Ekahi Darktail

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Ekahi Darktail[break]
A.K.A. Little Paw

[attr="class","appsubname"]a new path to be carved

[attr="class","appheading"]GENERAL INFORMATION

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[attr="class","appheading"]PERSONALITY

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- Playful: Playful is probably not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of an assassin. Ekahi, though, is not a typical assassin. She is, after all, still a child, and despite all that the panthro has gone through she has retained the same brimming enthusiasm and energy that characterized her earliest years. The cub is fun-loving, mischievous, bright and cheerful, and were it not for the collection of weaponry strapped to her body little would seem amiss for the 15-year-old beastfolk. Ekahi has simply kept the same wonder and love of life that many children have, despite, or maybe because of, all that she has faced in her past.[break][break]

- Cunning: While many might dismiss Ekahi’s enthusiasm as naivety, in truth, hidden behind her laughter and games is the same cunningness that the felinus are known for. It was this budding cleverness which allowed the panthro to survive her time at the Little Palace, and which Alten would recognize and further train in his apprentice. Ekahi is quick thinking, capable of memorizing details, and with a childlike imagination that has never quite left her, quite creative in coming up with solutions to dilemmas that she might face. It’s true that the panthro has never had a formal education and lacks a great deal of knowledge about the world around her, but it’s street smarts, not book smarts, which have ensured Ekahi’s survival as both an orphan and an assassin. [break][break]

- Calm: The truth of the matter is that there is a lot in the world that Ekahi could be mad about, but not only is the panthro cunning, she is also quite coolheaded when faced with a challenge or disaster. After dealing with everything from being orphaned to torture to murder in her short life there is little that the cub has not seen before, and she has learned through experience, necessity, and from her mentor that panic and anger solve little in the end. Where most children would run at the face of danger Ekahi is more than willing to face it, and will do so with a cool confidence only befit of one who has faced death before.[break][break]

- Childish: Ekahi is an assassin, a good one at that, but at the end of the day she is still only a child, and it frequently shows. Even with all that she has been through the panthro still keeps a carefree and enthusiastic attitude, and while this leads to her cheerfulness, it also leads to the cub acting downright childish and naïve at times. It’s not uncommon for Ekahi to set challenges for herself or even play games while in the middle of a contract, and she also has a tendency to draw over any surface she can lay her paws on, much to the annoyance of nearly everyone at the Shroud sanctuary. The fact is that Ekahi was deprived of a large portion of her childhood, and has in some way made up for it by never quite growing older. She can be annoying, intrusive, stubborn, and ignorant like many other kids, with the only difference being that her whining is accompanied with deadly assassination skills.[break][break]

- Manipulative: Ekahi is young, small, and acts like a child, and it’s something that she has been taught to use to her advantage by her mentor. The panthro has become skilled at using her appearance and personality to deceive and trick others around her, and while this can sometimes come in the form of innocent pranks and jokes, the truth of the matter is that Ekahi is manipulative. She has no issue lying her way out of a situation or feigning innocence, and Alten taught the cub that blackmail and threats can be as powerful as any dagger. The panthro has simply been told that the ends justify the means, and she has no issue how sharp her dagger, or her tongue, needs to be to get to her goals. [break][break]

- Apathetic: The panthro’s playful attitude might make some think that she made it through her life so far with no lasting damage, but that could not be farther from the truth. Instead, having witnessed her parents being taken from her, facing the abuse she had suffered at the Little Palace, and then being thrown into the world of murder has made Ekahi withdrawn from the world around her. The cub is not necessarily sadistic, she derives no pleasure from watching others suffer, but neither does she share the same kind of empathy or concern that others have. To her things which others would see as abhorrent, blood, death, violence, etc., are a normal part of everyday life, and the panthro hardly bats an eye when faced with them. She’s an assassin, it’s the only life she’s known since escaping the orphanage, and it’s defined who she is. At the end of the day she kills people for money, and child or not, Ekahi has seen enough pain in her life to know that she hardly desires allowing more of it in.

[attr="class","appheading"]APPEARANCE

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At first glance Ekahi has a rather unimposing figure. Being still young and standing at a mere height of 4’11” she is dwarfed by most around her and, coupled with a lithe body, the panthro can easily become lost in a crowd. As a beastfolk, and specifically as a panthro, Ekahi appears akin to an anthropomorphic leopard, in particular a clouded leopard. Most of the fur covering her body is light gray in color, save for an “underbelly” of white fur from under her chin and inner neck to the inside of her hands down to the inner portion of her thighs. Large black spots dot the gray portion from her tail to her neck and arms, with finer dots and lines of black in and around her eyes and mouth. The tip of Ekahi’s long tail as well as her slender ears are also entirely black. The panthro has white whiskers and a pink nose, while her feline eyes are pale blue in color. The assassin has no tattoos or unique markings on her body. She does, however, have several scars, with the first being a collection of burn marks along her back from her days at the orphanage. The panthro’s left ear also appears mangled with a large tear partway down, the result of a botched assassination early in her career.[break][break]

Being an assassin Ekahi prefers durable and tight fitting clothing in dark colors to compliment her occupation. Over her upper body the panthro wears a midnight blue wool tunic which extends from the middle of her biceps down to just below her waist. The edges of the garment as well as a band around her waist are dyed black, and the tunic is tucked into a pair of black wool pants. Both garments are rather skintight to not restrict movement. While she relies mostly on remaining undetected to stay safe, Ekahi also wears a set of hardened black leather armor to stave off minor blows. This includes a sleeveless jerkin that covers her upper body and extends down to the middle of her thighs. The armor is held up by a black leather belt wrapped around the panthro’s waist and fastened in place by a steel buckle, while a similarly fashioned bandolier extends across the jerkin from Ekhai’s left shoulder down to her right side.[break][break]

Over her shoulders and overlapping the jerkin are a pair of leather pauldrons. Each pauldron is composed of a single larger and rounded plate covering Ekahi’s shoulder, while smaller overlapping plates run down to just above her elbow. Beneath these a pair of vambraces protect the assassin’s lower arms. The vambraces are oval-shaped, with one end jutting out slightly over Ekahi’s elbow, while the other end rests over the back of her hand. Finally, completing the set are a pair of boots which cover the lower two-thirds of Ekahi’s shins and are fastened shut with a pair of steel buckles each, as well as a pair of black leather fingerless gloves which rest underneath her vambraces. Over this Ekahi wears a midnight blue cloak edged in black which has a low-hanging hood, which altogether is capable of concealing her armor and gear as well as a large portion of her face. Last but not least, and perhaps the assassin’s most prized possession, is a black leather collar wrapped around her neck. The collar is fastened in the back with a steel clasp while attached to the front is a small silver figurine in the shape of a feline paw print.[break][break]

The main weapon which Ekahi carries is a custom-made crossbow. Crafted in Artavia and gifted to Ekahi by her mentor, the body of the weapon is made of a long piece of dark ironwood reinforced with thin iron plates, together giving the weapon strength and stability. The tiller of the crossbow however is detached from the main body and foldable, which allows the assassin to carry the weapon to unconventional (and hard to reach) firing positions. The bowstave and firing mechanism of the crossbow are made of steel and the weapon also includes a crank mechanism for pulling the string back, to compensate for the large draw weight needed. Finally, the crossbow has a set of foldable metal sights and a leather sling which Ekahi uses to carry the weapon over her back. Altogether, while not the quickest firing crossbow, the weapon’s high draw weight and long length make it powerful and accurate, allowing the assassin to make the first shot on her target count.[break][break]

Along with the crossbow the panthro carries a small quiver of bolts fastened to the back of her belt. The quiver itself is made of black leather crafted to form several smaller compartments, with each compartment being padded on the inside with fur. While restricting the number of bolts Ekahi can carry the quiver ensures that each bolt she does carry is securely kept from moving, preventing the bolts from rattling or falling out and giving away her position. The bolts themselves are typically identical and made of steel, though depending on the nature of the contract or the wishes of her contact, these can be swapped out for more specialized ones.[break][break]

Aside from her crossbow the assassin carries a few additional weapons in the off chance she’s discovered and the job turns messy. Her first backup weapons are a set of identical steel daggers. Each dagger has a straight double-edged blade that is thick at its base and then tapers off to a fine point, with a single ridge running down the middle on each side. The blade is connected to a shallow U-shaped metal guard which in turn is connected to a handle wrapped in worn black leather. Finally, the pommel of each dagger is a thin circle of metal, with the sunken center of the pommels being crudely carved in the likeness of a feline eye. Each dagger is kept in a black leather sheath capped on both ends in steel, with the sheaths being strapped to the outside of each of her thighs. The panthro also carries a set of six steel throwing knives. The knives are each made of a single piece of metal with a thin straight double-edged blade on one end and a handle wrapped in black leather chord on the other, with a small circular pommel ending each weapon. The knives are kept lined up and strapped along the bandolier Ekahi wears across her chest.

[attr="class","appheading"]HISTORY

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Ekahi Darktail was born 15 years ago in the slums of one of the decrepit cities in the region of Muerte. She was the daughter and only child to two panthro parents, her father Mobar and her mother Nahasi, who both worked as common laborers. The pair would take whatever odd job would hire them and earn pennies and insults for their time, a common situation for many beastfolk in Muerte, and one which meant that the Darktail family largely lived in squalid conditions. However, despite this, Ekahi’s first few years of life were happy ones. Both Mobar and Nahasi were loving parents who did their best to raise their daughter, and the young panthro grew to be a cheerful and energetic cub, playing games with the other beastfolk children in her neighborhood and frequently climbing and swinging from nearby buildings, much to the annoyance of their neighbors. Above all though Ekahi came to love drawing. The young panthro’s imagination was vibrant and she would seek out whatever she could find, be it charcoal, mud, or even just her claws, to bring them to life, and no wall or tree was safe from becoming young Ekahi’s canvas.[break][break]

Things would drastically change when Ekahi was 5 years of age, however. For all his virtues as a parent Mobar had taken to gambling some years before his daughter had been born, and try as he might to kick the habit after Ekahi came to him, the older panthro found himself still frequenting the many gambling dens of the slums. And his luck, like his financial situation, were lackluster. So it was that over the years Mobar accrued a substantial gambling debt, and one which he had no hope of ever paying off. Eventually the owners of the gambling dens, an infamous gang which controlled much of the surrounding slums, sought to collect, and it was not taken lightly when all they found was a half-starved beastfolk and his family. It would be only a few days later when, deciding to make an example out of the family, armed thugs would return to the family’s shack in the dead of night. Mobar and Nahasi had only enough time to hide a young Ekahi under the floorboards and make her promise to remain still, no matter what happened, when the door was broken down and the men were upon them. And all Ekahi could do was listen to the sound of muffled thuds and her mother’s scream before all went silent in the house, and that night would be the last time the panthro ever saw any trace of her parents.[break][break]

Ekahi would be discovered the following morning when some of the nearby families investigated the home following the disturbance, and it was only with a fair bit of struggle that they managed to pry the panthro from her hiding spot, the cub all the while insisting that her parents would come back for her. But they knew better. What had happened to Ekahi’s parents was not uncommon for the beastfolk, but with many of them barely able to feed their own kids as it were, in the end they would be unable to raise the panthro themselves. Instead, Ekahi was taken to an orphanage in another nearby slum, a place called the Little Palace, where they hoped she would be able to move on from what had happened to her parents. That, and maybe even get a happy life in the end.[break][break]

Or so they hoped. Though the intention had been good, in the end Ekahi would spend a little under a year at the Little Palace, and it would come to be the worst year of her life. With no such institutions in the slum she had been raised in the panthro had been taken to another area of the city largely devoid of other beastfolk, and she would find herself without another of her kind in the orphanage. And it was from the start that she would face nothing but seclusion and ridicule from the other children as a result. Many of them had never even seen a beastfolk after spending most or all their lives in the orphanage, and to them Ekahi was little more than a feral animal, something to fear or even amuse themselves with. Most wanted nothing to do with the panthro and avoided her as much as possible, while others actively bullied the cub and made sure she felt as little at home as possible. The owners of the orphanage, however, were the worst. While the kids acted largely in ignorance it became apparent that the caretakers of the Little Palace openly abhorred the beastfolk, and they had taken in Ekahi for little more reason than to save face. Once the door had been closed the panthro faced nothing but abuse, being given only the bare minimum to survive and with the owners even actively encouraging the other kids to treat her as more a pet than a sentient being, and facing harsh punishments for even the slightest of wrongs. A favorite of the caretakers would become prodding the cub with a red-hot fire iron among other things, and it was from this that Ekahi would gain the prominent burn marks along her back.[break][break]

As the months passed in the orphanage, and faced with such abuse, the once cheerful and energetic cub would become more and more detached from what was around her. Gone was Ekahi’s vibrant enthusiasm and the playfulness she had been known for, and instead the panthro would now spend most of her days simply sitting alone in the dark of her room, trying to avoid any other living soul in an attempt to forget her pain and live each day as it came. But even then, the one thing that did not change was her love of pictures. However, rather than a source of imagination, Ekahi’s drawings would now become a coping mechanism for the panthro. It was through simple claw scratches on the walls and floorboards hidden under her bed that the cub recreated her old life, retracing old figures which she remembered from her home, and even creating imaginary memories between her and her parents. The other thing which the orphanage revealed in Ekahi was a natural cunningness. Though born through necessity it became clear to those who bothered to look that the young panthro was cleverer than she let on, and not only was she able to hide her imaginary world, but Ekahi also became more and more skilled at avoiding the other children and hiding from the caretakers, and from getting away with stealing scraps of food and other little baubles. In this way the panthro was able to survive her time at the orphanage, though it would be a time that would change her for the rest of her days.[break][break]

What little luck Ekahi had, however, would run out before long, and it was near the end of her year at the orphanage that the caretakers discovered the cub’s stash, and what more, the collection of markings she had made hidden underneath her bed. And they were furious. Ekahi could only delay the inevitable as she tried to run and hide, and by day’s end the panthro would be caught and beaten nearly to death for what she had done and given some of her deepest scars and burns. But what scared Ekahi even more were the bitter promises of the future which the caretakers made. Even as young as she was, but with how clever and mature she had become, it would be that day that the panthro would realize that staying at the orphanage would mean little more than her death. And so she decided to escape. It was several days later when Ekahi found an opportunity, and using her small size and the same dexterity she had once used to swing from rooftop to rooftop, the cub squeezed and climbed her way up and out the orphanage chimney. By the end she was covered in soot, badly burned by the still smoldering ashes in the fireplace, and alone, but in that moment the panthro had managed to escape the nightmare her life had become.[break][break]

For the next several weeks Ekahi would do nothing more than wander the streets of the slum. Still only 6-years-old the cub could only drift from alleyway to alleyway, scraping together what little food and shelter she could find, and all the while avoiding all other manner of life out of fear. And she would grow weak. Untreated Ekahi’s wounds began to grow infected before long, and as sickness set in the panthro became less and less able to care for herself, or even move at all. In the end the cub could only lie down in the refuse of some secluded corner of the slum, and it would have likely been her grave had all luck forsaken her. But it had not. It was in that secluded corner that she would be discovered by a human man, by then only a limp and feverish pile of fur, and it would be that same man who would take Ekahi to his inn room, and there nurse the beastfolk child back to health until she awoke again. What relief Ekahi might have felt however at being saved was at first swept away by fear, not knowing the man’s intentions and even worse, thinking that he might have been sent to take her back to the orphanage. This was not true, though, and as the days passed the panthro faced something she had not known for some time. Genuine care.[break][break]

In fact, once she had fully recovered, the man, who introduced himself to the panthro as Alten, would end up adopting the orphaned cub and taking her under his wing. And so it was that once Ekahi was well enough to move again she found herself not just leaving the city she had been raised in, but Muerte altogether, as the man smuggled her out of the land and into the neighboring kingdom of Dirys, a place the panthro would end up calling home for years to come. It was in Dirys that she would be raised by Alten for the majority of her childhood, and it was also in Dirys that she would learn who, or rather what, the man who adopted her was. A freelance assassin. In fact, it had been just after completing a contract and fleeing the scene through the alleyways that the man had come across Ekahi, and now that they were both away from Muerte the panthro would become fully apprenticed under Alten as he sought to teach her the trade. No matter how young she was. [break][break]

Or rather, because she was so young. From nearly the moment she stepped foot in Dirys the young panthro would begin her training alongside Alten. In return for shelter, food, and whatever else she needed, Ekahi would work with the assassin and help him on his contracts. Initially this involved the man using the cub’s young age and small size to his advantage, either lowering the guard of a target with her appearance or using her to scout and infiltrate hard to reach places, and in this way the panthro was exposed to the life of an assassin from the very start. Even when off contract however there was seldom a moment the pair were not in training. The same natural dexterity and cleverness which she had used just weeks earlier to escape the orphanage would begin to be honed under Alten’s guidance, and he would also show Ekahi new skills befit of an assassin. Weapon handling. Poison making. Lockpicking. The man also specifically taught the young panthro how to use her supposed weaknesses, the fact she was still a child and not a physically strong one at that, to her advantage, showing her the best ways to manipulate and trick others. So it was that even by the time she turned 10 years of age Alten had already begun to form the young panthro into the beginnings of a skilled assassin.[break][break]

Being thrown into a world of such killing and death was not without its consequences, however, even if Ekahi herself had yet to take a life. Having gone from losing her parents, to being abused at an orphanage, to working alongside an assassin did little to coax Ekahi out of the apathetic attitude she had adopted at the Little Palace, and if anything her time with her mentor only furthered the panthro’s detachment from the world around her. In fact, early on Alten had recognized such feelings in the cub from what little he had learned of her time at the orphanage, and rather than try to break the shell he instead began to reinforce it. The assassin, as well as the numerous killings which Ekahi would come to witness while working under Alten, would lead the panthro to begin to adopt a pragmatic, oftentimes unfeeling, look at the world. Their targets were more payment than people. Collateral damage was not only not to be feared, but oftentimes necessary. The contract was the final law. In this way Ekahi would be led to forget the kind of fear she had felt when the thugs attacked her home or while hiding at the orphanage, and instead come to accept death as little more than a fact of life.[break][break]

In fact, those same nightmares of losing her parents and of facing abuse at the hands of the caretakers began to fade away almost entirely. As the years wore on away from Muerte and as she got farther and farther into her training under Alten, and even as she was taught by her mentor how to distance herself from emotion, more and more of the old Ekahi would begin to emerge. The same playfulness, the same optimism, and the same energy which had so characterized the panthro while living in the beastfolk slum of Muerte returned, even if they stood in stark contrast to what she was now doing in life. For by now the panthro had come to trust Alten and even grow attached to him. While her mentor may have not only been a stranger just years prior but also a trained killer, a young Ekahi found herself seeing the man more and more as a parent figure, and loving him almost like the mother and father she had lost. It was not a normal childhood. Many would argue it was not even a good childhood. But after losing her parents, and after the Little Palace, any childhood became a wonder to the panthro. And so, with time, she became happy again.[break][break]

Happy and increasingly skilled, and so even as Ekahi was once more filled with laughter and a thirst for fun, as she grew older Alten would begin to push the panthro to take a more active role in the contracts. He wanted the cub to begin to kill. Ekahi’s first attempt would come in the form of a minor contract to take out a smalltime merchant, and with her training and guidance from Alten the leadup to the act went without an issue. But it was when the panthro pulled the knife that things would begin to go wrong. As were many others before him the merchant was indeed surprised when Ekahi attacked him, but those before him had also faced a full grown Alten. Now the merchant faced not only a child, but a small one at that, and it was with only some struggle that he was able to fight off the panthro long enough for the town guard to become involved. It would come to be the second time that Ekahi nearly lost her life. It was only through Alten’s help, and some luck, that the cub was able to escape the town guard, but in the process the panthro had suffered a deep gash to her left ear from an arrow. In the end the assassination would be a complete failure, and one which seemed to set back Alten’s hopes for Ekahi.[break][break]

But not for long. It would take some months and several favors, but Ekahi’s mentor would commission a weapon for the panthro, a custom crafted crossbow, in the technological heartland of Artavia, and gift it to his apprentice not long afterwards. And thus the young beastfolk would find her specialty. With Alten’s help Ekahi would train in the following months rigorously in marksmanship, while also showing the panthro how to use the very things which had led to failure in her first contract to her advantage. She was young and small, but that also meant she was light, acrobatic, and able to get into places others were not able to. She could scout the area, climb to the most ideal vantage point, and simply wait for the perfect moment to take down her target. And in the end that was exactly what Ekahi did. Her first successful killing was more a test than a contract, and by it’s completion the very merchant who had nearly led to the panthro’s death was himself bleeding out in the gutter. What followed would be a string of completed contracts, some done alongside Alten, but many finished by Ekahi alone, even if the money for all would go to her mentor. So it was that by the time the panthro turned only fourteen she had already become an assassin capable of holding her own. [break][break]

Ekahi continued to live and work with Alten throughout this time, but this would come to change by the end. It was not long into the eight year since he had adopted her that the assassin approached Ekahi and informed her that he had been offered a contract, a high profile one, and that upon it’s completion he would be forced to flee Dirys for some time. And he would not be taking the panthro with him. The news was met with immediate protest from Ekahi, but no matter the offers of help or bitter whining Alten would not relent, and insisted that the contract was too dangerous for the young beastfolk, and that he would rather she remained in Dirys safe. Safe, as the assassin told her that he had used some of his old contacts to secure a place for the panthro in the Shroud, a small but infamous assassin order in Fortuna, and one which had sanctuaries located within Dirys. It was from one of these that Ekahi would operate from, until the day that Alten would be able to return to her. Though greatly saddened by the news the cub would eventually come to agree, and it was only a few days later when she would be taken to the sanctuary by her mentor. There they parted ways, though not before the man gave her a decorative collar, fixed with a silver paw print, to remember him by. And then, once more, Ekahi’s family left her alone.[break][break]

Though perhaps not entirely alone. It has now been a little over a year since Alten left the panthro and she has remained true to her promise to the man, even if she has continued to wait for his return. Now 15 and the youngest member of the Shroud operating out of the Dirys sanctuary, in that time she has become a well-known member among the tight-knit assassins, not only for her young age but for being a beastfolk as well, and many have taken to calling her Little Paw after the distinct collar she has taken to wearing, a name she also now uses as an alias as is the Shroud custom. For far away is the Ekahi Darktail who once cowered under the floorboards hoping her parents would return, or even the Ekahi Darktail who once clambered up the chimney at the Little Palace. Now she was Ekahi Darktail: Shroud member, assassin for hire, and killer. And a child who has seen and tasted death itself and survived.[break][break]

Twice.[break][break]

Ekahi’s base motivation is simple. Survive. The panthro witnessed the kidnapping of her parents, faced months of torture at the Little Palace, and saw countless killings while being mentored by Alten, and she has emerged more determined than ever to live her life. A life spurned more by being the only thing she has known than by motivation. Any life she had in Muerte has long since vanished, and now Ekahi works as an assassin as it is the kind of life that Alten gave her, and the only one which has ended up giving her some form of happiness. As far as the panthro is concerned, what she does is as normal a childhood as any other.[break][break]

That being said, as of late the cub has begun to wonder about what happened to her beloved mentor. Since being left with the Shroud Ekahi has heard no word from Alten, or even news of the contract he was meant to undertake, and the other Shroud members have proved little wiser. True, the panthro made a promise to stay until he returned. But Ekahi witnessed her parents being taken once before, and now that she is older and more capable, she cannot help but feel that she is about to make the same mistake twice.

[attr="class","appheading"]ABILITIES

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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Beastfolk[break]
Like many other beastfolk Ekahi has a natural ability to communicate with animals in their language, and being a panthro, this takes the form of sharing a bond with feral felines. Whether it be a timid housecat or a ferocious tiger the cub has a much easier time befriending and taming the animal, and can then issue it complex commands or learn anything the feline knows, an ability that has proven useful on more than one assassination contract.

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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Acrobatics[break]
Being a panthro, and part of the larger felinus beastfolk race, means that Ekahi also has a naturally high agility. Coupled with her still young age and small size means that the cub is light on her feet, dexterous, and capable of surprising feats of acrobatics. Something which certainly caught Alten’s eye while training her. The assassin is now able to scale walls, hang from balconies, or slink through the shadows with ease, and her ability to reach oftentimes unique and out of the way vantage points has proven a particular strength when it comes to her method of assassination.
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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Assassin Training[break]
Ekahi spent seven years training under her mentor, a freelance assassin, worked for the Shroud for a little over a year, and witnessed and even took part in many contracts and killings herself. The end result is that, even though still a child with much more to learn, the panthro is a skilled assassin capable of holding her own as is. Alongside being able to take a life she has also learned many other skills of the trade during this time, such as being able to brew poisons, pick locks, and even use her young appearance and childish attitude to manipulate and disarm her targets. All of which have made the alias Little Paw a recommended contact in more than one inner circle.
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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Marksmanship[break]
Alongside her more conventional assassin training Ekahi was also extensively trained in marksmanship following her first failed assassination. This has resulted in the panthro’s crossbow becoming somewhat of a signature style of killing for her, and something she’s known for in the Shroud. While Ekahi’s small size means that in a physical fight the cub can find herself at a disadvantage, at range she is capable of sniping her targets without them even knowing, and without any guards finding her vantage point before she can vanish back into the shadows. She’s accurate, quick on the draw, and the collection of tally marks along the tiller of her weapon are a testament all on their own to this.
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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Feline Companion[break]
Sometime after Alten left Ekahi and while working for the Shroud she came across a stray cat, a scraggily ginger shorthair she has taken to calling Nibbles, which the panthro subsequently adopted after the animal followed her back to the sanctuary. Since then the cat has taken to working alongside Ekahi while the assassin works, oftentimes acting as a form of scout or warning for the cub. Or simply as a means to relieve boredom while waiting for her target to get into view.
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[attr="class","appability"]➢ Artistry[break]
Not a skill that many would expect a cold-blooded assassin to possess, but a love for drawing is something that has stayed with Ekahi throughout her life, no matter where it’s taken her. Though still a child and by no means producing art gallery quality pieces, the panthro has still gotten somewhat good at bringing her imagination to life on whatever canvas she comes across. Canvas’s which are oftentimes unconventional, though, and like she did while still with her parents Ekahi has a tendency to draw on whatever she can find, whether it be charcoal lines on the walls of the Shroud sanctuary, mud on whatever balcony she’s lurking on, or even claw marks across her vambraces. The one thing Ekahi’s drawings have become over time, however, is more grotesque. Given her work in life and how her personality developed it’s not uncommon to find gruesome additions to what would be otherwise innocent drawings, and the panthro enjoys recounting parts of her life through her art. The bad as much as the good.
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[attr="class","appheading"]Fortuna-RPG