Post by banu on Jul 24, 2008 10:24:37 GMT -5
Name: Banu
Age: Seventeen
Gender: Female
Group: Civilian
Nation: Earth Kingdom
Bender?: No thank you.
Physical Appearance:
Banu stands at a fairly respectable sixteen hands tall and weighs in at, according to the last time her father tried to toss her into the air, a healthy nine stones. Apart from height, the first thing one would probably notice about her would be the other facets of her body frame, to which I will move on now. Hers is a lithe, slender frame, appearing deceptively fragile until you notice that she does, in fact, have some muscle on her, small but still there. If you truly must know, she is also fairly flat of chest, but get your eyes away from that part of her body, there are other things to notice. For instance, her light olive skin tone and her hands that are riddled with little, faded scars, mostly on the fingers but also on the palms or even the heels! Speaking of hands, they’re actually fairly small hands, though her fingers are slightly long and slender, good for delicate work. Her feet are small as well, though her toes are by no means long and slender.
Anyway, now that that’s out of the way we can move onto more respectable parts of her description, doesn’t that sound like fun? There is, for instance, her hair to look at, which is straight and black, though it lacks any sort of real sheen or that nice thick volume you sometimes see. When she doesn’t tie it up her hair tends to fall somewhat below her shoulders, but Banu usually does keep it up, using a leather band to tie it into a single tail, a little bit left to linger up front, framing her face.
Speaking of face, Banu has one! Nope, no faceless baby syndrome for her! This face is actually heart-shaped with somewhat weak cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, and perhaps too big of a forehead, if you ask her. Thin eyebrows can be found above large, dark brown eyes, ones that are very lively—they tend to be a dead giveaway as to what she’s thinking and feeling at any given moment. And then we can move onto her mouth, which sports some fairly straight, slightly yellowed teeth—because good oral hygiene is still a good ways off. The lips that one can find on the outside of these teeth, well those would be fairly small—or at least certainly not full—and in a natural light pink color. This is usually how her face will remain, as well, since she tends to shy away from dyes or powders unless she has to use them.
Last, but not least, we have the somewhat useful tidbits that don’t really fit anywhere else. For example, Banu has fairly short fingernails due to being a habitual nail-biter, though she doesn’t keep them to the point where they bleed or anything.
Clothing/Armor:
Banu’s clothing is fairly typical of what an Earth Kingdom citizen might be caught wearing, I suppose. To begin with there are her pants, plain things in a dull earthy green and ending just below her ankle, scuffed up and torn in some places—though patched up in some as well. It’s little more than the usual level of wear and tear, the area around her feet particularly scuffed up. The pants are much too large normally, so they are kept snug around her waist with a light tan sash. The base of the article is simple cloth, though the patches belong to a myriad of colors, patterns, and fabrics.
Below the pants are boots, tall things going up to Banu’s shins and sporting a variety of laces to keep them nice and snug. Designed for wear and tear, the dark brown color keeps her feet from feeling every bump in the road…though they do take their toll if she wears them for too long, as she tends to do sometimes. Keep an eye out for the knives she tends to keep in here, too…
Finally, we move upwards, up over the pants, over the sash, to the young woman’s top. The outermost layer of clothing is a long-sleeved, dark green shirt, which she keeps open in the middle, most of its buttons log ago lost to the streets. The sleeves end unnaturally, having been cut off rather than ending clean, making the tip of her sleeves a gold color, that part originally intended to be a colored band near the end. The bottom of the shirt possesses this band of gold as well, though here it ends normally, reaching a few inches below her waist. The shirt sports a high collar as well as several nicks and spots of loose thread, nothing too far out of the ordinary. There are also usually a few knives on this piece as well, on the inside of it near her chest or inside the ends of the sleeves.
Underneath that is a somewhat form-fitting, tan, cotton undershirt, this thing sporting a variety of spots on it, from ink to food to—in a few spots—blood. Most of it is faded through attempted washings, but it’s still visible if you care to look.
Around her neck, hanging out over this undershirt, is a leather cord. On this cord one can find three small jade beads, the entire necklace one of Banu’s most prized possessions. Apart from that, however, the girl does not burden herself with any unnecessary jewelry.
Weapons:
As I mentioned before, Banu has on her a few knives with which to defend herself. The ones in her boots and shirt are fairly small at six-and-a-half inches total length, light, and balanced, designed to be thrown rather than used in hand-to-hand combat. They are delicately placed into sewn-in sheathes in the material of her boots and shirt, a design that much trial and error caused her to perfect such that running about wouldn’t shake the things out. The ones immediately in her sleeves, kept in by sheathes sewn to her inner sleeves, are larger, nearly nine inches long, and more designed to be brought out in melee combat, though both types of knives are the girl’s absolute last resort—fighting from up close is a terrible idea compared to fighting at a distance, which is a terrible idea compared to avoiding the fight entirely.
In addition to this, Banu knows enough martial arts to defend herself against a similarly sized opponent, and she always has some tricks to deal with larger ones. This is only for self-defense, however; she isn’t nearly good enough to go picking fights with random people and taking lunch money.
Personality:
Banu is a name that means ‘lady,’ but in this case it is difficult to tell whether the name is fitting or not. At times the girl has her roguish charms and wiles, certainly ladylike to an extent, but other times she can be hardheaded and stubborn as a mule. Oh well, we all have our crosses to bear.
Growing up with fairly easygoing, laidback parents has ‘gifted’ the girl with the same basic core personality. When dealing with others the young lady is fairly lax, rolling with the punches thrown out amongst friends and casually tossing a few of hers back. The girl is usually quite a spark in discussions, always wanting to have her say and not exactly being quiet about it—she is also not against using headlocks and love-taps to get her way. Not in a malevolent way, just in a friendly one; the hijinks draws much laughter and good times for all.
Another nice bit of Banu is that she is usually quite cheery. This might be a side effect of being easygoing, but it is rare to find her not laughing or smiling. Even if she is alone, the young woman has her ways of entertaining herself: she can juggle, do sleight of hand, and maybe even play a flute if she happens to come across one, drawing a crowd if she feels like it. And Banu certainly doesn’t mind the crowds! She has a certain air of charisma about her, confidence brimming from every pore as she works her magic—both literally and figuratively speaking—over an audience.
This also plays well into her role as a thief. The girl is excellent at drawing someone’s attention and then spiriting away their purses, though she doesn’t always have to do the latter. Roguish charm comes into play here as well, with Banu usually able to get people to trust her with the right sort of body language, the proper tone. Granted, this isn’t perfect and a lot of people just tell here to shove off when she tries this on them, but it works enough that the girl can afford to wager her meal on it.
It was earlier mentioned that Banu is stubborn—I think a mule was brought in as a comparison—and this is true. If the girl gets an idea into her head, she's going to keep on trying until she decides that it's a bad idea; all the failures in the world won't persuade her to stop.
Another thing to look at is the girl’s sense of honor, or more accurately her lack thereof. Banu’s survival is her number one priority, and if that leads to her being selfish at times then so be it. She still sleeps at night without much worry! Also, tricks and underhanded tactics are fair game in a fight—they’re the only way she can win them.
Now, Banu may not be the most bookish person out there—she can’t actually read or write at all—but she has her own brand of smarts. She knows how to read people pretty well, and has what some like to call street-smarts, which definitely comes in handy when you, well, live on the streets. In addition she is a very quick thinker, able to make plans and think her way out of situations using her wit and charm—which she has on occasion, I’ll have you know!
Unfortunately, underneath all of this there is what you might call a flaw to the young woman. She has a very hard time trusting…well, anyone except her parents. Though she might hang out with some people, call them her best friends at points, a life in feeding off of the vulnerabilities and trusting nature of others has resulted in her trying to minimize her own. As a result she tends to keep most things to herself, not truly opening up to anyone, not wanting to reveal said vulnerabilities to others.
What vulnerabilities, you ask? Well, for one, Banu is a much more sensitive girl than she lets on. She acts out as a way to try and overcompensate for this, but it doesn’t take too much to hurt her. She won’t let on at the time, however, but when she gets herself alone she usually has a great deal to mull, sometimes cry, over. Her greatest fear is that she’ll be caught in one of her pensive moods
Background:
As many people in the Earth Kingdom did, Banu grew up in Ba Sing Se. To be specific, she grew up in the poor end of town, her home sewn into the protective wall of her city to escape the serious crowding below, her parents not exactly having all that much money to buy a decent home. Still, despite the fact that her mother’s sewing shop didn’t pull in too much business—and that most of the business she did receive couldn’t exactly pay too much—Banu was able to live her early years with comfort. Why, you ask?
Because her father was a thief, and a darned good one, too. Sure, he said that he was a jeweler, a man who made very little money most of the time but sometimes struck it rich, but in reality, he would head into the richer parts of town and cut purses from people who could spare to lose money and use his earnings to buy food, to buy cloth, and even sometimes to buy his daughter a toy or two. Banu even got to help once, unwittingly distracting a man with her adorableness as her father picked the man’s pocket. It was a rousing success!—and the girl’s mother almost had a heart attack when her daddy explained where their child had been that day. That marked the end of her first descent into thievery…
Banu’s mother hated her husband’s line of work, always worried that her dear husband would end up too deep and would lose his life. This never happened, thankfully, but the man ended up with a few close shaves, coming home bloodied some nights. Banu would catch her father come home some nights like this, his cuts and wounds tended to by her mother…she doesn’t remember it now, however, but the effects made their mark, such as the lengths to which she goes to avoid direct confrontation.
Of course, there comes the time that always arrives too soon for a parent, growing up. Banu did this, as most children tend to do, but what was terrible for her family was that at seven years old she asked daddy what he did that made so much money. A straight man despite his profession, the man let his daughter in on his secret—and immediately got asked a very terrible thing.
“Can I be one too, daddy?” is what young Banu asked, and though terrified, her father acquiesced. He could see no harm in it; a quick hand and a keen eye could take a person far in life. Her mother, on the other hand, was absolutely against sending her only child out to the streets to pick pockets. After a heated discussion between the two parents that lasted for something like a week, her mother acquiesced—but only on the condition that her daughter absolutely not be put into a situation where she could get hurt. So Banu was taught a few tricks and things…how to direct a person’s eye elsewhere, how to confuse with words, how to take something in just the way that the person wouldn’t feel the snap of their purse strings.
Then there was the knife training…and that did not work out well. Her father was adamant that if Banu was going to be a thief that she would be able to defend herself if things went absolutely catastrophic, so he purchased a set of knives for his daughter, training her in using them. This is why her hands are so scarred—she wasn’t very good at pulling them out or twirling them to begin with, and she cut herself. A lot.
But eventually she learned how to do all that, and Banu became a very good little thief, assisting daddy on missions. Her mother hated it, but she would still beam with pride when she saw the two of them come back with a good bit of money. The pair of thieves would pull all your basic stunts, like pretending to get run over and confronting, or the little girl running behind the stranger’s legs to escape from her drunken daddy and snipping a purse while drunken daddy yelled.
It was wonderful and all, but once she turned twelve Banu was deemed ready to move into her own, risking her own heists separately from daddy’s, increasing her family’s income. Her father spent another year watching over her unseen, intervening once or twice, but she was mostly on her own. Things were going good—her family had moved into a larger, nicer place! They had better food to eat, better clothes! Things were certainly looking up…unfortunately, Banu was a good thief—she was not a perfect one.
A fumbled stealing turned the eyes of the Dai Li onto Banu, who began to look into the girl…she had no official record of being a thief, and laying low for a while worked…but in their observation of her, they began to notice her father’s activities…and, well, things weren’t looking good for business, that was for sure. It was only one agent, and an initiate at that, but something had to be done to get the Dai Li off of their backs…
It was a brilliant little scheme! On one of the days that the Dai Li weren’t watching them, her father put his connections in to steal something of value from one of the city’s officials, an heirloom of middling value, and plant the thing in a nearby home, that of a less subtle thief. Great care was made to tip off the agents with the proper nudge that would send them out to the proper area…but to discover a different thief than they had foreseen. The man was arrested, the heirloom returned, and the agents quit pestering Banu and her family…at least until the next mistake.
Banu didn’t want there to be a next mistake, so she decided that she could hone her skills outside the walls…take a trip outside of Ba Sing Se for a few years! See the world, develop her thievery on her own! Her parents were a bit saddened, but for once it was her mother that approved of the decision; Banu needed to do something on her own for once in her life. That night, in the pitch darkness, Banu said goodbye to her parents and left Ba Sing Se…headed out into the big, wide open world. Who knows what awaits her?
Sample RP:
Torches lined the well trodden road down which Banu currently walked, the moon in the sky her only other source of illumination. She had died only a few hours ago—almost everyone who had ever known about her was currently in the process of forgetting, and that hurt a bit. Her parents knew the truth, yes, but she couldn’t go back to see them! If she learned to write someday she would be able to send them letters…but that wouldn’t happen for a long time yet.
A sudden break in the line of torches caught the girl’s well-trained eye, directing her towards…well, a tree. Nothing too fancy about this tree, in fact quite the opposite: the thing was ugly beyond all belief, gnarled and knotted into some hideous form. It was no good for firewood and most of the benders in the area knew full well that the thing was probably older than Ba Sing Se, so it was allowed to remain there, a disturbing jewel atop one of the hills surrounding the walled city.
To Banu it meant a whole lot more, however. Every kid goes through their running away from home phase, and when she went through hers she had only made it to this tree before her father caught up with her and convinced her to come back home. Her father—the man she wasn’t going to get to see again. That brought a bit of a tear to her eye, a sniffle to her nose, but some pompous man running into her wiped it clean off. He had pushed Banu to the ground as he ran on by, not even turning around to apologize as his fancy clothes fluttered themselves towards the city.
“Don’t bother apologizing or anything,” the girl muttered to herself as she climbed back onto her feet, dusting off her bottom and her legs. “Jerk-head, runnin’ around like he owns the place!” the girl spat, resuming her walk away from her home and bouncing the man’s purse in her hand. The weight of it was good—she could probably have a night at an inn somewhere. How thoughtful of the man to pay for her!
Age: Seventeen
Gender: Female
Group: Civilian
Nation: Earth Kingdom
Bender?: No thank you.
Physical Appearance:
Banu stands at a fairly respectable sixteen hands tall and weighs in at, according to the last time her father tried to toss her into the air, a healthy nine stones. Apart from height, the first thing one would probably notice about her would be the other facets of her body frame, to which I will move on now. Hers is a lithe, slender frame, appearing deceptively fragile until you notice that she does, in fact, have some muscle on her, small but still there. If you truly must know, she is also fairly flat of chest, but get your eyes away from that part of her body, there are other things to notice. For instance, her light olive skin tone and her hands that are riddled with little, faded scars, mostly on the fingers but also on the palms or even the heels! Speaking of hands, they’re actually fairly small hands, though her fingers are slightly long and slender, good for delicate work. Her feet are small as well, though her toes are by no means long and slender.
Anyway, now that that’s out of the way we can move onto more respectable parts of her description, doesn’t that sound like fun? There is, for instance, her hair to look at, which is straight and black, though it lacks any sort of real sheen or that nice thick volume you sometimes see. When she doesn’t tie it up her hair tends to fall somewhat below her shoulders, but Banu usually does keep it up, using a leather band to tie it into a single tail, a little bit left to linger up front, framing her face.
Speaking of face, Banu has one! Nope, no faceless baby syndrome for her! This face is actually heart-shaped with somewhat weak cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, and perhaps too big of a forehead, if you ask her. Thin eyebrows can be found above large, dark brown eyes, ones that are very lively—they tend to be a dead giveaway as to what she’s thinking and feeling at any given moment. And then we can move onto her mouth, which sports some fairly straight, slightly yellowed teeth—because good oral hygiene is still a good ways off. The lips that one can find on the outside of these teeth, well those would be fairly small—or at least certainly not full—and in a natural light pink color. This is usually how her face will remain, as well, since she tends to shy away from dyes or powders unless she has to use them.
Last, but not least, we have the somewhat useful tidbits that don’t really fit anywhere else. For example, Banu has fairly short fingernails due to being a habitual nail-biter, though she doesn’t keep them to the point where they bleed or anything.
Clothing/Armor:
Banu’s clothing is fairly typical of what an Earth Kingdom citizen might be caught wearing, I suppose. To begin with there are her pants, plain things in a dull earthy green and ending just below her ankle, scuffed up and torn in some places—though patched up in some as well. It’s little more than the usual level of wear and tear, the area around her feet particularly scuffed up. The pants are much too large normally, so they are kept snug around her waist with a light tan sash. The base of the article is simple cloth, though the patches belong to a myriad of colors, patterns, and fabrics.
Below the pants are boots, tall things going up to Banu’s shins and sporting a variety of laces to keep them nice and snug. Designed for wear and tear, the dark brown color keeps her feet from feeling every bump in the road…though they do take their toll if she wears them for too long, as she tends to do sometimes. Keep an eye out for the knives she tends to keep in here, too…
Finally, we move upwards, up over the pants, over the sash, to the young woman’s top. The outermost layer of clothing is a long-sleeved, dark green shirt, which she keeps open in the middle, most of its buttons log ago lost to the streets. The sleeves end unnaturally, having been cut off rather than ending clean, making the tip of her sleeves a gold color, that part originally intended to be a colored band near the end. The bottom of the shirt possesses this band of gold as well, though here it ends normally, reaching a few inches below her waist. The shirt sports a high collar as well as several nicks and spots of loose thread, nothing too far out of the ordinary. There are also usually a few knives on this piece as well, on the inside of it near her chest or inside the ends of the sleeves.
Underneath that is a somewhat form-fitting, tan, cotton undershirt, this thing sporting a variety of spots on it, from ink to food to—in a few spots—blood. Most of it is faded through attempted washings, but it’s still visible if you care to look.
Around her neck, hanging out over this undershirt, is a leather cord. On this cord one can find three small jade beads, the entire necklace one of Banu’s most prized possessions. Apart from that, however, the girl does not burden herself with any unnecessary jewelry.
Weapons:
As I mentioned before, Banu has on her a few knives with which to defend herself. The ones in her boots and shirt are fairly small at six-and-a-half inches total length, light, and balanced, designed to be thrown rather than used in hand-to-hand combat. They are delicately placed into sewn-in sheathes in the material of her boots and shirt, a design that much trial and error caused her to perfect such that running about wouldn’t shake the things out. The ones immediately in her sleeves, kept in by sheathes sewn to her inner sleeves, are larger, nearly nine inches long, and more designed to be brought out in melee combat, though both types of knives are the girl’s absolute last resort—fighting from up close is a terrible idea compared to fighting at a distance, which is a terrible idea compared to avoiding the fight entirely.
In addition to this, Banu knows enough martial arts to defend herself against a similarly sized opponent, and she always has some tricks to deal with larger ones. This is only for self-defense, however; she isn’t nearly good enough to go picking fights with random people and taking lunch money.
Personality:
Banu is a name that means ‘lady,’ but in this case it is difficult to tell whether the name is fitting or not. At times the girl has her roguish charms and wiles, certainly ladylike to an extent, but other times she can be hardheaded and stubborn as a mule. Oh well, we all have our crosses to bear.
Growing up with fairly easygoing, laidback parents has ‘gifted’ the girl with the same basic core personality. When dealing with others the young lady is fairly lax, rolling with the punches thrown out amongst friends and casually tossing a few of hers back. The girl is usually quite a spark in discussions, always wanting to have her say and not exactly being quiet about it—she is also not against using headlocks and love-taps to get her way. Not in a malevolent way, just in a friendly one; the hijinks draws much laughter and good times for all.
Another nice bit of Banu is that she is usually quite cheery. This might be a side effect of being easygoing, but it is rare to find her not laughing or smiling. Even if she is alone, the young woman has her ways of entertaining herself: she can juggle, do sleight of hand, and maybe even play a flute if she happens to come across one, drawing a crowd if she feels like it. And Banu certainly doesn’t mind the crowds! She has a certain air of charisma about her, confidence brimming from every pore as she works her magic—both literally and figuratively speaking—over an audience.
This also plays well into her role as a thief. The girl is excellent at drawing someone’s attention and then spiriting away their purses, though she doesn’t always have to do the latter. Roguish charm comes into play here as well, with Banu usually able to get people to trust her with the right sort of body language, the proper tone. Granted, this isn’t perfect and a lot of people just tell here to shove off when she tries this on them, but it works enough that the girl can afford to wager her meal on it.
It was earlier mentioned that Banu is stubborn—I think a mule was brought in as a comparison—and this is true. If the girl gets an idea into her head, she's going to keep on trying until she decides that it's a bad idea; all the failures in the world won't persuade her to stop.
Another thing to look at is the girl’s sense of honor, or more accurately her lack thereof. Banu’s survival is her number one priority, and if that leads to her being selfish at times then so be it. She still sleeps at night without much worry! Also, tricks and underhanded tactics are fair game in a fight—they’re the only way she can win them.
Now, Banu may not be the most bookish person out there—she can’t actually read or write at all—but she has her own brand of smarts. She knows how to read people pretty well, and has what some like to call street-smarts, which definitely comes in handy when you, well, live on the streets. In addition she is a very quick thinker, able to make plans and think her way out of situations using her wit and charm—which she has on occasion, I’ll have you know!
Unfortunately, underneath all of this there is what you might call a flaw to the young woman. She has a very hard time trusting…well, anyone except her parents. Though she might hang out with some people, call them her best friends at points, a life in feeding off of the vulnerabilities and trusting nature of others has resulted in her trying to minimize her own. As a result she tends to keep most things to herself, not truly opening up to anyone, not wanting to reveal said vulnerabilities to others.
What vulnerabilities, you ask? Well, for one, Banu is a much more sensitive girl than she lets on. She acts out as a way to try and overcompensate for this, but it doesn’t take too much to hurt her. She won’t let on at the time, however, but when she gets herself alone she usually has a great deal to mull, sometimes cry, over. Her greatest fear is that she’ll be caught in one of her pensive moods
Background:
As many people in the Earth Kingdom did, Banu grew up in Ba Sing Se. To be specific, she grew up in the poor end of town, her home sewn into the protective wall of her city to escape the serious crowding below, her parents not exactly having all that much money to buy a decent home. Still, despite the fact that her mother’s sewing shop didn’t pull in too much business—and that most of the business she did receive couldn’t exactly pay too much—Banu was able to live her early years with comfort. Why, you ask?
Because her father was a thief, and a darned good one, too. Sure, he said that he was a jeweler, a man who made very little money most of the time but sometimes struck it rich, but in reality, he would head into the richer parts of town and cut purses from people who could spare to lose money and use his earnings to buy food, to buy cloth, and even sometimes to buy his daughter a toy or two. Banu even got to help once, unwittingly distracting a man with her adorableness as her father picked the man’s pocket. It was a rousing success!—and the girl’s mother almost had a heart attack when her daddy explained where their child had been that day. That marked the end of her first descent into thievery…
Banu’s mother hated her husband’s line of work, always worried that her dear husband would end up too deep and would lose his life. This never happened, thankfully, but the man ended up with a few close shaves, coming home bloodied some nights. Banu would catch her father come home some nights like this, his cuts and wounds tended to by her mother…she doesn’t remember it now, however, but the effects made their mark, such as the lengths to which she goes to avoid direct confrontation.
Of course, there comes the time that always arrives too soon for a parent, growing up. Banu did this, as most children tend to do, but what was terrible for her family was that at seven years old she asked daddy what he did that made so much money. A straight man despite his profession, the man let his daughter in on his secret—and immediately got asked a very terrible thing.
“Can I be one too, daddy?” is what young Banu asked, and though terrified, her father acquiesced. He could see no harm in it; a quick hand and a keen eye could take a person far in life. Her mother, on the other hand, was absolutely against sending her only child out to the streets to pick pockets. After a heated discussion between the two parents that lasted for something like a week, her mother acquiesced—but only on the condition that her daughter absolutely not be put into a situation where she could get hurt. So Banu was taught a few tricks and things…how to direct a person’s eye elsewhere, how to confuse with words, how to take something in just the way that the person wouldn’t feel the snap of their purse strings.
Then there was the knife training…and that did not work out well. Her father was adamant that if Banu was going to be a thief that she would be able to defend herself if things went absolutely catastrophic, so he purchased a set of knives for his daughter, training her in using them. This is why her hands are so scarred—she wasn’t very good at pulling them out or twirling them to begin with, and she cut herself. A lot.
But eventually she learned how to do all that, and Banu became a very good little thief, assisting daddy on missions. Her mother hated it, but she would still beam with pride when she saw the two of them come back with a good bit of money. The pair of thieves would pull all your basic stunts, like pretending to get run over and confronting, or the little girl running behind the stranger’s legs to escape from her drunken daddy and snipping a purse while drunken daddy yelled.
It was wonderful and all, but once she turned twelve Banu was deemed ready to move into her own, risking her own heists separately from daddy’s, increasing her family’s income. Her father spent another year watching over her unseen, intervening once or twice, but she was mostly on her own. Things were going good—her family had moved into a larger, nicer place! They had better food to eat, better clothes! Things were certainly looking up…unfortunately, Banu was a good thief—she was not a perfect one.
A fumbled stealing turned the eyes of the Dai Li onto Banu, who began to look into the girl…she had no official record of being a thief, and laying low for a while worked…but in their observation of her, they began to notice her father’s activities…and, well, things weren’t looking good for business, that was for sure. It was only one agent, and an initiate at that, but something had to be done to get the Dai Li off of their backs…
It was a brilliant little scheme! On one of the days that the Dai Li weren’t watching them, her father put his connections in to steal something of value from one of the city’s officials, an heirloom of middling value, and plant the thing in a nearby home, that of a less subtle thief. Great care was made to tip off the agents with the proper nudge that would send them out to the proper area…but to discover a different thief than they had foreseen. The man was arrested, the heirloom returned, and the agents quit pestering Banu and her family…at least until the next mistake.
Banu didn’t want there to be a next mistake, so she decided that she could hone her skills outside the walls…take a trip outside of Ba Sing Se for a few years! See the world, develop her thievery on her own! Her parents were a bit saddened, but for once it was her mother that approved of the decision; Banu needed to do something on her own for once in her life. That night, in the pitch darkness, Banu said goodbye to her parents and left Ba Sing Se…headed out into the big, wide open world. Who knows what awaits her?
Sample RP:
Torches lined the well trodden road down which Banu currently walked, the moon in the sky her only other source of illumination. She had died only a few hours ago—almost everyone who had ever known about her was currently in the process of forgetting, and that hurt a bit. Her parents knew the truth, yes, but she couldn’t go back to see them! If she learned to write someday she would be able to send them letters…but that wouldn’t happen for a long time yet.
A sudden break in the line of torches caught the girl’s well-trained eye, directing her towards…well, a tree. Nothing too fancy about this tree, in fact quite the opposite: the thing was ugly beyond all belief, gnarled and knotted into some hideous form. It was no good for firewood and most of the benders in the area knew full well that the thing was probably older than Ba Sing Se, so it was allowed to remain there, a disturbing jewel atop one of the hills surrounding the walled city.
To Banu it meant a whole lot more, however. Every kid goes through their running away from home phase, and when she went through hers she had only made it to this tree before her father caught up with her and convinced her to come back home. Her father—the man she wasn’t going to get to see again. That brought a bit of a tear to her eye, a sniffle to her nose, but some pompous man running into her wiped it clean off. He had pushed Banu to the ground as he ran on by, not even turning around to apologize as his fancy clothes fluttered themselves towards the city.
“Don’t bother apologizing or anything,” the girl muttered to herself as she climbed back onto her feet, dusting off her bottom and her legs. “Jerk-head, runnin’ around like he owns the place!” the girl spat, resuming her walk away from her home and bouncing the man’s purse in her hand. The weight of it was good—she could probably have a night at an inn somewhere. How thoughtful of the man to pay for her!
