Sasha Rivello [Human]

Sasha Rivello
Iron Fist


General

Race: Human
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Class: Warrior
Occupation: Hunter/Bodyguard/Mercenary

Personal

Appearance

Sasha is a girl in her late teens with long, voluminous golden blonde hair which reaches down to her hips with long bangs and a fringe that frame her face and covers her forehead respectively. Her eyes are unusual in coloration, at a glance you could easily call them blue but upon closer inspection they appear closer to a pale purple or lilac colour.

With a height of 5’ 8” Sasha is a touch above average for her age and gender. Her shoulders are broad but the rest of her build is distinctly feminine, her figure slim around the waist, curvy along the line of the hips and her chest and her arms are slender.

This only serves to mask the muscle she has built up over the years however and in places you can see signs of the toned, athletic physique beneath her pale skin. Her stomach is flat and defined and her shoulders, when bared, look strong and sturdy. Corded muscles become visible in other places as well when she exerts any real effort, especially in her arms.

Sasha’s choice in clothing is usually more revealing than what most people would call proper. Her shirts are tops are usually low cut to reveal her ample bosom and she is not adverse to revealing her upper arms and shoulders as well. She prefers shorts and skirts to clothing which fully clothe her legs as well, finding that style too restrictive to her movements, though the lower half of her legs are usually covered by leather boots up to the knee.

Personality

Sasha is a spirited person who doesn’t let much in life get her down; she has a very relaxed and upbeat personality and is usually cheerful whatever the situation. She is an unabashed tomboy with a complete and utter lack of what one might call ladylike manners and is shortcoming on formality, tact or decorum to boot; her small community upbringing, in which everyone knew everybody and your neighbours were basically your family, means she acts in an overly familiar way with everyone she meets, whether they be simple peasants or high-born nobles.

She is an active person, energetic and lively, and seeks out physical activity where she can. She likes fighting, perhaps a little too much, and her desire to be a warrior and a hero is more for her own personal enjoyment than it is to help people or be altruistic. She is confident in her own abilities and this tends to lead to reckless behaviour, especially if she estimates that the current threat doesn’t match up to her perceived skill level. She becomes more serious when faced with greater dangers but Sasha has not always been the best judge of such things, her confidence sometimes bordering on arrogance.

Sasha has a straightforward approach to most situations, be they social or combative, and her usual course of action is to boldly march towards whatever her goal is at the time. She is not one to think her actions through or consider the consequences and she puts more stock in instinct and improvisation than in strategy, stealth or subtlety.

For all that she is blunt, occasionally arrogant and sometime inconsiderate however Sasha has a big heart and a caring personality. She is very sociable and enjoys meeting new people and engaging them in conversation; she is genuinely interested in getting to know them.

Sasha also has a nurturing side which displays itself from time to time as she can’t help but be concerned when somebody she knows has a problem or shows signs of distress, nor can she help intruding on that problem in the form of advice or a helping hand, whether that help is wanted or not. This is especially prevalent when around people younger than, or those who she perceives as being younger than her, as she can’t help but take on a “big sister” role around them.

She is quite empathetic and is perhaps far too susceptible to having her heartstrings tugged. She is a sucker for a sob story and as Sasha has not seen much of the world yet, or met many people, she has a naivety that lets her view the world through rose-tinted glasses and see the best in people.

History

Sasha was born in the city-state of Andor but she was not raised there. Her father, Callum, was a member of the city guard while her mother Sophia worked in a bakery; while still young, barely three years old, her father was injured in the course of his duties, a wounded shoulder that left him with limited use of his right arm, and was forced into an early retirement.

Money became a concern for the family following the loss of one source of income and it soon became apparent that either Callum would need to find work soon or they would need to leave the city and a place to live that wouldn’t be as expensive.

Around this time there was talk of an expedition to form a new township in the as yet sparsely settled Windy Plains region as a potential rest stop for travelling merchants and they were looking for volunteers. As a baker Sasha’s mother was readily accepted and a former guardsman, even wounded as he was, was a welcome addition as well. The couple were hesitant about travelling with a young child but the expedition’s offer to essentially pay to relocate and house them was too enticing to pass up.

Sasha spent most of her life living in this newly settled town in the Windy Plains and barely remembers the time she spent in the city as a child. She was the only child in the township for a few years, but since her father was mostly homebound she was rarely lonely and had a strong bond with her father as a result. More children came in time, either born in the fledgling settlement or as part of relocating families, but Sasha was always the eldest of the youngest by a few years.

As the years went by Sasha’s family became a fixture of the small settlement, her mother running the small bakery and her father, now mostly recovered though his arm would never be the same, serving as chief of the tiny town militia as the only member with any real experience.

Sasha meanwhile had essentially become “big sister” to the half dozen or so smaller children who resided in the town with her. She was mostly responsible, in her mind, for keeping an eye on them and keeping them out of trouble, a responsibility she took to with gusto but which was not always met with success.

She still spent much time with her father, given that his role was still mostly advisory and the militia itself had little more to do than keep the peace in a town that still wasn’t on most maps.

In their time together he mostly told her stories he himself had heard as a child, stories of heroes and stories of great deeds; the same sort of story that any child growing up in Terra Heroum would hear. Mixed in with these were stories of his time in the city guard which, while mostly uneventful, did contain the odd good tale and his eyes always took on a wistful look when he told them.

These stories all resonated with Sasha, because it was her father who was telling them and because they all sounded so exciting. Like many children must have when hearing those same stories she wanted to become like them, to have those adventures and see the things they saw, do the things they did. One day, after one of her favourite stories – Hero of the Shield, Bagan, because he stopped a dragon all by himself – she asker her father to teach her how to fight. He didn’t even hesitate to refuse her, because she was too young and because no daughter of his would get herself killed trying to become a hero.

She persisted however, for years she persisted, and for years he refused. And for years she attempted to train herself in secret anyway, spying on and copying the physical exercises she saw her father leading the militia in, the same ones he had gone through as a recruit, because heroes needed to be strong. Even thought they were difficult at first she persisted, because she was determined, and over time they became easier.

When her father eventually caught her, as was inevitable, she had advanced to the point of trying to copy the sword exercises she had seen with a stick in the space behind their small home. She had found it incredibly difficult at first, trying to mimic their movements, and she was sure she was doing it wrong but she couldn’t ask for any help because her father would only say no and then make her spot and the other guards would just tell her father. The “weapon” felt unnatural in her hands and she couldn’t get it to move the way she wanted. At one point the stick became unbalanced and nearly swung back and hit her in the head and she flung it to the ground in a fit of frustration.

Sasha looked up then and saw her father staring at her. She didn’t breathe for long seconds then, awaiting his reaction, waiting for the anger or the disappointment. Instead she saw only the strangest expression on his face, almost like tiredness and resignation.

To her surprise he told her to pick up the stick again and began correcting her stance and posture.

The next half year was spent trying to undo the self taught technique that Sasha had been working on and to teach her the proper way to use a weapon. Having to knock down the foundation she had pieced together and then built it up again. Whatever reluctance Callum had had about teaching Sasha to fight was apparently gone, even though he still didn’t seem happy about it he apparently took the point of view that if she was going to try to learn anyway he might as well teach her right.

He even began to include her in the training sessions he held for the militia. She was training alongside men ranging from a few years older than her to those twice her age, she was outclassed in terms of strength, size and experience but she couldn’t be happier to finally have her father teach her.

Sasha seemed to have a natural talent for fighting that surprised both her and Callum; there was a natural grace to her movements and the physical training she did, for what it was, had had some positive effects that were only reinforced when her father guided them.

Ultimately however the sword proved a failure and was abandoned. Despite the months of practice Sasha could never quite get the feel for it and even as she did steadily improve she could just tell it wasn’t the right weapon for her. The spear, if anything, was even worse and she struggled to even hold the point steady. Axes were far too heavy for her as well and she didn’t even attempt to use a bow.

In place of weapons training her father sought to teach her basic hand-to-hand instead. Sasha was despondent at first, a rare occurrence with her, and didn’t see the point. Once she actually tried some of the moves her father was suggesting to her however, they clicked in a way that no weapon had. Without the weight of a weapon she could move around much easier, without a weapon to think about she could focus on moving her body instead and she swung a fist that was now accustomed to holding a sword while holding nothing at all, she felt so light she imagined she wasn’t even touching the ground.

Her training continued for two more years without her ever picking up another weapon. She learned how to fight with just her hands, she learned how to deal with various weapons using nothing but her own fists and over time and with careful tutelage she became the best fighter in her small town.

When the time came for Sasha to leave, as she had always planned to do and had always readily told people she planned to do, it was harder for her to let go than she thought it would be. Her little slice of the world was all she knew, its residents the only people she remembered. Before she was to go her father handed her a gift, a pair of metal gauntlets fashioned by the town’s only blacksmith specifically for her.

When her father bartered with a travelling merchant to give her passage to one of the major city-states she had to force herself to get on the cart, to not jump off as her home disappeared into the distance.

She was finally on her way. She didn’t know what to expect.

Extra

Other Information

OOC Name

King

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An advertisement on another forum I frequent.

Face Claim

RWBY, Yang Xiao Long, Sasha Rivello