TKmobile
New Member
Appearance:Lin-Rei was taught to always smile at a young age. She and her sister Tei-San were daughters of lowly citizens (but certainly not peasants) amongst one of the 12 prefectures of the Blessed Isle, their father a lowly clerical worker and their mother a one-time popular artisan of the stage, each married the other for their riches. When perfect twin girls were born, they were viewed as a viable resource to improve their parents' standing by putting them towards the theatrics and performing arts.
What childhood they had was quickly over taken by pageantry, dancing lessons and tumbling acrobatics within the private lessons under their tutor Garnet Dove, a humorless old bat who was quick with a rod should either girl slip. Through it all, the smile was made of utmost importance. Though Tei-San was the more passionate and graceful, her sister Lin-Rei was the bolder, the stable one able to take to task with little question, and keep the facade of a smile. As they grew older their lessons increased, new contracts with troupes were formed, and their parents profited as they had hoped. Ultimately they were even given basic training in tumbling and the gentler persuasions of martial arts to increase their skills. Through it all, they did what they were told and performed without fail, and were even courted towards higher officials as potential concubines or even courtesans once their beauty had reached it's furthest potential.
Which would have separated them. It became much harder to smile then.
It was this that finally snapped their choker of obedience. Their inseparability had been the defining strength that had allowed them to withstand these hardships and to be pulled apart filled them with more fear than failure ever would have. Not even two decades old, the twins screwed up their courage and tried to escape this new life chosen for them. Sadly, and expectantly, they didn't get very far. They hardly even got out the door. As fate can be particularly cruel, the twins didn't meet with thieves, murderers, or monsters, but a much worse man, one of the suitors for Tei-San. An outcaste dragon blood with an elaborate title, Zin Yuan the "Snake Grasping Hawk", known for cruelty that matched his extensive prowess of martial arts and investigation skills, was inquiring about his future company as the twins took flight and it was pitifully easy for him to pursue. Before the stars were even out, he had them both and promised swift retributions towards Tei-San for her insolence. The promises were so earnest, so frightening that in reaction, the powers of the first age awoke in Lin-Rei and she exalted, catching the Hawk by surprise and cloaking both girls in a veil to escape.
Realizing what one of the twins was, Zin Yuan descended into a half-maddened rage. But no Wyld Hunt was called. Zin Yuan himself reengaged in his own personal hunt and an inexperienced solar burdened by a bewildered sister could only run and hide for so long. Upon their capture, the Hawk chose not to kill the Anathema, though it was well within his rights and his duties. Instead, his plans went much sinister. Imprisoning the girls within his quarters, he and his henchmen went about stirring up an accidental fire that engulfed the home of the girls' parents before he took the twins along back to his estate, leaving them wishing that he had instead killed them.
Now, Zin Yuan had at one time almost been among the potentials and magistrates the Empress had hand picked. But her sudden absence and the many enemies he had already made in his career had stolen his chance, and in fact robbed him of much of his gain. The longer he dallied, the more chances there would be to rob him of more, if not all he had, his life included. With the anathema girl in one hand, and her sister's fate in the other, the growing mad Dragon Blood thought he had the means to regain some of his lost power. Allying himself with a small handful of other outcastes, Lin-Rei was trained to kill, but in a style that Zi Yuan had gleaned from his Wyld Hunt days, one used by anathema. Having developed his own style that would (he thought) dominate the Snake style he taught his captive cobra, he took much delight in having psychological control over Lin-Rei. He didn't even have to beat or punish her much, and why would he, when such threats and punishements against Tei-San worked all the more better? They adapted her and her powers into killing their enemies before they got a chance to strike. While Tei-San appeared in 'public' as Zin's concubine, Lin-Rei was always in the shadows.
Always smiling. Because she had been taught to smile.
Lin was kept in line. If she slowed the slightest hesitation, balked at the order to take a life, Zin Yuan had but to point to the deadly hook swords he kept on the mantle or by his side, threatening to dismember her beloved sister piece by piece with them should she ever so much as send him a defiant eye. And so the assassin smiled. Time began to lose meaning as she went through the motions of poisoning, stabbing, and breaking her targets. There had even been a rare chance when she encountered other Solars, but she would either vanish from their sights, or worse yet when her master knew of them, lead them to a trap. Because she couldn't forsake her sister.
She watched fellow Solars butchered as the price of her sister's safety. Nobody noticed however when she retrieved a choker from the remains of one of them. As she played the part of the killer, graceful and as deadly as a cobra, her sister Tei-San played the part of the polite, timid girl serving Zin Yuan. Until she was killed. Run through, in fact, by a maddened young member of one of the houses who glimpsed Lin-Rei as she dispatched his uncle. No amount of convincing worked to beguile him, that Zin Yuan's concubine was nothing but that, and believing he had found his uncle's killer he did away with her. Zin Yuan did away with him, finally lapsing into true madness, but he didn't last long enough to be upset about it. Lin-Rei emerged from the shadows she was confined in and, forming a picture of those horrible hooked blades she and her sister had been always threatened with, those edged terrors, produced a pair Zin Yuan was unaware of-- a gift from the solars he had killed using Lin-Rei-- and hacked him to pieces.
Slowly. Always, of course, while smiling. The quivering lump of flesh that was her captor had been dispatched. She wanted little more but to lie down by her sister's prone form and wait for someone to take her life, but she hesitated.
After all, Zin Yuan had not been alone in her torment. His allies had fled, but they too were part of this sick equation. It was only fitting, her Lawgiver nature argued, that they and others like them be punished for this affront, and indeed, affronts like these that could be happening to countless other sisters and orphaned children of the sun.
Or so part of her claimed. Having no other knowledge but how to kill, how to slay, and little else going for her, she once more fled into the shadows, later appearing as a lady of artisan skills in public (if at all), but this facade, her real self hidden with a smile, is only lasting long enough for her to hear of or encounter another like the man who ruined her life. And then she will kill them too, and anyone else like them.
Always with a smile. Always.
Lin-Rei is quite the lovely flower, standing around 5'7", and possesses a curved yet equally lithe form, perfect for the dancing and acrobatics she and her sister once performed, and even more suited to the killing arts she's sense mastered. However for a dancer her choice of attire is more conservative than evocative, but fails to entirely hide the gracefulness of her appearance as well. If anything she seems the more alluring for hiding her assets. Her hair is vermilion red, against fair skin, and even pulled up it trails down to the small of her back, hair held in place by a select few pins and clasps. She doesn't wear any jewelry over her fingers but fancies hoop-like bracelets for her ankles and wrists. These seem subject to change position and selection each day but she always displays a choker made of orihalcum laced with light red (but not nearly pink) jade stones around her neck.
