Nariman

The Coal-Handed Aspirant

Baldori

24

Male

Short, black curls and skin the color of leather marks him out as a Baldori, and that’s what most people end up noticing about Nariman. He’s rather average otherwise, after all, a 5’7 man with languid, dark brown eyes that seem at odds with his animated, almost over-exaggerated behavior. There’s still a babyish roundness to his face, and his build is similarly indistinct, rather undefined and flabby until he exerts himself. Not that anyone can see it over the gambeson and chainmail he wears, of course. His hands are the only obvious sign of his experience as a warrior: callused and scarred, they are like the ruined hands of a musician, holding a slender shape with none of the elegance or grace.

Heroic Ballads, Juggling, Watching Others Fight, Whittling, Wagon Rides, Solitude, Sundried Foods

Nariman models his behavior after the heroes of yore, but does so through force of will rather than natural inclination. He laughs boldly at jokes that aren’t actually funny, tears through slabs of meat when he’d really just like some potatoes and bread, and pretends to drink far more than he actually does. The generosity he displays freely is neither rooted in altruism nor religious belief, and his showboating is meant for others, not for himself. The only thing that does come naturally for him is his sense of justice, biding him to rise to the defense of weak and wanting, but considering the rest of his pretensions, Nariman finds himself wondering if that sense is simply one of his better lies.

What is genuine, however, is his ability to endure. He feeds himself with a gross mixture of self-pity, anger, and disgust, black coals burning in his stomach when nothing else fills it. Nariman powers through everything. Fighting’s not fun, but he’ll do it anyways. Graciously accepting a pittance of a reward’s not fun, but he’ll do it anyways. Sleeping in a ditch with a blanket made of pine branches’s not fun, but he’ll do it anyways. He stores every slight, holds onto every grudge, relishes every bitter thought, and continues on, a heavy mask fixed over it all.

Nariman’s not a fun person to be with. But no one’s really talking to Nariman, now are they?

Nariman doesn’t know who his father is, but it never mattered to him much, not when his mother gave him more than enough love to compensate. As a child of a brothel worker off on one of Thelan’s agricultural centers, he spent his days washing sheets and his nights listening to minstrels in the tavern, humming along with ballads of indomitable shieldbearers and fervent wardukes, of clever swashbucklers and bold axemen. The Thelan Hero-Kings, brandishing their blades against supernatural heresy, and the Moore Vikings, daring to laugh in the face of the unknown. But for all that was sung, all that was said, there was not a single tale of the Baldori people.

His mother did what she could to amend that, of course. She spoke of their self-sacrificing nature, their destiny as ones called to believe, the gratitude and life-debt owed to the kingdom that gave them refuge. But Nariman still burned, and as years crawled on, he questioned this life-debt that turned them all into grateful slaves of a nation that gave them nothing but scraps. Should they sell their daughters to bastards desired by no Thelan woman, because they were allowed to live on a lifeless wasteland? Should they offer up their sons to be grinded into meat upon a battlefield that wasn’t theirs, because they were granted work that no one else wanted? Where were the Baldori heroes in their history and their mythos, the men and women who were more than just a footstool for the folk of other nations?

They were nowhere. He did not find them on the lips of the Thelan minstrels and he did not find them in the scriptures of the Baldori priests. When he ventured to the Baldori Dominion for his indoctrination into the faith proper, he didn’t find the same reverence in his heart for the temples and sculptures.

When he returned, he learned that he had a young sister now, a darling babe that, in another thirteen years, would be auctioned off the same way as any other Baldori girl of age. And Nariman, Nariman decided that he would not stand for it. In absence of a dead hero, he would strive to become a living one, gaining respect through the only way he knew how: martial ability. With a stick first, then a kitchen knife, then a dagger he stole from a drunk soldier, the youth practiced what he could, skipping out on work to watch the training drills of the garrison. His mother lamented his wayward decisions, of course, reminding him daily that it was more honorable to be the source of comfort than the cause of suffering, but Nariman couldn’t accept that.

He was a self-professed bouncer at the brothel first, pulling out patrons too drunk to pay for a fuck. Then he became a proper guard in the garrison, equipped with standard-issue steels. Switched over to guarding caravans after days of staring at the horizon became dull. Learned to sell his sword as his reputation for hard work and low prices spread. A cheap Baldori mercenary, was what the people in the frontier towns thought of him. Someone who they could throw a couple coins at to do dirty, dangerous work. But Nariman fought on, picking up more tricks, more skills with every passing year, waiting for an opportunity to truly do something worthy of a song, worthy of the respect denied to his self-sacrificing people.

When Queen Anice disappeared, Nariman was ecstatic. Twelve years, and finally, a chance!

Nariman still does his morning and evening prayer rituals, though he’s no longer certain why he does it.

Every fortnight without fail, Nariman sends a letter back to his mother and his sister. With his eminent venture into the Northern Mountains, it looks as if he’s going to have to get creative.

Though he’s adequate enough with the sword to hold his own, Nariman’s true talent lies in the accuracy of his throwing arm, whether it be javelins, knives, rocks, or just a clump of horseshit.