Juno

♆ 𝙳𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 ♆ (𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚢 𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢)

Finished a second character, hopefully in time =]

Biff, Daughter of Iris

general information

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🌈 name: Beatrice L. Marcangelo
🌈 nicknames: Biff
🌈 gender: Female
🌈 species: Demigod
🌈 occupation: Full-Time Camper
🌈 age: Eighteen
🌈 birthday: 3rd of March
🌈 place of origin: Liverpool, England
🌈 camp cabin: Cabin Seventeen

🌈 appearance: Short, strange and starey. Biff stands at slightly below average height – 5'2", not counting the heel of her Doc Martins – but is no less intimidating for it. Her broad shoulders say that she packs a punch. Her buzzed hair screams 'skinhead', at least to those who can't distinguish punk rock from fascist. She counteracts the purple circles of sleeplessness under her eyes with haphazardly applied eyeliner, and her thin lips are painted with lipstick a few shades too dark to be flattering. Makeup is the only reminder on a flat-chested, blocky frame that Biff is a girl, not just a feminine boy.

According to her, ratty old t-shirts and jeans that have seen too much wear and too few washes are suitable for all occasions. She doesn't update her wardrobe often, choosing to pick up what she owns from thrift shops and charities before hitting the high street and forking over cash to The Man. Biff does have a trademark look of her own in a warm, moth-eaten and paint-splattered leather jacket from the 1960s.

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relationship information

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🌈 status: Single
🌈 sexuality: Homosexual
🌈 partner: None
🌈 father: Felice Marcangelo, 36 (Artist)
🌈 mother: Ἶρις - Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow
🌈 siblings:
🌈 legacy: Τέχνη - Techne, Personification of Art and Skill
🌈 pets: Orlando
🌈 other: N/A

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personal information

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🌈 personality: Why are short people so mean? Because they're closer to Hell. Biff is very unlike most people's expectations for a Daughter of Iris. She's grim, dour and deadpan. She loves the colour black. For eighteen years she has stood by her existence as someone who hates most everything – people, bright colours, human beings, rainbows, sentient life – and seems to have successfully separated herself from her divine parentage. In everyday life, Biff is prickly, like a hedgehog. Her tongue is sharp and her wit is quick to turn on others if provoked. That said, she is not without friends. Some folk like that kind of thing. Others persisted long enough to learn that, beneath a hard outer shell and a layer of venomous wafer, Biff's misery does love company.

Biff is easy to please. She has a wicked sense of humour that may or may not include sick jokes and crude pranks, but ultimately it's not hard to make her laugh, especially when it comes to watching masculine, manly men in action. Naturally, she has her own weak points too, but upholds a particular code when it comes to arguments that devolve into slinging slurs. Someone once said to her that if she wanted to insult someone, she better be able to handle it in turn, and Biff most certainly can, thick-skinned as she is. She even delights in it.

It is difficult to manipulate Biff because she doesn't act on her emotions. She is not easily guilted, appeals to her better nature go unanswered, and it goes without saying that showing a little vulnerability is too much to ask her. Biff's a ball of witty one-liners constantly keeping others at arm's length, even those few friends she can keep.

When it comes to her interests, Biff is an artist. It must be a curse (from Techne, perhaps) that plagues her family; one that has had generations untold try and fail over and over again in the pursuit of perfect craftsmanship. Her father is a painter. So is she. Biff is another victim of an inherited obsession with art, and often it is hard to drag her away from a piece once she's started. It's one of her few passions.

🌈 likes: Protests, painting, punk rock and Britpop, card games.
🌈 dislikes: Rainbows, physical activity, mornings.
🌈 hobbies: Art, street-racing, archery, social media.

🌈 strengths: Creative, fearless (a real daredevil), whiz-kid when it comes to technology.
🌈 weaknesses: Immovably stubborn, rebellious in spite of herself, deep-seated abandonment and trust issues.

🌈 biography: The beginning of Biff's story begins with her father, Felice, who was admirably under-prepared to have a daughter at eighteen. It went a bit like this: her father was a lazy, peace-loving stoner in his last year of high school who excelled in one class only. His paintings were worthy of scholarships and prizes in competitions, though his ambition (or lack thereof) would limit him to fame on a local scale only. At some point, he painted a portrait of a summer fling he fell in love with. So enamoured with her likeness, the Goddess of the goddamn Rainbow gave him a gift, and then nine months later, another gift.

It's not really a love story, not even when her Dad's the one telling it – and he's the one that's carried a torch for her Mum for all these years.

Though they did have an extensive family to fall back on in emergencies, Biff's earliest memories are of their old flat, with the living room turned into a nursery and the single bedroom transformed into an artist's workshop. The constant smell of fresh paint in every room in the house. Her Dad filled in the gaps in their income with the odd decorating job, mostly cash in hand, but for the most part he was always home to stumble through raising a daughter.

His free-range parenting influenced Biff greatly. The knowledge that she would always have someone fighting on her side regardless of what she wanted to do – be it truancy or vandalism or cutting her hair boy-short and moping around shopping centres all day – inevitably produced the anarchist that is the Daughter of Iris.

Biff only found out about her godly heritage when she was fourteen when a great beast attacked a rave she had snuck into. Saved by satyrs, she was quickly whisked away to Camp Half-Blood with barely a chance to say goodbye to her Dad. To say that she was irate would be an understatement. How could anyone be okay with being torn away from their (only available) parent so suddenly? And to have Iris barge in on her life as if she belonged there... Suffice it to say that Biff was 'uncooperative' and still is. The life of a demigod is no less outlandish to her, even now after several years at camp. One of the main differences is that she now has a parental figure to blame for all her problems in the Goddess of the Rainbow.

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demigod abilities

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🌈 photokinesis: Biff can manipulate light in its most basic form, turning it into a tangible weapon or defense (beams that hurt when they hit or blinding flashes) or – as is more her style – using it to create illusions from a simple mirage to a full out hallucination. Naturally, she can also summon rainbows.

🌈 speed of light: She's not too fast, but Biff can channel her god-given powers to travel at superhuman speeds for a short time. This is a throwback to her mother's role as a messenger, although any attempt to get Biff to work as some kind of courier will generate the same response: "Do it yourself, loser."

🌈 connections: No matter where she is in the world, Biff is able to get a signal on her mobile phone (or rather, send and receive messages via it). Similarly, she gets WiFi even in the middle of nowhere. In a pinch, any message she attaches to any kind of bird will reach its intended destination, even if said creature has never been trained to deliver them.

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weaponry

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🌈 weapon(s): Biff's preferred weapon is the bow and arrow. She doesn't name her weapons, because doing so is for twats. Her set was an apology gift from Iris, designed in her own perception of her daughter's style. The bow transforms into the charm on a necklace when not in use, while three non-standard arrows (which, by the way, produce a rainbow trail when used) consistently replenish themselves as earrings when used up.

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theme song

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Pulp - Common People

♆ 𝙳𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 ♆ (𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚢 𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢)

@Vicier I don't have a theme song yet, but I think I've got all the fields straight. I adapted a previous character from a previous roleplay. I hope that's okay.

Noel Dunbar, Son of Poseidon

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general information

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<sub>♆ name ⇾ Noel James Dunbar
♆ nicknames ⇾ Dunbar / Barry / Dunce
♆ gender ⇾ Male
♆ species ⇾ Demigod
♆ occupation ⇾ Full-Time Camper
♆ age ⇾ Twenty
♆ birthday ⇾ 25th of December
♆ place of origin ⇾ Inverness, Scotland
♆ camp cabin ⇾ Cabin Three

♆ appearance ⇾ Dunbar has amenable features: a strong jaw, a small nose, and thick, often-furrowed brows. He's pale – pallid, if one were feeling unkind – and almost washed out in colouring; a dull brunet with ghostly white skin that grows ruddy only on the coldest of days. Dunbar would be otherwise unremarkable were it not for a pair of twinkling baby blues, described to him as "the part you should be showing off". His reaction to hearing this, in his late teens, was to swap out his contacts for a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that he is seldom seen without. In fact, Dunbar's natural aversion to positive attention is showcased in numerous ways. He often wears outfits that mask the athleticism of years spent at Camp Half-Blood, such as jumpers and cardigans over shirts and even tweed jackets which age him prematurely. (Of course, the 'vintage' that is Dunbar's preferred style also includes leather jackets and vest tops and he would be lying if he didn't own some of those, too.)</sub>

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relationship information

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_{♆ status ⇾ Single
♆ sexuality ⇾ Heterosexual
♆ partner ⇾ None
♆ ex-partner ⇾ Aliyah Hassan, Daughter of Aphrodite (Deceased)
♆ father ⇾ Ποσειδῶν - Poseidon, God of the Sea
♆ mother ⇾ Eleanor Leroy, 51 (Equestrian)
♆ siblings ⇾ ///
♆ legacy ⇾ Βορέας - Boreas, the North Wind
♆ pets ⇾ Ransom
♆ other ⇾ ///}

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personal information

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<sub>♆ personality ⇾ At his best, Dunbar is an extrovert with a surprisingly large sphere of influence; someone who is content to kick back and relax with anyone in or out of his inner circle without prejudice or ulterior motives. He has a sharp mind for remembering birthdays, likes and dislikes, favourite foods and movies – everything that could be important to someone – which somehow makes him worthy of praise as a “good friend”. There is, as always, a rub: for all Dunbar cares to recall what is important to others, he is notoriously tight-lipped about himself and what he’s like as a person. They’ll have to pry information about his life from his cold dead hands, with the arm’s length he holds others at being a throwback to a time before Camp Half-Blood when the simplest of pleasures were vulnerabilities to be exploited. Noel was mocked too many times in the school of hard knocks for him to ever feel comfortable with hearing it, but if he introduces himself as Barry, nobody will ever know that he has a goofy first name. Similarly, few are aware of his passions, as he is a chameleon happy to go along with whatever someone else has planned and pretend for however long it takes that he's equally interested in it.

As a result, Dunbar falls into a pack mentality easier than most. Should someone in his group of friends tell him to jump, he'll ask 'how high?' If everyone else were to jump off a cliff, he'd go with them. This is even more evident when it comes to the old-fashioned machismo that has been instilled in him from a young age. How can he back down from a dare? In fact, how could he ever show weakness of any kind in front of his associates? (Girls are the ones who are allowed to share their problems, he thinks, not him. Funny that he doesn't hold others, even other boys, to the same stony catechism that he himself subscribes to.)

There is no getting around the fact that Dunbar grew up rich and privileged, but he avoided the pitfalls of becoming a toffee-nosed brat. Quite the opposite is true. Perhaps it was the difficulties of his upbringing: his mother's anger at throwing his education down the drain after his third expulsion; the hammered-in reminder of him being in some way deficient, since he was in remedial classes in school; the understanding that - in her household - he was no good, a waste of the nine months spent bearing him. Dunbar thinks little of himself as a natural result of belittlement, and each expected failure is just further reinforcement for what he already thinks is true. His victories are 'flukes', are 'no big deal', are 'things that anyone else could have done better'. It's not humility that has him say these things but rather a deep, ingrained belief that all his Mum says is true.

Though Dunbar would have one believe that there's nothing particularly wholesome about him, it isn't true. His greatest virtue is that he has a real need to stick up for those on the bottom. It is far from a rare occurrence to see him take under his wing the freshest recruits of Camp Half-Blood, especially those who do not immediately float when thrown in at the deep end of non-stop physical activity and violence. Now leaving his teenage years behind, he's proven to be a good influence on the homesick and lonely kids, especially those left in the limbo of Cabin Six, but even when he was younger he had a natural talent for collecting misfits and the misunderstood. Just because his perception of himself is so flawed that he cannot believe that anyone would ever see him in a positive light doesn't erase the fact that he has friends that care about him to the same extent as he does for them.

Dunbar is protective of not just the underdog but anyone who he perceives that he is responsible for, which includes friends, family, allies, acquaintances, strangers, the entire world – okay, perhaps not that far, but it's a near thing. Some would call him fearless, others foolhardy, but in truth he is merely forgetful when it comes to his own safety, which pales in importance to the continued well-being of those around him. His self-flagellation has ramped up into overdrive since the death of his girlfriend and it is his inaction on that occasion that haunts him into the present day. His reasoning of being so careless with his own health is that he fears the preventable loss of someone, anyone he cares about and so will stop at nothing to avoid experiencing said helplessness again, even at the cost of his own life. Dunbar thinks himself a selfish wretch because his motivations aren't altruistic; he wants to prevent his own future suffering.

♆ likes ⇾ Swimming in ice-cold bodies of water, up to and including The Arctic Sea.
⇾ Spending Christmas (and, incidentally, his birthday) with family and friends.
⇾ Teaching – helping out new campers with sparring, but also in general.
⇾ Regular mortal sports. Why does nobody ever play football in Camp Half-Blood?
⇾ The stuff one learns in Boy Scouts; survival safety, tying knots, etc.

♆ dislikes ⇾ People who smile too often. They're faking it, for sure.
⇾ Dry, sunny weather, or anywhere where there isn't much precipitation per annum.
⇾ Classroom environments and learning through lectures. (He always was a bit of a delinquent).
⇾ The whole idea of Quests, especially when given out to children. Also being reminded of his last one.
⇾ Ridiculous age restrictions on the purchase of alcohol that make Anarchy palatable.

♆ hobbies ⇾ Sports and athletics.
⇾ Pub quizzing (no Children of Athena allowed).
⇾ Skipping stones.

♆ strengths ⇾ Dunbar is a natural athlete and is fairly good at (and enjoys) anything that tests his physical strength, speed and stamina. His mental endurance is just as strong and he is very, very good at ignoring momentary pain in the present once the adrenaline kicks in. Sports he's good at – other than the water-related ones at which he would have even more of an unnatural advantage – include football, track, and horse-racing.

Though he is no Child of Ares, Dunbar has proven himself in close-quarters combat to be decently talented, especially as he is not afraid to use trickery or under-handed tactics to defeat an enemy stronger than him. He's able to discern vulnerabilities and weak spots with a sharp mind and the will to keep on fighting until everyone is safe. His style, using a sword and shield but mostly the latter, makes him good at protecting others.

Dunbar has various survival skills that have helped him before on Quests, and for them he can thank the Boy Scouts. Things like orienteering and navigation, fishing, wilderness survival and so on. He's also very good at tying knots. His time in the Boy Scouts also inspired an interest in BSL, which he is fluent in, and ASL, which he's making a good attempt at learning.

♆ weaknesses ⇾ Dunbar is not very book-smart. He struggles to acquire knowledge if it isn't learned through repetitive actions and is much better at rattling off general information and fun facts than he is answering questions from a textbook. His education is similarly shoddy, especially when it comes to basic maths and the rules of grammar. (Often he'll be seen convincing younger demigods that 'school isn't all that,' and 'nobody actually needs it.')

Cruel reminders of Aliyah Hassan––"the most beautiful woman who ever lived" according to Dunbar––are everywhere. They have left him a bit of an anxious wreck, reaching for the cigarettes whenever he recalls that she is no longer alive, and that history has an awful habit of repeating itself. Dunbar is generally over-protective and more than a little paranoid when it comes to the health of those he considers his responsibility, which is just about everyone.

Some of Dunbar's abilities are not under his control, and he does tend to bottle-up his emotions until they explode, causing unintended side-effects. Camp Half-Blood experienced three solid weeks of rain after he returned from his last quest. The surface of a lake he was standing near froze over when he last had an argument with his best friend. Similarly, they do not always come to his aid when he needs them most.</sub>

<sub>♆ biography ⇾ Noel James Dunbar – 'Barry' as he is known to his friends – is the son of a world-class French athlete in the sport of dressage. Eleanor Leroy, who was at the time married to a wealthy landowner in the north of Scotland, spent little time at home with her husband and instead traveled the world on her inheritance and the prize money from numerous competitions. Dunbar can only assume that it was during this time when she met the God of the Sea and had an affair, but really, he doesn't want to know anything more than that. To give the man credit, his "father" never questioned that his supposed son looked nothing like him and treated him as he did his own blood: not well.

Still, he would take his Dad's cold disinterest to his overbearing Mum's meddling in his life. A true narcissist, Noel was a reflection of herself: to see him failing in his classes, behind other children his age in reading and writing was cataclysmic to her image. After uprooting him from the first of three private schools at the age of eight, she grew only more irate as he acted up in the following institutions until he was expelled from the first and suspended (twice) from the second. It wasn't his fault, Dunbar insisted. He could never adapt to the cliquishness of the boarding schools which his mother paid for; an outspoken kid unwilling to stand injustice, precocious in many areas other than the academic. That was quickly stamped out of him.

Dunbar was escorted to Camp Half-Blood by satyrs when he began to present as a demigod at age eleven. The journey was not without encounters, but ultimately it was not as rocky as some others had it. Proving himself an absentee father, Poseidon did not claim him as his son for two years. It was a shame when it did finally happen: the other uncategorised miscreants of the Hermes Cabin had become his friends over the summers, and some of those friendships withered when he was understood to be a child of the Big Three. After he was claimed and moved into his own room in Cabin Three, Dunbar became a full-time resident of the camp. Eventually he stopped sending letters home entirely.

A naturally-talented combatant, Dunbar made friends with those who spent most of their free time sparring and those who needed extra help alike. It took him a long time to acclimatise to the carefree nature of the camp where competition was (mostly) friendly and people were (mostly) good sports. One of his first friends was Aliyah Hassan, a Daughter of Aphrodite with a wicked-sharp wit and an affinity for the spear. Though he was smitten by her supernatural beauty, he was not aware of his feelings being requited until he was sixteen, at which point the natural progression of events led to puppy love of the most nauseating sort.

When Aliyah received a quest, there was no question of who would accompany her. So began one of the most arduous journeys of his life on a mission that purportedly spanned oceans. Nobody knows for sure, but the gritty details of the quest are unknown to all but the Dunbar, the third member of their party, and the Camp Director they reported back to. Though the parameters were fulfilled and the gods satisfied, Aliyah did not return with them, having faced up to mortal peril and succumbed to her injuries on the road.

The quest was several years ago now. For a time, Dunbar was standoffish, then he was snappish, but eventually as the stages of grief hit him hard one by one, he returned to a state that was as close to 'normal' as he would ever be again. Even if he's more cautious than he used to be and still flinches at the mention of the event (or anyone involved), he laughs easier now and takes part in camp activities instead of skiving off when nobody is looking. Right now, all Dunbar dreads is the thought of another quest gone wrong.</sub>

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demigod abilities

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<sub>♆ hydrokinesis ⇾ The bread and butter of any child of Poseidon's skillset, Dunbar is no light-weight when it comes to commanding vast amounts of liquid with sweeping gestures, either summoning it from his surroundings or – given enough motive – conjuring it from thin air. His hydrokinesis manifests in his mastery over water: he can breathe in it and allow allies to do the same; his natural stamina, strength and endurance is massively increased in water; and numerous other off-shoots limited only by how imaginative one can be with the element itself.

♆ cryokinesis ⇾ As a child of Poseidon from a legacy of Boreas (via his grandfather's lineage) Dunbar finds it easier to create and control ice than many of his half-siblings do and even prefers it to water. Sometimes this happens accidentally during periods of extreme emotion – mainly anger – with hoarfrost creeping up the windows and walls. He is a member of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club as of December of last year due to his resistance to the cold. Arctic waters are even pleasant to him. Dunbar prefers creating objects out of solid ice to using cryokinesis to produce hail or snowstorms.

♆ call of the sea ⇾ Dunbar has the power of empathy linked with all creatures within Poseidon's domain, which includes sea creatures (both mundane and mythical) and horses. He can call them to his aid in times of need and, more than that, can even communicate complex commands to them.

♆ atmokinesis ⇾ A control over the weather, storms. Generally this comes into effect in coastal regions. Once more, Boreas's lineage comes in handy and thus his rainstorms are more frigid, sometimes even flurries of snow. Other weather events that Dunbar has created in the past include fog, mist and a hurricane, once.

♆ geokinesis ⇾ Though far weaker than a Child of Hades, Dunbar can exert some control over the earth. Unfortunately, anything requiring fine control is beyond him. With his level of geokinesis, he can theoretically make fissures and cracks in the earth and even summon minor earthquakes. 'Theoretical,' of course, because Dunbar wouldn't even know how to begin with testing it out.</sub>

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weaponry

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<sub>♆ weapon(s) ⇾ κῆτος (Cetus); a perfectly round, Celestial Bronze shield adorned with what appears to be a spiraling sea serpent from the center outwards. Though in its basic form it is small and light-weight, it can expand large enough to shield an average man and several companions from a hail of arrows to a fireball. Cetus can be thrown at enemies in its smaller form and will always return to Dunbar's side.

When it comes to his sword, it is a standard Celestial Bronze weapon without any special traits. It does not yet have a name, because it is Dunbar's third blade and he has a nasty habit of forgetting them after being disarmed.</sub>

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playlist

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_{Greg Laswell - Comes and Goes (In Waves)
Winterbourne - To Get To Know You
Ninja Sex Party - Wish You Were Here}

♆ 𝙳𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 ♆ (𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚢 𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢)

@Vicier Working on a Son of Poseidon first, and maybe a Daughter of Iris? =]

I'm excited!

♆ 𝙳𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 ♆ (𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚢 𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢)

@YoshiSkittlez ^{Think you tagged the wrong person...}

I might bring back Biff from The Academy, if that's okay. Are Huntresses allowed as characters? Also, is there a set age range? (I like the idea of an early twenties character.)

♆ 𝙳𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 ♆ (𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚢 𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢)

I might be interested in this. =]

The Destined (Soulmate RP)

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It was far too early for Faolán to be awake. There was no justice in the world, he decided, since sleep simply would not come––even though he had no duties to attend to and was free to relax and slouch for the entire duration of the festival. He had tried everything to still his idle hands and force the restlessness away: reading a tome borrowed from the Guard-Captain's wife; sewing up the tear in his favourite tunic that had been damaged in a fist-fight; even just listening in to next door's familial dispute until the early hours of the morning, but the fact of the matter was that he just could not sleep.

He was still wide-awake when he heard the creaking of floorboards outside his bedroom door and the timidest of knocks. Faolán reckoned that was a good time to stop pretending he had any hopes left for even a cat-nap and instead returned to what would be his day and night for the forseeable future. Caring for his siblings; his younger sisters, who were young enough to need it, and his adult twin brothers, who were old enough to better but still required parenting.

“Mhm?” He leaned against the door frame, and though there was little light to see her by, Sorcha stood on the other side.

The first thing out of his sister's mouth was, “Faolán, you're injured!” It was only after the fact that she looked over her shoulder at their sleeping siblings, who didn't so much as grumble in their sleep. “When did that happen? How didn't I notice?”

Faolán had forgotten, too. His ribs were bandaged up and held stiffly in place, but he had refused actual healing. Wounds that were not surface-level required Cair's gentle touch, and he didn't want to tempt fate by accepting it. Though he hadn't tried to hide the injury from his siblings, it just hadn't come up beyond a wince during Culainn's bone-crushing hug and a shortness of breath that was much unlike him.

“The man I was chasing the night before you lot came, the...” Wife-beater, though an apt explanation for the crook, might not have been acceptable to use for a nine year old girl who still believed in tall fairytales and true love. “Er, criminal. He got in a good hit, right about here. I didn't expect him to fight back after I'd made him drop the knife.” If only he'd been on duty, wearing something more than just a tunic to protect his chest. Faolán poked at his ribs, still tender. Beneath the binding, the skin was mottled and purplish with a dozen bruises merging into one. He healed quick and always had, but for the moment every movement from breathing to taking a step jostled the bone-deep injury. His estimate was that he'd be fighting fit again in no more than three days, even though the healer said twenty after patching him up.

His sister chewed on her lower lip, distraught. Maybe losing her father to violence in the city before she learned her letters affected her just as much as it had him, or maybe it was seeing the aftermath of a fight without ever having seen anything like it. “It doesn't hurt or anything,” he lied breezily, an expert in providing comfort to others even at the expense of his own honesty. “It looks worse than it is. Now, why are you awake? It's still early.”

“Um. It's not that important. I'm sorry for waking you up...”

“Sorcha,” Faolán interrupted with some fondness. “I was already awake. What do you need?”

Sorcha looked over her shoulder at the room behind her. His siblings had commandeered the largest room in the house with makeshift beds taking up most of the free space and the rest of their belongings strewn about as if they owned the place. The hearth had burnt out at some point during the night without any of them noticing, extinguishing the last source of light other than the barest hints of dull blue filtering in from outside. It was near-impossible to see anything, but Faolán could hear the twins snoring away. “I can't get back to sleep,” she informed him, wringing her hands in her night-dress. “If I'm up earlier than everyone else, I usually light a candle to Cair and do my daily prayers, but...”

“But you can't find any candles.” It was true that there were a few burnt-out stumps of wax he had not bothered to clean up, but other than that, Sorcha could have searched high and low even in daylight and not been able to scrounge any up. Prayer was a tradition that Faolán was not interested in continuing. Before his birth, his mother and father only had a shrine to the Mother and Father in the back room of their house, but when one of their own children was blessed, a token service to Cair became a part of their daily reverence. Faolán didn't have a shrine, didn't go to temple, and though he did believe (as he would be a fool not to) he did not have time in the day to even pay lip-service to the gods.

Sorcha nodded. “Why don't you have any candles?”

He couldn't help but grin.

“I wonder,” Faolán said, one eyebrow raised in a perfect imitation of an old school mam. This was his house, however small, and these were his rules. Number one –– the most important rule of all –– was 'do not ask stupid questions'. He watched Sorcha's brows contort in confusion, waiting for the pin to drop, but it never did. Faolán caved before too long. It wasn't right to laugh too much at her expense when part of the blame could fall on him. Faolán remembered the years when he took care of her while his mother could not, but it was doubtful that his sisters, both of them, would ever recall entertainment in the form of flashing, magical lights when they were still in their cribs. There was a difference between hearing stories about and seeing for oneself. “Don't worry about it. I think I might have some packed away, if you give me a few minutes to look for them.”

Sorcha nodded, and her brother was dismissed. Faolán shut the door to his bedroom and was once more shrouded in the darkness of the early morning. It was easy to forget, when he lived alone, that normal folk had to spend money to light their home. They bought candlesticks and candlestick-holders and matches and everything else; expenses that he hadn't been aware of when he moved to the Royal City, so he did without. The box under his bed held leftovers from "house-guests" who had similarly complained that it wasn't right to live in the dark, and if they were going to sleep over, they'd bring their own. The rent was affordable only because the tiny windows looked out directly onto the wall of the massive boarding house next door, and they didn't even face the sunrise for it.

Faolán flicked his wrist, summoning a small orb of light into existence. It was intangible, warm in colour, and he thought it might resemble the glow of a hundred captured fireflies if he could stomach to look at it for more than a few seconds. Even using his god-given gifts for pragmatic purposes left him unsettled, like a cat whose fur had been petted the wrong way. With a small gesture, the light moved down by the bed and lit up what was underneath. Crates, mostly. Spare blankets for colder nights. A toolbox for fixing up holes in the ceiling. A loose plank of flooring which could be pulled away; the place he kept what little savings he didn't send to Claredarrow. He winced as he kneeled, reaching behind all of that to where he could find a few skinny candles, covered in dust.

He pulled on a clean shirt on his way out, greyish-white from wear and loose at the collar, and dashed his face with the little water left in a bucket near the door. The candles were swiftly deposited into Sorcha's hands along with a box of matches. She was lingering on the other side in wait, and stared for just a moment in awe at the summoned light before her brother let it dissipate.

“I'm going to head out to the market to pick up some things for dinner. I wasn't prepared at all for you lot showing up.” Faolán told her. It was true that his siblings had arrived out of nowhere, and had they been a day later, the guardsman would have followed through on his plans of returning to Claredarrow for a fortnight. What little bread was left had been used up in only one night, though that he had some coin left in the pockets of his trousers meant he didn't need to dip into his savings. “I think I'll be back before Conall and Culainn wake up, but on the off chance I'm not, let them know that there's a well down the street in the square, if they need fresh water. Do not go alone.”

The sun was rising as he stepped into his boots and left the house, ruffling Sorcha's hair as he passed her. The streets were slowly growing busier both with faces he recognised and those he didn't. Likely visitors here for the festival, and with any luck they wouldn't cause too much disruption to the endlessly churning routine of the Royal City. It was just a big event, and then at the end of it, everyone could return home and Faolán would return to his usual solitude.

Just a trip to the market, bright and early to avoid the crowds. It was neither the time nor place to appreciate the intense air of foreboding that threatened to suffocate him, but as with everything else, he could push those feelings away to deal with later.

The Destined (Soulmate RP)

@CollectorOfMyst

You're absolutely right. What I meant to say was: 'We need more lady-love in here. Fanservice for the female gayz.' Got my homophones mixed up. ;)

The Destined (Soulmate RP)

Roleplay needs more lady-love, fanservice for the female gaze =]

I do wish I'd stuck with my female character idea, which was Brienne of Tarth a Kristen Stewart knight, but I just can't do MxF pairings playing the girl anymore. Squicks me out.

The Destined (Soulmate RP)

@Not Fishing

Not too different from Faolán, then, who's also a broody wallflower that does not want to be there and would rather be, I don't know, dealing with violent drunks or people loitering on the street or something.

No lollygaggin'.

^{We should stop editing our posts, demmit.}

The Destined (Soulmate RP)

@Tackytaff Their duties would likely be confined to the city, so at the very least it's not a priority as there's criminals operating closer to home to look out for. However, if they were fencing stolen goods in the Royal City itself, it would maybe be something to stamp down on, and even something for actual-terrible-guardsman Faolán to be involved in.

...which might also be of interest to @Thorn, too. What if, in the run up to the Festival, there was an effort to crack down on all this Definitely Illegal Activity? I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but there could definitely be a side-plot around here somewhere, assuming the characters aren't all busy finding their One True Heterosexual Love and making out in broom closets.

CSI: Orewyn.