Zhifeng
Junior Member
Posts : 39
EXP : 357
Birthday : 1990-04-01
Join date : 2012-03-25
Age : 34
Location : Adventuring in Ascalon
Character Description
Age: 16
Position: Student & Craftsman
Nation: Fire Nation
 | | Subject: Zhifeng Shao Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:09 pm | |
| Full Name: Zhifeng Shao
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Element: Fire
Birthplace: Shu Jing, Fire Nation
Position: Student and Craftsman
Personality: "You are the firebird," Zhifeng's Granma used to tell her, "and you must learn to fly with both wings." If Zhifeng really is the firebird, then she has not yet learned to flap both wings in synchronicity.
On one pinion is Shu Jing, her parents and her grandmother in the town where she was born, and the town she loves. That side of her personality is jovial and lively as a newborn flame, complete with a constant grin and infectious laughter. She can be generous and soft, motherly and clownish, and interested in nothing more than bringing the kind of peace she feels to everyone she cares about. It is this mood that raised Kyo the dragonhawk from an egg-chick, and makes masks and snaps for local children every Fire Festival without fail.
On the other, however, is Capital City. The power of the Fei family and her heritage pulse proudly though Zhifeng's blood and heart, swaying her mind. Her disciplined side is here: the student with a mind for achievement and an unstoppable ambition. She is modest, courteous and alert. This is also where her classmates at the Royal Academy have had the most influence, finding her silence mysterious and her grace noble. They are also the ones who taught her that by silent observance, she could see things that people didn't want her to see, and that she could take advantage of these things by being in the right place at whatever time she wanted. This mood's smile is a mocking smirk, and the laughter high and meant to chill. She is manipulative, shrewd, and the world is neither good nor evil but so many shades of grey until her designs are achieved.
Abilities: Due to early tutelage and the surroundings in which she was raised, Zhifeng's firebending is rather unusual.
Training with her mother gave Zhifeng an early grasp on the basic tenets of firebending, improving her breath control and focus. The Royal Academy only built upon this early intensive guidance, although (which she is thankful for) with nowhere near as much ferocity. Realistically, she has a handle on common firebending comparable to militaristic training, and is just starting to devote herself to more advanced techniques - but one can never ignore the basics.
Working with her father and grandmother in the forges taught her impressive craftskill, but it also taught her about the nature of fire: about it's potency, intensity, and how the mere breath of a bellows could mean the difference between being useful in creation or running wild to melt, burn and destroy. She learned to internalize her chi by thinking of herself as the forge, and her breath as the bellows - understanding that there is nothing standing between her bending and reckless chaos but her own self-control.
Developing her bending in this way has made her more proficient physically. She's more effective at channeling fire though physical contact than anything else, and that personal philosophy has made her inner fire hotter as well. Constantly stoked by drive to improve and well-fettered in her "forge", her flame manifests white-hot close to her skin and a bright yellow throughout.
In spite of growing up beside them and, indeed, aspiring to make them, Zhifeng has no real ability with blades of any sort. Her only marked skill with anything but bending is the care and use of a recurve shortbow, which she is decent with.
At twelve, Mother gifted Zhifeng an egg that she tended to until it hatched into Kyo, a young dragonhawk and her first pet. When not transferring messages from the City to Shu Jing and back, girl and bird are inseparable.
Appearance:
Height: 5'4''
Weight: Lean and nimble
Eyes: Green
Hair: Red
Zhifeng is a firecracker in a small package. Sheer physical activity makes her more lithe than slender, a trait she inherited from her father. She also inherited his strength, high cheekbones, and physical tenacity. Put aside the athletic build, however, and she's every inch her mother's child. A polished, if ruddy, complexion and delicate face smacks of Fire Nation high breeding. Bright green eyes that dull in moments of temper were another gift of Mother's, celebrated in oddity. Zhifeng's hair is another talking point, a shade of brown so sandy it sometimes appears red: this was a trait present in neither parent, and an irritating topic of scorn for classmates to pick at. Her nose, like her brows, is angular and slopes gently; graceful, though overall unremarkable. However, her ears are pointed to the smallest degree and slightly sensitive - which she finds unusual, if nothing else.
Though most often seen in the ornate robes of her family line, Zhifeng prefers simpler tunics, loose breeches and long skirts to anything else. She has nothing against the pretty silks and rich, heated colors favored by the Fei and the City, enjoying them as well as she can (since she has to wear them anyway). But given her own choices, she'd gladly take homespun fabrics of the peasantry: not only are they more comfortable, but for the most part she finds them easier to bend in as well.
Weaponry and Other Gear: Zhifeng is never without her crafting kit, consisting of several knives and a small smith's hammer. She also carries a recurved shortbow of black walnut, with a flexible bamboo core. It's simply designed, but good for what it does and serves her well. Her only other companion is the much beloved dragonhawk, Kyo.
History: Life was never hard in a quiet town like Shu Jing. The elements were everywhere - the peaceful breezes, the stoic mountains, the power of the waterfall and the blaze of town life - and it was easy to find peace when surrounded by their influence. Peace was exactly what Zhifeng enjoyed for most of her life. Her mother was a fair and stately woman, moved to town from the bustle of Capital City to marry her father. Guozhi was a large, intimidating man, the unlikeliest of blacksmiths, proficient with the metal he worked and constantly counting himself lucky to win such a high-class heart. Her grandmother rounded out the family, and though it took the stern old woman some time to adjust to the arrangement, Onza grew to love her son's new wife and adored her eventual granddaughter. Contentment was running freely through the streets or dinner by the water. Fun was practicing her bending with Mother or learning at the forges with Father and Granma. And peace was early life in Shu Jing.
Yet happy as living with her family was, everyone has to grow up. When she turned eight, Zhifeng's mother could no longer facilitate her bending training, and she had to attend formal school - a school, at her mother's urging, in the heart of Fire Nation. Zhifeng didn't know what the Royal Fire Academy for Girls was. She didn't understand that it would be far from her home, or what her mother's connections had to do with her attending. What she did know was that her father's look of concern, disapproval and fear while Mother talked about it scared her - made her want nothing do to with the place. She was only there for a week before she realized that Father had been absolutely right.
Zhifeng, as she soon realized, was a blacksmith's daughter. The fact that her mother had been an Official once upon a time meant nothing to her, even though it seemed to mean everything to her new classmates. These girls talked about their newest toys or fancier clothes, and sometimes about the conquests their fathers had made or what their mothers thought of...well, each other, mostly. But if they were intolerable people, they attended a wonderful school, and there was much to learn about firebending, etiquette, education, and strategy. Every component was there to make the young girls into powerful wives to the powerful nationals they would eventually wed...even the smith's daughter who preferred practicing forms to formal dancing.
As she schooled at the Academy, she lived with her mother's family in the City. Zhifeng found that her mother had walked away from a lot to be with her father, and the Fei family were not forgiving. They did not visit Barzha's sins upon her daughter, but neither did they welcome her with open arms: the mother of her mother and her prestigious husband doted on merit and little else. Zhifeng was torn. On one hand, she went home during breaks, and the joy and passion of Shu Jing washed over her. On the other, the Academy offered power and her grandparents offered prestige, but required her to be cold and calculating as the malicious girls she called classmates.
Zhifeng's birthday is approaching, marking her progression as a young woman and heralding her birthright as the oldest child in her family. In the eight years since she began her studies, traveling back and forth between the idyllic town of her birth and the smouldering City has impacted her deeply. The strictness of the Fei legacy or the comforts of her Shao birth: which is her family? Capital City or Shu Jing: which is her home?
**OPTIONAL**
Sample RP + Character Box: | 
Zhifeng Shao
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Her beauty was unbearable. Zhifeng found herself able to do nothing but stare at the woman on the other side of the ring, toeing the line of that circle drawn in the sand just as seriously as if it was official. Sunlight haloed her figure, bounced jarringly from angular features. She was as if bronzed: unmoving, imposing, with arms akimbo and hands at the ready; Zhifeng mirrored her loosely clenched fists. She was, as her opponent, stripped to the undershirt. Folds of their dresses bunched where they tucked into waistbands and flowed around bare legs. Equally bare feet left short tracks in the ground, with her mother kneading her toes in, coiling reverently, like a feral cat. Embers glowed in emerald eyes as she looked down on her daughter, smouldering in their perch on high.
The girl shuddered. Would she be that achingly perfect one day?
If Barzha had anything to say about it, she would be even better. "Today is a physical lesson. Yesterday, we talked." She watched Zhifeng nod. "What did I tell you about the Agni Kai?"
Her head never came up from the nod. Bowing showed respect - respect to that stern note in her mother's voice, at least. "The Agni Kai is a duel of honor. It is something never to be taken lightly or issued without thought. The challenge is never to be refused."
"And...?"
"And through it, fire will oust those unfit to wield it."
She'd recited it word-for-word, and the mother made a delicate sound of approval. So subtly that the sand barely stirred, Barzha lowered herself into a fighting crouch. Her hands extended - the cat, poised to strike! Despite herself, Zhifeng began to sweat. She couldn't expect to...Agni Kai? Surely not, not now. Not her own daughter!
The woman frowned. "Ease your mind, little bird. Your honor is not at stake today."
No sooner had the girl breathed a sigh of relief than a gout of flame blasted into her face. Zhifeng dove from its path with a yelp. The heat scorched her brows, and the torrent - taller than she was! - roared as it barreled past. It was not until she stood up, staring in disbelief at the black scar in the sand, than she realized that a bit of her hair was ablaze. Another squeak and rough tousling stifled the few unlucky locks. Watching her, smoke still rising from pointed fingertips and pretty face pulled into a deathly frown, was the mother.
"Your honor is not at stake. But that you hesitated is weak! How can you claim honor if you fear the risk of losing it?" Her voice was barbed. Furious. "Show me that you are not afraid!"
And Barzha spun, a blaze of orange streaking from those outstretched fingers. There was nothing but the deadly rope of fire, and the suddenly dire spar...
The little girl's shiver echoed in the teenager, making her skin hitch as she daydreamed. Even ten years later, Zhifeng remembered those duels. In her mother's intense training, there was no sympathy, no leniency, no mother-and-daughter - only a fearsome opponent. The worst, in fact, that she had yet to face.
Would someone ever take her place? Maybe, the firebender reckoned, stirring from her reverie. But they would have to be very good, and try very hard: they had some huge flames to fill.
| Mood: Ambitious
Condition: Healthy | |
Last edited by Zhifeng on Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:32 pm; edited 8 times in total | |
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