NAME -- Ziggura (aka November Tezzra).

NICKNAMES -- Z, Zig, Zigs, Nov.

RACE -- kuijin*.
AGE -- 33 years.
GENDER -- female.
APPEARANCE --

[humanoid] She has a bony face, though it isn't as sharp with hunger as it had once been, and the same goes for the top half of her body, shaped just like a human's. However, beyond the wrists and hips, it becomes clear that she isn't a woman in the strict sense of the term. Her fingers are much longer than most, the ends bulbous like a bird's feet and tipped with long blunt claws, and her palms have the pebbled texture of chicken skin; her thighs, longer and more slender than most, end in a thin, sharp knee; below that, her leg shortens to half the average, and her feet, ended in three long, clawed toes, are so stretched they replace the missing length - their underside is made of the same strange skin as her palms, worn and calloused with use. Even though she looks tall because of her long legs, she is actually built quite small, with wiry arms and strong calves.
A mop of floppy black hair tops her head, cropped short to stop it getting in the way; part of her thick bangs drops over her right eye, to hide the burned, scarred skin underneath. Her long clothes mostly serve this purpose: keeping those marks of shame, twisted along the whole of her right side, most of her arm and part of her thigh, away from everyone's sight. The rest of her skin is a milky color, kept pale because of Ziggura's hermit-like life on the edge of the woods. Feathery patches grow along her shoulder-blades, down her back and at the base of her neck.
A few of the villagers often thought that she was some sort of foreign princess, hiding from an evil warlord in search of marriage - like in the fairy tales. This is because of her fine features, the thin pointed nose, slender lips, large gray-blue eyes like slivers of sky. The others are dubious, but for a reason Ziggura is glad she finds stupid: her mouth is much too wide, stretched like the ends of a sparrow's - and those who catch a glimpse of those strange teeth, yellow and melded together, are only too eager to agree.
[base] Her base is shaped very much like a crow, with a long, hooked beak and night-dark feathers. However, her hind legs are formed more like a mammal's, similar to her legs in second form (but covered in feathers, with what little skin shows being a pebbled yellow), and she is capable of rearing up on then when in need of a higher stance. Her wings are long and hollow-boned (and, as a result, very fragile), but she can only surf warm updrafts - her body is too heavy to lift from the ground. If she manages to climb a tree and jump off into empty air, however, she usually manages to take to the air and beats her wings to go higher once she stabilizes. While she is on the ground, she uses the two fingers at the joint of her wings as forelegs and knuckles her way around, or simply walks using her hind legs (using this way, however, she quickly grows tired). A thin fan of black tail-feathers grow at her back end.

ADDITIONAL --

• FAMILY (known to be living).
  Maelstrom, sister.
• SOCIAL status.
  Living mostly alone on the outskirts of a human village. Has made herself a reputation as soothsayer, healer and huntress for its people.
• clothes, weapons, etc.
  Currently carrying, on her or in her haversack: a loose, long-sleeved linen blouse the color of cream; a thin brown leather jacket with chain mail on the inside (she had it forged by the village smith); a wide buckled belt, made of brown leather as well; a pair of deerskin pants, the fur on the inside, baggy to hide her strange legs; soft leather moccasins, padded with rabbit skins; a handful of brass bangles, or feather-and-bead ornaments.
  Weapons: a single iron dagger with a sharply curved blade, its oaken hilt wrapped in leather. Unnamed. Why name a dagger? Zig also possesses a simple bone carving knife.

HISTORY --

She wasn't special.
She wasn't exceptional.
She was just born where she shouldn't have been.

Ziggura's mother was a proud, reckless thing, braving every danger in her path only to show she was tough enough to survive them all. When she was pregnant with Zig, her other daughter Maelstrom already sprinting beside her, she settled in a cave right beside a human city, her heart set on showing the two little scraps she'd be rearing how to survive in the harshest situations - and that meant being near one of their most dangerous enemies. Men were fickle, stupid things, beasts that came running after what scared them with axes, with swords and brands of fire instead of running away somewhere else. They had no common sense, no instinct for survival; that was what made them so unpredictable.
Both Maelstrom and her mother were big, muscled kuijin, big as bears with limbs like tree trunks - Ziggura, on the other hand, was a scrawny excuse for a fledgling. Her feathers wouldn't even grow in until she'd reached fifteen years of age, rendering her as vulnerable as a worm in her base form (the only form she could use for the first years of her life). She had to learn even faster how to change into something that somewhat resembled their human neighbors - and she had to get it right. While her sister only ever bothered with standing on her hind legs and toning her beak down to a shape close to that of a human nose, hiding the rest with flowing robes and masks of bone, she needed to morph the lines of her face, make her new-grown feathers disappear, change her skin to the humans' common milk-smooth texture, grow hair from a scalp she had to create... so many things to master in the time most kuijin took to only begin their transformation. While Maelstrom, at twenty-two years was incapable of blending in without smothering her feathered form in swathes of fabric, Ziggura could strut through the city in long shirts and pants at only ten.
Yet that meant she wasn't careful. Too confident in her skill, she often forgot parts of her disguise and needed to get away from tight spots in a hurry. Either the villagers would catch a glimpse of her deformed feet, or they might feel her blunt claws through the thin fabric of a tunic sleeve; in any case, she needed to leave as quick as her strange legs could take her, and figure out an excuse for the next time she appeared. Usually she got through everything, dashing off as she remembered something important - "S'ry, ah gotta go, mah mum's wantin' me ta do a whole heapa stuff!" - or simply garbling a lie on the spot... but life always brings around something you can't go round.
It was market day. Not every village had a market, but this was a main human settlement, and they gathered in crowds to flaunt their wares. Ziggura had nothing to sell, but a list as long as the world is wide of things she was supposed to buy. Apples to dry, venison, cloth, thread, needles, a new pan to replace their broken one, eggs, flour... on it went. By the time she was done, the basket she'd borrowed from an old lady at the edge of the city weighed like a block of lead on the end of her arm. Carrying it with both arms in front of her wouldn't be any better - the tough thing would bounce against her legs, and she'd get bruises like ink stains all over them. So she decided to heave it up and set it squarely against her belly, making it much easier for walking (she'd been blessed with a flat chest, thank the gods).
And to stop the basket slipping, she hitched up her sleeves - forgetting her hands.
At first, there wasn't much: a gasp, a pointing finger, a low growl of fear and anger. Then the cries spread through the crowd, and Ziggura found herself at the meeting point of so many eyes she wouldn't even dare count them. She froze for a single second.
The morph was the fastest she'd ever done; in a few seconds, she'd gone from pale-skinned stranger to black-feathered beast, bounding like a grasshopper with her willowy legs - and behind her, like a gathering storm cloud, there came the outrage, the fury, the scythes and the axes.
Ziggura ran like she never had before. The forest was a blur around her, a whirl of green, brown and the blue of the sky. She leaped forward, wing claws latching onto the rough bark of a tree, and scrambled upward as quick as she could. Then a jump, her wings spreading - she was off. The wind whipped past her, ruffling the feathers along her back. She beat harder, wings straining to bear her, and crashed through the pines' flimsy branches into noon sunlight. Here she had freedom, as much space as she needed. But still she needed to flee. Now they had arrows, they had throwing spears, and they were lurching forward with all the ferocity of a starved monster. Grim-faced, hind legs stretched out behind her so they wouldn't be in the way, Ziggura flew.
She stopped at the drop of night, when the sun was only a sliver of orange on the horizon, painting the sky with blood - blood she knew she could've lost if she hadn't reacted any faster. Panting, her every limb burning with the terrible effort, Ziggura dropped to the ground and lay there. Half in, half out of consciousness. Tongue lolling from her curved beak. Her heart beating a drumroll inside her. Night had settled its cold fist on the land, crushing the icy breath out of her, drifting beneath her feathers. She needed a fire. Weary, eyes part closed and sight blurry, she went to work.
Her mother had taught her how to do things even when she felt too tired to lift a single claw. She drifted off into her thoughts, ignoring the pain of her screaming muscles, mechanically gathering wood and setting it into a pattern on the ground. She clumsily drew tinder and flint from her satchel - the rest of her clothes had been ruined during the transformation, but the little bag was still there, thankfully intact. Sparks, smoke, a flame - fire.
Her mind blacked out. She could still smell the smoky scent of burning wood, see the flames slowly licking at the loam beneath them, hear the crackle of the branches, the fizz of drying leaves... feel the growing furnace before her. But she couldn't think. She couldn't make the connection between the bright, dancing tongues of red and orange, terrestrial sunlight, and the harsh odor of singed feathers. She couldn't find out just why her side was hurting so much. Why her arm was suddenly glowing with unnatural light. Why her face felt as though the fire had spread inside her head.
She was hurting.
She was glowing - no, blazing.
She was burning.
She didn't hear her own shrieks echo through the trees, couldn't tell how suddenly she found herself in the frigid rushing of a river, how she dragged herself onto the bank, her skin blistered and cracked, violently sick, how she even drifted off to sleep. She only knew that she woke up, and that she was broken.
"Mother..."
The voice was rough, grating, smothered with smoke. It was hers.
"Mother... Maelstrom..."
And there was no answer.

Ziggura wept that morning. She slept, and wept again. Then she stood, and she morphed, and she walked.
It was easier when she found a village. The people cared for her, a poor wild thing in deerskin clothes, refusing to leave the safety of her hanging sleeves, of the tunic legs she dragged around. Her every feature was hidden in the skins of animals she'd hunted. She would not be making that mistake again.
For years she only traveled, fighting in arenas to gain money, then blowing it all in a bar on drinks she knew she couldn't take. She'd find herself in an alley, head banging, feet hurting, and walk away. She lived not like a ghost, no, neither like one wishing to die. She only lived. Did things she hadn't done. Saw things she hadn't seen.
And things she'd seen as well.
She came across her sister in the street one afternoon - there was no mistaking that mountain of gray, black and brown cloth, the oil-stained mask, the lurching gait. Yet Maelstrom seemed different. Ziggura silently crept away, and had left the city by the next day. Only a year later, she settled by that small village, at the edge of the woods, and took a new name. Once she had been Ziggura, the kuijin; then she was November Tezzra, soothsayer and healer for the people she lived beside.

NOTES.
* A kuijin is supposedly a creature of human mythology**. Every kuijin is born with a soul animal in the stead of its spirit (this soul animal may be anything at all, from rats to eagles to dragons). The younger ones often only use one form: their base, the one which most resembles their soul animal. As they become older, they learn to take on a more humanoid shape, though they keep certain traits of their soul animal (the kuijin usually choose a humanoid shape to blend in with the most common creature on planet Earth, though they've been known to take on other shapes if they try to live with other animals). Only ancient kuijin learn to take on a shape almost exactly like a human, keeping their in-between and base shapes. Kuijin can lay eggs, give birth to live young, whatever fits their soul animal. Common animals come up more frequently than rare ones. Kuijin also live for quite a long time compared to humans, which means that middle-age for them is around sixty years.
Kuijin are often thought to be demons for their animal-like traits, and so are chased down and killed if discovered. The humans on their planet are still on the end of the medieval age.
Also, it is usually seen as incorrect in the kuijin society to mate with one whose soul animal is not similar to yours (for example, two kuijin with feline souls, say tiger and lion). Kuijin resulting of inter-soul mating are called halfies, or hybrid if their species cannot even be recognized. Kuijin can also mate with other animals (humans as well), though this is seen as the utmost insult to the species.
** Not really. I made it up.

Ooo didn't know you RP'd too.

I like the originality in your race and the detail in what shes carrying. ill just have to see when you're done with your history and appearance however.

I really like this BIO. It's one of our best.
I'm so happy I adopted joo. <33

Thank you <33 I've finished appearance, and I'm going on to history now.
[I'll take care of spelling mistakes or possible word omission once I'm finished.]

Ziggura, you you alot that thing (<<3), eh?
Well, here's a smiley


Fer joo.

Cute x33 But personally, I've always preferred text to images. Sorry. :|

I think a revolution is upon us.

No, really.

Two great RPers in five months. I think we may have hope yet.


At any rate, enough praising.

I suppose you've had years of experience; Normally one wouldn't care to make more then two paragraphs of background, but apparently there are many exceptions. Really hope to see you in RPG (And at this rate, RBP, although it's dead).

xDDDDDDD
Sorry, I laugh in the strangest situations.

Well, you got that right - I now have around three years of roleplaying under my belt, mainly cats and wolves. Hope that won't deteriorate my two-legged roleplaying. <33
I've begun roleplaying! In "A friendly fight", begun by CnP. Oh, by the way, what does RPB stand for?

It is the "pro" section of RP; but its mostly inactive right now.

I also have been rping that long, ive been sticking to one characters universe and drawing upon it.. still got so many profiles to post up..

OKAI, thanks <33
What sorta universe d'you usually roleplay in? Human? Fantasy?

I'm guessing, furry?

No one'll really care here as you don't start trying to spread it or anything.

That aside, I think you started out decently; Best to go with something minor for now so we can see your skills.

Ive role played all kinds with a slight preference for a Renaissance-ish age, minor gun use, still mostly fantasy. Any creature or races still fit in.

Is that section hidden now? If so, why?

You don't get to see our greatness.

Well, I enjoyed reading Gantz, but I guess that's that.