Tsukiko

Name: Tsukiko (Moonchild)
Age: 23
Race: Merrow
Gender: Biologically male, presents as female
Homeland: Eremaki

Class: Bard
SubClass: Dancer

Elemental Affinities:
Primary: Wind/Air
Secondary: Lightning/ Thunder
Tertiary: Fire

Strengths: Very skilled in all the Geisha arts, music (both instrumental and vocal), dance, storytelling, drawing, calligraphy. Her powers of observation are very good, and are paired with an excellent memory.

Weaknesses: She is weaker in Magic than the least Crystalborn soul. Weaker in body than the Dwemer, though many are weaker than they. Completely untrained in combat, though this will be resolved in RP.

Battle Style: At the moment, Tsukiko is completely untrained in combat. In all likelihood the training she will receive will be focused on defensive moves to enable escape or those magics most suited towards aiding her profession. She seems to have this difficulty with even thinking of the weapon possibilities in the things around her, for all that even the pins in her hair could be used for combat purposes.

Appearance: Blue hair, deep purple eyes. Looks remarkably feminine, even more than is usual for a Merrow male who are known to be rather androgynous to begin with. This feminine appearance has been further enhanced through the use of shaping magic to give her actual breasts and to further minimize the "adam's apple" which would immediately mark her as having been other than female. Her clothing choices are always feminine in nature; she wouldn't know how to wear masculine clothing if she ever came into possession of it.

Personality: Tsukiko has quite a few emotional issues that she has not resolved. She is the Madwoman's Daughter and she struggles on a daily basis with intense feelings of unworthiness and insufficiency, no matter how skilled she may be. She does, though, have a strange sense of humor that will sometimes peek through at the oddest times. Almost contradictory, though, to this overpowering shame and despair is the fact that she is highly intelligent and exceptionally well trained in the intellectual arts. She also has a sort of fearless determination, at times, when she feels that there are words which must be said. Not foolhardy, but not willfully blind, either.

History: Tsukiko was not born female, she became such later, at least in speech, mannerism, and clothing. It is a peculiarity of Eremaki culture that sometimes this happens, and it is not particularly shameful, or at least not more shameful than other aspects of life in the oriental Nation. As a child Tsukiko was one of a pair of fraternal twins, one a boy and one a girl, who were remarkably similar in appearance, so much so that they could have been identical if not for the biological differences. When they were still small children, Tsukiko's twin sister died and the grief of losing her only daughter drove Tsukiko's mother to a peculiar form of madness.

She dressed her son in her daughter's clothing, referred to him by her name, and told everyone that it was her son who had died, not her daughter.

For Tsukiko's part, it was all very confusing but what can a child do when the parent's will is that this will be? Tsukiko became the dutiful daughter that her mother wished her to be, to the point that she no longer believes that there is any other path for her to follow. To this day she still will not readily admit that the choice to take her sister's place was not her own, nor will she say any word against her mother for the choice.

Unfortunately, the madness of her mother did not stop with Tsukiko's transformation. In truth, the madness might have been influenced by other sources, but nothing that Tsukiko witnessed could make such a supposition certain or refuted. Living in the household of her deceased father's brother was difficult enough on the young child.

Eventually the matter grew until finally, when Tsukiko was nine years of age, she found herself a confused and helpless conscript in the Eremaki "entertainment" industry, a term that covered an incredibly broad spectrum of activities, not all of them involving sex. As it turned out, those like Tsukiko were fairly valuable as entertainers since being female while still male had its advantages to some people. She was lucky. Those who took her from her increasingly unstable mother and possibly worse uncle were not cruel and uncaring brothel owners, but a very prestigious Geisha house. She was also lucky because she proved to be very talented in the areas of music and dance and storytelling, all of vital importance to her new trade.

The training of a new Geisha, though, is a very expensive proposition and Tsukiko is expected to earn the money to repay the House for her training before she is allowed to find a place of her own and make her own way. The matter is something of great importance to Tsukiko, in fact, because in the years since she left the house of her uncle another child has entered it and Tsukiko is fairly desperate to retrieve her young sibling from that poisonous environment.

With his rise to the throne Emperor Kakumei has gone to a great deal of effort to remove as much of the stifling caste system which entrapped much of Eremaki in powerlessness as he could, opening new opportunities for those such as Tsukiko. Though it is still more than she can comprehend.

She cannot go back to being the innocent child she was before her sister died and took the name of her birth with her. She is, for good or ill, an entertainer and trained for that and the freedom that her Emperor dreams of for all of Eremaki is a strange thing to her, strange and uncomfortable. Still, Tsukiko, the Moonchild, is as much the daughter of Eremaki as she is the Madwoman's Daughter. Her Emperor wishes for her to have this freedom, and so she will.

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