A human male, young but not a child, standing at an unassuming five foot six. He's a child of the desert, to be sure, dark olive skin and black hair pulled loosely back, out of bright blue eyes. He's clean-shaven as well, exposing boyish features. He's light of build, all wiry muscle. There might be evidence of past malnutrition, if one knows what to look for, but he seems healthy enough now. Typically, he's wearing simple clothes in muted browns and off-whites, lacking much in the way of funds or desire to splurge for anything fancier.
In terms of personality, in a situation where he's comfortable and feels in control, he's playful, an adrenaline junkie, and more than a bit of a thrill-seeker. In other situations, he comes off as bouncy, full of barely-restrained energy and seeming like he might bolt any second. He legitimately enjoys, too, pushing the boundaries and learning new things, but has largely been stifled up until now, on account of a childhood spent more focused on survival than education.
Asra comes from a particularly poor community in a desert trade hub in a backwater desert of an equally backwater plane. It's a glorified shanty town, really, but it exists in the alleyways and the back streets, away from the public eye, and there's not a lot of money to be had in either removing it or renovating it, so it continues to exist. The locals call it 'The Rats' Nest'; impossible to navigate, filled with interesting and unsettling things alike, and probably also a breeding ground for diseases. In spite of the reputation, there's not actually a lot of crime there, on account of nobody having much that's worth stealing, and also on account of the Nest having a rumor mill that works faster than any government news could have a hope of moving. If one person robs his neighbor, it's a safe bet he'll never see the inside of a jail cell. His family life was... strained. Both parents were caring individuals, but they had other children as well, and there was never enough money to go around. Asra left home in his early teens to take the strain off his parents, and has been living on his own since. That wasn't the only reason, however. At an early age, Asra learned he had a... talent. A magical ability, natural to him, to create 'tunnels' through space. At first, all he could manage was an entrance big enough to fit a hand through, and a distance of a foot or so, but over time he's gotten better. He can fit himself through the tunnels now, using them to facilitate a moderately successful career as a pickpocket and cutpurse, stealing enough food and money to, in essence, get by, usually making a sudden getaway that most consider too much effort to follow.
Asra, it should be noted, is that specific class of mage caled a 'Planeswalker', taken from a campaign playing around with the Magic: The Gathering universe. That said, he's not very good at it and he's only just discovered he can even do it, so while you should certainly expect playing around with his magical 'talent', that's really the only trick he has up his sleeve and you shouldn't expect him to do world-changing magic. He's still learning!
The rooftops meant something to him. In fact, they meant a lot of things. Convenience, to avoid the crowds, to be able to get anywhere in the city in minutes. Freedom, too, from the stifling heat of packed streets, a place where the wind blew unchecked and brought the rising scents of spices and steam from the marketplace. There were never guards up here, patrolling, always looking for someone who wouldn't or couldn't fight back if they wanted a minute of vicious amusement. To a boy of eight, the rooftops were a kingdom, and Asra fancied himself their prince, quick and agile enough to bound from one building to the next. Some nights, he might get lucky and catch the discarded leftovers from the food stands before the dogs could get to them, a treat that didn't mean he'd have to risk picking pockets for the evening's meal, for a change.
It was moments like these that he lived for, just after dusk when the city lit up like the night sky, when the frigid winds of the desert night met the warmth of sun-baked stone. He takes a leap off a house onto the roof of a temple next door, the distance far enough that the other boys shied away from it. But not Asra. He'd made the jump dozens of times before, and the thrill of watching the street pass by three stories below was, in his opinion, the finest joy to be had in the world. It was moments like these that he lived for, just after dusk when he could enjoy his city, his playground alone.
He'd made the jump dozens of times before. But the instant he landed on the ancient stone, he knew. The landing was wrong. Stone that had seemed so solid before moved, now, under the weight of his impact, and a landing he'd perfected over months was compromised. The brick shifted, and instinct kicked in as he fell forward, arching backwards to correct his balance. But when he tilted backwards, so did the stone. There was a great crunch as the ancient masonry gave way, and fear, cold and vicious and more deadly than the most venomous serpent, tore into his gut as solid stone turned into open air. From his perspective, time seemed to crawl, seconds stretching out into eternity as the lip of the temple roof grew further away. Two feet. Five feet. Ten. Twenty.
It would be poetic to say that memories flashed through his eyes, that he witnessed an entire life in mere moments, a prelude to a sudden and ignoble end. But there was no recollection, no revelation forthcoming. Merely a distant, dull sense of realization, shock at having messed up the landing and fear of the fall taking root. There was no fevered plea to whatever god may listen, no goodbye, perhaps, for a loved one left behind. Asra's final thought, in fact, was instead the simple, undignified 'Oh.'
: Or it would have been, at least, had he not impacted water, and not earth. Rather than breaking his neck, he received a shock, a thousand needles that pierced his skin from all directions at once. Desert nights were chilly. Asra had never felt cold before. He gasped, instinctively, and saltwater, a few degrees perhaps above freezing, flooded his lungs. Confusion, panic, pain. He could not will his limbs to take him to the surface (not that he could, at any rate. Astonishingly, the desert provided few opportunities to learn how to swim.), could not breathe, could do nothing more than sink... And just as a vision of a grey sky and falling snow began to fade behind the waves...
He fell again, a drop of a foot onto sun-baked stone once more, dimly recognizing a shower of water and a hole in the sky, ringed by blue, remaining for an instant before flickering and sputtering out, like a candle suddenly doused.
Time seemed, in that moment, to resume its usual pace, and he found himself turning over, coughing and retching as seawater, still as cold as ice, left his lungs. Shaking, he rose to hands and knees, casting his gaze around for something, anything familiar. The temple roof, he was where he'd been meaning to go the whole time. For a fleeting instant, he entertained the thought it might have been a dream, but the pain and numbness from the cold won't leave him, and he's dripping onto the stone and he can still taste the salt... and the brick he'd fallen from is missing, now, crumbled away and fallen. No, not a dream.
His vision refocuses, and as he looks down, his fingertips leave a trail of blue in the air, a light that fades after only a moment, and in the end he's left with only a single thought, spoken aloud this time, as he continues to cough, sitting up with difficulty and staring at his hand, where that cerulean glow had been just seconds before.
"What..."