Civilian Xiulan Song
Name Xiulan Song
Position Alcoholic
Rank Civilian
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Homeworld | Sihnon | |
| Age | 21 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5’2” | |
| Weight | 120lbs | |
| Hair Color | Brown/black | |
| Eye Color | clouded green | |
| Physical Description | Xuilan is short but built rock solid from growing up in a martial arts temple. She has long black hair with shaggy bangs that often hang in her eyes, which are a pale clouded green. She has a tattoo of a tangle of blue orchids in a style resembling a watercolor painting splayed across the front and back of her right shoulder. She is blind and gets around with the assistance of a thin white cane. She most often wears a mandarin style coat with cloth toggles and pants in the same style, though when laundry day rolls around, she's not afraid stroll about in an over-sized hoodie and short shorts. |
Family
| Father | Wei Song | |
| Mother | Jaiying Song (deceased) | |
| Other Family | Johannah "Mack" Mackensie Shepard is like an older sister to Xiulan, so much so that they refer to each other as Meimei and Jiejie almost exclusively |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Xiulan does not do anything in half measures. She can be impulsive and argumentative, generally a pain in the ass, but underneath her rough and tumble exterior is a surprisingly thoughtful and generous individual. Loyal and stubborn to a fault, when she finds someone to call a friend, they become like family to her, and there’s little she wouldn’t do to protect her ‘family’. That being said, she has precious few of these friends; more to the point, she actually prefers a rather solitary life. She had no problem going out for drinks with a few rowdy buddies, but at the end of the day she enjoys going home alone where she blares her music at obscene levels of volume. Hiding under the loud music in her empty apartment is a secret: a vast network of connections scattered across the Cortex, through which she does business. If someone needs a job done, she finds the most innocuous ways of completing the task, often through manipulations of the local economy, and then she contracts a local to complete the task for her. Her methods have proven to be so effective that she, under the alias “Borealis”, has been dubbed an ‘economic hitman’. Xiulan keeps her personal and work life separate, so much so that she doesn’t use any funds earned through these exploits to fund her personal life, instead earning money through gambling and underground fighting to pay for her modest lifestyle. As Borealis, she can be ruthless, and has been known to take out both sides of a ‘transaction’ when she’s detected a double-cross, her way of not ‘taking sides’ as well as protecting her identity and reputation. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Xiulan definitely has a problem with authority and does her best to avoid it altogether. While blind, she is deceptively capable and can handle most situations with ease and a subtle grace. | |
| Ambitions | At present, Xiulan doesn’t really have any ambitions. She’s the sort to live day by day, often flying by the seat of her pants. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Music, sparring, drinking, boobs, killing people on faraway worlds… You know, the usual. Xiulan is a master of Hung Ga and Chu Gar martial arts, preserved for generations by the Song family from the ancient traditions of Earth That Was. Languages known are English and Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese. |
| Personal History | Xiulan Song's life nearly ended before it began; Jiaying Song was on her way to visit family with her husband when their transport vehicle malfunctioned and crashed into another vehicle. Wei Song survived but his pregnant wife was quickly bleeding out from her injuries and died during transport to the hospital. The doctors were barely able to save her child, and being so premature, the doctors advised Wei that she may still die. But Wei held on to hope that this one part of Jiaying, whom he named Xiulan, would survive. Xiulan did survive, though it would be many months before Wei would ever get to take her home from the hospital. She was so tiny and frail, even by the time she was released into her father's care, she remained so small that Wei feared she would break at any moment. And then the doctors revealed that his frail little girl was blind. From that point on, Wei was torn as to how to raise her; on the one hand he was a master of martial arts and headmaster of a temple devoted to this skill, he was driven to push his daughter past these limitation and overcome the hindrances of her disability, but on the other hand he was also fearful of her safety and became overly protective. During her childhood she was doted upon, and as Xiulan grew up, she learned to fight despite being blind, but Wei rarely ever let her spar with anyone. In fact, he was very restrictive of everything she did, from school to socializing; she had to sneak out of the temple in order to practice the fighting skills he'd taught her, joining an underground fight club and making her way through the ranks. To say that Xiulan had a problem with authority was an understatement, and it was a problem all throughout school. She would fight with teachers and other students, refuse to do her school work, anything to rebel to send a message to her father that she was not happy with all the restrictions he was imposing on her. Wei was struggling more and more to handle his unruly daughter, a task which was made all the more difficult with the Triad breathing down his neck. The Song Temple of Martial Arts on Sihnon was once a beacon of reputability and discipline. Generations of students had gone on to the Academy and excel within the Alliance military, some even becoming instructors for future generations of soldiers. But then the war happened and the temple fell on hard times; Wei Song went to the Triad for a loan and when the time came to repay that loan, he was unable to pay and so the Triad turned their attention to his young daughter. Xiulan was 14 and starting to blossom as a woman, and what a lovely woman she would be when she finally came of age. She was ‘defective’, but then again she didn’t need to see in order to perform the duties they had in mind for her. Wei was, of course, vehemently opposed to this option and instead asked for more time to pay his debt. The Triad left, but not to give him more time, but rather to return in force to take Xiulan. Xiulan definitely wasn’t having any of that, as she and her father demonstrated together the Song family legacy of their fighting style. With the Triad momentarily defeated, Wei and Xiulan took the opportunity to escape, leaving their family’s temple, their pride, their gem behind, but Wei did so happily as there was no greater gem to him than his beloved daughter. Using the last of their funds, the Song pair booked passage off of Sihnon for Londinium. There, Wei managed to reach out to an old student for help, something he realized he should have done when he first hit financial straits, but his accomplished pupil was there to help him now and put him in contact with John Shepard, who arranged for the Songs to resettle in the Outer Rim until they could resolve their debt. As part of this arrangement, they met Shepard’s daughter ‘Mack the Knife’, who escorted them safely to the Rim. The trio shuffled through a number of settlements in the hopes of hiding their location, and eventually settled on Newhope. Along the way, Wei began to re-examine his priorities and the methods he’d been using to maintain control over his daughter, realizing how misguided he had been to try to control her at all. The trip had been an eye-opening experience, especially as he watched the budding relationship between Mack and his daughter. There was nothing improper going on, but it was clear to him that Xiulan adored Mack and that Mack felt the same, and it made Wei realize what a familial relationship could look like. And Mack did become a part of their little family, staying on Newhope for a while to help them settle in, then after she left to go live her best life, she would periodically return anytime she was passing through the area. Xiulan treasured these early days on Newhope, not just for the friend she’d made in Mack, but for her renewed relationship with her father. He was finally seeing her for who she was rather than the fragile child she once was. He even encouraged her to take a couple of jobs with Mack, when during a family dinner Xiulan made some creative suggestions for Mack’s impending work. Xiulan had a blast despite the danger and came home with stories that made her father cringe, but truly he was glad that she was finally finding her happiness. Then Xiulan discovered the Cortex. She’d known about it for as long as she could remember, but once given the chance on one job to really explore the depths and nice little hidey holes within the Cortex, the opportunities exploded for Xiulan! During her childhood, Xiulan had been given an implant that accessed the visual center of her brain, allowing her to tap into a computer and have its display transmitted directly to her brain. This allowed her to keep up with all the reading she had to do in school, but now it gave her opportunities to adventure through the Cortex in ways she could have never dreamed of! Soon, she no longer had to go out with Mack to work, she could find jobs and ways to complete them without ever leaving home! As her proficiency with the dark underbelly of the Cortex grew, she began operating under the name “Borealis” and her infamy grew in leaps and bounds. Soon, frontier life was no longer enough for Xiulan, but she waited until her father’s debt to the Triad had been settled before daring to leave. She knew he could protect himself, but it gave her peace of mind knowing that he was safe and secure nonetheless. When she finally left, she bounced around through the different sectors looking for a place where she could get cozy and explore her digital playground, eventually settling at the Greenleaf Skyplex. This place was perfect for her! Boozin’ and whorin’ a-plenty, illegal cage fighting in the warehouses and gamlin’ to boot, and an excellent connection to the Cortex, what more could she want! |