Name: Reihelen
Contact:
Website: elorhe.com and actiasluna.net
RP Experience: I've taken rping a little more seriously than I should, probably. But I've had a lot of fun with it, and in general I think my experience has been pretty good.
Name: Nadezhda Grigory
Meaning: Nadezhda means "Hope" in Russian. Grigory comes from Gregory, which means "watchful, alert."
Nicknames: Friends, family, and anyone who finds "Nah-DEYJ-dah" too much of a mouthful call her Nadya.
Age: 19
Birthdate: July 8, 1228
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
Hometown: a medium-sized city called Magdas, in the Rahovna province of Cappadocia.
Likes:
Dislikes:
Quirks:
Hobbies:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Fears:
Aspirations: What Nadya wants more than anything else is to break out of the stagnation of the Grigory family. She wants to discover herself, and be herself, to be perfect at everything and while she's at it, save the galaxy Actavia from the evil Empire.
Occupation: If it weren't for the dragon nonsense, Nadya would probably still be a student at a martial arts school in Cappadocia.
Face: Nadezhda's face is framed by dark brown hair, which is usually pulled out of her face by a headband. Her shoulder-length hair is not particularly thick, but tends to be on the wild side anyway, no matter how she combs it. She has short bangs that fall in a fringe on her forehead. Her skin is pale, her nose and cheeks spattered with faint freckles. Her eyebrows are strong, but at least they are distinct as two separate eyebrows; her eyes are a pale, watery green, with heavy lashes. She has full lips, and she's not hard to look at, but her jawline and nose are too strong for beauty.
Body: Nadezhda is solidly built, although small in stature, standing at 5'2". She weighs about 130 pounds, and she's in excellent shape. She's not at all curvaceous, and not particularly gifted when it comes to breasts--her build is more athletic, and it definitely shows in her arms and legs. She walks briskly, and generally stands with her arms crossed, sits with her back straight, and rarely fidgets (thanks to her grandmother's "training").
Clothing: Nadezhda tends toward simple, practical clothing. She's not adverse to dressing up when the situation calls for it, but beauty is not high on her list of concerns. Her favorite color is green, and she wears a lot of it, though not to the exclusion of other colors. Around Ayrton, she can usually be seen in a tank top and a pair of comfy pants or shorts to allow her the maximum freedom of movement.
Voice: Nadezhda has a Rahovnan accent, which to some may sound similar to a Lairecht, only a bit softer. Her voice is in the lower end of the soprano range, and her enunciation is quite clear in her native language, but the phonetic differences between Rahovnan and Aristean can sometimes make her hard to understand - especially when she gets excited.
On first meeting, Nadezhda comes across as a friendly, cheerful young woman, energetic and focused, optimistic but very serious. She is talkative, and lacks a certain degree of self-awareness, leading to her quite often putting her foot in her mouth, but she is quick to recover from embarrassment. Her intensity soon becomes apparent; she is determined to accomplish the goals she sets for herself, will not take no for an answer, and will do whatever it takes to make things happen.
Nadezhda has come to believe that the only thing a person has control over is herself, and her own actions. One cannot be held responsible for his or her birth, or for the years of family history that led up to it. She must be judged by who she is, and what she has done, and not by the standards of the past. She must be her own person, not just what others want or expect her to be.
In Nadezhda's eyes, things that come easily are not worth being proud of. She feels pride not because of her heritage, but because of her own abilities and achievements. She is a hard worker, determined and stubborn. She will not stop training until she is exhausted, and she promises herself that next time she will work twice as hard. She feels a constant need to be stronger, for the sake of fulfilling her own potential. A person only gets one chance at life, so why waste it?
Her focus on self-improvement and personal responsibility does not prevent her from caring about others. She is quick to offer help, encouragement, or constructive criticism; she is less good at receiving it. She does not expect everyone to meet the rigorous standards she sets for herself, because everyone has different skills and potential, but she does look down on people she perceives as lazy. Nadezhda is the sort of person who's up before sunrise, taking a six-mile jog in a snowstorm and enjoying every minute of it. She doesn't have anything against a bit of relaxation when she feels she's earned it, though.
Nadezhda focuses on the present and future. The past is worth learning from, but not dwelling on--after all, not even magic can change what's already been done. What's done is done, and the past is gone. If she makes a mistake, she generally thinks a simple apology and effort to do better next time is all that's needed to fix it. She despises making mistakes, but beating herself up over them won't change what happened, and she's ready to move forward again before most people have recovered. Because of this, she can be cold and unsympathetic to others who are more inclined to dwell on the past (or just give it more than a moment's consideration). She's very forgiving of the mistakes of others, though, so long as they are genuine errors and not willfully made.
Nadezhda is fiercely loyal. As someone who has the capacity to protect others, to not live up to that potential would be a betrayal of herself, as well as anyone who depends on her. Yet she determines her loyalties on her own terms; while she was born into her family, she was not content to live in the shadow of greater days and brood about injustices. To stay in that life, as she sees it, would be just as much a betrayal of herself as it would be to go against the Knights.
She takes herself quite seriously and tends to throw herself whole-heartedly into any task--she even cooks and does chores with fervor. She has a lot of energy, but while she's always willing to help someone else out that doesn't mean she's going to do someone's work for them--it goes back to her contempt for laziness. Nadezhda's intensity can make people uncomfortable. She becomes quite animated when talking about a subject on which she feels strongly, and she can become livid with anger, spouting obsenities and even becoming violent, though when the storm passes she'll apologize and move on again. Even her intensity of affection isn't always a good thing to receive, as she'll feel she must protect you and shower you with advice you may or may not want.
In her relationships with others, Nadya isn't the most empathic person. She tries to be, but tends to get very wrapped up in her own ideas, and will continue to talk without realizing that what she's saying doesn't really make sense, isn't important, or the listener just doesn't care. If someone points this out to her, she'll be briefly chastened, and watch her mouth for a little bit, but forgets pretty quickly. Depending on the person on whom her babbling is inflicted, this can be anywhere from mildly amusing or extremely irritating.
Nadezhda is an explorer. She welcomes new things and experiences into her life, almost to spite the family that shunned them. She keeps an open mind to the point that some of her convictions may change from day to day, though her core remains the same. She can become quite carried away with her own ideas, and form a plan that seems perfect in her head--and sometimes it might be a good plan, but it's much more likely that someone will point out an obvious oversight.
Depending on the situation in a battle, Nadezhda may choose to retreat--if the stakes are low, if she's unprepared, or basically, if there's not a lot to lose. However, if the stakes are high, or there are people to protect, Nadezhda will not back down. There are some situations where retreat simply isn't an option, and no matter how badly she's hurt, no matter how bleak the situation, she will keep going so long as she's conscious, because there is too much to lose. In most of the fights she's likely to be involved in, this probably won't happen--it's possible that she could be provoked into taking stupid risks when her temper flares, but generally the risks of continuing a fight gone bad far outweigh the benefits.
In ancient times, there was a Kingdom called Rahov. Rather than fight a bloody war they had little chance to win, Rahov submitted to Cappadocian conquest and became part of its empire just before the beginning of the Five Kingdoms era. The Cappadocians called their new province Rahovna, and in exchange for their peaceful submission, the people of Rahov were allowed a good deal of autonomy, and their lords, of the house of Grigory, lived like kings. According to tradition, Fane Gregory rode a dragon alongside the original Acacia.
Almost four hundred years ago, scandal drove the Grigories from power. The details are lost to history, but the Grigory family was stripped of their nobility amid accusations of plotting rebellions, and they were replaced by lords more Cappadocian than Rahovnan. Most people have forgotten, but the Grigory family remembers. They still see themselves as the rightful lords of Rahov, and if things hadn't gone horribly wrong back then--and, as Nadezhda would point out, nothing else had happened in the last four hundred years--they would still be living like royalty. Nadezhda sees herself as the latest in a long line of might-have-beens.
She grew up in a large, lonely manse in a part of Magdas that had once been very fashionable, but was well past its prime. She shared the house with her grandmother, mother, father, and an aunt, and the family hired a housekeeper to keep the old mansion from falling completely into disrepair. Her grandmother had not been born a Grigory, but she should have been; she was a cold, proud creature of whom little Nadya lived in fear. Nadya's mother, Maryana, was a sweet but spineless woman, was completely under her mother-in-law's thumb. Her father, Andrus, had worked his way up through management of a steel mill, but never climbed high enough to satisfy his mother. Her aunt was melancholy and not-quite-right mentally, and frightening to young Nadya as well.
She identified most with her father, who, like her, was raised to be a Grigory and heir to the family's legacy. While he worked a great deal, he found as much time as he could to spend with his daughter, and he decided to pass on to her his skill in swordsmanship. As a young man, he and his sister had both been forced into what their parents considered noble pursuits, and Andrus found he had some talent for swordsmanship--which is not so practical in a day of firearms, but still taught and practiced in Rahov as a martial art. He would have liked to have become a teacher, but there simply weren't enough interested students or money in it, and he was quite out of practice when he started giving Nadya lessons. Nadya couldn't see the practical use of the lessons, but she did enjoy spending the time with her father, and she soon found herself enjoying the work as well. She started practicing on her own, when her father was too busy to help, and beamed with joy every time he complimented her progress.
If only her relations with the rest of her family went as well. Her father worked late much of the time, and she never got to spend as much time with him as she liked. She liked her mother well enough, but knew better than to expect Maryana to give her any support if conflict arose with her grandmother. Yet Nadya still had trouble keeping her mouth shut, and when she talked back to her grandmother, she was punished by being made to sit still and silent in the parlour for hours, under her aunt's watchful eye. Her grandmother had firm convictions about how a young lady like Nadya should conduct herself, and made it well-known when Nadya did not live up to them.
Nadezhda was sent to a private school in Magdas. It wasn't quite the finest, but most of the students were better off financially than her family, though they didn't have such a heritage looming over them. A quiet and somewhat gloomy child, Nadezhda didn't make friends easily, and it didn't help that many of the students who were willing to associate with her were not the sort her grandmother approved of as friends for a Grigory.
It was at school where she discovered the heritage her family clung to meant little to nothing--if anything, it was something to be pitied or laughed at. To tell the truth, Nadezhda might have been better accepted at school if she were not such a glum little girl, but it was much easier to blame her unpopularity on her family.
Nadezhda had learned as a small child that she always had a sense of where she was, and where her mother was. It didn't seem like it would cause any problems, then, to wander off on her own when they were out shopping. She couldn't really figure out why her mother was in a panic when she returned--after all, she'd known where her mother was all along. As she got older, her brief disappearances became more common, and her family worried a bit less about them when she always returned home safely--with the exception of her mother, who couldn't help but worry. Nadya felt sorry for her mother, but she liked to be off on her own, she liked the feeling of freedom when no one knew where she was.
As she explored, she transformed - the glum little girl began to smile, and then to grin, and to chatter up a storm. It wasn't long before she had the city of Magdas mapped out in her head, and she found it was much more interesting to walk its streets and observe its people than attend school. She watched the workers at the steelworks through the wire fences, unloading and loading the freight trains that carried in materials and took the steel away. She gave her packed lunches to beggars on the downtown streets. There were plenty of those--the demand for Magdas steel was not so great as it had been, and unemployment ran rampant. Eventually, she grew tired of the city of Magdas and spent a great deal of time on the ruins of what had once been the Grigory family's summer palace, a few miles outside the city. The palace had been gutted, anything that wasn't nailed down either sold or stolen, but the grand architecture and remnants of gardens were more than enough to tell her what her family had lost. She searched the ruins for hidden passages or artifacts--the legendary sword of Fane Grigory, or something like that--but always came home empty-handed. The worst part was having her grandmother scold her while her mother looked on reproachfully.
In the meantime, the steelworks were struggling. When Nadya was 16, her father brought home the hopeful news that the Aristean giant Empire was looking into buying the company, and pumping some of its fortunes into revitalizing it. Empire interest and money could mean hope for the entire city of Magdas, but it was not to be. Empire did indeed buy out the steelworks, and then had it shut down. The iron of Rahov would be shipped to a newer, more efficient facility in Aristes instead. Her father was among those who lost his job, and her family could no longer afford to send her to private school.
Infuriated both by Empire's betrayal and her own family's inability to move forward, Nadezhda returned to the ruins and doubled her search. Finally, she found the secret passage that she'd been looking for, a trapdoor into the cellars underneath the stones in a garden path. In that passage she found a small hoard, hidden for an unknown number of years. There were the remnants of cloth that had rotted away, a few gold and silver trinkets, and what she believes to be the sword of Fane Grigory.
Nadya was more interested in the gold and silver. The sword was big, awkward, and rusted; carrying it around would be difficult, and conspicuous. The gold and silver would be enough for her family to get out of Magdas--out of Rahov, even, and start a new life somewhere else, where the Grigory legacy wouldn't get in the way. She thought her father might like the sword, though, so she hid it again and decided to bring him back for it.
When she came home after a few days away, her mother was crazed with worry, while her grandmother glared in disdain. She told them where she had been, but not what she'd found--that news she saved for her father, whom she found drinking in a bar with other steelworkers and venting their anger at Empire. It was here that they heard rumors that someone was attacking Empire's facilities, and the idea appealed greatly to both Nadya and her father.
Nadya brought her father to the old estate and showed him the sword, and the artifacts she hoped would buy their freedom from Magdas. Her father informed her rather dismally that leaving would be impossible, that the Grigory family belonged in Rahov and in Rahov it would stay. But he was also quite impressed that Nadya had found what no one else had been able to in hundreds of years, and mentioned that there may have been a disposition towards magic in the Grigory bloodline. He decided to have the sword restored, paying with some of the jewelry his daughter found.
Nadya simmered. She began to form a plan in her head, at first not much more complicated than I have to get out of this place, but then she heard rumors of a school of swordsmanship further south in Cappadocia, and a master who was looking for talented students. Her father brought the restored sword home, its new glory in stark contrast with the shabby, and steadily deteriorating, state of affairs in House Grigory. With her father's grudging blessing and the hearty disapprobation of the rest of her family, Nadya set off for the school, taking her ancestral sword, as well as most of the remaining artifacts to cover her finances.
Yet on the road south, she felt her inner compass tugging her in a different direction. Nadya was captivated by the rumors of Acacia and dragons, and entertained some thought of finding either one or them both--and now she found that if she concentrated, she could get a feel for where the woman was, and if she did lose her way, she could usually pick up the signal after some meditation. She took a detour from her journey and managed to track Acacia down, and in a fit of excitement and zeal, stated her intention to join Acacia in her quest. Acacia tried to brush her off, but finally agreed to a duel, mostly to get the sixteen-year-old out of her hair, and while Nadezhda fared better than some, she was still soundly defeated and left with a cut across her upper left arm for her troubles. Acacia called her a kid and made some comment about "maybe when you're grown," which was supposed to be a dismissal but Nadya took to mean that the door was still open.
Nadezhda recovered with newfound resolve, and returned to her original path. Her search for Acacia had shown her just how little she knew about Actavia, and had also depleted her funds considerably. However, she felt her inner compass growing stronger. She was able to find easily the food and shelter that she needed, either cheaply or unattended and there for the taking, which she rationalized by deciding she was in greater need than those who had a more lawful claim to it. Finally she arrived at the school. The master was of a different discipline than her father, but took his art very seriously, and was sufficiently impressed with Nadya's talent to allow her to join his class. Nadezhda practiced hard, and learned. It was here that her above-average talent began to show; not so much in her skill with a sword, but in the fact that she was very hard to sneak up on, and her uncanny sense of her environment. The school's master began to test her skills; his interest in old-fashioned things extended beyond swordsmanship to magic as well, though he knew little about the subject.
While she knew enough about swordsmanship in theory, she lacked real world experience. At the academy, Nadya found that she liked winning--a lot. She liked practicing, even more than she had with her father, because not only was she improving herself, she was preparing for the day she would join Acacia in her crusade. More than a year passed, but she always kept her ears open for rumors of Acacia. Finally, she got word of a great tournament being held, and set off to enter.
While the tournament was not precisely the sort of affair Nadya had expected, she still managed to win. Bursting with pride, she presented herself to Acacia, who told her she'd done pretty well for a kid, here's your prize, now go back home. Nadya was hurt--after all, she was so much older now than she was when they'd first met, and had more experience, and she had gone against opponents with an advantage of years and experience and prevailed! Besides, she wasn't just a fighter--she had this talent to find things--she'd been able to track down Acacia before, after all, and she could do it again, and she wouldn't leave Acacia alone until she made Nadya her pupil.
Acacia was intrigued by the girl's seeming potential for magic, but she was wary because of her youth. She decided to put the girl's potential to the test, while getting her out of her hair for a while. She told Nadya she'd consider her request if Nadya could find for her a certain tome of magic--a long-lost book that may not have existed in the first place, though she didn't tell that part to Nadezhda. Determined to prove herself, Nadya set off to find the book.
After a few false starts, Nadya found what she was looking for - along with several other books, a collection of antique coins from the Five Kingdoms era that would bring tears to the eyes of any numismatist, and a magician's staff. She brought the stash back to Acacia triumphantly, and was finally awarded a dragon egg and told where to meet in a certain amount of time, then left on her own. She spent the intervening time traveling Actavia, building her knowledge of geography and familiarity with the continent. Even after Esfir hatched, she fashioned a sling to carry him until he was old enough to walk and fly on his own, though she had to be more careful about avoiding notice and civilization. After about six months, he was big enough to fly and carry her, and things became much easier. They did some exploration of Actavia and the surrounding islands by air, before finally settling in Ayrton.
strength •••
defense ••
magic ••
magic resistance
dexterity •••
evade ••
endurance •••
Armor: Nadya's armor consists of a brigandine vest, greaves, and gauntlets. Her armor is covered in dark green fabric, with steel plates riveted to the inside for protection. The vest has a number of zippered pockets. Underneath she wears a tight black shirt and leggings, and she has a black scarf tied around her neck that she can use to cover her face when stealth is necessary. Her gauntlets cover her forearms and the backs of her hands, fastening with ties over her palms and around her middle finger. Her shoes are small, black, and simple, and enable her to move around quietly. She wears her armor whenever she is out on a mission, or in any capacity that may require her to fight.
Weapon: Nadezhda fights with a longsword, which is definitely a family heirloom but may or may not have belonged to the legendary Fane Grigory. Despite its restoration, it is still obviously old-fashioned and the hilt is worn, though the blade still seems as good as new. There's no explanation for this other than some sort of magic, but other than the continued sharpness and quality of the blade, her sword hasn't displayed any other magical properties. When not in use, she carries it in a sheath that is buckled to her belt on her right hip, or entrusts it to Esfir in the rare occasion that it is not at her side.
Special Abilities:
Magic Abilities: Nadezhda's magic is centered around location--finding things and people, sensing details in her environment, and even seeing things that are far away. It should be noted that she still has a lot to learn about using these skills, and they are for the most part inactive, or at least unreliable, as she learns the rudiments of magic from Acacia.
Fighting Style: The winner of a fight is the one who is best at seizing the opportunities it presents. Nadya always begins a fight by analyzing her surroundings so no opportunity goes unnoticed. Therefore, a fight in a cramped space might be advantageous if it gives her the opportunity to use any barriers against her opponent, but could also cause her trouble if she cannot manuever easily. A fight in a more open area would force her onto a more even footing with her opponent, because she would have fewer options to use against him or her (other than, of course, her sword), but it would also allow her more freedom to move around. She starts out in defensive mode and stays on the defense until she gets to a position that is more to her liking, although her defensive style depends on her opponent. She uses her weapon to block when she can, because she is not as good at dodging, though her favorite way to defend herself is to let her surroundings do it for her. Anything she can put in between herself and her opponent is a great start, and if the fight is outdoors, she will do her best to make sure that her opponent is facing the sun.
Once Nadya is happy with her position, she attacks, using a style of longsword fighting that is part her father's, part her Cappadocian teacher's, and part her training with Acacia. However, in addition to attacking her opponent directly, she might cut a limb from a tree, or knock books off a shelf.
Strong Against: Nadya is strong against sneak attacks - or at least, she generally is aware that someone is sneaking up on her and is able to react before they can do her harm. However, this is only dependent on her ability to sense movement in the area, rather than the speed of her reaction time, and only extends to long range attacks to a point; if someone shoots a gun at her, she won't know it's coming until it's too late, though she might have more luck with an arrow or thrown weapon.
Her sense of the environment enables her to keep track of what is going on around her, which gives her a bit of an edge in fighting against groups and keeping an eye out for her allies, but it's not enough to turn the tide of a battle.
Weak against: Anything that comes at her too fast for her to react; Nadya's reaction speed is decent but not spectacular. She depends on early warning rather than quick reflexes. Her defense against magical attacks is dismal, since she's less likely to see them coming and not at all equipped to defend against them. Even worse, as Acacia has demonstrated with her Ayrton misdirection spell, magic can shut down Nadya's own innate abilities, and this is not good for her in a fight.
Name: Esfir. (Nadezhda named him Esfir simply because she liked the name. It's a Rahovnan name, meaning "Star," but she never knew anyone with the name closely enough to consider them a namesake.)
Description: Esfir has smooth, small scales that can't be distinguished from a distance. He's a grayish-purple in color, with a paler underbelly. When he sits on his haunches, Nadya almost comes up to his shoulder; when his neck is extended, he's more than twice as tall as she is. His eyes seem to be completely gold beneath his eyelids, without iris or pupil, yet he sees just fine nonethless. He has what appears to be a pair of whiskers that fall from beside his nostrils, and another shorter pair beneath his chin. His head also has a crest with two long points rising above his face and three more stretching back towards his neck on either side. Here is a picture, because describing dragons is difficult.
He's built for long-distance flying at high altitudes. His wingspan, when fully extended, is about four times the length of his slender body (minus his tail), and he is able to glide long distances with a favorable wind and expend little energy. These great, sail-like wings are also delicate, and while he soars gracefully in the sky, he is very awkward moving around on the ground. His pale underside makes him difficult to see when he's flying above, but on the ground he's quite easy to pick out.
Esfir is stronger than he looks, and capable of carrying heavy loads - he could easily carry four people roughly Nadya's size. However, he's not built for defense; while he's big, he's lightweight, and his wings are especially delicate. His skin is tough enough to deal with any defense put up by the animals he hunts, but a sharp blade or an arrow could find its way through.
His claws are extremely dextrous and able to hold delicate objects without breaking them, which comes in handy when he is carrying items for his "collection." Also useful are his whiskers, which he seems to be able to use to sense small changes in air pressure and smell things on the wind.
Esfir has a huge lung capacity and a very efficient system of breathing, of the sort usually found in diving animals. While Esfir could use this to dive if he really had to (but he'd rather not, cause he's a lousy swimmer), it really comes in handy when he is flying at altitudes where the air is very thin. For a passenger to go up so high with him, she would need some extra source of oxygen, but Esfir manages just fine.
Temperament: Esfir is a collector and a hoarder--Nadya sometimes suspects that he thinks of her as just another piece of his collection, albeit his most prized. While he does like shiny things, his interest is not limited to jewels and the like. When he's able to, he will fly off alone, and return clutching a "prize" in his claws. Nadya scolded him at first for being a thief, but she's come to accept that there's not much that can stop a dragon from taking what he wants. Pretty much anything from outside of Ayrton is fair game; Nadya doesn't even know where he found some of the things in his collection.
Esfir won't let anyone but Nadya get close to his "collection," but other than that, he's pretty easygoing as dragons go. He's not the brightest, but he's generally happy to obey Nadya's instructions. His favorite pastimes are gliding in the sky looking for pretty things to bring home, acquiring the pretty things, and resting on his laurels.
He's also a coward, and hates fighting anything with the capacity to do him any harm - so while he's just fine hunting animals, he will probably freak out the first time he sees a Sabazian. He hates being hurt, and when he is injured, even if it isn't serious, he panics and whines and wants very badly to fly away RIGHT NOW. It becomes a real struggle for Nadya to control him when this happens.
Abilities: Esfir's breath weapon is simply air, but don't underestimate it - it's a blast powerful enough to knock almost anything short of a Sabazian off its feet, and is good for keeping most trouble at a distance. He could also use his breath to slow or redirect a projectile aimed at him. The air he blows is also extremely cold, not enough to freeze anyone in their tracks but enough to chill them to the bone.
If he's in the air with room to maneuver, he is capable of creating a whirlwind by flapping his wings and adding a little bit of magic; the resulting tornado doesn't last long, but is capable of causing quite a bit of damage while it lasts. However, he can't control the tornado once it's formed, so Nadya has to makes sure he doesn't use this skill when allies are in range.
Armour: A saddle is necessary for riding Esfir, both for comfort's sake (his skin wouldn't saw your legs off, but it would chafe something awful) and to reduce the possibilty of falling off. Esfir's saddle involves both a seat and a sort of seat belt that can be easily undone if Nadya needs to dismount quickly, but will hold fast otherwise. Beyond that, he has a breastplate of sorts to protect his most vital organs, but he prefers to use his blasts of air as his armor.
