Princess Mukushen (Y/C. 穆库什 Mùkùshén), 86 AG-Present, is a young noble of the Nara clan, and an imperial kinswoman of the deposed Great Ri dynasty. She was born in the Si Wong desert, where her clan were banished after their support for Chin the Great in the Earth Kingdom civil war. She was forced to flee from her home when political violence within the Nara clan resulted in the deaths of her parents.

Name and Title

Mukushen was born to the Aisin (Y. 愛新 Aisin, C. 金 Jīn) family of the Nara (Y. 納喇 Nara, C. 日 Rì) clan of the Yonggan people. Her semi-nativized name in the Central Earth Kingdom language is Rijin Mukushen (日金·穆库什), and she also has a completely-nativized Earth Kingdom name, Rì Jīnmù 日金穆 in which her clan name is interpreted as a surname and her nativized family name is the first syllable of her "given name." Traditionally, the Yonggan do not use surnames as such, and it would be strange to address Mukushen by her family or clan names in the Yonggan language. However, under the influence of the Earth Kingdom culture, most Nara are familiar with and accept the concept of surnames in Earth Kingdom contexts.

Mukushen's full title, omitting titles that she might theoretically hold but have never been operative in her lifetime, is: The Lady Mukushen of the Noble House of Aisin, Granite Princess of the Imperial Nara Blood.

Among the Nara (and other Yonggan who might recognize her nobility) she would generally be addressed as gege ("princess") rather than by a personal name, except by her family and friends. However, among the cosmopolitan Earth Kingdom culture, she quickly gave up on having people call her "Princess" and goes by her assimilated name, Jinmu.

Ancestry

The Aisin descend from the Prince of Jin, younger brother of the first Ri monarch of the Earth Kingdom and one of the conquest elite of the then-new dynasty. As she has no brothers and the Yonggan use male-preference primogeniture, with the death of her father, Mukushen is the de jure heir to the Principality of Jin, northeast of Ba Sing Se. However, her family lost control of these lands during the twilight years of the Great Ri. They lost their remaining holdings in traditional Yonggan lands, after the Nara clan supported Chin the Great in his ultimately unsuccessful rebellion against the Hou-Ting dynasty that had supplanted the Great Ri centuries prior.

Names are as transcribed in the relevant volumes of the Veritable Records of the Great Ri or the Register of the Imperial Nara Kinfolk, in its Si Wong recension.

Early Life

Mukushen was born to a life of relative privilege, though she and her family were very conscious of just how far they had fallen during their exile and, indeed, since the glory days of the Great Ri. Her household was semi-nomadic, shifting hunting grounds for their dwarf badgermole herd four times a year through the Si Wong desert and portions of the bandlands included in the Bryce/Scratch/Nara Pale of Banishment. They lived in an Ukdun, a traditional Yonggan dwelling constructed with earthbending. Her father Bahai the Younger was the eldest son and heir apparent to the Luminous Khanate of the Nara, and her mother was his secondary wife, MOGIYA-NARA Sain, a haruspical priestess and earthbender. Mukushen was the firstborn, arriving a year after Sain and Bahai were married. The birth was difficult for Sain and she was advised to avoid subsequent pregnancies, which she and Bahai reluctantly accepted. Bahai resisted pressure from his father to take a third wife and attempt to produce a son.

Mukushen had a wet nurse, GIAO-NARA Hojo, in keeping with the tradition of Nara families of high rank, who typically turned their infants over to wet nurses after a week or two. In Mukushen's case, Hojo had to feed her right away, as Sain's milk production was very poor due to her poor state of health after the delivery. Hojo nursed Mukushen until the age of six and half, also the typical practice for highborn Nara children.

As a child, Mukushen was noted to be intelligent and precocious. She was able to read the (phonetic) Yonggan script at the age of four, and could speak two dialects of the Central Earth Kingdom language (Ganjinese and the Si Wong dialect) in addition to her native language. She was noted to be an earthbender at the age of five. Her formal schooling, with tutors, began at the age of six. She learned the Ba Sing Se dialect, and the common ideographic written language of the Earth Kingdom, from them.

Though Wailan khan tried to gently pressure her father into taking a third wife, he never did, and Wailan accepted that Mukushen would be heir to his princely title, with the khanate expected to eventually pass to his younger son's family instead, which already included a grandson, AISIN-NARA Sholantu. Wailan did not want the titles to be divided, but did not feel that the clan council would allow a female to inherit. He, and later his wife provided generous financial support for the education of both Mukushen and her cousin Sholantu.

Shortly before Mukushen's 7th birthday, her grandfather Wailan khan went missing, having walked into the desert at night for unclear reasons. Despite an intensive search, he was not found, and his disappearance remained a mystery. Bahai resisted suggestions that he should ask the clan council to declare the luminous khan to have died or even just abdicated, and continued to conduct himself as the heir apparent. In this unusual state of affairs, allies were frustrated and rivals saw opportunity; Mukushen's family made little attempt to shield her from the realities of Nara politics.

Mukushen continued to be an apt pupil of her tutors. Her mother, more open than most to the idea that the Sandbender tribes of the Si Wong might know something useful about Earthbending, even arranged for a sandbender woman, Yulduz, to tutor Mukushen in sandbending.

At age ten, Mukushen was initiated as an acolyte in the Nara religious tradition of which her mother was a priestess. By this point, Mukushen was recognized as an earthbending prodigy among the Nara, and her grandmother also hired a Yonggan earthbending master, LU HALA Taksi, to help train Mukushen in latest developments in the Great Northern Earthbending Way. This was at considerable expense, since Taksi did not like living in the desert and requested large sums of money.

Adolescence

At 11, Mukushen's studies in earthbending had progressed to such an extent that she attained the Quartz degree, under the tuteledge of Taksi and an ethnic Central master named MAO Leping. This was unusual as that degree is seldom attained before the age of 16.

At 12 years of age, Mukushen was betrothed to AIYIN-NARA Elden, eldest son of AIYIN-NARA Tolo, a prominent Nara noble and Granite Duke, his family descended from the conquest elite of the Great Ri. Mukushen liked Elden, though relations between their families were somewhat frosty, and the betrothal proved to be an unsuccessful attempt by her father and the aging Aiyin patriarch to improve them.

Shortly after her betrothal, Mukushen was initiated as a haruspical priestess and began more intense studies in ritual, sacrifice and divination with the Imperial High Priestess MOGIYA NARA Ulhichun. AISIN NARA Mengtemu, a scholar and distant cousin, taught her the history of the Earth Kingdom from the Veritable Records, and also instructed her in geomancy.

At 13, noting her unusually precocious attainment of the Topaz degree in the Great Northern Earthbending Way, Bahai decided that Mukushen's knowledge might benefit from diversification, and hired LIN Weichun, a Hung Gar earthbender of the Central Earth Kingdom tradition, to teach her. She caught on quickly, and began to synthesize the styles, though her style remains dominated by the Yongdan tradition.

As the young teenager had shown an interest in the culture and political history of the Earth Kingdom, TONG Zhen, an itinerant scholar who grew up in Ba Sing Se, was also hired to teach her about contemporary Earth Kingdom culture. He was also avidly following the progress of the Hundred Years War. A political dissident expelled from Ba Sing Se university, Zhen was keen to impart his opinions on when and how the incumbent dynasty had gone wrong to his student.

Being very occupied with her studies and encouraged by her senior mother (i.e. ARU-NARA Yuheng) to remain aloof from ordinary Nara children, Mukushen had no close friends apart from her cousin and milk-sister GIAO-NARA Muke. Although they lived in the same household, Muke was a commoner of mixed ethnic descent and Yuheng somewhat disapproved of the girls' friendship.

Flight from the Nara Clan

When Mukushen was 14, the Aiyin family patriarch died, passing his title to his son Tolo. Tolo then addressed the clan council and requested that he be acclaimed khan, since Wailan was dead and his son Bahai refused to accept this fact. Although the council seemed unlikely to grant the request, the suggestion was taken seriously and it was clearly with some support. Though not of the Imperial blood, Tolo was a popular and generous nobleman. As discussions were taking place, Mukushen's father Bahai slew Tolo in the council chambers, enraged by the insistence that Wailan was dead. A fight ensued, in which Bahai and several counselors who had been arguing against accepting Tolo's claim were all killed. Tolo was acclaimed khan, with questionable regularity; he died that night however and the rump clan council allowed his son Elden to succeed him.

Mukushen was at home during the council meeting, attempting to train her dwarf badgermole, Shu. At the council, however, was her older cousin, Yeyun, who ran back to warn Wailan's wife/widow Bumbutai. Bumbutai was able to persuade Mukushen to flee, entrusting her with some important cultural objects belonging to the late khan. The Aiyin khan's supporters attacked Mukushen's home, killing Bahai's wives and Bahai's faithful eunuch steward, WEI Zhu; Wailan's household was also attacked, with Mukushen's grandmother Bumbutai and uncle being killed. Although Mukushen acted on the instruction of her grandmother, she nonetheless is ashamed that she did not immediately avenge her family. Mukushen hid in the desert for a day, before sneaking back, only to find that the Aiyin had consolidated power and installed the fifteen-year-old boy to whom she was betrothed, AIYIN-NARA Elden, as khan under a regency; her cousin Sholantu had survived by renouncing his claim to the khanate.

Mukushen paid a clandestine visit to the house of the high priestess MOGIYA NARA Ulhichun, who had supervised her religious education, only to find that Ulhichun had been put to death after making unfavorable predictions about the new khan. While Mukushen was "recovering" some further important religious and cultural objects from Ulhichun's former residence, she was discovered by a pair of guards loyal to the Aiyin Nara. Not desiring to give up the objects (or be captured and possibly executed by the Aiyin) she fought them with her earthbending. One of the guards was definitely killed, but the other survived and informed the usurper khan about the incident. Mukushen again escaped into the desert, and found her way to a Beetle-headed merchant caravan, which she joined as a mercenary earthbender to earn a living.

Continuing Interest of the AIYIN-NARA in Mukushen

The Aiyin are actively seeking to return Mukushen to Nara society for several reasons - to face justice for her murder and assault of the Aiyin-allied guards at Ulhichun's house, and to recover the important records and cultural objects she was given or stole. Nara clan law is also unclear on the circumstances under which a betrothal can be unilaterally resolved, and although they can guess Mukushen's feelings about marrying Elden at this point, they do not have an official statement renouncing the arrangement from the Aisin. (The Aisin patriarch recognized by the Aiyin in the aftermath of the late political violence is Mukushen's cousin Sholantu, who is a minor and unable to dissolve the contract on her behalf.) However, the surviving clan elders agree that if Mukushen were dead, Elden could take another bride as his paramount wife. (Nara high nobility sometimes practice polygamy, but the betrothal contract between the Aisin and Aiyin specifically says that Mukushen will be Elden's paramount wife, in case he should happen to take another bride before the official wedding; obviously being freed of this constraint makes him a much more attractive prospect.)

Elden himself actually still likes Mukushen and absolutely does not want her to be captured and killed; however, his regency are unlikely to take his feelings on the matter into account overmuch as they would hardly permit him to marry for love given Mukushen's apparent political uselessness to the Nara at this point in her life.

Shu the Dwarf Badgermole

Mukushen has a dwarf badgermole of her own, named Shu. Badgermoles take up to a decade to reach maturity, and Shu was given to Mukushen on her tenth birthday, as a yearling (making him now 5 years old.) Shu stands about 1m high at the arch, and is considered too small to ride. (Mukushen is a relatively large girl and badgermoles have spinal biomechanics unsuited for riding unless they are much larger in proportion to the rider.) However, he is still useful as a pack animal, and carries most of Mukushen's kit around for her. As a badgermole, Shu is a natural earthbender and is trained to use his bending in active cooperation with his owner. Like other badgermoles, Shu is blind and senses his environment with earthbending.

Shu responds to the Yonggan badgermole horn, even when played less-than-expertly by Mukushen.

Earthbending Abilities

Religious and Philosophical Views

"Recovered" Nara Cultural Objects

Other Inventory

Personality

Physical Appearance

Mukushen is tall for her sex, race and age, standing 162 cm tall. She weighs 60 kg. She is of substantially unmixed ethnic Yonggan descent and although her complexion is similar to Central Earth Kingdom people, she has brown eyes, in visual distinction to most of them and in common with most Yonggan. She has straight, black hair which she keeps short except for two long cue-like braided pigtails, one on the left and one on the right.