Post by xiuzao on Dec 2, 2007 0:26:07 GMT -5
Name: Xiuzao ("Shyoo-Sow")
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Group: Fire Nation Military
Nation: Fire Nation
Bender?: No
Physical Appearance: Xiuzao is a healthy-looking young woman. She stands about 5'4" tall with well-proportioned limbs and a set of noticeably wide hips that gives her a great sense of balance. Her bust is modest at best, and despite a frame that seems best suited for pumping out babies she possesses an athletic musculature. Her legs are particularly strong. Xiuzao's skin is usually tanned from the sun and she has a fair amount of freckles along the tops of her shoulders.
Xiuzao has very narrow eyes that seem perpetually squinted, perhaps from constantly trying to shield her eyes from sea spray. Her eyes, whenever someone is close enough to see them, are a very pale grey. A pair of very thin eyebrows arch over her eyes, and they exhibit a great range of motion with her various feelings. Her face is quite round overall, but she has a delicately pointed chin. Her mouth is small and her lips are fairly thin, but possess a naturally red hue. Xiuzao's nose is fairly small and slightly upturned at the end.
Her hair extends just barely to her shoulders when let down, and is jet black in color. Her typical hairstyle consists of a simple ponytail pulled up high on the back of her head and left to hang free behind her. The only variation of this consists of pulling only the top half of her hair into the ponytail while allowing the rest to hang down freely.
Clothing/Armor: Xiuzao’s typical attire is her military-issue uniform. Over her underclothes she wears a base layer consisting of a dark maroon sleeveless shirt and a pair of similar colored pants. The shirt stops two inches above her belly button while the pants are loose fitting and tie off just past her kneecap with a black drawstring. When on duty, the sheath of her dadao is carried above this first layer with a pair of leather straps crossing over her chest.
In top of this shirt, Xiuzao wears a collared shawl that covers her upper body and cuts off level with the top of her abdomen. The shawl is made of heavy woven cotton and holds a smooth curve on its own even when not in direct contact with her body. It is black in color with a gold trim. The otherwise straight bottom edge is interrupted by two half-circles cut into the fabric in front of her armpits as well as on the back side too. The collar of the shawl is an orange-red with gold trimming and circles loosely around her neck at a height of 1 inch.
Over her waist, Xiuzao wears a heavy cotton skirt that splits in the front and extends to just above her knees. The flaps are a mauve taupe in color and connect to a burgundy belt whose front is in the shape a flat, downward-pointed triangle. A pair of thinner dark red flaps also hangs from the belt in the front and back. Their ends taper into a point that is even with the ends of the skirt, and their edges are lined in vermillion.
Her boots are in typical Fire Nation fashion with the toes swept up into a curling point. They are black leather with gold colored trimming around the ankle, and they extend up the front of her shins with hardened leather while being held tight by thinner leather up the back of her calf.
On her arms is a pair of bracers made of hardened leather plates running along the top of her forearm. The plates are dark crimson in color with gold trimming and are held in place by leather sleeves that are laced together on the underside of her arm. They stop a few inches short of her elbow and have a small red cloth flap that covers her wrist. Xiuzao also wears a set of simple brass bangles that wrap around each of her biceps.
Weapons: Xiuzao's weapon of choice is the standard issue dadao of the Fire Nation domestic military. It is a rather hefty weapon compared to the graceful jians and sabers of other branches of the military, but it's far from clumsy in skilled hands. The dadao's overall length is 34" with a blade length of 20". The blade is 2" wide at its base and widens to 3.5" at its widest point. The end is flat but steeply angled allowing for a decent thrust. The crosspiece is a flat strip of steel about 6" long with the front end curving down over the knuckles and the opposite side curving up toward the tip of the sword. The grip is a tapering full tang with thin wooden scales bolted to the sides. The assembled grip is wrapped in leather cord and the pommel is a ring of metal.
The sword is carried on a fairly plain leather sheath with a cut halfway down the front edge to allow for an easier draw. The sheath is carried on her back with the hilt angled over her right shoulder and a few leather straps that cross diagonally over her chest.
Her other main weapon of proficiency is a four-pronged grappling hook, though she never carries this with her. It is a permanent fixture on the jet ski she pilots. She has pretty good aim with her throws but generally relies on the fact that she can overshoot a target and let the hooks catch their target as she rides by.
Personality: Xiuzao is a fairly calm woman, but at times she can be hyper competitive. She hates to lose any contest that she takes seriously, and will rarely admit being bested when she feels that her opponent did not deserve the victory due to the circumstances. Occasionally she will hold a grudge or act cold toward someone who has beaten her at something until she reclaims her dominant status. However, despite the bitter act, she truly does enjoy the challenge of facing someone who is truly better than her at something… She’ll just never go about it with good sportsmanship.
Xiuzao enjoys physical activity over intense thought any day. Though some of her usual hobbies, jet skiing and swordplay for example, do involve some thought and cleverness, she draws the line at board games and philosophical discussion. She finds a certain amount of freedom in letting other people handle the decisions while she just gets the job done that she’s assigned.
Her views on the war are fairly typical of the average Fire Nation city youth. She believes her people have every right to rule the other nations, though she wonders if it’s really worth the time and effort just to help those savages become civilized.
Xiuzao is not a particularly affectionate woman when it comes to love and relationships. That is, at least, not to anyone she doesn’t have her eye on. It takes considerable physical skill to impress her, and she greatly respects people who are independent. However, it is perhaps this attraction to strong-willed people that often leads her relationships toward the very temporary, or at least informal, side of dating.
Aside from her hobbies and habits, Xiuzao is a fairly easy person to talk to. She listens well to other people and has a knack for snappy comments that can usually elicit a chuckle. However, she can tend to come across a little conceited from time to time when the subject comes to feats of ability. She feels she is very good at what she does and if she picks up the feeling that another person doesn’t believe her she is more than ready to back up her words with action.
Background: Despite being born in the Fire Nation, Xiuzao has grown up her whole life in and around water. Her parents lived in a coastal city right at the mouth of a large river that flowed into the great inland sea. The city contained a busy port that was single-handedly responsible for producing a third of the Fire Nation’s modern fleet. Xiuzao’s father worked on the docks as a crane operator while her mother simply maintained their household.
Xiuzao was the middle child of three siblings. She had an older brother and a younger sister; the former a year older while the latter trailed her by four. In her earliest years she and her brother were pretty close, but as time went one their bond transformed into more of a rivalry. They both liked the same things, but found it prudent to disagree on everything when around each other. Deep down, they cared for each other and relished the time spent competing, but neither would ever admit that much and simply strived to be the winner of their latest game.
Some of Xiuzao’s favorite hobbies as a girl included fishing and swimming across the river. She and her friends often snuck off to explore an expansive system of cenotes, or underground rivers that dotted the opposite shore. They were old lava conduits from way back when the area was volcanically active, but have since filled with water. There were several occasions where she or one of her friends almost got lost, but thanks to the presence of a few benders among the group, they managed to avoid any catastrophe. Xiuzao’s parents were very unhappy with her reckless cave diving. They even went so far as to ground her for a year when she took her younger sister along one time. However, she just couldn’t stay away from those amazing caves where the water was crystal clear and she could swear there were spirits around every corner.
Xiuzao’s academic career was fairly typical for a child growing up in a largely populated town. She learned how the Fire Nation was the pinnacle of civilization in a world of savages and that their war was a glorious effort to share their culture with the masses. It was common knowledge, but she often times wondered if the rest of the world even deserved the time and effort it was taking to civilize them. Aside from politics and history, she demonstrated passing skills in mathematics but barely squeaked by in literature. All the new epic poems she read were dreadfully boring to her and seemed to follow the same formula of a brave Fire Nation hero defeating some generic enemy nation dictator. However, the area where she really shined was extra curricular activities. During her run in public school she managed to make it onto the kuai ball(beach volleyball) team, the swimming team, and even had a brief membership on the fencing team. She was kicked off of the latter, however, when she broke her wooden sword over her opponent’s head after a disputed point that cost her a spot in a tournament final.
By the time she’d finished public schooling at 14, Xiuzao and her brother finally grew out of their sibling rivalry. The two still liked to tease each other, but now they could be in the same room without immediately initiating a staring contest or seeing who could eat the most fire flakes without their tongues starting to bleed. Also, around this time her brother had started working down on the docks with her father in order to bring in some extra money. Xiuzao had simply been spending her days helping her mother around the house and taking her younger sister to her bending lessons after school. In the void left by her brother’s absence, Xiuzao had begun spending a bit more time with her younger sister. However, it seemed that during all the years Xiuzao spent being competitive, her mother had managed to craft her younger sister into a proper Fire Nation lady. Xiuzao didn’t have as much fun around her prim and proper little sister, but still she did her best to impart a little roughness on the girl.
During her later teens it seemed that Xiuzao’s parents had had enough of her lounging around the house and spending all her days just swimming or hanging around the market with friends. They insisted that she find a job to help pay the rent, and a week later she shocked them by enlisting in the coast guard. Xiuzao found a poster advertising a need for soldiers in a budding branch of the Navy. Through some ingenious new innovations, the Fire Nation had managed to create small watercraft capable of moving much faster and more agile than any ships currently on the water. Pilots for these “Jet skis” were required to be good swimmers and undergo basic training.
In the months that followed, Xiuzao had moved to a military barracks further up river where she began her training. She was already in good physical condition, but the first few weeks of boot camp were quite painful. Following that she was introduced to weapons training with the Dadao and grappling hook. Immediately she developed a soft spot for the chopping power of the sword. She received excellent remarks from her commanders during the swimming portion of the test and could tread in open water for longer than anyone else in her class.
At long last, Xiuzao was accepted into the ranks of the military by age 18. She was assigned a firebending partner, a man named Yu who was a year older than her, and together they were given a jet ski to pilot. The two became fast friends and often spent their spare time on the way back from patrols seeing what tricks they could pull off with the jet ski. However, after accidentally burning out the engine during an attempt to create a whirlpool, Xiuzao learned that the mechanics of the base were even more fiercely protective of the jet ski than she was. She and Yu got a stern lecture from the greasy engineer and somehow managed to avoid laughing during the whole time.
Over the next year, the jet skis were constantly being modified and refined in order to eliminate any major design flaws that became apparent during their rigorous usage. The tactics of their use also became established in terms of encircling and boarding an enemy ship. They also drilled emergency towing of a stranded vessel along with amphibious assault. During that time, Xiuzao, or “Shoozy” as some of the other members of her units liked to call her, and Yu began to see each other as more than just ship mates. By the time she was 20 and her unit was broken up and reassigned, the two had become secret lovers (though it was hardly a secret among her comrades). She and Yu were sent their separate ways, though, and even though they both cherished their time spent together, they realized there was almost no chance of maintaining their relationship.
Xiuzao spent the last two years touring nearly every major port city in the Eastern Fire Nation. She still visited her family every few months and occasionally has the time see a few men before she’s called back to duty, but for the most part her military career dominates her time. She actually enjoys her profession, even if the officers can be irritating from time to time. And though she was once part of a patrol that managed to intercept a boatload of contraband from the Earth kingdom, she wishes that just once she could see some real action.
Sample RP:
Sea spray was assaulting her eyes as Xiuzao punched the throttle of her jet ski. The engine roared, straining the limits of its steam powered design as it drove the craft faster. The Fire Navy warrior merely tilted herself forward and held on tight as the jet ski flew at the oncoming wave. The craft leaned back as it rode up the sheer surface and then went airborne off its crest. Xiuzao let out a shout of exhilaration as she felt a moment of weightlessness pass through her, and then leaned forward some more to bring the nose of the jet ski level.
There was a great splash as the jet ski came crashing down onto the calm water behind the wave that just passed. She made sure to stand up with her rear off the seat before impact, using her strong legs like shock absorbers. However, the groan of pain behind her indicated that her fellow rider had not yet learned that particular trick of the trade. Throttling down and bringing the jetski around a slight turn so it was facing parallel to the length of the waves, Xiuzao looked over her shoulder as the slightly younger male cadet that she was currently training. His face was currently a picture of poorly-disguised pain, and he was frantically rubbing his lower back.
“I think you just broke my tailbone,” he whined.
“Suck it up,” Xiuzao told him with a smile, “Next time, remember to keep your ass off the seat when we’re coming down for a landing. There’s half and inch of padding over solid wood.” The other cadet merely resumed his groaning in response. “And when I say ‘Bend!’ you start bending some flames into the combustion chamber. We didn’t go nearly as high off that jump as we could have.”
“Okay, okay,” the cadet said, “Can we please just take it easy on the way back? I really think I tweaked something.”
“Psssh…” Xiuzao huffed. She cranked the grip of the handlebars to give the engine some power while she twisted her hands and leaned left to bring the nose facing the shore. “Oh, and one more thing… Keep you hands tightly clasped around my waist… This isn’t a date.”
And with that, Xiuzao sped back toward the docks, making sure to jump every wave along the way.
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Group: Fire Nation Military
Nation: Fire Nation
Bender?: No
Physical Appearance: Xiuzao is a healthy-looking young woman. She stands about 5'4" tall with well-proportioned limbs and a set of noticeably wide hips that gives her a great sense of balance. Her bust is modest at best, and despite a frame that seems best suited for pumping out babies she possesses an athletic musculature. Her legs are particularly strong. Xiuzao's skin is usually tanned from the sun and she has a fair amount of freckles along the tops of her shoulders.
Xiuzao has very narrow eyes that seem perpetually squinted, perhaps from constantly trying to shield her eyes from sea spray. Her eyes, whenever someone is close enough to see them, are a very pale grey. A pair of very thin eyebrows arch over her eyes, and they exhibit a great range of motion with her various feelings. Her face is quite round overall, but she has a delicately pointed chin. Her mouth is small and her lips are fairly thin, but possess a naturally red hue. Xiuzao's nose is fairly small and slightly upturned at the end.
Her hair extends just barely to her shoulders when let down, and is jet black in color. Her typical hairstyle consists of a simple ponytail pulled up high on the back of her head and left to hang free behind her. The only variation of this consists of pulling only the top half of her hair into the ponytail while allowing the rest to hang down freely.
Clothing/Armor: Xiuzao’s typical attire is her military-issue uniform. Over her underclothes she wears a base layer consisting of a dark maroon sleeveless shirt and a pair of similar colored pants. The shirt stops two inches above her belly button while the pants are loose fitting and tie off just past her kneecap with a black drawstring. When on duty, the sheath of her dadao is carried above this first layer with a pair of leather straps crossing over her chest.
In top of this shirt, Xiuzao wears a collared shawl that covers her upper body and cuts off level with the top of her abdomen. The shawl is made of heavy woven cotton and holds a smooth curve on its own even when not in direct contact with her body. It is black in color with a gold trim. The otherwise straight bottom edge is interrupted by two half-circles cut into the fabric in front of her armpits as well as on the back side too. The collar of the shawl is an orange-red with gold trimming and circles loosely around her neck at a height of 1 inch.
Over her waist, Xiuzao wears a heavy cotton skirt that splits in the front and extends to just above her knees. The flaps are a mauve taupe in color and connect to a burgundy belt whose front is in the shape a flat, downward-pointed triangle. A pair of thinner dark red flaps also hangs from the belt in the front and back. Their ends taper into a point that is even with the ends of the skirt, and their edges are lined in vermillion.
Her boots are in typical Fire Nation fashion with the toes swept up into a curling point. They are black leather with gold colored trimming around the ankle, and they extend up the front of her shins with hardened leather while being held tight by thinner leather up the back of her calf.
On her arms is a pair of bracers made of hardened leather plates running along the top of her forearm. The plates are dark crimson in color with gold trimming and are held in place by leather sleeves that are laced together on the underside of her arm. They stop a few inches short of her elbow and have a small red cloth flap that covers her wrist. Xiuzao also wears a set of simple brass bangles that wrap around each of her biceps.
Weapons: Xiuzao's weapon of choice is the standard issue dadao of the Fire Nation domestic military. It is a rather hefty weapon compared to the graceful jians and sabers of other branches of the military, but it's far from clumsy in skilled hands. The dadao's overall length is 34" with a blade length of 20". The blade is 2" wide at its base and widens to 3.5" at its widest point. The end is flat but steeply angled allowing for a decent thrust. The crosspiece is a flat strip of steel about 6" long with the front end curving down over the knuckles and the opposite side curving up toward the tip of the sword. The grip is a tapering full tang with thin wooden scales bolted to the sides. The assembled grip is wrapped in leather cord and the pommel is a ring of metal.
The sword is carried on a fairly plain leather sheath with a cut halfway down the front edge to allow for an easier draw. The sheath is carried on her back with the hilt angled over her right shoulder and a few leather straps that cross diagonally over her chest.
Her other main weapon of proficiency is a four-pronged grappling hook, though she never carries this with her. It is a permanent fixture on the jet ski she pilots. She has pretty good aim with her throws but generally relies on the fact that she can overshoot a target and let the hooks catch their target as she rides by.
Personality: Xiuzao is a fairly calm woman, but at times she can be hyper competitive. She hates to lose any contest that she takes seriously, and will rarely admit being bested when she feels that her opponent did not deserve the victory due to the circumstances. Occasionally she will hold a grudge or act cold toward someone who has beaten her at something until she reclaims her dominant status. However, despite the bitter act, she truly does enjoy the challenge of facing someone who is truly better than her at something… She’ll just never go about it with good sportsmanship.
Xiuzao enjoys physical activity over intense thought any day. Though some of her usual hobbies, jet skiing and swordplay for example, do involve some thought and cleverness, she draws the line at board games and philosophical discussion. She finds a certain amount of freedom in letting other people handle the decisions while she just gets the job done that she’s assigned.
Her views on the war are fairly typical of the average Fire Nation city youth. She believes her people have every right to rule the other nations, though she wonders if it’s really worth the time and effort just to help those savages become civilized.
Xiuzao is not a particularly affectionate woman when it comes to love and relationships. That is, at least, not to anyone she doesn’t have her eye on. It takes considerable physical skill to impress her, and she greatly respects people who are independent. However, it is perhaps this attraction to strong-willed people that often leads her relationships toward the very temporary, or at least informal, side of dating.
Aside from her hobbies and habits, Xiuzao is a fairly easy person to talk to. She listens well to other people and has a knack for snappy comments that can usually elicit a chuckle. However, she can tend to come across a little conceited from time to time when the subject comes to feats of ability. She feels she is very good at what she does and if she picks up the feeling that another person doesn’t believe her she is more than ready to back up her words with action.
Background: Despite being born in the Fire Nation, Xiuzao has grown up her whole life in and around water. Her parents lived in a coastal city right at the mouth of a large river that flowed into the great inland sea. The city contained a busy port that was single-handedly responsible for producing a third of the Fire Nation’s modern fleet. Xiuzao’s father worked on the docks as a crane operator while her mother simply maintained their household.
Xiuzao was the middle child of three siblings. She had an older brother and a younger sister; the former a year older while the latter trailed her by four. In her earliest years she and her brother were pretty close, but as time went one their bond transformed into more of a rivalry. They both liked the same things, but found it prudent to disagree on everything when around each other. Deep down, they cared for each other and relished the time spent competing, but neither would ever admit that much and simply strived to be the winner of their latest game.
Some of Xiuzao’s favorite hobbies as a girl included fishing and swimming across the river. She and her friends often snuck off to explore an expansive system of cenotes, or underground rivers that dotted the opposite shore. They were old lava conduits from way back when the area was volcanically active, but have since filled with water. There were several occasions where she or one of her friends almost got lost, but thanks to the presence of a few benders among the group, they managed to avoid any catastrophe. Xiuzao’s parents were very unhappy with her reckless cave diving. They even went so far as to ground her for a year when she took her younger sister along one time. However, she just couldn’t stay away from those amazing caves where the water was crystal clear and she could swear there were spirits around every corner.
Xiuzao’s academic career was fairly typical for a child growing up in a largely populated town. She learned how the Fire Nation was the pinnacle of civilization in a world of savages and that their war was a glorious effort to share their culture with the masses. It was common knowledge, but she often times wondered if the rest of the world even deserved the time and effort it was taking to civilize them. Aside from politics and history, she demonstrated passing skills in mathematics but barely squeaked by in literature. All the new epic poems she read were dreadfully boring to her and seemed to follow the same formula of a brave Fire Nation hero defeating some generic enemy nation dictator. However, the area where she really shined was extra curricular activities. During her run in public school she managed to make it onto the kuai ball(beach volleyball) team, the swimming team, and even had a brief membership on the fencing team. She was kicked off of the latter, however, when she broke her wooden sword over her opponent’s head after a disputed point that cost her a spot in a tournament final.
By the time she’d finished public schooling at 14, Xiuzao and her brother finally grew out of their sibling rivalry. The two still liked to tease each other, but now they could be in the same room without immediately initiating a staring contest or seeing who could eat the most fire flakes without their tongues starting to bleed. Also, around this time her brother had started working down on the docks with her father in order to bring in some extra money. Xiuzao had simply been spending her days helping her mother around the house and taking her younger sister to her bending lessons after school. In the void left by her brother’s absence, Xiuzao had begun spending a bit more time with her younger sister. However, it seemed that during all the years Xiuzao spent being competitive, her mother had managed to craft her younger sister into a proper Fire Nation lady. Xiuzao didn’t have as much fun around her prim and proper little sister, but still she did her best to impart a little roughness on the girl.
During her later teens it seemed that Xiuzao’s parents had had enough of her lounging around the house and spending all her days just swimming or hanging around the market with friends. They insisted that she find a job to help pay the rent, and a week later she shocked them by enlisting in the coast guard. Xiuzao found a poster advertising a need for soldiers in a budding branch of the Navy. Through some ingenious new innovations, the Fire Nation had managed to create small watercraft capable of moving much faster and more agile than any ships currently on the water. Pilots for these “Jet skis” were required to be good swimmers and undergo basic training.
In the months that followed, Xiuzao had moved to a military barracks further up river where she began her training. She was already in good physical condition, but the first few weeks of boot camp were quite painful. Following that she was introduced to weapons training with the Dadao and grappling hook. Immediately she developed a soft spot for the chopping power of the sword. She received excellent remarks from her commanders during the swimming portion of the test and could tread in open water for longer than anyone else in her class.
At long last, Xiuzao was accepted into the ranks of the military by age 18. She was assigned a firebending partner, a man named Yu who was a year older than her, and together they were given a jet ski to pilot. The two became fast friends and often spent their spare time on the way back from patrols seeing what tricks they could pull off with the jet ski. However, after accidentally burning out the engine during an attempt to create a whirlpool, Xiuzao learned that the mechanics of the base were even more fiercely protective of the jet ski than she was. She and Yu got a stern lecture from the greasy engineer and somehow managed to avoid laughing during the whole time.
Over the next year, the jet skis were constantly being modified and refined in order to eliminate any major design flaws that became apparent during their rigorous usage. The tactics of their use also became established in terms of encircling and boarding an enemy ship. They also drilled emergency towing of a stranded vessel along with amphibious assault. During that time, Xiuzao, or “Shoozy” as some of the other members of her units liked to call her, and Yu began to see each other as more than just ship mates. By the time she was 20 and her unit was broken up and reassigned, the two had become secret lovers (though it was hardly a secret among her comrades). She and Yu were sent their separate ways, though, and even though they both cherished their time spent together, they realized there was almost no chance of maintaining their relationship.
Xiuzao spent the last two years touring nearly every major port city in the Eastern Fire Nation. She still visited her family every few months and occasionally has the time see a few men before she’s called back to duty, but for the most part her military career dominates her time. She actually enjoys her profession, even if the officers can be irritating from time to time. And though she was once part of a patrol that managed to intercept a boatload of contraband from the Earth kingdom, she wishes that just once she could see some real action.
Sample RP:
Sea spray was assaulting her eyes as Xiuzao punched the throttle of her jet ski. The engine roared, straining the limits of its steam powered design as it drove the craft faster. The Fire Navy warrior merely tilted herself forward and held on tight as the jet ski flew at the oncoming wave. The craft leaned back as it rode up the sheer surface and then went airborne off its crest. Xiuzao let out a shout of exhilaration as she felt a moment of weightlessness pass through her, and then leaned forward some more to bring the nose of the jet ski level.
There was a great splash as the jet ski came crashing down onto the calm water behind the wave that just passed. She made sure to stand up with her rear off the seat before impact, using her strong legs like shock absorbers. However, the groan of pain behind her indicated that her fellow rider had not yet learned that particular trick of the trade. Throttling down and bringing the jetski around a slight turn so it was facing parallel to the length of the waves, Xiuzao looked over her shoulder as the slightly younger male cadet that she was currently training. His face was currently a picture of poorly-disguised pain, and he was frantically rubbing his lower back.
“I think you just broke my tailbone,” he whined.
“Suck it up,” Xiuzao told him with a smile, “Next time, remember to keep your ass off the seat when we’re coming down for a landing. There’s half and inch of padding over solid wood.” The other cadet merely resumed his groaning in response. “And when I say ‘Bend!’ you start bending some flames into the combustion chamber. We didn’t go nearly as high off that jump as we could have.”
“Okay, okay,” the cadet said, “Can we please just take it easy on the way back? I really think I tweaked something.”
“Psssh…” Xiuzao huffed. She cranked the grip of the handlebars to give the engine some power while she twisted her hands and leaned left to bring the nose facing the shore. “Oh, and one more thing… Keep you hands tightly clasped around my waist… This isn’t a date.”
And with that, Xiuzao sped back toward the docks, making sure to jump every wave along the way.