Free Faller

Starless

Alrighty, now that I'm done adulting for the day I moved over my CS and will begin writing up an opening post.

Starless

زهرا - Zahra

N A M E / A L I A S

زهرا از آزادییان
(Zahra az Azadeyan)
Zahra of the Free

شیر آهن دندانه دار
(Sheer-e A’han-e Dandaneh-dar)
The Iron-Toothed Lioness

A G E O F L E G E N D

Nearly 7 millennia have passed

M Y T H O L O G Y

“So, travelers, you want to hear a story? Of the deserts, you say? Well then, come sit. Sit around this old woman’s fire and let me tell you the greatest tale of them all. Of the woman who saved the tribes of these deserts more than six thousand years past, the greatest warrior of our people and the last of the allomancers: Zahra, The Iron-Toothed Lioness.

When the lands of Ansus were wreathed in chaos, and nations and empires would rise and fall with the desert suns, the tribes of the Dust laid scattered and broken. For centuries we nomads suffered from internal warring and power struggles between clans, fueled by generations of mistrust, hate, and our own fierce warrior culture. Slowly we were killing off our own kin, picking at them like vultures for scraps of food and honor. But as is almost always the way of things, salvation for our people came from the most unlikely of places; the banners of southern conquerors and the will of one tribeswoman.

Panic spread quickly when the boots of the Pakryn Empire began churning the sands of our forefathers’ deserts. They swept through our lands like the worst of plagues, pillaging and burning what little the tribes owned and leaving red sand in their wake. The scattered tribes offered little resistance to such a large, well armed force and more often than not broke before their enemies. It was a far worse slaughter than any of those the tribes had committed amongst themselves. Separated they could not stand against such foes and hope to survive.

It was then that the legend of Zahra began. A simple woman of the tribes, her life had been torn asunder when the invaders found her people. They were not kind. Her husband, the tribe’s headman, had been killed in the skirmish and her daughters, though they survived, were subjected to a far worse fate. It was then, lying in the sands with an arrow protruding from her shoulder and watching her family suffer that Zahra snapped. Unbeknownst to her, Zahra was a desert allomancer, the first one seen in generations. And they had just awakened her latent abilities.

A fire burned so hot in her center that she thought she’d alight any moment, the pain unbearable, until the power growing inside her finally burst in an audible pop. Every piece of metal, to include the metal-clad Empire soldiers, within their camp exploded back from Zahra. There was so much power behind the blow that the men were shot hundreds of feet into the air and were crushed by the fall. Zahra had fainted from the exertion, but awoke to find the remnants of her people staring at her in awe.

This was the start of our people's hope, and of our rebellion against the forces threatening our lands. With Zahra at their head, she vowed to avenge every wrong wrought by the foreigners and eject them from their lands even if it meant killing every single one by herself. She went to each tribe one by one, merging them into her own with either words or the force of her new power. Others flocked to her as news spread of her swelling army and the guerilla war they were successfully waging against the Pakrynian forces. Now that the gap in numbers had lessoned and the tribes could attack the small armies throughout the desert, the clans could take full advantage of their superior knowledge of the plains and their ferocious warriors.

She unified us, our Zahra. A queen of battle without the title, she ripped through enemy lines like the strongest of sandstorms, stripping them of skin and blood. It’s said that she could kill a hundred men in just one battle. Our beautiful Zahra, with the strength and tenacity of her animal namesake. Never before had the invaders seen a magic such as hers; a true allomancer. She was no mere manipulator of metals, she used them. Consumed them and burned them within to fuel her strength, her senses, her power.

Finally, after four years of warfare with the forces of Pakryn Zahra had decided that she would gather all of her forces to her at the edge of the desert and push out into their enemy’s land to destroy the base of operations for their war effort. Small contingents of her armies that had been spread throughout the desert made haste to muster to their leader. Little did she know, the Emperor of the Pakryn’s had much the same idea, only sooner. The most elite of his forces already occupied the post and were preparing to begin their campaign. Nobody could have foreseen the outcome of the two forces clashing, though.

You’ve heard of the Battle of Red Sands, yes? Of course you have. Everyone has. The sands there are still red to this day, you know. The Gods made the sands permanently stained with their blood as a dirge to the fallen. Well, anyway, this was the start of that famous battle and the end of Zahra’s legacy. So pay close attention.

It was pre-dawn at the edge of deserts, the air was still cold enough to cling to your breath and the cooking fires burned low in their pits where Zahra’s forces had made their encampments. Most of warriors were asleep, having traveled at an unrelenting pace for days to join the main force of their army. That’s when the call throughout the camps came. A perimeter guard had spotted the encroaching Pakryn army as the the first rays of sunlight glinted off their breastplates.

They were not prepared, our army. They were travel-worn and the encampments were too far from one another to spread news quickly, to rouse them all quickly. But the Empire was already almost upon them.

Zahra knew her warriors would be slaughtered if they couldn’t muster into a sensible formation. The wall of shields and spears now making their way towards them guaranteed as much. She knew she could not be the shepherd that led the sheep to slaughter, her people, to slaughter. She would bide them time to mass. It would only take five to ten minutes, surely the strongest allomancer in the history of the Dusts could hold them off long enough. And so our brave Zahra consumed what metals she had on her person, drew her twin daggers, and went to meet the army by herself. One against hundreds.

She shot across the space separating the two armies like and arrow, pulling herself towards her armor-plated foes by their own armor. She landed in their midst and began ghosting through their ranks like a Daeva -demon, your people call them- of vengeance and death. In desperate fear of stopping her people's’ impending plight should this army reach them before they were ready Zahra began to burn all her metals at once. A dangerous thing, that. And she knew full well that the power would consume her, but her own life was no longer of importance, only that her warriors be allowed to fight on fair ground and defeat this enemy to protect their lands.

When Zahra’s metals finally ran out she collapsed amongst over a hundred men gushing their life-blood into the sands. With no metals, all of the pain from injuries she’d received during the battle was no longer masked, and she had no energy in which to fight. But the tribes were coming, she could feel the vibrations of it within the shifting of sands. She’d held off the enemy long enough. A hand grasped her by the throat, not content with letting her die where she’d fallen, and dragged her through the ranks until she emerged through the reforming shield wall. The man gripping her neck, the leader of this army of plague, thundered a warcry as he lifted her off her feet like a trophy and brandished his sword.

He thought to kill her in front of her charging men, like it would break them, but our Zahra only smiled and met his eyes in pained-defiance as he slipped his blade into her stomach. Her eyes flashed as soon as the iron blade touched her core where her inner fire lay, and the first several ranks of empire soldiers, including the man who’d run her through, scattered like leaves behind her. The melted end of half a sword fell from her gut and she followed; her last act. Zahra died in the bloody sands of that battle, carried to our forefathers by the sound of her people winning their freedom.”

A P P E A R A N C E

The oldest descriptions of Zahra come from ancient songs, poetry, and stories from her own people. Due to their culture of being orators, it’s difficult to say what has stayed true through the millennia and what has evolved through retelling. Regardless, many an artist throughout the ages has attempted to create their own interpretations through visual means and have created a generally accepted visage for her. She is normally depicted as a tall, stunningly beautiful dark desert woman swathed in silks and leathers with long raven hair, startling green eyes that are lined in copious amounts of kohl, and plumb lips set into delicate features. Rarely can one find a painting or drawing of the woman without her two trademark daggers, which is probably the thing most true to the actual woman than anything else.

Most of these attributes, however, if not completely false, have been exaggerated. In life Zahra was indeed a pretty thing, and perhaps exotic in that her tones were darker than was the norm for non-desert dwellers, but never had she been accused of having some kind of unrelenting beauty that would cause men to fall at her feet like she is so often portrayed. She bore the common dark brown hair and eyes of her people, and a face of harsh, sharp angles that in life usually found itself pulled into a stern look of indomitability. Corded, lithe muscle and the stark living of the desert warriors also lent a harshness to her, and it may have been more apt to say that instead of stunning beauty, she possessed a predatory-like grace and countrance. The “Lioness” indeed.

A B I L I T I E S / E Q U I P M E N T

Zahra was the last known desert allomancer, as well as the most powerful recorded. This type of magic is odd in that the user physically consumes different types of metals and then burns them with inner magical fire to gain different abilities. Zahra herself was known to have been able to burn three metals with extreme efficiency: Iron, copper, and pewter. Burning iron allowed Zahra to pull metals towards herself or push them away, copper was used for increasing the six senses, and pewter increases her muscular and skeletal strength, stamina, and allowed her withstand much more pain and injuries than a normal person. There were drawbacks to this type of magic, however: No metal to burn means no power, keeping metals in the body for too long could begin to poison or cause odd side effects, and burning too much at once weakened or even kill the allomancer.

Zahra was also known to carry two long daggers as her weapons of choice, often referred to as her “fangs” by comrades and enemies alike. While there is nothing too spectacular about the pair, they were well made and maintained, and they were weighed to be able to fly well through the air should Zahra use her magic on them.

Starless

Ah man, you guys are my new virtual best friends. *high five* I just couldn't resist trying out writing an allomancer of my own after seeing the freedom this RP provided. I'd have to say in most other circumstances they'd be pretty OP, but if we've all got pretty much demi-god like powers then I want to invisible sling-shot through cities and stuff, lol.

Starless

@Dawnscroll Holy freaking song, Batman! That's crazy cool, good job.

Alright, got me a CS to throw up. Took mine in a little bit of a different cultural direction, but hey, I think it worked out pretty well. Oh, and when you look at the aliases it's formatted in the order of: What it looks like in her language. Romanization of what it sounds like in her language. And finally what it actually translates to. Let me know what you think (preemptive warning- I did not write a 4hr long rhapsody about my chick, nor do I have any sort of ability to do such a thing.)

Zahra

زهرا - Zahra

N A M E / A L I A S

زهرا از آزادییان
(Zahra az Azadeyan)
Zahra of the Free

شیر آهن دندانه دار
(Sheer-e A’han-e Dandaneh-dar)
The Iron-Toothed Lioness

A G E O F L E G E N D

Nearly 7 millennia have passed

M Y T H O L O G Y

“So, travelers, you want to hear a story? Of the deserts, you say? Well then, come sit. Sit around this old woman’s fire and let me tell you the greatest tale of them all. Of the woman who saved the tribes of these deserts more than six thousand years past, the greatest warrior of our people and the last of the allomancers: Zahra, The Iron-Toothed Lioness.

When the lands of Ansus were wreathed in chaos, and nations and empires would rise and fall with the desert suns, the tribes of the Dust laid scattered and broken. For centuries we nomads suffered from internal warring and power struggles between clans, fueled by generations of mistrust, hate, and our own fierce warrior culture. Slowly we were killing off our own kin, picking at them like vultures for scraps of food and honor. But as is almost always the way of things, salvation for our people came from the most unlikely of places; the banners of southern conquerors and the will of one tribeswoman.

Panic spread quickly when the boots of the Pakryn Empire began churning the sands of our forefathers’ deserts. They swept through our lands like the worst of plagues, pillaging and burning what little the tribes owned and leaving red sand in their wake. The scattered tribes offered little resistance to such a large, well armed force and more often than not broke before their enemies. It was a far worse slaughter than any of those the tribes had committed amongst themselves. Separated they could not stand against such foes and hope to survive.

It was then that the legend of Zahra began. A simple woman of the tribes, her life had been torn asunder when the invaders found her people. They were not kind. Her husband, the tribe’s headman, had been killed in the skirmish and her daughters, though they survived, were subjected to a far worse fate. It was then, lying in the sands with an arrow protruding from her shoulder and watching her family suffer that Zahra snapped. Unbeknownst to her, Zahra was a desert allomancer, the first one seen in generations. And they had just awakened her latent abilities.

A fire burned so hot in her center that she thought she’d alight any moment, the pain unbearable, until the power growing inside her finally burst in an audible pop. Every piece of metal, to include the metal-clad Empire soldiers, within their camp exploded back from Zahra. There was so much power behind the blow that the men were shot hundreds of feet into the air and were crushed by the fall. Zahra had fainted from the exertion, but awoke to find the remnants of her people staring at her in awe.

This was the start of our people's hope, and of our rebellion against the forces threatening our lands. With Zahra at their head, she vowed to avenge every wrong wrought by the foreigners and eject them from their lands even if it meant killing every single one by herself. She went to each tribe one by one, merging them into her own with either words or the force of her new power. Others flocked to her as news spread of her swelling army and the guerilla war they were successfully waging against the Pakrynian forces. Now that the gap in numbers had lessoned and the tribes could attack the small armies throughout the desert, the clans could take full advantage of their superior knowledge of the plains and their ferocious warriors.

She unified us, our Zahra. A queen of battle without the title, she ripped through enemy lines like the strongest of sandstorms, stripping them of skin and blood. It’s said that she could kill a hundred men in just one battle. Our beautiful Zahra, with the strength and tenacity of her animal namesake. Never before had the invaders seen a magic such as hers; a true allomancer. She was no mere manipulator of metals, she used them. Consumed them and burned them within to fuel her strength, her senses, her power.

Finally, after four years of warfare with the forces of Pakryn Zahra had decided that she would gather all of her forces to her at the edge of the desert and push out into their enemy’s land to destroy the base of operations for their war effort. Small contingents of her armies that had been spread throughout the desert made haste to muster to their leader. Little did she know, the Emperor of the Pakryn’s had much the same idea, only sooner. The most elite of his forces already occupied the post and were preparing to begin their campaign. Nobody could have foreseen the outcome of the two forces clashing, though.

You’ve heard of the Battle of Red Sands, yes? Of course you have. Everyone has. The sands there are still red to this day, you know. The Gods made the sands permanently stained with their blood as a dirge to the fallen. Well, anyway, this was the start of that famous battle and the end of Zahra’s legacy. So pay close attention.

It was pre-dawn at the edge of deserts, the air was still cold enough to cling to your breath and the cooking fires burned low in their pits where Zahra’s forces had made their encampments. Most of warriors were asleep, having traveled at an unrelenting pace for days to join the main force of their army. That’s when the call throughout the camps came. A perimeter guard had spotted the encroaching Pakryn army as the the first rays of sunlight glinted off their breastplates.

They were not prepared, our army. They were travel-worn and the encampments were too far from one another to spread news quickly, to rouse them all quickly. But the Empire was already almost upon them.

Zahra knew her warriors would be slaughtered if they couldn’t muster into a sensible formation. The wall of shields and spears now making their way towards them guaranteed as much. She knew she could not be the shepherd that led the sheep to slaughter, her people, to slaughter. She would bide them time to mass. It would only take five to ten minutes, surely the strongest allomancer in the history of the Dusts could hold them off long enough. And so our brave Zahra consumed what metals she had on her person, drew her twin daggers, and went to meet the army by herself. One against hundreds.

She shot across the space separating the two armies like and arrow, pulling herself towards her armor-plated foes by their own armor. She landed in their midst and began ghosting through their ranks like a Daeva -demon, your people call them- of vengeance and death. In desperate fear of stopping her people's’ impending plight should this army reach them before they were ready Zahra began to burn all her metals at once. A dangerous thing, that. And she knew full well that the power would consume her, but her own life was no longer of importance, only that her warriors be allowed to fight on fair ground and defeat this enemy to protect their lands.

When Zahra’s metals finally ran out she collapsed amongst over a hundred men gushing their life-blood into the sands. With no metals, all of the pain from injuries she’d received during the battle was no longer masked, and she had no energy in which to fight. But the tribes were coming, she could feel the vibrations of it within the shifting of sands. She’d held off the enemy long enough. A hand grasped her by the throat, not content with letting her die where she’d fallen, and dragged her through the ranks until she emerged through the reforming shield wall. The man gripping her neck, the leader of this army of plague, thundered a warcry as he lifted her off her feet like a trophy and brandished his sword.

He thought to kill her in front of her charging men, like it would break them, but our Zahra only smiled and met his eyes in pained-defiance as he slipped his blade into her stomach. Her eyes flashed as soon as the iron blade touched her core where her inner fire lay, and the first several ranks of empire soldiers, including the man who’d run her through, scattered like leaves behind her. The melted end of half a sword fell from her gut and she followed; her last act. Zahra died in the bloody sands of that battle, carried to our forefathers by the sound of her people winning their freedom.”

A P P E A R A N C E

The oldest descriptions of Zahra come from ancient songs, poetry, and stories from her own people. Due to their culture of being orators, it’s difficult to say what has stayed true through the millennia and what has evolved through retelling. Regardless, many an artist throughout the ages has attempted to create their own interpretations through visual means and have created a generally accepted visage for her. She is normally depicted as a tall, stunningly beautiful dark desert woman swathed in silks and leathers with long raven hair, startling green eyes that are lined in copious amounts of kohl, and plumb lips set into delicate features. Rarely can one find a painting or drawing of the woman without her two trademark daggers, which is probably the thing most true to the actual woman than anything else.

Most of these attributes, however, if not completely false, have been exaggerated. In life Zahra was indeed a pretty thing, and perhaps exotic in that her tones were darker than was the norm for non-desert dwellers, but never had she been accused of having some kind of unrelenting beauty that would cause men to fall at her feet like she is so often portrayed. She bore the common dark brown hair and eyes of her people, and a face of harsh, sharp angles that in life usually found itself pulled into a stern look of indomitability. Corded, lithe muscle and the stark living of the desert warriors also lent a harshness to her, and it may have been more apt to say that instead of stunning beauty, she possessed a predatory-like grace and countrance. The “Lioness” indeed.

A B I L I T I E S / E Q U I P M E N T

Zahra was the last known desert allomancer, as well as the most powerful recorded. This type of magic is odd in that the user physically consumes different types of metals and then burns them with inner magical fire to gain different abilities. Zahra herself was known to have been able to burn three metals with extreme efficiency: Iron, copper, and pewter. Burning iron allowed Zahra to pull metals towards herself or push them away, copper was used for increasing the six senses, and pewter increases her muscular and skeletal strength, stamina, and allowed her withstand much more pain and injuries than a normal person. There were drawbacks to this type of magic, however: No metal to burn means no power, keeping metals in the body for too long could begin to poison or cause odd side effects, and burning too much at once weakened or even kill the allomancer.

Zahra was also known to carry two long daggers as her weapons of choice, often referred to as her “fangs” by comrades and enemies alike. While there is nothing too spectacular about the pair, they were well made and maintained, and they were weighed to be able to fly well through the air should Zahra use her magic on them.

Starless

@Free Faller Hello, new friend! Glad to hear that we caught your attention! We are always open to new players joining, on the condition that your character is f*cking awesome.

Fire us a CS and we will be happy to review it and let you in on our little slice of hell >:)

@Transience

Phh, of course. I only do awesome, lol. I'll most definitely start writing up a CS. Call me a masochist, but hell here sounds pretty fun.

Starless

I just wanted to let ya'll know, that after coming back after a hiatus and looking around the Guild to see what's been going down, this RP is like the coolest thing since sliced bread. If you ever find yourselves needing another person, totally hit me up; I'd hero the shit out of shit.

Avatar: The Wind of War

I'm still here. I just got surgery on my shoulder a few days ago and forgot to let ya'll know that was going to be a thing that happened. Now that my pain meds are less (I can feel my face again!) and I can come up with coherent sentences, I have begun slowly typing out my post with my good arm. I'm hoping it'll be done tonight.

Avatar: The Wind of War

I'm cool with your idea, Vivid.

@Tomahawk what do you say? Wanna come kick it with some Earth Kingdom rebels for a bit? Maybe have a little fight due to a misunderstanding that results in them becoming at least reluctant allies.

Avatar: The Wind of War

Yay! I win.. by default... *sigh* That's not really as exciting as winning by, well, winning. lol

As for the RP, I'm indifferent as to where I end up in the line-up. Since my character is kind of just roving the Earth Kingdom causing a ruckus for the Fire Nation, she could realistically pop in just about anytime and in any fashion. Something as simple as the group coming across a refugee camp she happened to be helping or as crazy as her and a merry band of earthbenders crashing through the trees to help the group against a Fire Nation ambush. Her entrance can be pretty versatile.

It might be a good idea, in my opinion, to have maybe the last two people or so in the line-up join together before reaching the main group though. It would probably help to minimize time-syncing issues and make it so the those folks don't get all sad because everyone is having fun interacting with each other and they're just sitting in a corner by themselves.

Avatar: The Wind of War

Okay, so in light of the internet completely failing to give me a definitive answer to the whole "female earthbender soldier" thing I went ahead and did a rewrite/tweaking/work-around of my character's history just in case. Actually, I kind of think I may be a little bit more partial to this new version, so I'm going to stick it in a hider at the end of this post so you can all tell me your opinions as to which one is best. I'm a huge fan of constructive criticism, so don't be afraid to lay it on me.

History, take two

History: Saili was born and raised in Taku, a coastal city in the northwestern region of the Earth Kingdom. The city was known as a hub for commerce, as its ports handled many of the imports and exports from other nations. Both of Saili’s parents worked in this industry, her father working on a cargo ship as a crewman, and her mother in the warehouse. While her father would be away for varying lengths of time, her mother was still a constant in her young life despite her working. Often Saili would find herself trailing after her mother all day until it was that she grew old enough to be left to her own devices.

Saili and her own devices usually meant running amok through the crowded of streets of Taku, a pack of her friends around her. Like most kids their age, they often played at being heroes of great grandeur, or even the next Avatar knowing full well that the first was nigh impossible, and the second was completely so. Regardless, Saili grew up with the idea that she was meant to be something more than a what her parents had achieved especially when she had first learned that she was an earthbender.

But life is not always dreams come true and walking off into the sunset, and there were no earthbending masters that came to sweep her away and teach her all their secrets. Instead, a young Saili decided to carve her own path, and began hanging around the docks owned by the company that employed her mother. A number of benders worked there, lifting cargo on and off the vessels on huge slabs of rock, and Saili pestered the most amiable people of the lot into teaching her anything they knew about earthbending. In return, she’d do as much of their work as she could handle, and soon came the day where she could lift more than any of them. The dock benders taught her strength and precise, controlled movement.

Saili wanted to know all the facets and all of limits of her earthbending, though, and that was something her friends at the port just couldn’t provide. So she moved on into two distinctive directions. In her late teens Saili gained employment at the military’s barracks as a cook, as a way to get her foot into the door, so to speak, and learn whatever she could manage to pick up. In tandem to this, Saili began avidly watching the underground earthbending fights that were active in some of the more morally ambiguous areas of Taku. She needed to learn the martial aspect of her bending and it was the best way she knew could figure out how to accomplish that goal short of throwing herself into fights blindly.

So she observed and practiced the techniques she saw as much as she could without having an opponent, and then she threw herself mostly blind into the thick of things. She started out easy, edging her way to the army’s practice fields and offhandedly challenging some of the big-headed new soldiers and became something of a mascot that provided some entertainment. But eventually her landslide victories over the younger soldiers caught the attention of the more seasoned earthbenders, and soon they wanted to pit themselves against this audacious cook to see just how far she stacked up. And at nights she’d go to the matches, blending her growing skills based on Earth Kingdom Army’s forms with those of the flashy, intricate ring-benders. The soldiers taught her the martial forms and techniques of their kingdom, and the art of utilizing neutral jing. The fighters taught her speed of mind and body, as well as bending creatively and adaptability of style.

This went on for years and Saili made herself into a staple of the earthbending circles in her city until a new Captain transferred from Omashu and took command Taku’s military. A master earthbender and as stern and foreboding as any mountain, he wasn’t pleased to hear that his new unit had taken to sparring with one of the cooks. And surely he had every intention of firing Saili on the spot and ending this impedance to his soldiers’ order and discipline. But then he saw her fight and decided that maybe she wasn’t such a bad thing.

He fired her as a cook and hired her as a sparring opponent for the earthbenders, reasoning that “soldiers need to be accustomed to fighting earthbenders that do not fight using standard techniques, as the combatants they’ll face in real situations will most likely not fight as such.” And maybe that was true, but Saili was convinced it wasn’t the main reason, especially when he himself began to spar with her; She wasn’t going to look a gift ostrich horse in the mouth, though.

Whether intentional or not -and Saili could never really tell what the conniving man had rolling around in his mind- the Captain taught Saili many of the master earthbending techniques by way of having thoroughly pummeled her with them on a pretty regular basis. Everytime it seemed like he might be throwing her a bone, he’d end up yanking it right back and thwacking her over the head with it. But Saili couldn’t complain; she loved the physical and mental exertion of earthbending.

But everything changed once the Fire Nation attacked… (I’m sorry!)

After Sozin’s comet struck and obliterated the Air Nomads it was Taku that came under siege by the Fire Nation; the first Earth Kingdom city to be attacked. Saili had been at work that notorious day, and although she had not been near the port, she still remembers the exact moment the first explosion rocked the city to its core. Things after that became somewhat of a blur. She knew she had run to go meet the enemy threat, and that the Earth Kingdom soldiers and benders held onto the city for only a few days; only long enough for the civilians to flee from the inland gates and into the heart of the Empire. The Fire nation’s navy was too large and they decimated Taku’s port before barraging the rest of the city. Saili fought the entire four days before the city fell completely to the Fire Nation. She didn’t think she slept once, and that exhaustion probably resulted in her flighty memory of many of the times particulars.

After the last of the bystanders left Taku’s gates, the Earth Kingdom defenders abandoned the city to their enemy, Saili among the last groups of fighters to leave as a sort of rear guard. Most of the refugee groups scattered into the winds, going every which way to seek safety within the heart of the largest of the nations. Saili decided to remain in the outskirts of her hometown for some time, keeping watch on the enemy army from afar and scrounging together any lingering refugees and sending them onward towards Ba Sing Se or other settlements inland.

After a while there was no more point to her presence, as there was nothing more she could do that would be productive so close to this new Fire Nation stronghold. So Saili left to wander the nearby settlements and villages, wanting to link up with the Earth Kingdom soldiers she known to create some semblance of a fighting force for the area, and hoping that she’d find her mother among the refugees there. Or to hear news of her father’s ship, which had been at sea at the start of the siege, had made it away safely.

Now she fights the good fight, helping the effort against the Fire Nation by helping to establish guerilla forces and resistance fighters from among the willing civilians and scattered military, and teaching Earth Kingdom citizens how to stand against the Fire Nation’s advance. She’s only one woman, but she’ll do whatever she can.