General Informations
Complete name: Fa Ping
Age and Birthday: 20, november 23th
Home country: Beijing, China
Known languages: chinese (mother language) english (high level)
Occupation: Captain in the chinise army, bodyguard of the princess Jasmine during the last year
Story
Ping born from the great general of the Chinise army, Fa Zou, and his beautiful wife, Li. The general and his wife had already had 3 daughters, and the general desperately needed an heir to take one day his place. But Li was a fragile woman: 7 pregnancies, including 3 miscarriages, had destroyed her and Zou knew that it was his last chance to have a son. He needed it: without an heir, his house would have soon fell in disgrace.
But, once again, his wife gave birth to a little female. Zou felt desperate: He spent the whole night praying his ancestors to make him find a solution and finally, in the morning, he had an illumination.
He ran to his wife's room, where she was breastfeeding the baby: she had decided to call the little girl Mulan, but Zou had other plans.
He took the baby from her mother arms and, in front of the whole family, he proclaimed:
"He's name is Ping, and he's my son."
So he decided: he grown up the baby as a male, as his heir. Nobody except for the family knew that Ping wasn't a male, it was a terrible secret that the family carried with strenght.
When Ping started to grow up, to ask, to wonder, to wanting to understand why he didn't seem a boy, his father replied to him that it wasn't his fault. He was a male, a real man, but nature had done something wrong to him. Nobody would have understood, so nobody had to know.
Ping believed it when he was a child, and grew up with this convintion, and even growing up he wanted to keep believing in it. Because he didn't have any choice, he had to be a man, he considered himself a man, he couldn't face that in reality he wasn't.
To make him become a man, Fa Zou provided himself to his education: he was really severe, almost mean toward the little Ping. The child received a lot of rules, a lot of exercise, a lot of study: he had to be the best. To be sure that he would have grown up with a male mantality, he kept him away from the sisters and the mother, let they stay together only a couple of hours every week. Maybe because of this lack Ping developed a big love for his mother, that was always so sweet and tender to him, that hugged him and caressed his head with her bittersweet smile, calling him "My sweet unlucky child".
But the person that he was closest to was, of course, his father. Because even if he was really sever, he really loved him. And because see that proud smile on his face everytime he did something good was the most beautiful sensation to him, and Ping loved him as well. He spent the first 14 years of his life almost only with his father, passing enough time with his mother and
his sister to develope a big love for them but not enough to be influenced by them.
When he reached his 14° birthday, he had to start the military academy. He was scared to have to leave, scared to be discovered, scared to not being able to do it… he prayed his mother to let him stay, but his father didn't hear any reason. He should become a general one day, he had to do it.
With him went his uncle, his father's brother: he was a doctor of an high level in the army, and he expressly required to can follow his nephew. He had to help him to protect his secret, he was the only doctor allowed to visit him, but of course, even if he loved his nephew, he wasn't a great company: he had to let him learn, not to protect him.
And for Ping life in the academy was hard, he was a great soldier but he wasn't able to have relationships with the other guy, often older then him. It was hard, but at the end of the academy, two years later, he had became a man.
And after the academy… the war. When he had ended with the academy, he had became a man, when he ended with the war, he was a soldier, and soon a captain.
He had learnt a lot, about agility, strength, strategy, about how to hide his nature better, about how to stand the pain and so on.
And, differently from the academy where he had been always on his own, in war he started to stay with other people, to have relationship with them, to make friends, more or less: he didn't talk a lot with them, but he trusted give his own life in their hands, and they did the same. It was even funny stay with them in the quiet moment, and it was a pleasure share 2 years of his life with them, and then, share with them the victory.
When he came back home, after the war, he was his father's pride.
It didn't took long before he was nominated captain, and he was only a little more then 18. And, as his first mission, he was asked to be the bodyguard of the princess Jasmine: a princess that, for some political affairs, had been sent to study in great britain but that had to come back in an year for an arranged marriage.
He had to move to Great Britain, where he reached the princess and joined her little escort to guide it.
When he arrived in GB he had a lot of problems with the language: he had studied a bit of english when he was younger, but was a different thing read only a bit of it in books from having to speak it. Luckily but he was a smart guy and in less then a year he started to control the language.
But especially, in this year he started to get on well with Jasmine: because of his role he had to spend a lot of time with the princess and started to know her. She was a free spirit, trapped in a life that she had never chosen, forced to respect choices that were done for her: it felt somehow connected to the girl. And she was nice, and kind, and gentle, and she wanted to talk, to have someone to listen to her: she needed a friend as much as, he realized, he needed one.
So she became his first friend. He couldn't tell everything, she couldn't know about his secret, but… it wasn't important: she understood him, his situation of being forced in a life that hadn't been chosen by him, and on the other side, he was there for her.
It was a good relationship, and Ping liked spend time with her.
Until she started to develop a crush on him.
That was wrong, and under many point of views! She was a princess and he was a captain, she was engaged, and he was supposed to escort her to her wedding, and, most important, he wasn't a real man.
It was the first time that he really realized it, and it hit him worse then a punch: he could pretend, could fight, could be a perfect soldier. But he wasn't a man. And in the same time, he wasn't even a woman: he had learnt to think of himself as a male, he had become a soldier, he had lived his whole life as a man…
For the first time he realized that he was destined to be alone.
In the army he already had to refuse to follow some of his mates when they went to the brothels, but he had refused more for shyness then because he had really thought to the consequences. And he came from an old family, a family were the gallantry and the honor came first, so it didn't even seem too weird in his mates's eyes.
He also had to refuse some proposal from some honorable families to marry their daughters: his family justified it telling that, as his uncle, Ping wanted to live his life for the army and for the country.
To keep the Fa family's name even in future, Fa Zou had already thought his plan: the first son born by one of his daughters would have been adopted by Ping has his heir. It was possible, since he was his nephew. So the family would have continued.
Ping hadn't complained about his father's choise. As always. At the beginning he didn't even understood it.
But with Jasmine it became clear. He was the only one of his 'kind': not male, not female. He was destined to stay alone.
But was too late to regret his life, and he just decided to not face that truth.
When the moment arrived, he took with Jasmine the ship that had to bring them to China, for her arranged marriage.
Their relationship was changed: he felt uncomfortable when the girl wanted to spend time alone with him, knowing her feelings, but he didn't feel like leave her in the delicate moment. She needed someone to stay with her while she was saying goodbye to her last moments of freedom.
But that ship never arrived in China. There was the accident, he tried to save Jasmine helping her to reach a row boat, but he fainted, and when he woke up he was on a desert island, surrounded by people that he didn't know. And Jasmine wasn't there.
Personality
In general Ping is a really shy person, used to stay on his own. He feels more comfortable alone or with other males, while usually females make him feel really uncomfortable. He's not good in social relationships, but he becomes really confident when it comes to fight or similar things.
He's usually a really tense person, but he's also kind and gentle, expecially to women, and also he's very formal. Only recently and only toward some people he's managing to overcome his formality in relationships.
He firmly believes in the values of honor and duty: duty for the family, the army and the country, and those values are the basis of his whole life's impoistation.
He is not only a great warrior, but he's even a great man full of principles, what in Europe could be defined as 'a real knight'.
Family&Relationships
The family is really the most important thing to Ping, expecially because he hardly can have relationships with other people.
Fa Zou, his father, is his great model, his master, his guide. Make him happy and proud is all it matters in Ping's life. He's only the one who ruined Ping's life, not allowing him to be who he was supposed to be, but Ping loves him too much and in his heart he forgive him.
Fa Li, his mother, in Ping's mind she's almost an angel. He never managed to see her really happy, all her smiles toward him were filled with bitterness, and it was something that had always hurted him inside. She had alway been a safe heaven to him, but he couldn't help but see her as his angel with a broken wing.
Fa Chi, his uncle, his father's brother, is another really important person in his life: he had always been present for him, especially when he started the academy. He's a doctor, and to protect him and his secret he had always been his only doctor. He always thought that Zou's idea was crazy, but he never told it to Ping, and he had always been ready to help his nephew.
Then there are his sisters, Fa Tin Tin, Ping's older sister: she's 25, the more serious of his sisters, Fa Mei, the middle one, who's 23 and
Fa Su, that is 21, onlye one year older then him and act like he actually was the older one. Even if the most 'annoying', Su is his favourite sister! All his sisters know his secret, and they'r used to keep it. Also, since they were never allowed to see Ping as a sister, they actually consider him as their little brother. Unluckily for Ping and his shy attitude, the girls are really exuberant, and hugs and cuddle him and embarrass him is one of their favorite hobbies. Ping really do love them, but he would prefer a war to an entire hour with them! Also, since of the instruction that he had received, Ping is really jealous of his sisters: is his duty protect her, even if they're older. After all, they're only women, they need the protection and the guide of the family's men.
