AGE: 19

RACE: Human

LOOKS: Zana has a leanly muscled body that is suited towards her profession as an Assassin. She has wavy red hair and dark green eyes and is forever trying to cover up both since they're easily remembered at inconvenient times. She has an above average height of 5'9 which is also something she dislikes on the premise of it being inconvenient.

WEAPONS: She prefers an assortment of knives and daggers for sneaky, in-the-back work. If backed into a face-on confrontation though, she has her katana, The ShaKin (Shadow Kinship), to do the slicing and dicing. She has a variety of hand-to-hand and acrobatic tricks as well that help her overcome an opponent who is either a better swordsperson or simply has too much physical strength for her to take a direct attack. She is also in possession of some wind magic that she inherited through her mother's line. The power is known but rarely used since her mother believes her to be too rash and impulsive to wield a power-draining magic, thus refusing to teach her.

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral. She rarely goes out of her way to cause trouble but she makes very little effort to avoid it. Also, since she has taken it upon herself to put an end to The Fall, she more often then not finds herself at odds with justified authority and will often let her prejudices get the better of her. She's also quick to hate anytone or anything that opposes itself to her and her cause, no matter the reasons.

LIKES: Swordplay, control, weaponcraft, exploring anything that looks like it might be old.

DISLIKES: Any situation where she doesn't have the final say, people who tell her she's wrong, water.

HISTORY: Before I get into Zana's history I'm going to give you a quick background on the world she lives in. If I don't then it's very possible that you end up having no idea what I'm talking about.

About two decades and a half before Zana was born there was an even amount of power shared between the Warriors, who were people of light, and the Assassins, people of shadows and darkness. The Warriors often consisted of a nation's noble class and helped maintain peace and order inside their borders. The Assassins were something of a sub-culture since they could claim no nation of their own and numbered far less then the Warriors. All the same, there were certain areas in any country that were largely considered to be 'Assassin Territory', the largest Assassin community being Storm City, also their capital. It was in this city that the greater part of Assassin business could be conducted and many families chose to live within its walls or in the land surrounding them. The King of Chaos was the ruler of the Dark Race and could, if the situation demanded it, overrule any decision made by an individual.

The Assassin's nature of work brought them in almost constant conflict with the Warrior class who regarded them as the by-and-large cause of problems among their nations. Still, the powers balanced. Then, on a day as normal as the next, the King of Chaos up and disappeared, leaving the Assassins to manage their own affairs. The Warriors, seeing their chance to end an age old conflict, launched one attack after the other on Storm City and other Assassin communities until they finally crumbled. Since then, the Assassins have not been able to make any serious return to power since no one can come up with a plausible way of doing so without risking extinction of their kind. Storm City is empty, the Dark Gates are shut and the Crown of Chaos lays unclaimed. The Fall.

Zana herself is an abnormality among her kind. Her parents, Zaharl and Keeran, had both been upper-tier Assassins before The Fall and had managed to escape the greater part of the conflict to settle just outside a desolate but secluded Assassin village. Due to her parents strength and ability to still provide, Zana has grown up with a life that most Assassins would consider luxury. She has wanted for very little and never been faced with a situation that her parents could not handle with ease. As such, she has very little empathy for her race and the state it's in. This coupled with her ferocious temper has led to several altercations between her and other Assassins.

She has been trained for the greater part of her life in all manner of weapons, poisons and trickery by her parents and prowess at her trade has led her to become arrogant and proud. She toys with the idea of trying to revive the Assassin culture back to its former glory and as days pass, she only grows more and more sure and it can be done. And that she will be the one to do it. With dreams of glory and power in mind, she sets off with her best friend Hawk to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately she goes with very little knowledge of the larger world around her and any true application of her skills.

And the story starts off about there with Zana leaving her village with Hawk to try and do what nost think is impossible. I'm toying with the idea of starting it off alittle earlier for backgrounds sake but I'm really sure. Anyway, I'd appreciate any and all comments if you've actually bothered to read this far down. ^_^

It’s also interesting that you chose to make Zana an Assassin (though granted, making characters the ideal of good is boring). It gives her character more flavor, I think. That her life is a mix of both worlds is also all-encompassing.

I wonder what Hawk is like, though. You can tell a lot about a person by the friends s/he keeps.

Going to follow standard format for Hawk. It helps keep everything organized.

NAME: Hawk (Yasew Torgak. Zana hated his original name and switched it for Hawk since he has such good aim.)

AGE: 19

RACE: Human

LOOKS: He stands at 6'0 and has shoulders that are little broader then they should ideally be for his profession. He has black hair that he likes to style into wild spikes when he can get his hands on gel and has brown eyes.

WEAPONS: He carries the standard array of knives and daggers that he wields with fatal accuracy. He also has a katana that Zana gave him for his eighteenth birthday, he takes exceedingly good care of it since he could never afford one on his own. Due to his southern culture he also has ninja stars though he uses them for show more then anything. All weapons with hilts have an engraved hawk on them that he puts there himself.

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral. He's not as as impulsive or wild as Zana but his Assassin mentality allows him to steal things without guilt.

LIKES: His katana, learning about new places, charities.

DISLIKES: Poverty, false modesty.

HISTORY: His family was originally from a country much farther south though they moved when Hawk was still a baby. Despite this, he fluently speaks the language from his native country and knows a great deal about its traditions since his parents maintain its culture in their own house and have also brought him to visit his land of birth twice.

His parents, though hard-working, are victims of The Fall and have little money. While he does not live in desperate poverty like many others of his race, he goes without the greater part of his wants. Part of his reason for agreeing with Zana's quest is that he wants to lift himself out of poverty and help others do so as well, though he'd be lieing to himself if he said that that was his /only/ reason.

He has known Zana since they were both very young and the friendship has only strengthened as they've gotten older. His placid and forgiving personality makes him a good balance to his best friend's wild temper and freewheeling hate. Their current quest has caused much strain on their friendship though since they have colliding views on the world around them. Hawk views things in shades of gray and is willing to view someone as neutral until proved otherwise. Zana says that this is a good way to end up dead and that if someone is not with them then they are against them. He worries about his friend's violent means of attaining power and fears her lack of restraint will do more harm then good.

-------

So that's Hawk in a nutshell. =D

Their relationship seems interesting to me, natural and yet somehow not. How did they meet? And dare I hope—the romantic speaking—that the /other/ reasons for Hawk agreeing with Zana’s quest is romantic inclination?

Arjak is a rather small village though so the amount of other children to pick from was limited and for the most part they all just played together in the village center while their parents watched. So anyway, Zana and Hawk rolled along with their little group for about two years, they got along just fine with their each other though nothing to set their friendship apart from the others. At the age of six, Zana got it into her head to steal a tray of cookies that were being left to cool on a windowsill. Hawk was the only one who agreed to go with her and while they never managed to actually run off with the tray (watching parents, remember), nothing creates a better friendship then getting caught and punished together. As that friendship grew stronger they distanced themselves from the others until the only friend each had was the other.

As for possible chemistry between the two, it's possible. There's certainly foundation for it since they already trust and respect each other but I'm not sure it'll ever escalate to anything more. They may be too close and knowing of each others secrets for there to ever be a working relationship, too much of a brother/sister thing going on. All the same, I've only toyed with this idea briefly and never gone into great depth over it so it's really all up in the air. I'll most likely come up with one answer and end up writing the complete opposite when the time comes; this story has a bad habit of not asking for my opinion.

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