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[Elaborations]

"how would he respond to another person's needs, be it family or friend? If someone was in danger or in need of his help, would he ignore them in favor of self-preservation, or would he lend a hand, knowing that, if anything were to happen to either party, he might have to accept the blame onto himself?"

He could notice and take into some account that there may be benefit not just in his own part after confirming the possibility of his own when making decisions. More often than not he would give help especially in dangerous circumstances. His self-interest has some gambling quality to it. At the very least, the risk-taker in him will be seeking out the challenge to strengthen and improve himself through further testing his survival, competence, and mentality in adversity. And he can come across as lacking in lamentation when affirming the exercises of his own discretion while discussing dire outcomes.

"Is there still an underlying desire for acceptance, approval, and praise, perhaps something subconscious that even he isn't aware of? Or is it something else?"

His motivation toward his own satisfactions stems from and is fueled by his desire to continually endeavor to be self-sufficient. But also this mentality is like earth over feelings looking for more harmonious relations with his family that he has unknowingly kept buried beneath and is indirectly addressing through his striving toward fending for himself first.

"how would he get along in a battle-type situation, where he would have to follow the commands of a higher ranking Shifter?"

With of course his three traits linking together also on the battlefield, Rajinder recognizes higher ranks are defined by more experiences, skills, authority, knowledge, and wisdom. And so he can execute given commands, but he can also work to assess the battle circumstances and process the strategy's intended efficiency while aiming not to simply follow blindly.

"Why is there such high tension in his family?"

Rajinder has often been lectured with comparisons between himself and less than admirable traits of his birth parents, including but not limited to lack of seriousness and being lackadaisical when he is having trouble grasping teachings for instance. It bothers him whenever he hears all this, when feelings of continually falling short of his elders' expectations are inflamed, and he regularly reminds himself of such times so as not to forget that interaction comes with trials and difficulties.

"Who is the most parent-like person to him?"

His elders are seen by him as his parental figures. To him, equally each of the trio that is his grandmother, uncle, and aunt are considered by him to be more parent-like than his birth parents.

"Despite their differences, these family members raised him... does he feel like he's indebted to them at all for caring for him?"

Yes, but he as an odd take at expressing his gratitude that reflects his personality. He is of the mind that unceasingly working towards providing for his own contentment first is a step above being miserable and inadvertently shoving his gloom around figuratively speaking.

"How does he feel about the parents that left him?"

As a child he felt entirely betrayed. Though now for the most part he recognizes his parents absence as one of many factors in his life and ill feelings about this return to him less frequently.

Prentice Solo 1: 1088 words (COMPLETE)

Rajinder stretched, warming his muscles somewhat before beginning his early evening exercise. As routine as he kept running and working out, in reality he did not actually have a set way of going about what he planned to do during these times he set aside. He simply had only just a gist of what he knew there would be in store and infused any sudden inspirations and ideas he wanted to work with as he went about the activities he regularly engaged in geared toward maintaining and improving his fitness. He took in the familiar yet also ever changing sights around him as he drew one arm across his chest with his bent other arm and reversed the action. His arms were then alternated in stretches that bent over and behind him in two versions of the set with similarities to them. The first, involved the hand playing the support of the stretch performing its task overhead and the second, entailing that the supporting hand also bend and reach to pull the higher arm by the hand from below with, in fact, a more equal role in also being stretch while aiding in the other arm's stretch.

The glow of various shades of colors that came from the crystals displayed all around the area beneath the leafy shade of the trees served to catch and entertain his attention as they were usually able to do as he went about his training. After he moved on to stretches of his legs, he soon finished off his warm up and began to jog forward. His breathing was still even and he had yet to break a sweat, having grown quite accustomed to finding that working his muscles is a way for him to relax and wind down during the later part of his days. Steadily, Rajinder's jog morphed to a full out run and even then after deeming that he had gotten a good run for a satisfying duration and went for a good ways for quite a distance, he transitioned between running, jogging, and sprinting. Yet, this is not necessarily always the order of his pacing as well. From time to time, he also mixed in hops in place for example, and other such sequences with another example being to pause in front of inanimate objects, involving perhaps the base of a tree similar to one point on this occasion itself, and throw jabs and punches or also visualize to practice ducks, swivels, and the like.

By approximately dinner time, Rajinder would have gotten what he felt a fair amount of training done at roughly this segment of the day. And this was indeed also the case this evening as an exhilarated grin gradually spread out across his features amidst the deep breaths he took as his jog at the end of this regime slowed to a walk. Minutes passed before he settled himself down to be seated against the bark of one of the leafy towers where crystals were scattered about and lighting its base, not unlike other spaces that were surely numerous even already in his immediate field of vision of what presently surrounded him that was part of what comprised his home here.

He then pulled out a bag of food he had gathered early at the beginning of the day. He did so before the sun had begun shining more intensely to signal the greater activity of most of nature thriving on sunlight, including the busy flight of airborne daytime insects and so forth. The bag held a mix of berries and nuts and he dutifully set about consuming more to add to the count of those he had devoured throughout the time following after he had gathered them. Though he harvested a great deal, each day the bag serving to carry his meals was left empty and gathering more nuts and berries for energy was thus surely a vital part of everyday for him. After chewing and swallowing another serving of nuts and finishing his meal with another serving of berries, the bag was expectedly empty again and he confirmed that he did get his fill until tomorrow. The day had been a success, he thought with glad certainty as he rose to get to easier access to his bed for when he eventually decides to turn in for the day and replenish his energy for the next day with restful sleep. Maybe he would even first go gathering to fill his bag of food right now rather than right before the sun would stake its claim of the sky again for the hours it preferred, he considered.

Hmm, as he continued to walk, the question of whether to gather food to fill his meal bag now or not kept crossing his mind, weaving in and out of his thoughts. Eventually, he would get to the fork on the path he was on and he would probably just go with a decision then and there on the spot. Yet, it was not considered an inconvenience to him to a large degree whether he ended up walking more or not really. It just meant more exercise to a lighter extent.

And then all of a sudden, it was as though out of nowhere it seemed that Rajinder had been drawn again to facing himself at another tree trunk, like inspiration had struck him that he had to act on. The latter likely was fitting as a description with little doubt. He charged slightly with a few steps forward and at the base of the tree then delivered an uppercut motion before crossing his arms in a movement practicing a block. He then transitioned into other blocking sequences entailing different placements of his arms and feet to accomodate different stances meant to clash with different attacks from various directions off the top of his head. Yes, these exercises drew him in. He found them challenging to his strength and intellect. Perhaps this was what he could work on and polish, what he could do with his life as something to excel at and find entertainment in the trials and successes? The sudden burst again of exercise was rounded off with a sequence of counters launched at the unmoving sparring practice opponent before him. And another thought occurred to him that he should improve at interacting with others so he could earn more challenging opponents to practice sparring with in the process as well as gain information to possibly get new sparring techniques and pointers on improving.