Appearance
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Birthday: 32, Summer, 495
Birthplace: Syliras
Languages: Common(Fluent)
Appearance:
Deltan is a young man of average stature, though with a firm build that speaks of someone who is not afraid of a day's work. Or a few months' travel, for that matter. He is lean in a strong sort of way, with broad shoulders and a straight back. Deltan's dark blue eyes can at times take on a piercing quality quite apart from the usual stare of a man not long out of boyhood, hinting at the hardness of gaze that he might one day develop after he does a bit more maturing. His hair is a bright red, kept short for convenience's sake. Judging from his features, he may have a little Inarta somewhere up his bloodline, though that might just be the hair. Deltan wears a typical shirt and pair of trousers, both of Syliran cut and left a rather unremarkable color. His feet are shod in heavy leather travel boots, worn from a great deal of walking. In the colder months Deltan will wear a thick cloak that will keep the worst of the cold off.
Character Concept
Deltan is a good man at heart, though at times he has a bit of a selfish streak. He is a little manipulative, though he does it almost without meaning to and usually does not have any ill intentions. He looks out for himself first and foremost, though he is the sort to occasionally help a stranger… If the mood strikes him, at least. He is somewhat loyal, though he will not risk his life unreasonably or die for a cause he feels is lost. Part of this is pragmatism, and part is simple immaturity. Deltan has much growing up to do, and is still very much caught between childhood and adulthood in some ways.
Character History
Deltan grew up as part of the Syliran lower class, living in the city-castle with only his mother, who made her living as a maid for a wealthy family. According to his mother, Deltan was a by-blow, a perpetual reminder of his mother’s poor decisions involving a handsome merchant’s guard. She loved her son, but he looked entirely too much like his father for her liking. His mother looked more like a distant aunt than anything else, with dark brown hair and matching brown eyes. She was short while he was lanky. The only resemblance was a vague similarity between their cheekbones. Beyond that, she could have been a stranger for all those who saw them together could know.
It hurt Deltan to see the pain in his mother’s eyes, but what could he do? He had nowhere to go, and his mother would be heartbroken if he left. As he grew, he proved quite diligent, glad to put his hand to anything…as long as it did not involve study. Manual labor seemed to be his talent, and it seemed as though he’d make a lifelong career of it.
Through a set of unusual circumstances, he came under the tutelage of a rather prosperous merchant who was looking for guards. The merchant was wise; he knew that the loyalty of his guards was worth far more than a caravan of gold. So, as a habit, the merchant took in promising young men and trained them as well as he could afford in the hopes that they would be willing to work as his personal guard. Men like that had been known to die for him, over the many years that he had been a merchant. As guards died or retired or moved on to better things, the merchant would hire those he had been training and select others to begin training.
Naturally, Deltan was more than happy to accept the patronage of a man far more wealthy than he could ever hope to be. Besides, it gave him a good reason to leave his mother and a chance to earn money to support her as well. Over the course of three years, he spent the vast majority of his time with a few other boys and a highly skilled tutor, learning the art of bladecraft. Since the merchant wanted only the best, he paid a startlingly high amount of money to the tutor to induce her to teach her knowledge of the Flux to her pupils. At least, to those who seemed even more promising than the rest and who were not superstitious. Then again, the merchant rarely chose those who could not be persuaded to learn magic. Though he knew not a bit of it, the merchant felt that magically-trained guards were in his best interest.
These advantages were more than Deltan could ever have imagined. Despite the initial frustration of learning how to use the Flux at all, he proved adept with it fairly quickly. Deltan had only one broken bone over the course of three years of sparring with others as proficient in the Flux as he was. And that one only happened because he was using it unsupervised with another boy. If nothing else, he learned to respect the power of Djed. From that point on, he’d been incredibly careful. If one who barely knew how to use Flux could break bones, what might someone with true power do to themselves? He had no desire to mangle his limbs by playing around.
That same boy had felt guilty for his part in Deltan’s injury, nearly getting Deltan dismissed from training altogether in the process. Over time, they became good friends. Unfortunately, this boy was clearly the worst swordsman in the entire group. The others all wondered, but never remarked on, why he had gotten their patron’s support in the first place. Eventually, it came up in their conversation.
Like boys sometimes do, he had confided to Deltan that he was using magic to convince their tutor not to have him removed. After much discussion between them, they had come to an agreement; Deltan would teach his friend about the Flux and try to help him learn how to use it if the other boy would teach him his own magic. After all, being able to convince their tutor of things seemed useful. Deltan was not prepared for the difficulty of learning yet another new magic form, however.
The boys spent every free moment teaching one another, and after much frustration and more than a little pain, they both unlocked the secrets to their respective disciplines. Their tutor was no fool, however, and the truth became known within a year. The subtle improvement in the boy’s skill spoke of Flux. Raging, he demanded to know who had taught the art to the boy, and no hypnotism from either Deltan or his more adept friend could calm the man. Eventually, it came out that Deltan was the traitor. The two boys spent all their time together, so it was the logical conclusion. With preternatural speed, the tutor had Deltan by the throat and up in the air. In moments, the other boy landed a hard punch to the base of the tutor’s spine, shattering both the man’s pelvis and his own arm.
In the chaos, Deltan had fled. Fled the room, fled the city, and fled his old life. He could not deal with the consequences of what he had done, and had given his mother only a cursory farewell before taking the stipend he had been saving and buying everything he could afford that he thought he would need. He shipped out with a caravan, acting as a guard. It was best to keep quiet about his magic, and for more than one reason. It turned out he was going to Sunberth, the lawless city where anything remotely magical had a drastically shortened life expectancy. He would realize later that the situation had not been quite so terrible. Not for him, at least. Deltan would have survived, and he had been almost ready to join his patron's caravan as it was. Still, done was done. He would go on. ...Besides, he found himself breathing more easily away from Syliras. It was a wanderlust he had never really fully realized he possessed. |
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Deltan Colari 
by Deltan Colari on October 15th, 2014, 1:11 am 
