Ntemba Ayo

Ntemba Ayo is written by Zahhak and is from the Requiem In Blue canon, in which she inhabits a grey area between protagonist and antagonist, depending on which character is currently providing the point of view.

Early Life
Ntemba Ayo was born to upper-middle class parents in Imra-Amkala on the northern border of the Azwan Empire. At the age of two her parents were killed in a shipping accident in Mbulya, and she was sent to live with her aunt in Ghampa, the north-western province of the empire. By all accounts her aunt was a harsh woman, but not cruel. At least not to her.

When she was ten years old, her aunt bought a new slave for the farm. This slave was Katangi Mboya, three years her senior. Over the next five years she grew closer to the young Katangi, until in her sixteenth year she ran away to the cloud sea with Katangi. Over these years she worked her way up from cabin girl on various freighters to become a seasoned sailor, and finally, when she was twenty-two, she bought her first craft and became a pirate with Katangi Mboya as a first mate.

Career in Piracy
A year later, she had a child - Kafadzwa Tendo. The next two years were defined by incredible and daring feats of piracy, but her personal life was becoming more fraught and tense until, after two years, Ntemba Ayo decided that she couldn't continue her trade and put her daughter (or son, it was hard to tell at the time) at risk. According to legend, she ordered the child to be thrown overboard. In truth she insisted that the child had to be taken away, but didn't specify how. Katangi Mboya smuggled the child away while in Imra-Amkala and deposited her on the doorstep of the owner of the newly-established Tendo Trading Company.

For the next fourteen years, she cut a bloody swathe across the middle sea in a twin-engined Zawo Airship Company Windwasp named the Devouring Wind. The name Ntemba Ayo is simultaneously synonymous with derring-do and brutal murder all across the Middle Sea.

Appearance
Ntemba Ayo is 5'8" tall, with the dark skin expected of an inhabitant of the Azwan Empire. She looks to be nearly forty years old. She has deep brown eyes and black hair flecked with grey twisted into tight cornrows, which are in turn pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her nose is crooked from being broken and re-broken many times in the past, and her forearms are criss-crossed with scars that all seem very typical of defensive wounds, and there are a few smaller scars on her face, narrowly missing her features.

She is lean and tough, with wiry muscles and weather-beaten skin, and crows' feet at the corners of her eyes. She has wide hips and carries a little extra weight around her waist. Her back is covered by a series of tattoos depicting stylised human figures hunting mythological creatures through a forest of skeletal trees, while above them ships and monsters battle in the sky. A mighty dragon is tattood across shoulderblades, with its head coiled around her left bicep and its tail around her right.

She is normally dressed in a heavy canvas kaftan with a thick leather belt. She wears trousers of a similar material that disappear under the kaftan, and are held in place with a second belt. Her boots are heavy and armoured, with metal plates bolted to the leather to protect them from all the risks of piloting an airship. She has a long, heavy jagged sword on her back that appears to be more ceremonial than actually combat-effective, although that doesn't stop her from using it anyway. On her belt she carries a six-shot revolver and a long, straight dagger like a kindjal. On her head she wears an oversized, tatty bicorn, and an altitude mask attached to a filter on her back by a leather hose. Lastly, she wears a leather harness that attaches to a pair of enormous, canvas wings with metal struts that hang on her back. They're mostly kept in a folded position.