Ayahsk Ube

Ayahsk Ube is a proficient Waterbender of The Southern Water Tribe, whose specialty is in ice-working. His bending style blends his Water Tribe heritage with his experiences in the Earth Kingdom as a child, along with a touch of air-based influence he gains in the events of The Wilting Of The Lotus.

Ayahsk is a combat pragmatist and something of a diplomat, though the latter is rather heavily handicapped by his own hot-headedness. Throughout most of TWOTL he carries a pair of whalebone daggers, a reminder of his past which he abandons toward the end.

Ayahsk ends up in something of a spiritual dark spot during his time at the Eastern Air Temple, suffering depression, self doubt, and in the worst of it, mild schizophrenia. After his stay in the Fire Nation, Ayahsk realizes something important within himself, and is healthy once more for his adventures on Tai-Shan Island.

Physical Attributes
Throughout his years, Ayahsk remains brown-skinned and well built. His face is angular, with a slight smile that some times plays across thin lips. He has jet black hair, which he keeps messy, but not too long. Ayahsk has no preference for any particular attire, but does make a point of trying to look presentable where he can. He does, however, have a preference to concealing clothing (even in warm weather), and a pair of piercing blue eyes.

The gaze Ayahsk gives is something of a signature; most people recognize a critical or appraising notion about it, and none miss the ferocity of a powerful hurricane, although most compare it to seeing a storm from afar. Some later would associate him with the The Tempest Queen for this stare.

Ayahsk is completely aware of this association, and has made no attempt to correct his behaviour. This is mainly because

a) They're technically correct, and

b) Ayahsk's gaze is a deliberate carbon copy of Raikana's own stare. Ayahsk just gets a kick out of flashing it at people and watching them squirm.

Personality
When not under stress or other mental duress, Ayahsk remains relaxed outside of city centres, and usually flickers between adventurous and mischeivous. He tries to encourage this relaxedness in others, and to this end will usually be quite helpful in tasks both important and mundane.

Ayahsk suffers for most of the The Wilting of a sporadic-at-best cultural understanding, and an unpredictable volatility, which at times manifests as cutting commentary, and at other times as an unmistakable streak of wrath. He attempts to overcome these soft spots by learning self control, and fails miserably. Instead, Ayahsk settles for treating the symptoms, rather than the cause.

Waterbending
Ayahsk's form of waterbending often centres around ice, and at the 7th dot of Bending, Ayahsk is really quite good at it. He has several of his own improvised moves, most of which were inspired by some previous encounter in nature, or in other forms in bending. Ayahsk learns along his journey the various forms that water takes on, and methods of interconverting them precisely and at speed. The only exception is blood bending, which Ayahsk finds distasteful, and honestly a little weird. Those skilled in earthbending will notice several earthbending techniques ingrained in Ayahsk's own style.

As long as you remain Ayahsk's enemy, he will not show you quarter. Ayahsk is ruthless, fierce, and downright unfair to those who oppose him. Ayahsk's preferred fight is one where he finishes it immediately, with his opponent's utter defeat.

Weapon Mastery
Ayahsk has no weapon mastery to speak of, although he demonstrates a tactical appreciation for a great number of different weapons through his own bending. Ayahsk's main obstacle here is that he never put the forethought into picking up an actual weapon and practicing until he was good at it.

Backstory
Ayahsk is a potent sufferer of Absentee Parents, which is cruel considering that Ayahsk actually spends almost all of his childhood with them. He grows up on the move; 18 months after the disappearance of an older brother he never meets, his parents decide to move the family North, and this ends up being a decade long trip across the Earth Kingdom continent. His parents always seem pre-occupied during this time, either getting passports or supplies or doing 'business' which to Ayahsk's young eyes seems to be always paperwork.

In these formative years of his childhood, Ayahsk learns firsthand how to make friends, accept differences in culture for what they are, and develops his aforementioned love of adventure. He and his parents tend to move around a lot, and they are always stressed out about adult issues, so Ayahsk takes refuge in getting to know the neighbourhood, in some form of another. Throughout this journey, Ayahsk manages to get a great deal of knowledge in the ways of the Earth Kingdom, and fits in a lot of experience, but remoins devoid of two rather basic life ingredients; lasting friendships and parental bonds. This leads to something of an inferiority complex that ripens in Ayahsk's early puberty.

Approaching the Northern Water Tribe, Ayahsk has his first traumatic experience. Fire Nation armies were covertly building up military force in certain key parts of Earth Kingdom, in preparation for opening hostilities some years down the line. This was unbeknownst to Ayahsk's family, and so as they approached the Northern Bay of the continent, they were caught off guard by sizeable number of Fire Nation military, who were prepping the ground.

Ayahsk is woken one night as he slept on the forest floor. His mother is there, but urges him to be quiet and pack up quickly. As he packs, the first tree catches alight. The ensuing forest blaze, and relentless chase through it, is Ayahsk's introduction to the Fire Nation.

From here, Ayahsk's story spirals downhill. Ayahsk arrives in the Northern Water Tribe on his 11th birthday, but 6 months in to his stay, is feeling stifled by the lack of things to do, and troubled by his difficulty with keeping friendships. Both mother and father quickly become true absentee parents, constantly busy, never home, always serious.

It is here that his inferiority complex starts to hit hard, and Ayahsk quickly becomes a Troubled Outcast. Around 2 years into his stay, rumours come up on the trade ferries of the Airbending Genocide, and the Northern Water Tribe closes it's ports to all but essential trade. Around this time, Ayahsk met a Girl.

Without getting into too much detail (I can't write romance to save my life), that Girl happened to be another Rebellious Youth... ....who was also the daughter of a Fire Nation diplomat. Said diplomat then finds out about all the young (and incredibly cliche) romance, and decides to put a stop to it.

He then realizes that his daughter is courting Ayahsk Ube, and totally is OK with it cos Ayahsk is such a cool guy, everyone says so, yes that Ube, the son of those two Water Tribe diplomats, the ones who managed to narrowly escape that sizeable infantry battalion a few years back, and decides to kidnap Ayahsk and torture him to find out what he and his parents know.

What he was originally gonna do, was find Ayahsk and kill him, and then figure out who's son he was and mail Ayahsk back to his parents, piece by piece. So in that sense, this was actually a really lucky call.

From Ayahsk's perspective, the love of his life turns out to be one of the dastardly Fire Nation, whose father is totally a spy, his parents actually do important things and never told him, and now he was going to a very dark cell to be tortured until he squealed, and then killed.

Earlier that evening, he had purchased with 2 years of pocket money, 3 betrothal necklaces. Just in case she didn't like two of them.

Ayahsk, now 14 years old, was kept starving, and in excruciating pain for 3 months. Then, during the course of being moved to a different holding site, he busted the lock on his chains, tore the sack off his head, and fled....

...into the same damn city he had been living in for two years prior. Ayahsk spends a further 6 months escaping the city walls, and makes his journey South. His parents have long since fled, without him.

Thus begins a slow, 3 year slog that culminates in Ayahsk arriving at The Festival, in time for game start.

His time in torture changed Ayahsk for the worse, bringing out his wrathful streak, making him paranoid and withdrawn. It was his own journey back down the river, his 3 years in wilderness that healed Ayahsk's soul, somewhat, and gave back to him the joy of discovery, and the contentedness of being capable.

His Family
Parents - Estranged, and long since forgotten. As it turns out, both parents were spies that aided the Water Tribes in various matters, and being a Spy Kid actually sucks balls. Ayahsk finds out later in the Fire Nation of their legacy, and learns to forgive them, but this alone does not replace a lifetime of being ignored, and so Ayahsk just... ...moves on. For the longest time, Ayahsk found himself avoiding city centres, partly due to his experiences in the last city he was in, but mostly out of avoidance of the fact that his parents probably weren't looking for him all this time. Ayahsk has since grown out of this.

Siblings- Just one, a brother who mysteriously vanished when Ayahsk was a baby. After the first few incidents where Ayahsk "identified" his brother, who was actually just some fisherman, or some blacksmith, or some random dude on the street, Ayahsk learned to stop looking for his brother. Otherwise, Ayahsk would be looking, and constantly "finding", again and again until he ran out of hope. He doesn't even know his brother's name, and knows better than to bother finding his parents to ask them. Ayahsk would dearly like to meet his brother, but doesn't know where to start, or which starts are false starts, or how to tell the difference.