Aura Kaze – Cloud-step Rogue

Privileged would be the word any Elemi commoner might use to describe Aura Kaze’s childhood. Aura felt little attachment to her Untouched father, who was but an ordinary human risen to higher ranks through the marriage to her mother. Her mother, the eldest daughter of the Kaze Clan, held great authority within the Air Council in Beke’s Tribunal Council. Always were matronly duties forced upon Aura in her childhood teachings: statecraft, speechcraft, courtcraft and sword fighting were all she knew from early as she could remember.

In a happen-chance scenario where she fled her sword fighting instructor in a fit of rage, she stumbled upon a group of young Elemi of mixed elemental origins, urchins playing pretend Knights and Knaves on the street. To see young Aura, armed with a real (but blunted) training sword left them in awe. Though knowing better than to pester her with questions and dote on her, they simply invited her to their game. To just be included with other children, unimportant and one of many in an exhilarating game completely new to her. She returned home, hours later, wide-grinned, battered and bruised after guards failed to find her in their own search since her disappearance.

Thus the group of street ruffians quickly became her closest friends, though as they grew older their antics changed from tumultuous rough and tumble games to darker streaks. Many fell in with petty-crime gangs and the friend group became divided. After such division the old childhood friends would clash, and in one such occasion Aura and her petty group had taken to burgle the same antique store as some of their old friends in a rival gang, on the same night. When the two came across each other in the middle of the store (having entered from separate ends of the shop) a scuffle broke loose. Dozens of priceless items were destroyed in the scuffle and one blood soaked into the rugs of the store. It didn’t take long for the guards to hear the racket. When Aura was brought before her parents they were long past the point of yelling.

Her punishment instead was exile for the great shame she had brought to her family. To the Wind Temples of Szelvihar she was sent, a few days’ ride North of Beke in the towering mountains that drew the border between Abunae and Abunos. Though inert at first, she eventually gave way to the monastic teachings in the temples after nearly a year away from home. After four she had grown to love their teachings, the freedom and discipline they held was truly what she felt she always needed. Her expert martial skills combined with her subtle nature made her a first choice for a guard placement with Zaus, the Lightning Chimera. There she has watched over him for many months, though uneventful it has given her time to reflect and prepare herself for her return to Beke at the end of her exile, only months away.