NAME — zumi
NICKNAMES — 
— the halfbreed ; her mother is of the fire nation, and her father of the northern water tribe. can you guess why she's called this?
 

NATION — fire nation

BIRTHPLACE — fire nation capital

FACE CLAIM (+BACKUP) — jiho (omg) ; eunseo (wjsn)

APPEARANCE AND STYLE —  
as one would expect from a fire nation citizen, azumi has pale skin and dark hair. what's unexpected about her is her striking blue eyes. she's pretty tall. taller than her cousins, even. she does look a tad older than her age, but rest assured, she is seventeen. her hair is always styled impeccably, as expected from a member of the royal family. she wears the standard fire nation garb. you know, with all that red and black crap with the gold accents. only she wears fancier clothing than the common folk. she is, after all, still part of the royal family. she wears clothing that allows her to move freely and fight, so no elaborate dresses that will make her back sore. she also hides her two daggers on both of her arms, so only long sleeved clothing pls thanks.

WHAT YOU SEE cold, manipulative, ambitious, hot-headed
intelligent, kind, well-meaning, loyal  ISN'T WHAT YOU GET

zumi has two facets of her personality. one she shows to the world around her, and another that she shows rarely. the one she shows only to those she trusts. let's delve into the former first, shall we?

do keep in mind, this is merely a facade. zumi didn't only inherit her pale skin and dark hair from the royal family. no, she also inherited their personality. she trots around with a superior air about her, despite her being obviously a halfbreed, and not a pure fire nation royalty, unlike her cousins, zuko and azula. no she still walks about thinking everyone is merely the scum beneath her feet. she isn't a warm, kind person by any means.

she's an ambitious girl. too ambitious for her own good. too ambitious for someone her bloodline. she also knows how to say the right things to people to get her way. a clever girl, she truly is. she climbed her way next to the princess with just her words. she would make a brilliant ambassador is she wishes. actually, she can be anything with those magic words of hers. of course, not everyone trusts her words, what with the half breed she is. 

half-breed. she despises that name. she'd all but burst into flames when you mention that name to her. of course, she's not a fire bender, so. the girl is very hot-headed. get's angry very easily, and with the most moniscule things too! doesn't have a lot of patience, does she? it's like all her smarts go out the window when she gets angry. she gets impulsive, spouts nonsense, and all that. the bad thing is, she gets angry a lot, so this happens a lot. 

it's so easy to judge a book by its cover, isn't it? don't be too ashamed, everyone does it. but what exactly lies inside the tightly bound book that is zumi? oh, a lot of things. things you wouldn't expect from a girl with a tough exterior. of course, not a lot of people know about this side. they're often too busy with her worse side. not that zumi would want it any other way. she does have a reputation to keep, and it's easier for  her to act like she's not a good person with the people around her. but she is. her uncle iroh would attest to that.

kindness. kindness isn't what you would expect from a girl like zumi. i mean, she's part of the fire nation, and not only that, she's part of its royal family! she's basically born to be cruel. but she's not. iroh was the one who raised her, and she picked up all his good traits. he taught her well, and behind zumi's cruel facade, she is a kind person. 

iroh did teach her well. he passed on his well-meaning personality to the girl, and now, zumi is just that. you might see her with her cunning and think all she plans is chaos. no. it's so so much more than that. every single thing she does, she does for the good of the world. or so she thinks. zumi has a really bad case of believing the phrase "the end will justify the means." after all, just because it's a facade, doesn't mean it's not utilized in her plans.

zumi doesn't trust a lot of people, but when she does, she trusts them with everything. she trusts them with her true self. but right now, only a handful of people know who zumi is. it just so happens that she's loyal, very very loyal to those she trusts. she'd give her life for them, and do much much more. incredibly protective of them also. there's only a few of them so she treasures them very much.

but what are the similarities between zumi's two facets, i hear  you ask. well, she's an intelligent girl. she's very well-read, coming from a rich family. but book smarts doesn't matter much does it? that's why she's also smart in other things. she's smart in combat. trained very well since childhood, she's a master of hand-to-hand combat, as well as weilding her twin daggers, which she hides beneath her sleeves everyday. she's also an open-minded girl, a trait she inherited from iroh. though this trait disappears when she's angry, which is very unfortunate.

i tried to make zumi a complex character, and i think i kinda succeeded, but i'm not really sure. but this effort did make her very difficult to understand, so feel free to ask questions.

BACKGROUND —  

before zumi ↪ ami, the youngest child of azulon and ilah, and sister of ozai and iroh was the perfect daughter. then everything changed when the fire nation attacked she met kasun, a northerner. that's right, a northerner. not just a northerner, a waterbender from the northern water tribe. they met in the north, during a fire nation raid. very romantic, isn't it? spoiler alert, not one part of this tale is in any way romantic. there was no amorous relation between ami and kasun. ami didn't want it, but kasun forced it. then zumi was conceived. yes, it was .

ami returned to the fire nation capital with zumi in her belly. of course, her family was appaled of what transpired in the north, but kasun was already dead. killed in the raid. zumi was a mistake, but ami didn't want her gone, so she gave birth to her. ami thought that once zumi was born, she will resent the child, but that wasn't the case. ami fell inlove with the newborn, and her last wish was for the child to be well taken care of even when ami was gone. her brother's have always had a soft spot for their youngest sibling, so they agreed. iroh offered to raise zumi alonside his own son lu ten, and now her story begins.

at the beginning ↪ there's a good ten year gap between lu ten and zumi, but does that stop lu ten from being the best brother/cousin to little zumi. little zumi was spoiled from day one. iroh might not have been her father, but he did treat her as such, with lu ten being her new brother. the role of mother was unfortunatel left vacant, as iroh's wife has passed away years prior and neither lu ten nor iroh possessed the maternal instinct to stand as a mother. of course, that didn't stop them from trying.

remember what i said about zumi being spoiled? yeah, it was thanks to lu ten and iroh. everything zumi wanted, zumi got. but zumi didn't really want all that much. well, there are two things that zumi really wanted. one of them neither iroh nor luten (or really anybody) could provide because how are you supposed to bring a woman back from the dead? the other thing was to learn how to fight. zumi was three when she started training. her tutor was the same one who taught lu ten a few years prior. she was in great hands, and she was taught well. occasionally, lu ten would assist in her training.

when zumi turned ten, lu ten gave zumi her twin daggers. he was just coming back from his first mission in the war effort and had come back with spoils. one of those spoils were two matching daggers he taught zumi would like, so he brought it home. zumi was ecstatic. the two daggers were exactly what she needed in her training so she could progress.

everything changes ↪ zumi was eleven when lu ten died. died in the front lines where he so loved fighting in. there was no one in the world that was more heartbroken than zumi, except maybe iroh himself. zumi threw herself into training giving more than she had ever done. her grief fueling her will to improve. and so she did. 

fire lord azulon died of mysterious circumstances, and ozai was appointed as fire lord apparently as azulon's final wish. iroh, devastated with the death of his son, didn't  have any desire to fight back to win the crown. zumi was the opposite. she knew that the reign of ozai would mean a different world for her, and so the facade she hides behind was constructed.

it was around this time when zumi discovered a strange thing about herself. it was when she was mourning lu ten at his grave. you see, there was a fountain near his grave, and somehow with all the emotions swirling within her, she made the water in the fountain move. at first, she thought she was just delusional, and the strain of crying was causing her to hallucinate, but when she actually tried to waterbend, she found that she actually could do it. she couldn't do much, seeing as she's only started , but she could do enough to confirm that she was a waterbender.

iroh was the first one to know. actually, iroh was the only one to know. it was bad enough that zumi was a halfbreed, but to be a waterbender as well? she would literally be killed, seeing as ozai definitely did not have a soft spot for her. iroh tried his very best to train zumi, but even with all his wisdom iroh was no waterbender.

fool's crusade ↪ thirteen year old zuko was banished by his own father for speaking out of turn. he could only return to his homeland once he brings the avatar before his father, as rumours were circulating that there was a new avatar. iroh had managed to get his nephew a ship and a crew with his influence, and the crusade began. zumi did tag along, but she knew it was a fool's crusade. i mean, finding the avatar? it was almost as ridiculous as her wish to see her mother. nevertheless, she went with them. 

she learnt a lot in those three-four years. but what's happening now? that's your cue, my dear author.

SKILLS — 
— non-bending combat ; zumi is a very skilled fighter. how could she be anything but, with a decade of training under her belt. zumi is in peak physical form, thanks to a daily training regimen she implements upon herself now that she's constantly on the move with her cousin and uncle. zumi has high stamina, meaning she is able to fight for long periods of time. she's especially skilled with her two daggers, a gift from a very dear person a few years back. while she's pretty good without weapons, she's especially lethal with her daggers.

— intelligence ; zumi is a very smart individual. growing up in proximity of thousands of reading material will do that to you. but zumi is not just book smart. she knows a lot about the world, the spiritual and the human ones. that especially was a side effect of living with iroh. 

— waterbending ; this is a skill you wouldn't expect from a person like zumi. in fact, zumi didn't even know that she was a water bender til later in her relatively short life. zumi has a limited knowledge in her bending abilities. she could only bend a little, not much better than a child. she doesn't like her ability to bend because of what it represents, it represents her bastard of a father, if you're wondering but she bends anyway thanks to her uncle's persistence.

 

 

twin daggers ↪ it's been mentioned a million times already, but she got her two daggers which are a forearm's length from lu ten. it was a spoil of war taken from the front lines in the earth kingdom. she keeps it within her person at all times, mostly underneath her sleeves.

the order of the white lotus ↪ zumi is an honorary member of the order of the white lotus. she's not a fully fledged member (yet) cause she just doesn't have the experience. she's sort of just an errand girl when she goes with iroh in the meetings

tea ↪ zumi makes a mean cup of tea, unlike some people coughzukocough

azula ↪ before the grand mad goose chase with zuko, zumi was a part of azula's elite team. she talked her way into the princess' good graces, of course, but she was just as skillful, if not more, that azula's "friends"

ami ↪ zumi has been told time and time again that she looks very much like her mother, and she's basically a carbon copy of zumi, excluding her eyes.

RELATIONSHIPS — 

• uncle | iroh ; 55(?) ; grand lotus of the white lotus ; kind, open-minded, too good for this world

iroh treats zumi as his daughter sine she was birth, and iroh was the father zumi has never known. iroh is the best uncle/adoptive father a girl could ever ask for. he basically taught her all she knows, and he's probably the person who've shaped who zumi is. plus he taught her pai sho, a game which she really enjoys.

• cousin | prince zuko ; 17 ; former crown prince ; impatient, hot-headed, secretly-a-softie

zuko and zumi aren't really that close. at least they're not as close as lu ten and zumi once was, but they get along well enough. zuko does have some resentment for zumi for being in azula's posse in the past, but it's not like he could do anything, after all, they're stuck on this mad crusade together in the forseeable future.

you know how zumi has this whole facade of "fight me punk" on the exterior, but she's really not that much of a crap person? i know in zuko's mad trip ft. iroh and zumi, she's already starts to change. change how, i hear you ask. shedding her toxic persona is a start. with the absence of people for her to manipulate, there's really no need for her to keep up her act.

but i trust your judgement on how to forward her character.