Maple Arboretta

**Maple Arboretta** is a member of Team CHML and the partner of Honey Clover. She is a first years student at Beacon Academy, in the year below RWBY and JNPR. Her symbol is a stylised raccoon head with whiskers, done in red. Her aura is golden brown, and flows slowly but fluidly around her when visible.

She belongs to SpiritedDreaming and Phantomlink959.

## Appearance

Maple is a young woman with red hair left loose. Blonde highlights have been put through her hair, giving it a fiery effect. She has dark brown eyes and lightly tanned skin. Her physique is lithe, flexible and toned with a gymnast build focusing on flexibility rather than power. Her face is oval in shape, with a straight nose.

She wears a crop singlet with built in sports bra, white with red edging and her symbol on the back. Arched over the symbol is her last name in blocky, black lettering. She also wears an inverted box-pleated skirt with the inside of the pleats red and dark orange bike shorts underneath. She wears loose white knee socks that gather around her ankles, white running shoes with red laces, and white elbow length fingerless gloves with minor reinforcement. A utility belt is slung around her hips.

## History

Born in the heart of Vale, Maple is the oldest child of a lower class docks worker and a stay at home mum. One of three children, she learnt rather early on that trying to stand out from a crowd of strangers brought discrimination upon herself, so instead she became a follower, always watching and cheering on her younger siblings and any others who stepped forward in their endeavours. When she was eight, her father died in a workplace accident involving a crate that hadn’t been tied off properly on a crane. Her mother got a job doing junk mail delivery and running messages between anyone who needed it, Maple helping out wherever she could and being the stay at home carer for her younger siblings.

When she was eleven, Maple heard of a program that was free to enter being offered by the CCT. Desperate for something fun to call her own after helping her mother and looking after her siblings that she could do without having to buy extra gear or learn a new skill that would take away from her other commitments, she entered the quartet pen pal program and was given the details of Cinnamon Muscovado, Honey Clover and Vanilla Legume. She found the stress relief offered by talking with the other three girls helped her cope with helping her mother and siblings.

She enrolled in Signal Academy to follow the footsteps of her friends, leaving the care of her mother and siblings to the second oldest child, who by that time was more than old enough to help around the house. Though her mother was sad to see her spending so much time away from the family, she was glad Maple had found something she wanted to do for herself and worked overtime to get enough money together to kit her out in basic gear.

When the girl’s turned thirteen and the Vytal Festival came around, Maple was unsure about being able to go to Vanilla’s house and the Vytal Festival, but the other girls chipped in to get her there and she found herself enjoying the time they spent together. She was excited to go to Cinnamon’s house the next year, though felt kind of bad that her friends seemed to be paying for her trips around the world and resolved to work as many jobs as she could between home and school to earn money to pay them back with.

At the age of 15, almost 16, the four girls entered into a four-way romantic relationship with each other. The first months were full of drama as expected of a group of girls entering a poly-amorous relationship while they found a balance between each other.

She graduated Signal with more high practical scores and middling theoretical scores, and in the break between years made the throwaway idea of the four of the quartet teaming up to enroll in Beacon together. She was pleasantly surprised at how much Cinnamon pushed for it. She did most of the on-scene legwork for the enrolments, often acting as a scout for locations and people around Beacon and Vale itself.

When Beacon was destroyed, the girls were all together enjoying the Vytal festival. They managed to stick together and watch each others backs during the invasion, and were even more determined not to be split up after that. In the following months they discussed their options, and the decision was made to attend Shade Academy instead.

## Personality

A quieter type than her friends, Maple is much less inclined to take the lead and follows along at a sedate pace, going with the flow. She doesn’t believe in rushing through things, and figures that once something works it doesn’t need improvement, even if it’s not perfect. She tends to ignore most harmful remarks, though people accusing her of thievery will always rile her up and get her to lash out, as she wants to prove that not all raccoon's are thieves. She drinks iced coffee in the mornings, and loves to lie in, even if she’s not actually sleeping.

Likes: Pancakes, blackberries, receiving gifts (especially if they’re really simple and small)

Dislikes: acidic foods, being forced into the spotlight, being called a thief

## Abilities and Powers

### Sapling

Sapling is a very basic weighted baton that extends into a quarterstaff, then splits into a pair of kanbo. Her fighting style is composed of Hanbo and Bo jutsu, twirling them to deflect ranged attacks. Quick and sudden attacks, feints and utilising the extra weight of the staff to do large amounts of damage are the main forms of her offensive capabilities.

### Mimic

Maple's semblance is Mimic, or the ability to copy any physical action she sees perfectly. She does not learn them automatically, and the moves will be gone from her memory within twenty four hours. She also has to be physically capable of doing the moves herself, otherwise she runs the risk of physically harming herself. This is why she focuses on flexibility for her fighting style. When in use, Maple's eyes turn completely golden-brown and glow.

### Statistics

All statistics follow a scale of 0 to 5, where 0 is non-existent, 1 is low, 2 is below average, 3 is average, 4 is above average and 5 is high.

Physical Statistics

* Strength: 4
* Speed: 4
* Agility: 5
* Stamina: 3

Aural Statistics

* Aura Reserve: 3
* Aura Manipulation: 2
* Semblance Manipulation: 2
* Dust Manipulation: 0

Technical Statistics

* Dust use: 0
* Weapon Skill (Primary): 5
* Weapon Skill (Unarmed): 2 (varies with semblance)
* Weapon Skill (Close Combat): 4 (varies with semblance
* Weapon Skill (Mid Range Combat): 3 (varies with semblance)
* Weapon Skill (Ranged Combat): 0 (varies with semblance)

## Trivia

* Maple trees are known for their red leaves and golden syrup made from the sap. Arboretta is the Latin word for tree (*Arbor*) with an Italian diminutive suffix (*-etta*)
* All four members of CHML are in a poly-amorous relationship together.