Post by lastthoughts on Nov 11, 2009 11:51:25 GMT -5
Recruitment: see Annika
Email: Pvt.
~Character~
Name: Jihan
Rank: Candidate candidate (Or holder errant. You know; whichever.)
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Origin: Ponaa Hold
Family:
Father—Kerrick, Master Baker
Mother—Belinda, housewife
Siblings:
Borran—Journeyman Baker
Kerrick Jr. (Junior)—Apprentice Baker
Berrick—Apprentice Baker
Lucan—Apprentice Smith
Jarrick—Cook
“Uncle”—Rikhan, crofter, jack-of-all-trades
Sexual Orientation: Hasn’t really come up yet. We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?
Personality: Jihan is your quintessential strong, silent type. He learns quickly when introduced to a new task or information, but until recently was unlikely to press on farther on his own. Now, a strange restlessness has taken hold of him. His greatest hope is to get to know the world he lives in. This gives a strange, sometimes childlike urgency to his actions and conversations, but has not opened him up entirely. Speaking with him is something like listening to the ocean: there is something significant there, but it is low and elusive.
Physical Description: Jihan’s early tendency towards stockiness has revealed itself as broad-boned solidity. His face is plain and serious, though his blue eyes have all the attractive depth of romantic loneliness. He began to sprout hair at an impressive rate quite early in his teen years, and his habit of not shaving makes him look both older than his years and a bit feral. The rest of his dark locks are not much better maintained, although he does cut them back roughly above his shoulders every once in a while. He is of average height, and a laborer’s work and diet have given him powerful muscles but gaunt features. In all he looks quite like one might expect a man to look who has spent a good deal of time surviving. With decent, regular meals he would likely finish his growth into an even more intimidating figure. As it is, the hollowness in his face just adds to his bestial air: a somber, wild thing.
Hobbies/Skills: Trained to live off the land in as many ways as possible, Jihan has many basic skills. He is most adept at hunting, but is also a decent farmer, tinker, poor-man’s cook, and herder.
History:
That first morning, waking alone in the heavy darkness, Jihan was wretched.
The portly baker’s son was used to rising early, but at home it would have been his mother who woke him. At home, he would have gone down to the kitchen and helped stoke the stove-fires. His father’s great hand would have left floury smudges where it patted his youngest’s shoulder. At home, there would have been warmth and light and mellow happy voices.
But he was far from home, now. No matter how he tried to believe his mother’s crooning explanation, he knew he’d been sent away because he was useless. The sixth son, too long coddled; the one who cared more for the eating of breads than their making.
Who could blame them for sending him away? He fought back tears and tugged on his jacket. Here, he would learn new things: Learn to take care of himself, learn to be a man. That was what she had said. Not that he was going to the farthest croft still under the Hold’s minimal protection. Not that her cousin was a strange hermit who smelled like damp herdbeast. Not that he was so useless that they could not keep him around one day more.
He had slept on the floor in the little croft’s central room. From outside came the low braying of livestock and a muted bird call. He went out.
The fields were dark, and he opened his eyes wide to adjust them. He walked forward a few steps, feeling hopelessly alone in the deep emptiness of cloudy night. He did not hear his uncle approach.
“Good, you’re awake. Come along now.”
Jihan stumbled after him into the gloom.
The clouds were clearing with the coming of the sun, and soon the sky was pale gray.
“Where are we going?
“To work, lad.”
They reached what Jihan guessed was the edge of the man’s modest holding. It was not a difficult conclusion: the open field of grain ended at a line of trees, ominous in the low light.
His uncle did not hesitate at this border, and Jihan had to hurry to catch up with him. Every step sending echoing cracks and thuds out into the close air. The older man halted and came to kneel beside him without speaking. He simply lifted one of the boy’s booted feet, then placed it down again firmly. Jihan felt the change when his foot was pressed to the ground: even, rolling. Like it was massaging the earth below it.
“Oh,” he murmured. His uncle had risen and continued along his way.
By midmorning, they had checked a dozen snares, collecting three good-sized ground birds for their trouble. Jihan was adapting to moving noiselessly. And the sullen silence of the frightened child had begun to shift to the watchful quiet of a disciple.
That silence would become a nearly constant part of Jihan’s life with Rikhan. His uncle preferred showing to speaking, and Jihan proved a capable imitator.
He learned to mend clothes and fences, to lay traps and to sew wheat, to sharpen a machete and what plants eased fever. Together, man and boy scraped out their living from the land, and at season’s end sent their grain to the mill of the Hold.
Work chiseled Jihan into a different being: lean, serious-eyed, and steady. If he was not deliriously happy, neither was he unhappy. He grew to love his uncle with a simplicity and depth he could not have foreseen. It was companionship and friendship without question: a matter of emotional fact. Respect.
Seven years passed. Once, thread took half the herds and the harvest, and they ate roots and game jerky for months. Once, he was nearly killed felling trees to rebuild the roof. Once, he returned with the grain to the hold, and held his tiny mother while she cried, and forgave her utterly. Once, he asked why Rikhan had lived alone before he came.
They were sitting up beside the evening-fire. Jihan was sharpening his skinning knife; Rikhan was toasting brown bread for supper. The question limped out, a rare attempt of conversation. Rikhan looked into his ward’s eyes when he spoke, and the power of broken silence was overwhelming.
“I had two sons, and a woman named Merilee. Bandits killed them while I was hunting. Killed them and took everything in the house.”
And that was it. He looked down into the fire, pulled out the bread, and plated it with some stew. He sat back on his heels with his dish, and ate slowly. The firelight caught his graying hair, and Jihan felt his grief and age all at once.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
It was that night, cleaning his arms in the washbasin, when Jihan looked down and saw a young man’s face in the water.
Something changed. It was not Rikhan, though he worked harder than usual for the next few days. Perhaps Jihan had remembered his mother’s words and begun to wonder what happened now that he had become a man. Perhaps it was fear. At least it was not that distance grew between them. Rather, it was as if the rest of the world had exploded around him. Something in the loneliness of the place became less satisfying: imposed, not familiar. He loved it still, and loved the aging man. But he began for the first time in his young life to extrapolate, to dream.
He did not want to leave Rikhan to a new solitude, and so he remained. Yet the more he realized he was staying, the more he yearned to go. Something had lit a lamp in the darkness of his imagination. He could not shake his restlessness.
Steadily, the length of his hunting trips grew, and he found himself counting the days until he would next visit the hold.
When the morning came, when the cart had been piled high, and a bag stuffed with food set on its seat, Jihan looked out over the fields with an intense feeling of urgency and frustration. His uncle rode up beside him on their lone, aging runnerbeast and dismounted. Jihan did not start. It had been some time since Rikhan could catch him unawares. Yet, he was surprised.
The runner’s pack was crammed full, and Rikhan’s dark gaze was just as pregnant. He handed the reins to Jihan with the same simple silence as their first morning together. Jihan mounted, his eyes misting, and met his mentor’s eyes again.
“Oh,” he said, and smiled.
“I’m proud of you, son,” came the unexpected reply.
Jihan nodded and kicked at the runner’s flanks, leaving the old man to finish hitching the team to the cart. He did not slow until he was far along the road, heading somewhere.
Color Preference: Whatever you like!
Email: Pvt.
~Character~
Name: Jihan
Rank: Candidate candidate (Or holder errant. You know; whichever.)
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Origin: Ponaa Hold
Family:
Father—Kerrick, Master Baker
Mother—Belinda, housewife
Siblings:
Borran—Journeyman Baker
Kerrick Jr. (Junior)—Apprentice Baker
Berrick—Apprentice Baker
Lucan—Apprentice Smith
Jarrick—Cook
“Uncle”—Rikhan, crofter, jack-of-all-trades
Sexual Orientation: Hasn’t really come up yet. We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?
Personality: Jihan is your quintessential strong, silent type. He learns quickly when introduced to a new task or information, but until recently was unlikely to press on farther on his own. Now, a strange restlessness has taken hold of him. His greatest hope is to get to know the world he lives in. This gives a strange, sometimes childlike urgency to his actions and conversations, but has not opened him up entirely. Speaking with him is something like listening to the ocean: there is something significant there, but it is low and elusive.
Physical Description: Jihan’s early tendency towards stockiness has revealed itself as broad-boned solidity. His face is plain and serious, though his blue eyes have all the attractive depth of romantic loneliness. He began to sprout hair at an impressive rate quite early in his teen years, and his habit of not shaving makes him look both older than his years and a bit feral. The rest of his dark locks are not much better maintained, although he does cut them back roughly above his shoulders every once in a while. He is of average height, and a laborer’s work and diet have given him powerful muscles but gaunt features. In all he looks quite like one might expect a man to look who has spent a good deal of time surviving. With decent, regular meals he would likely finish his growth into an even more intimidating figure. As it is, the hollowness in his face just adds to his bestial air: a somber, wild thing.
Hobbies/Skills: Trained to live off the land in as many ways as possible, Jihan has many basic skills. He is most adept at hunting, but is also a decent farmer, tinker, poor-man’s cook, and herder.
History:
That first morning, waking alone in the heavy darkness, Jihan was wretched.
The portly baker’s son was used to rising early, but at home it would have been his mother who woke him. At home, he would have gone down to the kitchen and helped stoke the stove-fires. His father’s great hand would have left floury smudges where it patted his youngest’s shoulder. At home, there would have been warmth and light and mellow happy voices.
But he was far from home, now. No matter how he tried to believe his mother’s crooning explanation, he knew he’d been sent away because he was useless. The sixth son, too long coddled; the one who cared more for the eating of breads than their making.
Who could blame them for sending him away? He fought back tears and tugged on his jacket. Here, he would learn new things: Learn to take care of himself, learn to be a man. That was what she had said. Not that he was going to the farthest croft still under the Hold’s minimal protection. Not that her cousin was a strange hermit who smelled like damp herdbeast. Not that he was so useless that they could not keep him around one day more.
He had slept on the floor in the little croft’s central room. From outside came the low braying of livestock and a muted bird call. He went out.
The fields were dark, and he opened his eyes wide to adjust them. He walked forward a few steps, feeling hopelessly alone in the deep emptiness of cloudy night. He did not hear his uncle approach.
“Good, you’re awake. Come along now.”
Jihan stumbled after him into the gloom.
The clouds were clearing with the coming of the sun, and soon the sky was pale gray.
“Where are we going?
“To work, lad.”
They reached what Jihan guessed was the edge of the man’s modest holding. It was not a difficult conclusion: the open field of grain ended at a line of trees, ominous in the low light.
His uncle did not hesitate at this border, and Jihan had to hurry to catch up with him. Every step sending echoing cracks and thuds out into the close air. The older man halted and came to kneel beside him without speaking. He simply lifted one of the boy’s booted feet, then placed it down again firmly. Jihan felt the change when his foot was pressed to the ground: even, rolling. Like it was massaging the earth below it.
“Oh,” he murmured. His uncle had risen and continued along his way.
By midmorning, they had checked a dozen snares, collecting three good-sized ground birds for their trouble. Jihan was adapting to moving noiselessly. And the sullen silence of the frightened child had begun to shift to the watchful quiet of a disciple.
That silence would become a nearly constant part of Jihan’s life with Rikhan. His uncle preferred showing to speaking, and Jihan proved a capable imitator.
He learned to mend clothes and fences, to lay traps and to sew wheat, to sharpen a machete and what plants eased fever. Together, man and boy scraped out their living from the land, and at season’s end sent their grain to the mill of the Hold.
Work chiseled Jihan into a different being: lean, serious-eyed, and steady. If he was not deliriously happy, neither was he unhappy. He grew to love his uncle with a simplicity and depth he could not have foreseen. It was companionship and friendship without question: a matter of emotional fact. Respect.
Seven years passed. Once, thread took half the herds and the harvest, and they ate roots and game jerky for months. Once, he was nearly killed felling trees to rebuild the roof. Once, he returned with the grain to the hold, and held his tiny mother while she cried, and forgave her utterly. Once, he asked why Rikhan had lived alone before he came.
They were sitting up beside the evening-fire. Jihan was sharpening his skinning knife; Rikhan was toasting brown bread for supper. The question limped out, a rare attempt of conversation. Rikhan looked into his ward’s eyes when he spoke, and the power of broken silence was overwhelming.
“I had two sons, and a woman named Merilee. Bandits killed them while I was hunting. Killed them and took everything in the house.”
And that was it. He looked down into the fire, pulled out the bread, and plated it with some stew. He sat back on his heels with his dish, and ate slowly. The firelight caught his graying hair, and Jihan felt his grief and age all at once.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
It was that night, cleaning his arms in the washbasin, when Jihan looked down and saw a young man’s face in the water.
Something changed. It was not Rikhan, though he worked harder than usual for the next few days. Perhaps Jihan had remembered his mother’s words and begun to wonder what happened now that he had become a man. Perhaps it was fear. At least it was not that distance grew between them. Rather, it was as if the rest of the world had exploded around him. Something in the loneliness of the place became less satisfying: imposed, not familiar. He loved it still, and loved the aging man. But he began for the first time in his young life to extrapolate, to dream.
He did not want to leave Rikhan to a new solitude, and so he remained. Yet the more he realized he was staying, the more he yearned to go. Something had lit a lamp in the darkness of his imagination. He could not shake his restlessness.
Steadily, the length of his hunting trips grew, and he found himself counting the days until he would next visit the hold.
When the morning came, when the cart had been piled high, and a bag stuffed with food set on its seat, Jihan looked out over the fields with an intense feeling of urgency and frustration. His uncle rode up beside him on their lone, aging runnerbeast and dismounted. Jihan did not start. It had been some time since Rikhan could catch him unawares. Yet, he was surprised.
The runner’s pack was crammed full, and Rikhan’s dark gaze was just as pregnant. He handed the reins to Jihan with the same simple silence as their first morning together. Jihan mounted, his eyes misting, and met his mentor’s eyes again.
“Oh,” he said, and smiled.
“I’m proud of you, son,” came the unexpected reply.
Jihan nodded and kicked at the runner’s flanks, leaving the old man to finish hitching the team to the cart. He did not slow until he was far along the road, heading somewhere.
Color Preference: Whatever you like!