[ Name ] Chai Tou
[ Age ] 14
[ Gender ] Female
[ Guardian ] Reshiram
[ Starter ] Leafeon, Male, Solar Beam
[Appearance ] IMAGE HERE
The body of Chai is rather small and thin, coming from her healthy lifestyle of good food and lots of exercise. Her skin is very tanned, naturally, for her family has always lived in the southern parts of Arcanum, even though they originated from Feborough rather than Januvale. Her eyes are blue, which is not uncommon even though some foreigners seem to wonder why her eyes are not brown instead. Even though they are slanted in the Arcanum way, they are rather big and bright.
Chai's hair is black, almost blue, and very long and soft. Her mother tries to get her to wear it in a traditional, neat style, but Chai's favorite way to wear it is to simply make a long braid of it and let it hang along the side or her body or down her back. She usually wears very traditional clothing like kimonos at home, but on her journey, her father has bought her a more modern attire. It's a stylish black pair of brace trousers made in a durable but smooth material, decorated with fine white garlands and buttons around her neck and on her chest. Her arms are bare, because most often it's very warm in Arcanum. For those days when it's not so warm, she has packed a big, dark blue coat. For footwear, she wears something she has never put on before - big gray boots that her father claims will hold through anything.
[ Personality ] Chai is a rather naive and clumsy girl who refuses to be serious unless she has to. She does pretty good in school but seldom excels at doing physical things like building something or playing ball games, even though her mother makes sure that she does running or swimming for exercise almost every day. One might blame puberty and growing limbs, but she didn't really look like she was growing much. She is kind and happy at most times and would only get angry if somebody hurt her family or friends. Then, the Tou rage comes awake and her blueish black hair almost looks reddish black for a moment if you squint. After she has been angry, she usually feels very disoriented though, as it's difficult for her to dislike others. She has been raised with the view that all people and pokémon are children of Reshiram and Zekrom since they saved humans from leading empty lives and brought pokémon to Arcanum. Therefore, everyone should respect each other and be friends.
Her naive outlook on life has gotten her into trouble more than once. She is rather gullible and has been made fun of by other kids on several occasions. Most often, the pranksters apologize afterwards though, as they feel mean when she would look at them with her big, sad eyes. She has a puppy face beyond anything anyone has ever seen - luckily she hasn't figured out how to use it to her advantage. Yet?
[ History ] The Tou family has lived in Feborough for hundreds of years, but Chai's grandparents moved to Januvale because they had a slightly more modern mindset than the rest of the clan and wanted to live near the sea and see the modern ships from the outer world pass by. They built a large mansion with a garden at the edge of Januvale and Chai's mother was born there and later Chai. She grew up in a very traditional way, the Tou family had been a renowned one long time ago after all, even if their numerous ancient Arena badges weren't worth anything nowadays. Honor was to be constantly earned, not borrowed from ancestors forever, was the saying. Her grandparents were mode open towards foreign ways than many of the other traditional families in Januvale though. They weren't afraid of using new technology and even had a TV, a fridge, a laundry cleaner and many other modern appliances. They still were sincere about following traditions in daily life and praying to the pokémon gods though, so that was what Chai learned. Her favorite god, if one was allowed to have a favorite, was Reshiram. It looked so divine compared to the dark Zekrom.
Chai's mother was, for some reason, more keen on not using too much technology and tried to make Chai follow her view as well. Her father, though, came from the big cities in the east and thought that technology could help them more than it did today. Chai was conflicted not a few times, but learned to mediate when her parents were about to start arguing and eventually most often got them to stop before they had even begun. She thought both were right and didn't really want to choose sides.
The little girl grew up without siblings but got along well wit her schoolmates so she wasn't very alone at all. Her grandparents and parents lived together with her in the mansion, the mansion which fascinated many of the foreign kids that lived in town. Chai and her friends often played in the Tou mansion and its garden when they were small.
Nothing notable really happened during Chai's lifetime so far. One might mention that she got her name, which means 'tea' in ancient Arcanian, because her grandmother loved tea and loved her only granddaughter. They did not have any pet pokémon and thus, Chai didn't learn about pokémon at an early age as many others did. She still thought they were interesting in a way and liked to watch wild pokémon sneaking into their garden or watch movies with pokémon on TV, so she knew the names of many species and their most common attacks. She didn't completely understand the concept of pokémon battling though.
[ Sample text ]
It was afternoon a very hot and sunny day when Chai walked home from school. She was carrying her school bag in her hand and was wearing a simple, red Arcanian dress that was one of her favorites. Since her house lay on the outskirts of the town, she had to pass by the docks to get there. She couldn't help noticing that there was an unusual ship docked there. A large, shiny one with lots of strangely dressed people standing on board and on the pier. A modern ship! Her grandparents would surely like to come and look at it.
The girl turned to run home but instantly ran into the stomach of someone much taller than herself. Stumbling backwards with a "sorry, sorry," she noticed the familiar look of the clothing in front of her and looked up at the man's face. "Joresh Ja!" she blurted out before she could stop herself.
"Yes," Joresh said. "There's no hurry."
"No, sorry. I should look where I'm going better," Chai said, giving the peculiar semi-hermit a nervous smile. She hadn't spoken to him before. He was supposed to be the strongest pokémon trainer in town. That was pretty cool, but she had never seen his pokémon.
He turned his gaze to the ship by the docks and seemed to ponder something. "They still haven't left. And I still... hmm," he said with a deep wrinkle in his forehead.
"Is something the matter?" Chai asked him, "with that ship?" She pointed at it with her left hand and didn't notice that her sleeve went down enough to show that
mark. The mark that she had gotten just some days ago, a strange yin yang symbol printed into the skin of her left wrist. It wouldn't wash off and it was strangely warm to the touch. She still hadn't shown her parents nor her grandparents.
Joresh Ja had been waiting for something, he just hadn't been sure exactly for what. But when he now turned his eyes to look at the girl's wrist, almost without hope, the eyes shone up. "It's you!" he said.
"Uh, me?" Chai said and retracted her arm, but Joresh grabbed it rather rudely. Chai squeaked when he moved her sleeve up again to expose the mark.
"This... means something," he said.
"I don't know how I got it, I swear!" Chai said, having no idea why she would freak out about it and how he would know about it.
"I know. But you had a dream, hadn't you?"
The girl stopped squirming in his grip. "Yes..."
"Me too. Come with me to my house, I really need to talk to you."
"But..."
"We are already late."
"Ok..."
As Chai followed the man, she hoped that the ship wouldn't go away before she could tell her grandparents about it.