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Torvwyn "Tory" Eprinmaierson
Age: 19 (novel)/23 (Gaia)
Hometown: the City of Rakkel, Duchy of Rakkel, Kingdom of Kappa, Keska
Hair: straw blonde
Eyes: brown
Height: 5' 9"
Weight/Build: ~155 lbs./well-fed appearance, not chubby or overweight, but not thin, either -- lost a lot of weight when he was sick and never regained all of it
Notable features: from his mother, his round face and nose and soft brown eyes and skin and build and a dimple in his cheek; from his father, average lips and sturdy hands and feet and thick golden hair -- aside from this Tory has no disfigurements or birthmarks, and no visible scars
Appearance
(durr, type stuff up here)
Personality
A mild-mannered scholar, Torvwyn (more typing to be done)
Family
Torvwyn has an elder brother, a quarter-elf named Aervwen, who is a woodsman in the service of the Duke. They share a mother, but look nothing alike. Aervwen takes after his father, with silky dark green hair and green eyes. His features are very fine and delicate, with a thin face and pointed ears. He is of average height with a slim, athletic build, and excels in riding and archery.
Torvwyn's mother was trained as a basket weaver but found little time to practice her trade during her life. As a youth she had an average figure which filled out considerably after her first pregnancy. Her face was round and sweet with a comely smile and dimpled cheeks. Though she was never considered particularly beautiful, she had pert red lips of perfect shape and was much the envy of the other girls in town for this. She was average height, with limp flaxen hair to her shoulders and brown eyes. After having an affair with an elf she was shunned by her family, and when her lover died she was left alone to raise Aervwen, making do as best she could with minor cleaning and sitting jobs.
Torvwyn's father was a baker, or at least was once a baker at some point in his youth. He quickly found his skills lay not so much in baking as in the management of the bakery itself. He opened his first shop at the age of nineteen and by thirty owned three very successful bakeries across town and found himself to be a wealthy merchant. With his thick head of golden hair, bold facial features, and sparkling blue eyes, he managed to charm the daughter of a minor nobleman. She bore him two children before expiring during the birth of the third and then, finding himself with two children (the baby died with her mother) and no wife, he quickly married Torvwyn's mother. She married him out of necessity: she was a single mother with nothing to her name and lived in poverty. He married her for the sadistic joy of having total ownership of another human. He enforced upon her a variety of rules: she was not allowed to visit friends (what few she had), she had to keep the house to a total model of perfection and cleanliness, she was not allowed to handle money or buy anything, not even the food shopping.
Grateful for having been rescued from poverty, Torvwyn's mother bore this without complaint for ten years. She cooked and cleaned even when pregnant with Torvwyn. Aervwen, being perceptive and bright, was horrified by this treatment of his mother and begged her to flee, but she refused for four years, and then she was pregnant with Torvwyn, so Aervwen fled alone to live with his paternal grandfather nearby.
Torvwyn takes his eyes and face shape from his mother and hair from his father. His build is similar to his mother's before her pregnancy, and like her he has little body hair outside of the mop growing on his head. This runs in his mother's family. He has his mother's smooth, milky skin, but his father's thick hands and feet. His lips are his father's, too. His nose is from his mother, rounded and blunt, but with traces of his father in its length and height. When he smiles, he has one dimple, and Aervwen calls this their mother's gift, for it is that happily dimpled smile which reminds Aervwen of their mother the most.
Quote:
sssss"Thank you for not making a scene," Torvwyn added.
sssss"Do I get a reward?"
sssssThe tiniest smirk tugged at the corner of Torvwyn's mouth. "Here, in the doorway?" he asked, sounding amused.
sssssRikard's grin was suitably devilish. "Doesn't the thought give you a thrill?"
sssss"Yes. The thrill of possibly losing my job, and-- mmfgh!"
History
Childhood
Torvwyn was his mother's second child and his father's fourth. For the first six years of his life, he lived almost constantly at his mother's side, helping her with her chores. He was a sweet boy, but to his father's dismay, showed no interest in business or swordplay. He was more at home with his nose in a book and was an avid reader from a very young age. With his father being so rich, Torvwyn had the privilege of a private tutor during these early years.
When Torvwyn was three, his mother first began to get sick. At first it was small things, like headaches, dizziness, and cramps, but these soon became fatigue, nausea, fainting, and eventually seizures. Through it all his mother insisted on continuing her daily work, and little Torvwyn helped her as best she could. She hid her sickness from her husband for as long as she was able, making excuses and explaining every ailment away, but eventually she collapsed. A doctor was brought, but there was nothing that could be done.
For the last six months of her life, she was bedridden as a "wasting disease," likely some form of cancer or tumor, ravished her body. She became a thin and frail skeleton, a shade of her former self, but through it all she only ever smiled. Torvwyn kept by her bedside day and night while his father went gallivanting and carousing. He had cheated on his wife several times in secret but now felt he could do so freely, offering the excuse that his wife would be dead soon anyway.
During this time, Aervwen's visits to Torvwyn and their mother grew fewer and far between. He had trouble dealing with his mother's decline and spent a great deal of time traveling the world of the elves looking for cures. But no elf would deign to help a half-elf's human mother, and those who would have did not possess the knowledge to save her. When Torvwyn was six, his mother breathed her last breath. She died at home with Torvwyn at her side.
After that, Aervwen came and took Torvwyn away from his father, who he now despised and blamed for their mother's death. Aervwen found work in the employ of the duke as an apprentice ranger, and begged them to consider Torvwyn for a position in the library. Torvwyn became a library clerk and assisted the great scholars of the city.
One of those scholars took a liking to the young boy, who reminded the old man so much of himself in his youth, and set the boys up in a nice house near the castle. Torvwyn became his protegee.
Youth
Torvwyn learned from the scholars in the library for several years, gradually being promoted higher and higher. Torvwyn learned more than just scholarly pursuits from his master: the old man was a secretly practicing Morgausite, a religion which values power and displays of power above all else, and Torvwyn was trained as a Morgausite acolyte to participate in the various rituals. Because of the past actions of the infamous Morgausite Telrik the Terrible, who raised an army of goblins and attempted to take over Rakkel, the rituals practiced by the Morgausites of Rakkel were not as bloody or grisly as their brethren in other parts of the island. Still Torvwyn always threw up after any of the rituals involving blood and sacrifice.
Torvwyn's benefactor died when Torvwyn was fourteen and left all of his possessions to the promising young scholar (he had no children and greatly outlived his wife). This placed Torvwyn in the possession of a house and a good deal of money, particularly after selling off those possessions for which Torvwyn had no use. He kept his masters books and journals and several pieces of furniture.
Life from this point on was good for the two brothers. Each excelled in their occupations and were favorably recognized by the duke for their achievements. Torvwyn earned his own private office in the library when he was seventeen. Aervwen was given charge of a quarter of the duke's forests to the north.
And then, when Torvwyn was nineteen, he first met Rikard Prowley.
Torvwyn had by this point had three previous relationships, the first with a female and the latter two with men, and knew he preferred the latter. The Morgausite faith sees nothing wrong with homosexuality, or sexuality of any kind, and Morgausites are often renowned for their bizarre fetishes and sexual practices. (Outside of a preference for men, Torvwyn's sexual practices fall into a very normal zone, making him a bit of an oddity among Morgausites.) His first meeting with Rikard did not suggest that there would be any great romance in the future: they discussed runes and books and found they had several interests in common. Torvwyn was impressed by Rikard's knowledge of obscure ancient runes and invited him to help with a project for the duke. Both found the other easy on the eyes, but not immediately intimately desirable. Torvwyn thought Rikard was a bit outrageous and much too skinny, and Rikard thought Torvwyn was too naﶥ and unambitious.
But as they worked together on the rune project, they established a rapport which grew into a friendship, then a dependency, and finally love. Rikard eventually found Torvwyn's earthy nature endearing and labored to protect his naivete from the cruelties of the world. Torvwyn found that Rikard brought out braver and stronger qualities in himself as he served as much-needed grounding for his explosive partner. He still thought Rikard was too skinny. But each had, in his own way, decided that the other was a person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Torvwyn's brother Aervwen was not supportive of the relationship. He disliked that Rikard was a classic Morgausite (murderer and sexual deviant) and felt that Rikard would lead his brother down a bad path. For the first time in nearly twenty years, the two brothers started too argue, and Aervwen moved out of the house. For several months Aervwen tried to break up the relationship, but his every attack against only strengthened the bond. Eventually Aervwen was forced to realize that he could no longer be his little brother's protector: that job now belonged to another. His little brother had grown up and there was nothing Aervwen could do but accept this and the fact that Rikard Prowley was now an integral part of Torvwyn's life.
Quote:
sssss"RIKARD!"
sssssRikard winced and then began to chuckle.
sssss"That wasn't funny!"
sssss"Aw, but c'mon, did you see the look on his face? Priceless!"
sssssTrembling with fury, Torvwyn's scrunched up his face and said, "That's none of his concern!"
sssssRikard stopped laughing. "Surely you're not ashamed of me in public?"
sssss"If I am, it's only because you are the most coarse, rude, inappropriate person I have ever met!"
sssss"Which is precisely why you like me."
sssss"No, no, no!"
sssss"Yes, yes, yes!"
Rikard and Torvwyn
Torvwyn and Rikard worked and laughed and loved together for two years. When Torvwyn was twenty-one, he began to experience headaches and dizziness and muscle aches. Just as his mother had, he found himself hiding this from Rikard, not wanting to hurt his loved one or force Rikard to be a bedside attendant the way Torvwyn had been for his mother. But there was no way to hide the vomiting or fainting, and Rikard was too smart to buy Torvwyn's excuses. Aervwen told Rikard what had befallen their mother and Rikard, for the first time in his life, placed the value of another's life above his own. He read through every book and text he could find looking for a cure. He begged for help from doctors and mages. But there seemed to be nothing he could do and each day Torvwyn grew a little bit worse.
Up until this point, Torvwyn had always felt that he loved Rikard more than Rikard loved him, and that Rikard, despite his protestations to the contrary, would eventually leave Torvwyn for some grandiose scheme. Now Torvwyn realized that as much as he loved Rikard, Rikard loved him even more. Torvwyn had learned strength and independence from Rikard, but Rikard had learned that true strength was something you found in another person. The thought of losing Torvwyn threw him into a panic. For the first time in his life, Rikard cried over the thought of being without someone, and spent every moment trying to find a way to stop it.
At this time, the duke's wife was also ill, and Rikard and the duke, Daerinnid, found a single glimmer of hope. There existed on an island far to the south a "forgotten goddess." None of the remembered gods or goddesses would help the two men, so they decided to seek out this forgotten one. With great reluctance, Rikard left Torvwyn's side, and promised to return with a cure.
In Rikard's absence, Torvwyn was cared for by his brother. Aervwen was finally forced to confront the terrors of human disease, which his quarter-elven body would never experience, and atone for not having been at his mother's side when she died.
By some miracle, Rikard's quest actually resulted in a cure for Torvwyn, but it was too late for the duke's wife, who died before the duke could even reach the goddess. Rikard returned and joined his lover once again, greatly matured by his adventure.
As the duke's advisor, Rikard was called upon to help with the raising of the duke's children, and this created in Torvwyn a great longing. He would have loved to have a child for himself and Rikard to raise, a child of their own. Then Rikard told Torvwyn that a chance existed in the realm of Gaia. Furthermore, Rikard had an obligation to propagate his family line, but he only wanted to do that with Torvwyn. He said, "You are my better half, and I think any child of mine is going to need that." The two decided that they were ready to embark upon their greatest adventure yet.
Lineage
Mother:
Hair: light brown
Eyes: brown
Height: 5' 6"
Weight/Build: average curvy in her youth, filled out a lot after her pregnancies
Notable features: dimpled smile, round face and features, very soft in appearance and mannerisms
Father:
Race: human
Hair: blonde
Eyes: blue
Height: 5' 10"
Weight/Build: broad-shouldered and sturdily built, muscular without even really trying
Notable features: his father's nose, his mother's face shape -- in the best possible combination; considered the portrait of a handsome, virile man
Maternal grandmother
Hair: light brown
Eyes: green
Height: 5' 4"
Weight/Build:
Notable features:
Maternal grandfather
Hair: brown
Eyes: brown
Height: 5' 9"
Weight/Build:
Notable features:
Paternal grandmother
Race: human
Hair: blonde
Eyes: blue
Height: 5' 7"
Weight/Build: sturdily average, flatchested and blocky
Notable features: square face, plain features, stern and sinister look
Paternal grandfather
Race: human
Hair: dirty blonde
Eyes: blue
Height: 5' 11"
Weight/Build: average build in his youth, became thin and sickly in his later years
Notable features: hawkish nose and thin face
