&Bio.
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting.
NAME: Niccola Madu Asha Sekara Pidurutalagala. People generally call her Nico or Mads, and she has more aliases than she knows what to do with.
AGE/BIRTHDATE: Twenty-five; August 11th, 1982.
OCCUPATION: Independent restauranteur, legitimately. On occasion (and very much in secret), she's a smuggler and a long-distance freedom fighter.
LOCATION: Formerly of London by way of her native country, Sri Lanka. Currently living in Greenpoint in Brooklyn and doing business on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
FAIRYTALE: Rikki Tikki Tavi, from the eponymous short story in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
ABILITY: Mads is an unnaturally good fighter, with a genius for battle tactics and guerilla warfare. She's had a talent for combat since she could stand up on her own, to the point that she's drawn attention to herself for winning physical battles that would seem to defy the implied laws of physics. Her threshold for pain is sky-high, and her great strength does not correspond with her relatively small body. Furthermore, she has a tendency to survive even the unlikeliest of situations--drowning when she was four being the first. She's not Superman, or anything, but, if it an organized match, it would be a wise decision to put your money on Mads.
STATUS: Nico is rather protective of information regarding her identity, and her Tale status is no exceptions. Still, she's not entirely a closed book, and she will reveal her identity to close friends and other Jungle Bookers. Other people will have to ask, and likely be very persistent about it.
HISTORY:
Nico Mads was born in 1982 in Sri Lanka, on the outskirts of Palliyagodella. She was delivered in the bedroom of her family's modest home rather than in a hospital, as she seemed intent on coming out of the womb as soon as possible. The entire labor was over in ten minutes, and she was eating within the next ten. Grandmother Pidurutalagala performed the delivery. Nico's father, Rangiri, didn't even have time to pull his car from the office lot and head home before it was over. Jana, his wife and the new mother, didn't know what hit her. They named her Niccola in honor of Rangiri's friend Nico, an Italian who had come to do missionary work in Palliyagodella and had been killed in a nearby outburst of LTTE/PLO violence the month before.
Baby-proofing the house was impossible with young Nico Mads, as she had a knack for getting into everything, no matter the security level. She'd found a way out of her crib by the time she could crawl, and mastered the latch on the baby gate two months after that. The fact that the penurious family could only occasionally afford utilities, much less any top-of-the-line baby toys, made it that much more necessary for the child to seek out her own, more unorthodox ways of entertainment. Exploring her new world was at the top of the list. It wasn't unusual for her to find her way out of the house, even whilst she was still on breastmilk. In the summer, immediately after Nico's fourth birthday, she escaped through a rip in the back screen door and toddled down to the bank of the creek behind the house. The self-scheduled play date was innocent enough at first; she simply sat at the edge of the water and splashed, happy to escape (at least nominally, the sweltering temperature). Once she fancied she saw a rodent in the water, however, she accidentally ventured out too far and was taken up in the current. Unlike her Tale, however, she was recovered by her own family, in the hospital in the city. Any ordinary four year old would have died in the small river, and while she nearly shared the same fate, somehow she was released from the hospital after three days with just a bad cough. Well, that and an odd fixation on telling everyone that she was the mongoose, but they put that on temporary delirium. She was only four, after all. Rikki had realized her Tale during her near-death experience, but she learned quickly to shut up about the details.
Nico grew up poor: there is no other accurate way to put it. A further lie would be to propose she was blissful in such a state, ignorant of luxury or, for that matter, any other way of life. In truth, Mads grew up with a significant chip on her shoulder about her family's socioeconomic status, and it ate at her whenever she had to shake ants out of her blankets, patch up the roof with clay, or head off to school without breakfast. It wasn't that she was bitter or spoiled: quite the opposite. It was simply that she was weary of being made to feel her poverty by the other children at school, or of learning to hate herself when she stole for her family. She would beg forgiveness at temple, and there be told that money was the root of all evil; it did not take long for Nico to stop taking all of society at its word, especially when she was hungriest.
The only place she felt connected was in the capacity of nature and in food. Mads, her mother, and her grandmother all cooked together for supper, stretching what they'd all managed to gather into a meal for everyone. From them, she learned about sisterhood and culinary creativity.
From herself, she learned about the outdoors. When she wasn't in school, she was creeping through the sweltering Sri Lankan countryside outside her home. There were monsoons for a good segment of the year, but even in the hottest months, it wasn't unusually to find Mads out and about, learning on her own about the wildlife (both the benign and deadly varieties) or, on the occasion with the river, that she wasn't much of a swimmer. Mads learned above all how to move quietly and in secret in the tropical and lush climate.
Meanwhile, civil conflicts in Sri Lanka were escalating. Technically, Nico and her family were Tamil, but when the deal went down they were civilians in danger just like the rest. After the Palliyagodella Massacre in 1991, Nico and her family left the country as quickly as they were able, as they knew it wouldn't be long before Tamils in Sri Lanka, especially in Palliyagodella, would be the target of retaliatory attacks. They stayed outside Mumbai for the better part of a year before relocating to South London. Nico was eleven.
It wasn't particularly easy learning an entirely new language at that point, but as her parents registered her in school immediately, Mads didn't have much of a choice about it. Soon, under the influence of her classmates, Nico was speaking the fractured sort of cockney English one could hear all around Mitcham. She would spend her entire adolescence in ethnically-diverse South London, embracing western culture and learning the ways of her new world with much the same curiosity she'd exercised in her native country.
At this point, Nico was living alone with her mother. Her grandmother had died in Mumbai, and her father had gone back to Sri Lanka to work. Her mother had a difficult time finding a job, and, for the most part, they lived in poverty much as they had in their native home--save that here they were stranded in the middle of a completely alien urban environment. It wasn't long before she was given up to a loose foster home so her mother could rejoin her father in Sri Lanka. Leaving Mads behind was a wrenching decision for the tightly-knit family unit, just as it had been when Rangiri left to rejoin his business back home. In the end, however, they decided that Nico had a much better chance at getting a proper education in London than she did in their war-torn home village. It wasn't much comfort, but she by then (and in a sense, by necessity) already growing into a tough and adaptable young woman, and even then could understand her parents' logic on the matter. Thus, she was left alone in south London.
It turned out that Rikki was rather spectacularly good at getting herself both into and out of trouble. She did unexpectedly well in her classes at school, but also ran into the trouble with the headmistress for the occasional bout with truancy and scuffles in the schoolyard. The thing was, Nico had developed something of a habit of taking on the biggest bullies on the schoolyard and, well....solving her problems with a touch of good, clean, violence. It established a certain pecking order in the impoverished institution--or rather, obliterated the one already in place. Nico wasn't interested in power. Rather, she was just a fan of establishing--for lack of a better word--justice. If she could take down the bullies with a good fight, well, then so much the better. After one particularly rough scuffle, she was met at the principle's office not by yet another stern lecture from the headmistress, but with a strange, rather overly-solemn (she thought) woman that claimed to be a representative of the Atheneum. That day, Nico received her Compendium. The news that she really was a reincarnation of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was less a shock than it was a welcome confirmation that she hadn't really been insane since nearly drowning at four. Still, in the context of Nico's life, it meant rather jack-all to her.
She turned eighteen immediately after graduation. On the day after her birthday, she left the country and returned to Sri Lanka with the blind (and not particularly considered) plan of finding her family. Nico hadn't heard from either her mother or her father in over a year, but leaving them behind wasn't something on which she'd counted. They were nowhere to be found. An old friend hinted that her father was a prisoner of the state, but there was no record of his incarceration in any of the paper trails she followed.
It wasn't long before, guided by her innate and incorrigible tendency to put herself in the middle of any battle within the a fifty mile radius, Rikki had gotten herself caught up in the politics of the war. Though she didn't go so far as to take a side (or rather, she abandoned her default Tamil side), Nico found herself unable to leave; she felt as though she could be useful to the cause. Eventually, she'd organized a small cartel of smugglers that specialized in getting food and supplies to those that needed it most. Nico ran her operation through a restaurant in Palliyagodella.
After a few years, she'd gotten more enmeshed in the complex conflict than she'd ever meant to be, and found herself in a tight place no doubt similar to the one her father had seen before disappearing. She'd killed a total of four people during her time on the island. True, they'd always been either in self-defense or in protection of her crew, but the stats were there nonetheless. The latest body was a white soldier for the Sri Lankan government, and where the others had been easily disappeared, this one refused to go away. Her only saving grace was that the authorities didn't have her picture on record. This allowed her to flee the country.
Nico's escape wasn't quite scot-free, however. Her name was all over South London from her time in the school system, and, while the authorities weren't waiting for her at Heathrow, she'd been in the game long enough to know they'd be coming for her soon enough. After a night of sleep at a hotel and an afternoon buying a few things (she'd only come from Sri Lanka with the clothes on her back and all the money she had to her name, after all), she hopped an early evening flight to New York City.
NYC was a perfect place for her to disappear. It was as diverse as any city she'd ever lived in, and as long as she could make up a proper story about her pas, she settled right in. Nico started up another restaurant in Brooklyn, a few blocks off from the Greenpoint stop on the L train. Unlike her place in Sri Lanka, she offered unique Sri Lankan cuisine, and ended up doing well enough that she was able to open a second establishment in the place to where her younger friends told her was 'where all the white people live'--and, thereby, where there was money to be made: Manhattan. Her joint is on the edge of the East Village, which has recently become very hip. The restaurant is called, simply, Madu, and has turned from a quirky hole-in-the-wall joint to one of the more well-regarded eateries in the East Village, of all things. It's not entirely settled as a neighborhood, yet, and she's had more than one adventure in the city itself--one of which she'll still tell to her close friends (what? She thinks attempted kidnapping and murder is funny...). There are scores of regulars as well as the tourists that have found the place in Zagat's, and she knows every one of the former by name. It's not unusual to see her wandering through the main floor with silver bracelets on, sampling wines and recommending dishes, and generally contributing to the welcoming atmosphere.
Mads still uses her restaurant as a mild front for laundering and moving money to send back home. Thus far, as when she was actually in Sri Lanka, she has done her best to support the people's works, and not the Tigers or the Government.
PERSONALITY:
Nico Mads is a born general: stubborn, but only to a point, and always with strategy in mind. She is a creative thinker, and a bit unorthodox in her battle plans--but then, that's a large part of why she's been so successful. Above all, she is loyal to those that have been true to her, and it's no exaggeration to say that she would die without hesitation to protect someone she loves. Ironically enough, given her fiery brand of platonic affection, Nico has not had very many lasting romantic relationships--in part because her globe-hopping has made it impossible, and in part because her sense of wanting to right wrongs has always trumped her own personal desires. If she doesn't end the affair first, her odd self-righteousness and brand of idealism will usually do it for her. Unexpected nesting instincts hit her now and then, but it's unlikely she'll ever settle down.
It's gotten her into more than one scrape over time, but Nico is almost impossible to frighten. She has an insatiable curiosity that always overpowers her natural caution, and she often turns even the most dangerous of situations into personal challenges. Granted, she's settled down quite a bit as she's aged, and with experience has come a wisdom that makes her think twice. She's less hyperactive now than she was when she was young. Indeed, aside from the obvious physical resemblence, Nico is rather like an old prizefighter. She is calm and collected, and she takes news that would have once sent her into a blind rage with reasonable equanimity. This is not to say she won't rise to a challenge, and she's been known to lose her temper, but for the most part she's learned to handle her affairs with class and dignity. For the most part.
On an ordinary day--and sometimes even in the heat of battle--Nico is a deeply fun person to be around. She has a wonderful sense of humor, and has learned in her short time on earth that she might not be around much longer. Thus, to her, there's no sense in bemoaning something when one could make fun of it instead. She's a fantastic drinker for her size, and she always keeps the bar open late.
Five Random Facts:
o1. Nico is a horrible swimmer. Horrible. It's almost comical. Put her in a boxing ring, on a hockey pitch, on a track--no problem. But dump her in the deep end without water wings, and you'll be having to fish her out before she drowns.
o2. She's also a brilliant tactician, and no stranger to competition--Madu's has brilliant food, certainly, but that's not the only she's the premiere Sri Lankan eatery on the south side of Manhattan.
o3. Her apartment in Brooklyn has been soundproofed, as she has a particular weakness for loud music.
o4. She loves the food and the luxury that's come with her newfound financial stability, but she's never forgotten that "a full mongoose is a slow mongoose," and she always practices moderation.
o5. Mads has a bit of a weakness for odd trinkets. She's no packrat, but if she sees a kooky pair of sunglasses, or a purple mandarin collar jacket, or a necklace made of elk teeth, a porcelain elephant, or a pair of sandals that lace up to her knees, or a really gaudy pair of brass knuckles, she'll probably buy them/it. She's never had money to burn before, and she's modestly planning on enjoying herself. To paraphrase a particularly excellent punkpoprock band from the Pacific Northwest, anyone who says that money is the root of all that kills has never been poor.
APPEARANCE: Nico Mads is a naturally good-looking lady, but let's not go overboard. Her hair is insistently wavy and does much as it pleases for most of the time, and she makes no effort to tame it. She has a rounded nose, big lips, and large brown eyes that are, more often than not, readier to smile than is the rest of her face. Nico's fashion sense is decidedly...naturalistic, and though she does have a sense of what she likes to wear, it does not always coincide with what looks good on her. This occasionally wacky style of dress is compounded by the fact that she now has money to buy clothes that serve more purposes than simply their immediate, necessary function. Nico is very short and slim, but she's no waif: her lifestyle of sports and fisticuffs has kept her in absolutely premium shape.
PB: M.I.A.
the obligatory bit
No, we're not going to ask for samples! But we require a blurb answering this question: What's the relationship between your character and their tale? How do they channel their role, and how comfortable are they with it? This part is to make sure you have a loose grip on both your character and their fairytale theme. You don't need to put this in the profile after acceptance, but it's a good resource for us.
I've tried to allude to Nico's relationship to her tale throughout this app: the swimming, the fighting, the curiosity, the fearlessness, the innate sense of honor and right and wrong, her moderation, as well as her occasional wish to be a "house mongoose" are all direct references to the text of Kipling's story.
Nico is very comfortable with her Tale identity. She realized she was The Mongoose when she was very young, at a time when fairy tales are still very real, and she thus never had to go through a time of doubt regarding her role. As she's grown, she's come to further understand the implications of her Tale status, but has not (she believes) let it affect her life above what she deems important.