Up until the beginning of January 14th, 7 years ago, Terry had never set foot a mile outside of a hospital. She was quite literally raised in an emergency ward, having learned everything and nothing at all while stuck within the white-bleached walls. Since she was born, her life was one of tenuous peril, a constant fight for survival. It was discovered that she had an orphan disease that would claim her life if not treated immediately and with capital procedure. Since then, it's been nothing but taking painful shots, chugging bitter pills, and adhering to a laundry list of complicated medical advice. Having been sent far away from her hometown in Europe for specialized treatment not found there, the young girl has rarely seen her parents, and the only family she had growing up were the doctoral staff and ailing children at the institute in America. She felt lost, and alone at first. But the others, poor children undone by fate just like her, helped Terry see a brightness in their tragic lives. They would share stories of the 'outside world' and of their dreams, instilling within her an ambition and hope, an uplifting feeling that she strove indebtedly to pass in return. Together, they found a way to push away all the pain and find reasons to smile. Because in their world, something as simple as a smile meant strength.

Unfortunately, this world was not that simple.

Since her graduation from the medical ward, Terry has spent every waking moment trying to embrace the precious life that was robbed from her, never forgetting what she learned in that solemn institution. Her incredible talents fostered during her isolation earned her quick fame and it looked like she was headed down a path towards happiness. But perhaps it was never supposed to be.

Not only a week after Terry had settled into her new life of budding fame, she discovered the Warbrand by grim chance. Just as soon as she had a grip of her own life, it slipped from her fingers and she lost control of everything again. As always, a greater being pushed her fate towards Tragedy. Terry found herself at the mercy and whim of a suddenly announced god of 'War'. Even more frightening was the grisly blade that was now bound and watched over her. Despite her unwillingness, the weapon would not allow her any respite or consideration. It found a way to consume her. The weapon transformed and latched onto her like a leech, injecting her with powerful neuroleptics so that she would be subdued, just like how the doctors would when she was wracked in incredible pain. In a way, this might have been a way of mercy, warping her mind and forcing a different 'Terry' to act upon its ceaseless bloodlust. Overnight, she became an aspect of pure chaos and extinction, one that knew nothing of friend or foe. Just like how War would've wanted, she carved a painful scar into the city and its inhabitants. Awakening in the center of the brutal destruction caused by the corrosive smoke that turned everything into black dust, Terry, in a teary wail, went to isolate herself from everything and everyone.

Her actions would cause great guilt to build up in her, affecting her addled body more and more. Rarely does Terry ever leave her gloomy room, and never does she let anyone know. Her secret ventures outside are short-lived and the few instances of happiness she has left. With her beloved hobby, she is able to remind herself of who she is and resist the dark urges from the Warbrand. But the awful thing does not take well to not being properly sated. It inflicts her with malady as surrogate, tearing her apart, but leaving her just whole enough to perpetuate. She has since become a shell of skin and bones due to the long-drawn punishment, wracked with suffering every waking moment of her life. Though she will always deny such a thing, smiling on in the face of others.

Only once her mind was cracked and the Warbrand was able to reclaim its ‘puppet’, did she find solace; her mind made numb to the pain of everything. If only for a moment.

Until then, she will endure.

Standing at an above-average six feet, Tobias appears… hollow. Yes, that’s probably the right word for it. With the sunken eyes of an overworked man and a paling complexion, Tobias is the last person you want on the cover of your “healthy choices” magazine. Regardless, if you were to ask him he would claim there was nothing wrong. His figure is slim, but not fragile like a young tree, and his hair is always kept at the perfect length to both stay out of his face and also keep him from appearing ragged. Despite all his efforts, however, the first thing anyone ever notices about him is his sunken, pale eyes that give him a gaunt aura, and the iron supplements he’s been taking has done little to make them better.

Tobias tends to prefer dark, long-sleeved clothing and pants even during the heat of the summer. His skin is very sensitive and tends to burn far too quickly, so he’s taken to a strange, elegant wardrobe that, as usual, does little to assist his personality. The truth of the matter is that, for some reason beyond his knowledge, he would always be somewhat unnerving to the people surrounding him. He even tried to disguise it behind fortune and riches, with golden earrings and rings, but that just didn’t seem to help much either.
An ill-looking man in perfect health who can turn the room bleak on a joyous occasion.

SENSATION: Sound

WARBRAND:



Yes, in its usual form Tobias hasn’t found the heart to do anything "extra" with the metal. In fact, he’s so enamored with it that he doesn’t wrap the hilt or anything, meaning that by the end of a fight usual he’ll find his own blood on his palm from gripping it too hard. He keeps it in a simple dark sheath at his side until the time to fight once more, and he seems to have a decent technique albeit lacking instinct. The character “Ω” sits as his symbol on its side, and even in its sheath the symbol remains open to the world, but he never explains why.

When it transforms, the blade itself becomes deceptively thin. Thin enough that you can barely see it when its sharp edge is facing you. It also gains a few feet in length and a beautiful hilt with the guard in the same “Ω” shape. A round, gleaming gem of sorts sits right where the hilt meets the blade. And that, in truth, is where the danger comes from. The gem resonates to sound, and it can even store that potential energy as it hears songs throughout a day. The more passionate the better, for when he swings the blade, the strongest sounds can cut straight through the air, rip people’s eardrums apart, or even just knock people off balance enough that he can deliver the final blow. For you see, the most passionate singers also share the most passionate screams, and Tobias’ Warbrand uses all of that sound frequency to cut straight through it and its opponents as well.

SAVING GRACE:

Tobias nearly gave up on the world once, deeming it a cruel and unjust place that was devoid of any sort of happiness, and that was when he first heard a church choir around the corner from his affluent home. Voices singing loud, singing in joy and in sorrow, through laughter and tears. Those songs gripped him as child, and still resonate down deeply to his soul. He knows he must live on to keep hearing their voices, and he will keep fighting as long as those songs can keep playing.

As such, a treble clef is traced faintly on the back of his neck, and as he encroaches madness he often finds himself sitting on the steps outside that church once more.

HISTORY:

Tobias grew up literally eating off a silver spoon. He was the youngest of six children of the Ren estate, which was a lucrative title built up over the years as his father became quite the successful merchant. Named a duke (more as a title than anything else), Tobias’ father, Isaac, spent a lot of time busy with his work or chastising his children on their behaviours, assuring that they were demonstrating behaviour fit for an aristocracy.

Thankfully for Tobias, being the youngest meant he was likely not inheriting anything, and so he was able to find some free time to wander his streets and his neighborhoods, though even then his appearance as the “Pale Boy” did little to help him make friends. When he was nine or ten, a boy from around the neighborhood and someone that his father had pushed Tobias to befriend had taken him and a gesture of good will he made (an offering of some cool marbles he’d collected) and tossed him into the mud outside his house. When the boy invited him over later as an “apology”; Tobias was met by a group of boys twice his size, and the rest is pretty easy to figure out.

It was this day that led him to the stairs of that church, that brought him to the first real song that he loved, and that drove him to pursue music with burning intensity.

His mother was pleased about this. She herself was a concert pianist, and she was overjoyed by the dedication he put towards learning the instrument. She had tried with many of her other children but they just didn’t seem to care the way he did. What she often loved was that he “was no prodigy for sure, but he continued to try and try again”.

Eventually, thanks to hours of dedication and a large check from his father, Tobias went off to school to study music professionally, with his father’s only caviat being that he picked up some kind of sport.

Somehow fencing became the go-to option.

He studied at a school in Jericho City, doing several degrees and studying several subjects into the theories of sound and music. He was so dedicated that colleagues and friends alike joked that a war could break out and he would find a way to keep working right into it.

In fact, that was literally what happened.

Catastrophe hit the university all at once it seemed, when the place was quickly evacuated when two figures caught in an incredibly lethal duel literally caught several people in their cross fire – and the fact they were shouting things like “burn this place down if we have to” didn’t do too much to make people worry less. And while the rest of the place was being evacuated, Tobias was in his usual corner of the library listening to a recording of a 18th-century composition while writing his paper on Reconstructing Beethovens Tonal structure when the two figures literally smashed through the library shelves.

And for a moment, he froze. Many feelings collided all at once when he heard the beautiful note that sung from the clash of steel, but also realized the actual potential destruction they could bring to the beautiful world of sound around him.

He was about to step in when another man pulled him away. The police force had appeared to intervene with minimal success as Tobias watched centuries of music going up in smoke.

A terrible image came to him: one of the library burning, of the church burning, of the beautiful songs turning to screams of despair as this spirit of anger and hate tore through a world that held so much beauty for him. No, he could not stand it. Tobias resisted the pull of the police, marching right back towards the doors of the library where he could hear the conflicting beauty of the song of battle wrapped in bloodlust.

He stopped at the door for a moment, as if to ask “what the hell are you planning to do? What’s the point of doing this for a song?”

And that was when he met War. The deity leaned against the doorway with a casual grin, as if he could see the thoughts that were swirling in Tobias’ mind down to that second.

The debate took a completely different turn when War pulled a silver blade from his side and threw it so it stuck into the ground directly at Tobias’ feet. For some reason, in that moment he remembered a boy he had offered to share marbles with, and the sounds they made clattering against the ground. The sound of battle was so intriguing, like the fruit from the tree of knowledge – forbidden yet tantalizing. He also thought about how there was always someone waiting to stomp out joy in all its forms – and if he was to keep those songs alive, he would have to stomp out those joy -stompers.

Tobias never envisioned himself as a warrior, never thought that battle could make a song in itself. He just knew that after he picked up that blade, studying music just didn’t seem to cut it like the strange, disjointed sound of two warriors locked in combat.

OTHER:

The armor in the art is likely not actually his attire? But like, pictures are hard to find.

Art by len-yan on DeviantArt.