Rui is pale, quite tall, black hair, and, for the most part, average looking. The only un-average thing about him, in fact, is his stature. Rui stands a little taller than almost everyone he has ever met. His eyes are warm, just on the orange side of amber. He is clean-shaven and meticulous, with an angular face and high cheekbones. Rui is lean and slender, but none of him is useless – that is to say, his body built muscle long and close, and he could probably do to eat a little more. He tends to wear nothing but black or grey, finding those colours more suited to his disposition. Rui wears his hair long, reaching near his waist, though it is always braided back away from his face. There is one small star-shaped scar on his left cheekbone, near the eye.

Like all Galgori, Rui is not a bender. Unlike some, however, it was not his wish to undergo the Trials. While he learned the arts of death, the same as other Galgori children, it was enough for him. He attended school with the other Fire Nation children of his village, and received instruction of a spiritual nature at home. Always it was impressed on him that the ideals of his people were more important than the ideals of the Fire Nation. Rui has always been more interested in strategy than fighting, and made effort to study the art of warfare more than martial arts themselves. He was a very quiet and serious child.

He has never been in love. While Rui became aware of his attraction to males in his early teen years, he never approached anyone or attempted any romantic liaison. This is partially due to his growing up in a non-Galgori village, and partially due to a private fear of rejection. Rui is uncertain as to how his parents would feel about his romantic inclinations, as he knows no other person with the same type of attractions. It is this part of himself that he considers his most deep and personal failing.

In martial arts, Rui prefers to use zai. There were the weapons of his father, and as such, they were the most comfortable for his father to teach him, and therefore the weapons he learned most easily. When he left his parents’ village, the only weapons he took with him were his zai, and he carries them at all times.

Rui is serious and high-minded, well-read and well-spoken, but not given to passionate speeches and sweeping gestures. He frowns upon militarism. He is not given to trust easily and he often requires some kind of leverage against a person before he is willing to take them into his confidence. Rui cannot be bought, and he considers his ideals the basis of his morality. Rui is very passionate about things like liberty, equality, justice, and opportunity for all – as long as they aren’t Benders, of course. Rui is of the opinion that Benders make true justice and equality impossible, and he feels that none may have equal opportunity as long as Benders exist. The return of the Avatar means nothing to Rui, as like all Galgori he assumed the Avatar was still alive in the first place. He feels that his path is not entangled with the Avatar, and concerns himself more with Benders as a whole. A spiritual person, he takes his people’s connection to Koh seriously.