Dawnscroll — Roleplayer Guild

Character information

NAME:
Ronan Llyr Inish

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

AGE:
16

YEAR:
7

HOUSE: Hufflepuff

BLOOD STATUS:
Half-Breed (Selkie)

In-depth Information

APPEARANCE:

Ronan's fair-skinned face is framed by a mess of wavy brown curls, his ocean-blue eyes lighting up with a smile whenever an unfortunate housemate gets him talking about his home. Though tall amidst his peers, standing at about six feet, Ronan is rather average in his build for a student and wears the traditional robes and uniform of Hufflepuff. Due to his heritage, Ronan is amongst the more handsome of the male students at Hogwarts, with strong masculine features and a quiet glance of his eyes has more than a few Valentine's Day declaration of love his direction.

PERSONALITY:
Ronan is a quiet lad, often preferring the company of his own solitude as he sits on the shores of the Black Lake and either studies or watches the surf break against the sand. He spends very little time socializing with his own dormmates, let alone those of of other Houses and seems content to stay silent in class unless called upon by a teacher. The Half-Selkie is seemingly content to keep others  at arms distance, and while he is amicable enough to classmates, he is also prone to brushing off offers of comraderie.  Those who weather the storm of mild-distrust and gain his  trust, even if not enough to learn what he is, will find a Hufflepuff who is quick to laugh and as loyal as his house represents.

HISTORY:
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a seal? As deep as the ocean, and twice as dark, they seem to glow with sadness and ancient secrets, so different from the vacant, dead eyes of the fish they share the waters with. Eyes are said to be the windows to the soul, and anyone who believed animals to be soulless, on meeting a seal's gaze, would realize they‘d been mistaken. Some say that their depth bespeaks something beyond a simple animal-with-a-soul.

There used to be families who claimed to know the secret of the seals--selchs, as they were known in those days. If you ever have the great luck to chance upon a very old parish birth record of one of these clans, you might know why they asserted such knowledge. These records will appear normal at first, until you reach the details of the babe's mother. Sometimes the details are left blank; sometimes the letters are unsteady and misshapen, as though the one who filled it out was unsure of the truth of what they wrote; on a very few, there is the simple notation, 'frae the faem'.

And 'from the foam' they were. 

Selkies. Seal-people. No one was quite certain how often the creatures were allowed to shed their seal skins and come ashore, but when they did visit the land they were in constant peril of abduction. If a man saw one of the beautiful, dark-eyed women, and followed her stealthily, he might discover where she had secreted away her skin. If he was able to capture it, and hide it from her, she would be bound to him as his wife. And an excellent wife a selkie made: lovely, hard-working, and devoted to her husband and children. An observer could almost have said she was happy, as long as they took care to avoid looking into her eyes. A selkie wife's face might be bright and agreeable, but her eyes would still burn with the unfathomable sadness of a seal's. 

One wonders why the men of these families were so proud to boast of their heritage, given the sad existence of the selkies themselves, but men have never been the most considerate of creatures where others are concerned. Mercifully, a selkie woman was seldom held captive for long. Her false contentedness would slowly lull her husband into a state of complacency, until the inevitable day he would cease checking that the skin was well-hidden. She would find it then, perhaps while searching for it under the guise of cleaning the boathouse. Her husband would be left with only their children as consolation, for neither love nor money could keep a selkie, upon recovering her sealskin, from her true home.

The tales of selkies have slowly ebbed away, been dismissed as myths and the ramblings of drunken fishermen, much as have stories of mermaids. Some say, though, that selkies still live on the far-flung coasts of this country, having finally become wise to the thieving ways of men, and choosing to stay hidden.  

But in those far off places of the Eire, love can still blossom along the briny coast. Such was the case of the Meara and Connor; a selkie who never gave up her skin, and a wizard who never once asked for it. 

Theirs is another story.

They lived on the small island of Clare, where  Connor worked as a magizoologist. Their son, Ronan, had a happy childhood filled with daily trips to the shore, long afternoons playing on emerald hills while his father worked, and nights filled with stories from his mother. It was a childhood filled with Oisin and his Fiana, of the Sidhe and their Hills, of the Old Ways and the Old Magic and the wonder that filled the still and quiet places of the world. Ronan was young, and happy. Happier still when his parents introduced him to his baby sister, Bronnagh.

But like all tales of the Selkie, there cannot be a happy ending.

When Ronan's letter of acceptance to Hogwart's arrived, it was with a sullen resignation from his parents. It was his mother who brought him into their attic that night and confessed that both his father and her had prayed that he would never be a wizard. That perhaps the New Magic of his father would not claim him. She uncovered a chest hidden in the furthest reaches of the crawlspace: within it, a pair of grey skins, one large, the other small. For the first time, Ronan gazed upon his true face.

His mother had told him, when he was younger, of the magic before Wizards. Of the Sidhe; the Fae and the Old Magic of Eire and Albion. The magic which coursed through the veins of every magical creature. The magic which coursed through his veins.

That night, as he and his parents stood upon the shore of their home, Ronan wondered how he was supposed to make it fit. But he didn't have to make it do anything.  The moment it touched his bare back, for his clothes had already been discarded, the skin simply fit around him, became a part of him. Before he knew it, Ronan was in the water, tail splashing and flippers drawing him further and further into the sea. He barked, head under water, and his mother's barks echoed back to him.

At Hogwarts, Ronan was sorted into the house of the Loyal, Hufflepuff and began his life as a Hogwarts student. He excelled at some classes; not so at others, and the years passed slowly, if uneventfully. 
the His parents had warned him how many of Wizarding Britain saw Half-Breeds, for though wizard he might be, that was what he was, and imparted to guard his true self well. He made few friends; not out of arrogance nor shyness, but simply out of a sort of kind seclusion. And while he ate with his Housemates, studied, laughed, and lived, none ever trully appeared reliable enough to him that he might reveal his gift. 

But Magic has its price. 

As each year passed, a gnawing surged in Ronan, an inexplicable hole that could not be filled. A sort of quiet discontent that grew with every mile further from the sea, further from his skin. An anxiety that only quelled once the he stepped out of the Floo at the end of Term, ran upstairs to his room, opened the trunk under his bed, and touched his skin. 

With his seventeenth birthday fast approaching, Ronan is pressed for time to make an impossible decision. He may either live his life as a Selkie, with all the blessings of the Sidhe, or foresake his heritage and stay a wizard with all the wonders that magic holds. 

On the Sunset of his birth, he must choose wand or skin, or both shall be forever lost to him. 

Next time you're walking along the shore, and you see a seal, try, in the moment before it flees into the water, to meet its eyes. 

Magic

WAND:

Length - Ten Inches
Wood - Driftwood
Core - A strand of his mother's, a Selkie's, hair.
Flexibility - Rigid

While Ollivanders is heralded as the greatest of the wandmakers in the British Isles, for those who turn their nose at 'Imperial' manufacturers, there are many alternative sources. The Guild of Anu on the hill of Tara still practice the craft and affirm that while their wands may not be as powerful as their Brittanian brothers, it is the wizard who chooses the wand. 

The process begins with the selecting of the wood; some wizards and witches pick that which appeals to them by its attributes, its appearance, or even a gut feeling. The wizards' family are responsible for providing the core from a magical creature, and the the remaining attributes chosen at the wandmaker's discretion. The result is a wand built to the wizard's own personal taste, and while the combination of wood and core may not always be ideal, the loyalty of the wand is always a guarantee.

This is where a young Ronan found himself, eleven years old, to choose the components for his wand. Although one might not think wood that was water-logged and soft due to days floating around in the ocean could be as magical as rosewood, or pine, still posseses the magic inherent in it from its previous state. 

The wand's core recognizes Ronan as apart of it; as apart of the same Sidhe magic shared between mother and child. While ideally such a core would be compatible with transfiguration for a wizard of the New Magic, that of the Sidhe it is the raw and wild power of the Old Magic. 

The result was a wand as reliable in its temperment as the sea, as steadfast in loyalty as a mother's love, and as sporatic as the trickiest of the fae. While it may not always give Ronan the result he desires, the Old Magic will always give that which he needs.

BOGGART:
A small white furred seal-skin, stained with pools of blood.

PATRONUS:
Grey Seal

TALENT:
Ronan found he had a certain knack for the Care of Magical Creatures, his heritage giving a somewhat calming effect to 'Lighter' magical creatures as they recognize one of their own. Two of his stronger courses are Herbology, especially the uses of Non-Dangerous Magical plants, and Astronomy.

It goes without say that the spell that has come most naturally to Ronan since his first day of class was the charm Auguamenti in its many functions.

WEAKNESS:
Any of the classes that require precise wandwork; despite being a shapeshifter, Ronan finds Transfiguration all but impossible and would have failed the class if not for near perfect theory scores. Charms and Defense Against the Dak Arts, while certainly capable, are also a challange to master every new spell.

Other
Until the decision of his future has been made, Ronan is still suscpetible to spurts of accidental Sidhe magic, which in a magical school, has proven somewhat easy to cover up as simply shoddy spellwork. The magic is nigh uncontrollable to him until his choice in made, and is highly mischievous in its nature, though never maliscious.

EXTRA: For years Ronan's mother and father have kept his skin locked in a trunk underneath his bed, only allowing it to him during his Summer Break, lest his heritage was discovered by his classmates or teachers. If word had gotten out that his father had a child with a magical creature, no matter how humanoid, his career would have been ended and Ronan likely taken away, with his son viewed as a second class citizen even lower thah muggleborns in the eyes of wizarding society.

But for the first time, with the Choice nigh upon him, Ronan has defied his parents and stolen his skin to take with him to Hogwarts. Hidden in his trunk of school supplies, only the following year will prove to be for fortune or ill.
Dawnscroll Member

Ordo ad Logos

Status

Bio

Most Recent Posts
