Name: Xiang
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Gender: Male
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Age: 22
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Element: Wind (though, formerly hailing from the Fire Nation, will usually present himself as Dormant)
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Skills: Disguise Mastery, Airbending (mostly as agility enhancement and air moves he uses with the sword, so as to make it harder to tell it's not just martial ability), Master Swordsman (type: short sword).
The airbending and sword choice combine to create a mostly defensive, endurance-based style of combat.
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Appearance: Short-cut black hair, "oddly" green eyes, slightly taller than the average Fire Nation male but average in weight. Somewhat pale skin, he usually is slightly unshaven. Clothes are a faded brown hooded cloak, with long (dark green) pants and shoes, a yellow-tan shirt, and - on his waist lie two straight shortswords - a blue-hilted one/two handed sword (sheathed it looks like a katana complete with longer scabbard), and a dark red-hilted one-handed one. The former was a gift from his mother as a show of his progress, the latter his old training sword - sharpened for use after his defection. Xiang wears a simple piece of threaded metal around his neck, a good luck charm his second gave him.
Also, Xiang is usually wearing a straw hat - though not a dyed one. It is especially useful for trying to hide his eye color, which he occasionally attempts.
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Personality: Although he is oddly easygoing/laidback in interaction (an aspect exemplified by his post-defection lifestyle), Xiang maintains a bold persona. He is, however, quick to anger at certain aspects of the Fire Nation, especially a particular officer... and, more amusingly, if someone makes a crack about his eyes or how he walks (also, don't mess with the sword. Really, don't.) Other than this, he has a rather pensive attitude at times, and is more generous than most would expect of one raised in the Fire Nation.
Relating to how he views the people in the world, Xiang finds himself unable to deny several aspects of the Fire Nation's progressive worldview - though in his case, any unusual egalitarianism is more in the sense of pragmatic apathy than any active identification of it. Also, though Xiang is less likely to support divergence from their goal to help others, he shows a strong aversion to losing comrades to the Fire Nation.
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Background: Xiang was born to Akira and Zan, the former an ex-Air Nomad - who claimed to be Dormant - and a Fire Nation merchant, also dormant. Xiang had been raised mostly by his mother, who had included some teachings of her home - though little in the way of airbending other than how not to be identified as one. Zan, however, was there when he could be - and had shown Xiang the basics of swordfighting (though Akira resisted at first, she later would be the one to identify Xiang's affinity with the straight shortsword). As the war efforts continued scaling up, Xiang felt honestly sympathetic toward the goal (if not the means to fulfill it); however, with his obviously misplaced eye color and oddly semi-bald mother (plus the occasional crack at his name, of course), it wasn't long before sympathy was replaced by annoyance and isolation. Of course, when the inevitable occurred...
At age 14, grief-stricken at his parent's execution, Xiang fled his home in the night. He began wandering the continent, at first only doing errands in exchange for necessities. But then the Fire Nation caught up with his movements. Xiang began a slight sabotaging campaign against a division of the army, first only with petty thefts of some items they'd hardly miss; however, with his boldness evident, a few resistors began clinging onto his image as a local hero. With their help, he began trying to raid the supply lines; however, this rarely turned out too well; even if Xiang's knowledge in disguises allowed an easy 'in', they'd often get caught and have to flee. However, many left after close calls, and Xiang began to scale down their efforts to continue to evade capture. He had gotten to the point where he'd begun dissembling this guerrilla cell when the strange, balding Yoshiro (an old fisherman whom most everyone got along with) presented him with a lotus-stamped letter addressed to Xiang, 'from a man who vanished'... Now, Xiang finds himself going to San Xei.
