Linji

Name
Linji Tahlequah''... 'theTwin' ''

Race and class
Troll/Deathknight... ((Linji has no coherant memories of who, or what she was before her  death))

Physical Traits
Physicaly Linji is an unremarkable young Troll.

Linji wears numerous small bone and feather fetishes carefully braided into her hair, and woven into her armour. Human knucklebones, small birds beaks, assorted claws and canines along with sea-shells can be recognised... ((Linji is deeply troubled by 'spirits', she is afraid she has followed the path to becoming an ascendant, she believes that the fetishes will conceal her presence from the spirit world))

Her daily attire consists of old worn leathers, or mismatched archaic plate armour, both appear battered much repaired but  coldly functional, and uniformly stained a deep red ochre.

Recently Linji has taken to aplying a toxic paste of white lead to her face, hair and any exposed skin prior to entering battle, the overall effect is striking.

Linji's speech is oddly unaccented, and reflects her binary logic. Linji is largely incapable of percieving shades of grey, tending to see the world as entirely one thing or another, this tends to be reflected in her language and choices.

Due to her limited life experiences, cultural dissonance, lack of social skills and a general difficulty in expressing emotions, Linji can appear as 'blunt' to others, and somewhat naive.

Guild
Linji is proud to be part of the Beastmaw Clan...

Linji was deeply troubled by the divisions that led to the break up of the Earthfury Clan, she was torn between her refexive instinct to kill Hrisskar the Younger and her   oath to the Clan,  to General Torakk and the Warchief.



Occupation
Linji follows Clan orders without question or hestiation, she has a Clan, a tribe, a home...

Under guidance Linji has developed a high profficiency in Blacksmithing, she is skilled in both the repair of armour and the manufacture of efficient deadly weapons.

Linji has also been encouraged to pursue an   intrest in cookery  as a means to develop and improve her social skills and behaviours. Although she has been advised to pursue fishing as a means to develop her patience and self awareness,  she has found this a frustrating activity, and doubts its ultimate merit... on a side note, Linji has found  fish eyes oddly disturbing.

Family
Linji has no tangiable recollections of her family, though she has a fragmented memory of a young child standing alone on a beach holding a small bloody tusk in her hand, she assumes this was her as an infant... ((she does have a sister))

Pets and companions
Linji has a Worg pup companion 'Takakkaw'... it is an orphan, wild and ferral. This has been Linji's first real friendship, and has taught her  valuable lessons about loyalty.

Linji is rearing a Raptor as a mount in Un'Goro Crater... as yet it is un-named.

She has no family other than her Clan.

Quotes
A beautiful inspirational and apt poem for Linji.

'I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;

''And yet I am! and live with shadows tost''

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

And e'en the dearest...that I loved the best...

Are strange...nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;

A place where woman never smil'd or wept;

There to abide with my creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below...above the vaulted sky'.

 John Clare

'scratch first, itch later'... a motto Linji has found to be useful in life.

Criminal Record
Linji has no criminal record, although her return home to Durotar as an Deathknight was an unwelcome one.

However Linji was offered redemption and a welcome by Warchief Thrall, High Warlord Saurfang and General Torakk. Each has left an impression on Linji that has shaped her, by accepting her they have given her a purpose and a direction in life.

Background
Linji stood motionless, a dark armoured statue, soaked, chilled to the bone by the spray from the waterfall. Her eyes were closed, her breath shallow, her outward calm masked a rising blind panic that threatened to overwhelm her as she struggled hold on to her identity, to her self, amidst the crashing roar of the nearby waterfall. She had been lost from the moment she first heard the waterfalls deafening roar, drowning in memories of the collective awareness she had escaped so recently, as they bubbled to the surface Linji sank further down into its  dark relentless primal roar.

Out of the chaos a familiar sensation gradualy tugged her back into the present, an insistent call that she desperately focused upon, pain, a stabbing, burning pain that drew  her back... she focused upon  it... it was her hand... it was her pain.

Linji opened her eyes with a start, she inhaled deeply as turning she  examined her hand. The worg pup immediately released its grip backing off slowly, its eyes wide and unwavering, its maw coated with her blood. Seconds passed... Linji grined, baring her tusks as she slowly raised her hand, keeping her eyes fixed on the pup she licked away the some of the pulsing  blood, she grinned again... it would heal, she would live.

The pup had stubbornly held its ground watching her, Linji chanced a glance about her, it appeared to be alone, a desperate mangy starving loner, it had no chance alone in this world, without a pack, without a  tribe, it would die... alone and forgotten.

As she sucked at the jagged wound, Linji watched the pup lick its maw hungrily mimicing her actions, she realised it was an infant, an orphan.

Linji slowly crouched, her eyes steady, slowly she held out her hand to the pup. It approached her warily, they both realised they were  at a crossroads, finaly desperation and hunger over came caution, the pup  edged closer  the scent of blood too strong. Linji slowly made a fist forcing the blood to flow freely, slowly the pup broke eye contact its head and back lowered as it lapped the warm thick blood greedily.

Linji smiled, with her free hand she ruffled the pups ears, reflexively the worg pup snapped at her hand growling, threatening... Linji sat back smiling, pulling a tight rolled bundle of dried rations from her belt she peeled the off the covers and tossed some to the pup. The pup sniffed the food then hungrily devoured it. As it ate, Linji bandaged her hand, she watched  the pup stretch and yawn, its head resting between its paws, its eyes watching her, its lids heavy, digesting its meal, she smiled a decision had been made...

'''You are named Takakkaw... you will follow' ''

(a kind of how Linji came to be where she is now...)

She leant on the shattered doorway alert, watching... waiting. Linji's breathing was laboured and painfull, she  could taste the warm metalic tang of blood rising with each breath, she knew several ribs had been shattered earlier in that last fight, and that she could barely support herself on her wounded leg. Linji turned watching his proud confident silouette and smiled to herself, together they had fought for days with little  respite, survival had been their only victory. Wave after wave of scourge attackers had crashed upon their small force, a relentless tide they could not stem. They had held their ground, paid for it in blood, until like pebbles on the beach at Sen'Jin they had been  swept away. Linji sensed their presence before she could identify the mis-shaped forms approaching. She swallowed dryly, flexing her grip on her axe, suddenly she sensed a shadow move past her through the doorway,  silently she watched as he ran past her... towards them.

It was sudden and brutal, he cut through them laughing... they fell dead or dying arround him. The attackers were in chaos, they turned  spinning, confused as he weaved amongst them never standing still, Linji flinched as again and again  she saw his fluid movements falter, but he continued...  she readied herself for the inevitable.

Despite being pressed back by sheer weight of numbers, he turned, a grin, a quick hand gesture... 'leave now...go home'. He slowed, each desperate step, a desperate purpose,  each lethal strike  leading them away from her. Linji realised then in their shared silence, in the stone set of his eyes, his fixed grin, that this was to be their final parting... he had been stubborn, fearless and gentle... he would have been a good father. Linji limped away in the numb silence, after a few paces she paused, why she had to stop she would never know, but that final glance over her shoulder would decided her fate.

... Linji hissed in anger and pain, cursing as she watched the cruel hook as it sped outwards through the hole  pierced in  his side, she watched numbed as it  slowly twisted and  reeled him back towards the hungry embrace of the waiting abomination.

What seemed an age ago she had thought the storm that greeted their arrival in this foresaken place a good omen, that the spirits and elements were with them... she had been wrong, this land was an empty twisted shell, one marked by the stench of death and fear... it was a cold place, too cold.

A harsh flash of lightning illuminated a tall dark armoured shape on the edge of the main body of attackers, Linji grinned... an Elf. She watched his stride, confident, assured, his armour unblemished, his bearing that of a noble or officer... she smiled, there was nothing more left for her to lose... Linji shifted the grip on her axe as calmly she moved towards the Elf, each faltering step building in momentum... , she promised as she closed in for the kill.

Grinning she leapt forward, her axe swinging high in a vicious arc, she tasted the fear in  Elven  blood as she coldly dismembered  his twitching corpse. Linji ducked under blade and club,  lashing  out at the shadows surrounding her, she chose not to kill but only to maim, she would teach them a lesson in loss, in the meaning of pain...  a second flash illuminated the skies,  movement,  laughter,  then Linji felt  pain, crashing waves of pain, and a cold empty blackness.

''Waves had lapped lazily on the the empty shore, smiling they had swam out to a small nameless isle, they had watched the Ghost Crabs and the sunset together savouriing the  warm cleansing rain that fell, they had gazed up in awe at the dark intense skies until dawn had cracked the heavens, it had been their time, their place, their world. ''

Perhaps this memory had been the reason she had been chosen, she could recall no other fragments of her self or her past life, she had ceased to exist as an individual. Since her recent freedom this fractured memory was all that Linji held on to... he had been her life, she had chosen that, but now she could not even remember his name.

(and a kind of why she got here...)