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Race: Human Age: Nineteen Birthday: 4th of Summer of 491 A.V. Gender: Male
Character Concept
Physical Description
Tao is fairly short (about 5’5) and leans on the skinny side. His overall physique can be described as feminine, with a faint hourglass figure that is usually deliberately hidden under oversized clothing. His skin is naturally a lighter shade of brown and burns easily in the sunlight.
He has black, wiry hair that is usually kept cut short, though he has a fringe that tends to get in his eyes. He rarely does anything to style it, so it sits in a messy fashion atop his head. His face is rounded with well-defined cheekbones. His eyes are set squarely and are a blue-grey, while his small nose is a bit crooked from where it has been broken before.
Tao does not have much of an eye for fashion, and tends to wear comfortable, practical clothing, usually loose fitting. If he does dress for show, he prefers darker, more regal colours, from black to a dark blue or green. His thin frame lends itself to looking better in a robe or even a dress, but due to being self conscious about that fact, he tends to go for something more traditional, such as a tunic and pants.
Personality
If Tao had to be described in a word, it is shy. He is very quiet and appears nervous most of the time, especially with strangers or people with authority. A secluded childhood due to his father's overprotective nature has left him the exact opposite of outgoing. Given the chance, he is very quick to fade into the background and quietly entertain himself.
Often described to be introverted, Tao has had little experience interacting with people as people. He will fall back on his previous experience as a waiter as a means of dealing with awkward situations or deflecting attention from himself. He prompts others to talk about themselves, or focus on very neutral conversational topics when he doesn't know what else to say.
In the habit of holding people at arm's length, Tao has few people he'd consider friends. He is all but desperate to be a part of a family again, to have someone that he can look up to and trust completely. However his fear of losing that love through death or his own weaknesses makes it almost impossible for him to form anything more than superficial connections.
Very rarely will he lose his temper, openly admit a dislike of someone, or consider someone an enemy. He is much more likely to be afraid of someone who has done him wrong, and would rather run from a confrontation than fight back. It takes a lot to make him angry enough to even speak harshly at someone.
Tao always feels at home in a kitchen and loves to read, particularly historical or factual books that he can learn from. One of his favourite topics of interest has always been the stars, which has expanded into a full hobby of astronomy in Lhavit. He is also a fan of puzzles and riddles, and can easily spend hours playing with old codes and ciphers. His hobbies are solitary for the most part, which has never bothered him much before he lived alone.
Last edited by Tao on May 9th, 2011, 3:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
Tao was born and raised in Syliras in relative safety. Having never known his mother, his only family was his father, Anthony Kuroya, who from a very young age he trusted and adored like nobody else in the world.
His father owned and worked at a small restaurant in the city, which was a modest success and kept the pair of them living comfortably. As Tao was growing up, he was taught to cook, clean, and handle himself in a kitchen, keeping up with the family trade.
For the rest of his time, Tao was a quiet, secluded child, not particularly athletic or interested in spending time with others, instead finding interest in books, stories, and history. While at first, his father attempted to encourage him outside by taking him shopping or into the markets, his attitude quickly shifted when his son was attacked by a stray dog, causing superficial damage but scaring both of them near to death.
From that point on, his father was smothering and overprotective, bringing home books and anything else that Tao wanted to keep him safely away from danger. Later on in life, Tao suspected that this also had something to do with his mother's death, but could never really be sure.
Developing an irrational fear of dogs and by proxy the outside, crowded world, Tao rarely left their home after the attack, and found it difficult to interact with anyone but his father. He threw himself into books filled with fairytales or history to keep himself entertained, and practiced cooking and played games with his father when he was home. The pair of them were extremely close, and cared about each other more than anything else in the world.
Once Tao had become a teenager, he began to realise that his father's work was very tiring and stressful, and decided to offer to help by working at the restaurant. Though reluctant, Tao's continuing insistence eventually wore him down, and he allowed Tao to work as a waiter in the evenings. It was one of the few times that his son had actually insisted on something.
The work was much harder than Tao could has ever anticipated. Confronted with many people night after night when he was used to being solitary was quick to send him into near panic attacks. He struggled to keep up with the other waitstaff and keep his customers happy. However, driven by a determination to help his father, he refused to back down and give up.
He learned how to deal with the customers by watching the other waiters and how they interacted with them and each other. It was a slow progress, but he preserved, mimicking their smiles and the way they spoke and acted. Over the course of several years, he managed to handle his fears and grow out of his shell ever so slightly. He also became excellent at faking emotions, masking his insecurities and fears more completely.
In the end, though, he was still a shy and cowardly boy, and didn't have anyone that he really considered a friend or important to him other than his father. So when his father passed away suddenly of illness shortly before he turned eighteen, he suffered a complete emotional breakdown.
It took him a very long time to recover from the loss of his only family. He handed control of the restaurant back to the city and holed himself up in their home, unable and unwilling to confront the fact that he was completely alone. His father had left a will, and it was only when he finally convinced himself to read it that he was able to regain some control of himself.
In the will, his father wrote about how sorry he was, for trapping Tao away from a normal life with his own fears, and how he wished he could have done things differently. He encouraged him to start a new life, and find his place in the world, and to be happy. He also mentioned the city of Lhavit, and that Tao would do well there with his love of astronomy.
With the letter was a pendant made of some kind of shiny material, that his father had always worn around his neck. Inside, Tao knew, was a picture of his mother and his father; the only remnants he had left of them.
Slowly, but surely, fueled by a desire to honor his father's wishes (and though he couldn't admit it at first, excited over the prospect of finding happiness), he gathered their life's savings, the pendant, and a few other articles of clothing and items that he would need to make the travel to the City of Stars.
He would arrive in Lhavit almost six months later, a shy, frightened boy with only five hundred kina to his name, not knowing what to expect, but filled with desperate hope for his future.
Post Game
510 :
Upon arriving at Lhavit, Tao felt like he was doing quite well. Despite spending a good chunk of his savings away on securing safe travel, he still had a reasonable amount of cash left, and had arrived without incident. Securing a home and a job within the first weeks of his new life, he was unusually excited and hopeful for his new life.
Lhavit was a city of beauty, and the stars and sights attracted him like nothing else ever had, causing him to abandon his old ways of hiding alone in favour of seeing as much as he could see. He even managed to make a friend or two, all while undertaking the steep learning curve of the Lhavitian language.
Unfortunately, his good fortune ran short when he got into a fight with one of his aforementioned friends, a Symenestra. He lost his temper for but a moment, and in returned incurred the wrath of the creature, which threatened his life. Petrified by the incident, Tao shrunk back into himself, quickly falling back into old habits of holing away from society as much as he could.
Time passed, and winter came to the mountains. The excited chatter that surrounded a festival caught his attention. The wonderful Lady Zintila, Goddess of the Stars and Lhavit, would be making an appearance. Despite himself, he felt an inexplicable pull to attend and see the goddess, responsible for the beauty of the stars above and city he now lived in.
At the Festival, an unexpected thing happened. A man, one of the priesthood of the wonderful, beautiful goddess, approached him. Initially wary, he eventually realised that the man was offering him a place in the Seiza; the people who served the goddess. Conflicted by the sudden offer, he ran from the scene.
What followed was a long, painful process of debate. Despite every fiber of his being wanting to just say yes, that this had to be the new life he was searching for, the thought of his father paralysed his hand. Was he really doing his father's memory justice if he was just going to walk into a new life so quickly? Was he even worthy of something as importance as service to a god?
And what if she died and left him alone again?
In an effort to avoid the thoughts circling in his head, he began to go outside again, taking long walks around the city that forced his mind to stop wandering and exhausted him straight to sleep.
One day, he ran into that same Symenestra again, as well as a women he had met a few times before. Despite his initial fears, he eventually learned that the man felt as guilty and awful about what had happened as he did, and very cautiously, they began to meet up and work their way back to a tangible friendship. They settled on public meeting places where there were too many witnesses for anything bad to happen, usually a bar a little way aways from Surya Plaza.
Spring came and broke the cold spell holding the mountain city, and still undecided and uncertain of what the future would hold, Tao was forced forward.
<To be continued!>
Last edited by Tao on May 9th, 2011, 3:36 am, edited 4 times in total.
- 2 pairs of leather pants (1 from Starting Pack) - 3 linen shirts (1 from Starting Pack) - 1 pair of leather shoes (Starting Pack) - 1 wool cloak (Starting Pack) - 2 leather belts (1 from Starting Pack) - 1 wool jacket - 1 fancy buckle (Attached to belt) - 1 silk robe (Midnight Blue)
Housing
- Apartment A15, Solar Wind Apartments, Lhavit (100 kina bond, 7 kina per month) (Rented here)
Other
- Set of Toiletries (Starting Pack) - Waterskin (Starting Pack) - Backpack (Starting Pack) - Eating Knife (Starting Pack) - Flint and Steel (Starting Pack) - 4 Blankets - Book: Common to Lhavitian Dictionary - Locket (Heirloom; contains a picture of his mother and father)
Miruku
Miruku is Tao's cat, or rather, Tao is Miruku's human. The mischievous feline followed him home one day and simply never left. Playful and affectionate, she is rarely far from her owner (and therefore a meal) when he is out in Lhavit.
She suffers a case of sticky paws, often making off with shiny objects, food, or other small trinkets, and does her best to avoid punishment by utilising her cute charms. If that fails, she will attempt to scare off any threats by hissing and puffing out her fur, before fleeing for safety if that doesn't work.
She can often be seen with Tao around Lhavit, curled around his shoulders and purring loudly.
- Stargazing (Starting Pack; can pick out constellations and knows some of the history behind them) - Edible Plants (Lhavit) (Starting Pack; has knowledge of edible/tasty plants in the local area) - Vendaril’s Chatty Nature (Experience) - First Hunt (Experience) - Symenos (Partial) (Experience) - Not Being Lost (Experience) - Trying to Diffuse the Tension (Experience) - Looking after Sick, Suspicious, Symenestra (Experience) - The Smell of Tea (Experience) - Tea is Disappointing (Experience) - Rejecting Proposals (Experience) - Standing Out in More than One Way (Experience) - Freezing to your futon (Experience) - The smell of curry (Experience) - Window shopping (Experience) - Buying nice things for the sake of it (Experience) - Inner debate (Experience) - New life versus father’s memory (Experience) - Harmony of a kitchen (Experience) - Being held back (Experience) - Ultimatums (Experience) - Philology of Lhavitian (Experience) - A language is like a code (Experience) - Cheating with memorising words (Experience) - Lhavitian (Competent)? (Experience) - Lhavit Layout (Competent) (Experience) - Customs of Lhavit (Competent) (Experience) - Blue; it looks good on me (Too good) (Experience) - Breathtaking views of Lhavit (Experience) - Being a scapegoat (Experience) - Having a cat follow you home (Experience) - Speaking to cats (Experience) - Miruku (Experience) - Lesson Learned: Stay in the kitchen (Experience) - Flight Response (Experience) - Accepting Apologies (Experience) - Safety First (Experience) - The Girl in the Clearing/Jiina Xi (Experience) - Festival Life of Lhavit (Experience) - Meeting Atanu Tan'kima (Experience) - A new path in life (Experience) - Dealing with tense situations (Experience) - Decoding simple letters (Experience)
by Tao on October 29th, 2010, 6:03 am 
