rubies mined from the caves on the Igni Islands. He would often be gone for weeks, rarely months, and when he returned home he was usually too exhausted to do much else but sleep and eat. When his energy did pick back up he would play with his children until it was time to leave again. Kala was a home maker and occasional seamstress for the tribe. If someone needed a shawl or perhaps a shirt and they needed it very quickly, they usually went to Kala. She had learned long before Iola's birth how to take care of the children without a father and took his long absences in stride: when he was gone, she cooked, cleaned and cared for the children at a manic pace; when he was home, she had a few more chances to rest but still, on the whole, cared for her family. She didn't complain, though--such is the life of a house wife!
Iola's transition to being a toddler saw very little change in her being. Still being the baby of the family and therefor paid the most attention, she still took regularly to having hissy fits over spilled tea and tearing the heads of her homemade dolls at the drop of a hat. When she was three, however, her younger brothers, maternal twins by the names of Iakopa and Kimo, were born. Instantly, all of the cooing and and spoiling was redirected to the new babies. Her reign of terror did not come to an end, but was merely suppressed and greatly ignored.
At first, Iola was furious--how dare her parents not have time for her! How dare they fawn and gawk over those tiny, worthless creatures! They should have been feeding her, bathing her, tucking her into bed at night! When it became clear that she was no longer the family super star, Iola took to redirecting her jealousy, anger, and boundless energy to playing with the other children in the tribe. She spent literally the entire day playing, crashing through the jungles, and, once she got a little older, following her older brothers and their pack of friends around to watch what they did. Usually it was some kind of prank in store for members of the sister tribes, specifically the Tengu since their neutral ground was nearest. Before long, she and a handful of other kids got together and began warring on other children, yet they focused the most on the children of the Tengu tribe, just as her brothers had. Precious daylight was lost to mud-singling skirmishes, stealing crops, vandalizing makeshift ports. Since the Tengu tribe lived so far away, they battled it out in violent, bloody "games" in neutral territory over who had the toughest gang, who had the best weapons, who could throw their spears farthest; Iola would often literally crawl home at the end of the day, scraped up and battered fairly bad but utterly satisfied. It was war and she loved every second of it. Pretty soon Iola became the Ken'ichi tribe's infamous wild child.
Later years blended into one another as she settled into something barely resembling a routine: she would wake up in the very early mornings, perhaps help her mother putter around the hut for an hour or so, then escape into the jungles after a quick breakfast of smoked meat and sweet juice. There, she would craft crude strategies for the counter-attack on the Tengu tribe...or, on occasion, act like a normal child and play a game of pretend. She received no formal education, mainly never learning how to read, write, or count past ten, as the Islanders weren't very big on education. They learned what they absolutely needed, and a lifestyle living in dense tropics didn't exactly call for knowing how to spell "clandestine".
Iola was seven-years-old when she learned she could firebend. After accidentally setting a stock pile of dried grass and wood ablaze with a spastic flail of her hand, she rushed back home and showed her parents. They were overjoyed, of course, since benders were extremely rare between the tribes, and she was the only one in the entire family. Once a constant headache, her status in the household skyrocketed. No longer were Peni and Mikala the favorites; it was all about Iola. She developed quite the ego and a bit of a strut as she paraded around the village, showing off her gift to anyone who was foolish enough to give the beastly girl any sort of attention. A week later, she was sent to firebending academy, a sort of "boarding school", to learn how to firebend, or at least control it...and was promptly kicked out two months later. During that time, she missed her family and friends dearly, and was often on the verge of tears (she usually held them back, though, in favor of not looking like a total baby in front of everyone else). After yet another failed lesson in which she set another piece of furniture on fire and back-talked another teacher, it became clear that she was not going to get better and that, possibly, it was because she wasn't letting herself get better due to her disregard for rules and authority figures and over-all lack of discipline. As such, the novelty of learning wore off for both Iola and the teachers, and they sent her home in disgrace...but not without first forbidding her from ever using her firebending again. Their reasoning was that if she didn't know how to control it, then there was a good chance she could burn down the village.
While on the docks one day stocking a ship in preparation for another trip to sea, Maleko overheard the voices from a nearby sandbar of the Chief and a young, fidgety-looking young man, who stood on a satin pillow that lay on top of a satin rug, explain to the Chief that he had been sent by his boss, a nobleman and minister of trade by the name of Dinesh who had made an agreement with a friend and business partner named Ajit to adopt a poor Igni child and raise it properly by educating him/her and teaching him/her how to be a civilized person (it should go without saying that some of this was a lie; while Ajit did intend to raise whatever savage brat he could get his hands on, it was less for the goodness of improving someone's life and more to increase his revenue: Ajit had bet his friend and business partner that if he could train one Igni child to be a "real" person, he would get a hefty share of Dinesh's income from his own Igni port on the Fire Nation; if Ajit failed, then a portion of his share of the exports would be given to Dinesh). In short, Dinesh wanted the loudest, most difficult child the Chief could think of, and in exchange, both the tribe and the family that the child came from would be rewarded handsomely. If they supplied the child, Dinesh would cut the taxes for that tribe, plus offer more chances to move around the docks.
It didn't take long for the Chief to make his decision: Iola. He reasoned that she would probably have a better life in the far-off lands of the Fire Nation, their almost-forgotten ancestors...and besides, it was the glorious absence of the tribe's biggest headache. With the decision settled upon, not to mention a hefty bonus given to Maleko and Kala to soothe their fears and fatten their pockets, it's only a matter of time before Iola leaves. Unfortunately for her, she has no clue of what's in store for her, but it should be noted that when the time comes and she must leave, her reaction to the upcoming news will be something to remember.
Sample RP: The harsh, jagged cry of a nearby crow-boar rang through the otherwise still muggy air. He had been waiting in the bushes for nearly three hours, crouched low and unmoving, his eyes fixed to the clearing just four yards ahead: in there lay a simple trap of a box hoisted on its side and supported by a stick, which had a length of twine tied around its middle that led back to the hiding spot; positioned beneath the box was a small pile of spoiling meat. It had started off fresh, of course, skinned right from the bone of the vampire-ocelot by the muscle-bound men in the huts nearby, but spending three hours in direct sunlight in hot, sticky air had warped the bait to something, well...not so pleasant. It was all for the sake of their prize, however; it was worth it. Anything was worth the thrill of the hunt, even the aching calf muscles, sweat-sticky skin, and countless mosquito bites dotted along his spine.
The thrill of the hunt.
"Krrra-koo!" A sharp voice sounded off in the distance, followed by a snapping twig.
He paused, tightened his grip along the length of his spear, and slowly, methodically, painfully, as his legs strained under the effort, shuffled over to a closer hiding spot, still crouched low to the ground. His gaze darted from the clearing to the edge of the jungle, where another piercing call went off, this time closer. Perhaps this was it...this was his chance to catch his family's meal once and for all and prove that he was a man. It had to be timed just right.
Another cry, another snapping twig, and the leaves that masked the dense jungle began to rustle and shake.
He stood very, very carefully and wiped a bead of sweat out of his eyes. He BAD!ed back his arm, taking aim with the tip of his spearhead. He poked the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. The air was thick, tense, suffocating, poised on the brink of a creature's life that was about to end, a creature that would sustain and feed a family for a short while before another creature's life had to be taken. It was the circles of life within circles of life, and he was just glad to be part of his own. He drew his arm back slightly further, drummed his fingertips on the shaft, chucked it forward--
And whipped his arm back at the last moment as his younger sister Iola came crashing through the foliage and directly into his line of fire, hands clapped around her mouth as she cawed and cooed and shrieked with laughter. "Krrra-koo!" she cried again to no one in particular, obliviously kicking the painstakingly-assembled trap with her bare feet into the jungles. She spied the rotted meat left untouched and came in for a closer inspection.
"Ohh, dat's gross..." she breathed, poking the lump with her bandaged fingers. Glancing from side to side to make sure no one was there watching her (oh, how wrong she was), she licked her contaminated fingers and cast her gaze skyward, as if dutifully mulling the taste over, and promptly hawked back and spat into the dirt. "Yuck!"
Iola stood up, brushed her knees off, and planted her hands on her hips. She had a feeling someone was out there...but just where were they? Oh-so-animatedly, she dropped to all fours and began sniffing the ground like some sort of bloodhound-snake, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. She cut a winding trail from the clearing to its edge, where she eventually peeled back the wide leaves and crawled in there, too...and where she bumped right into her brother Mikala, arms folded over his broad chest and foot tapping in annoyance. His spear was rested against the trunk of a nearby tree. "Hello," he intoned, obviously not happy.
Iola grinned and leaped to her feet. "Hello, bruddah!" she chirped, obviously not not happy. "How are joo on dis fine mornin?"
Mikala's aggravated silence spoke volume; a quick glance for Iola around the ruined trap site spoke even more.
"Ohhhh," she whispered, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head and rocking back on the balls of her feet, "dat was me?"
Mikala nodded slowly, looking all the more intimidating with his amber eyes, dark hair, and vivid face tattoos.
Iola nodded as well and sucked her teeth in sympathy, as if her older brother had just regaled her with a story about catching the biggest, meanest fish ever to be caught...and only to have it wriggle off the dock the minute he reached land. Sucks-to-be-you kind of situation, only both parties were involved and it was only one party's fault. "Weeeeeellp," she said after a few moments of silence, stretching her arms into the air and relishing in the way her back popped, "I guess I'll be seein joo at home, den." She turned to leave, making plans to already duck back into the jungle and ride out the punishment she was sure to receive for interfering with her brother's hunt, and shrank back as his heavy hand fell on her shoulder.
"Oh, no, little sister. Joo'll be 'elpin me clean up."
In a flash, she turned on her heels and shot a shower of sparks in Mikala's face. It wasn't nearly enough to hurt him, not even singe his eyebrows, but it was enough to startle him. He dropped his grip as his hands flew to his face, and in that one moment, Iola made a decision. She snatched her brother's spear and took off at a wild sprint, holding her bounty over her head, screaming and laughing and hooting. "Joo'll neva take me alive!" she taunted, galloping into the dense foliage where at first her image was clear, then dim, then disappeared all together as the shadows and leaves and roar of the jungle creatures swallowed her up.