![[Verified by Nightmare]](./images/checkmark.png "[Verified by Nightmare]")
"I Don't Want To Fail You."
Alias: None
Titles: Squire
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Date of Birth: 1, Spring, 499 AV
Height: 6'2
Weight: 160 lbs
Profession: Squire of Syliras
Housing: Squire Dormitories
Languages:
- Fluent: Common
- Basic: Pavi
- Poor: None Desired
Personality Type: ENFJ
Enneagram Type: 3w2
Merits: Honest, Clean, Dutiful, Hardworking, Loyal, Trustworthy, Kind, Outgoing, Animated, Compassionate, Faithful, Calm, Bookish, Loving
Flaws: Buried Pride, Quiet, Thin, Dislikes Being Challenged, Hates Being Belittled, Keeps People at a Distance, Deep-Rooted Fear Of Being Useless, Can Take Self Too Seriously
Gnosis: One Mark of Ennervism (Pending)
Maverick Seer
Physical Appearance:
Standing at six feet and two inches of height Maverick is a tall lad. If an individual were to use minimal words to describe the boy they would in all likelihood use either 'groomed' or 'thin', or some synonym for the words or play on their meaning.
Maverick keeps his charcoal tone hair to a maximum length of a short militaristic, buzz. Additionally, the squire always keeps his face immaculately clean-shaven. His short hair does well to slim his face and to draw attention away from his head and instead to his crystalline eyes.
To elaborate on the state of the orbs set in the lad's face, Maverick's eyes are a bright and pale shade of 'clean' blue- some would say that his eyes are his most attractive feature, as they are most certainly an oddity. Although, arguably the most welcoming point of his eyes is the sheer amount of calculated kindness that shows through them to the world. Indeed, an intense -yet reserved- intelligence and gentle empathy is almost always present in the young teen's visage.
Even while he is kind and sleight of build, Maverick still holds a purposefully confident bearing. Though, while his movements are sometimes bordering on an appearance of arrogance, the lad's words and intentions usually do away with this perception.
Encircling and expanding out from Maverick's eyes is a square head of medium length. Upon his visage are set somewhat angular features, that are somewhere in the middle of strong and feminine. With long eyelashes and a smooth face to round things out some would call him attractive, others might be worried over how 'pretty' rather than 'handsome' he is.
Personality:
Maverick is a youth only now coming fully into his own. Forced to grow up as he was by his family, his mind and beliefs are finally catching up to the level of maturity that he has always unknowingly faked outwardly, to avoid losing respect.
His core values are kindness and empathy, although he has learned that it is many times best to forgo showing this 'softness' to everyone who walks by.
This softness comes from being raised by a very loving grandfather and mother. His confidence is derived from his ambition and an ever-questioning reliance on his principles. Finally, his morality and said principles are drawn from the lessons of his youth and an almost instinctual draw towards kindness.
Confident kindness does have its pitfalls, such as a childhood wrought with emotional responses at the least of sleights, a life full of being used by other less caring individuals. Nevertheless, the boy can see no other path for himself. There is one reason for that.
In his core Maverick wants to serve.
The squire wants to be a giver. He wants to be loved, idolized. He wants to be a paragon of righteousness. Unlike many others, he also wants to earn this idolization, wants to ever keep himself in a position where he can help others without a challenge of his qualification. If that means building walls of iron around a loving soul, then so be it. If it means holding all but a few people at arms-distance emotionally, he will mournfully accept that. The boy is constantly judging himself, constantly asking himself if he's good enough; the answer is almost always no. He tries, he really does and even while he might not think he's 'good' enough he has sometimes struggled with thinking he's better than others. Nevertheless he continues on, hiding his prideful thoughts and attempting to battle them with a genuine, but conflicted love for humanity.
Above all else Maverick wants to find something, someone, some idea, a being, worthy of his loyalty and his hidden, overwhelming love. He wants to pour his soul out into something, but until that day he hides his true emotions underneath a groomed, semi-confident exterior. Until that day he searches.
History:
Maverick was born by Lhex's penstroke into the Seer bloodline, a family with a longstanding tradition of knighthood. Even the families' namesake is based upon the weapon that the patron of the family has traditionally wielded, the axe Seer.
Maverick's father and family has always been and is predominately human. Oddly, Maverick is also a pure human, whereas his 'mother' is a drykas. Although this fact is never mentioned openly in the household, it has led to Maverick becoming an excellent horsemanFlashback Threads are Already Written, Awaiting NPC Approval and to his learning pavi, thanks to the insistence of the woman who raised him.
A gentle child, Maverick was brought up on the ideals of the knighthood and on the teachings of the god of the order, especially those of Yahal and TyvethAgain flashbacks written for the god's lore. Additionally, he was groomed by his grandfather -as his father vanished before his time- to understand that the life of a knight would present many challenges, and that even so he was expected to take up its mantle.
For the first half of his life Maverick was a physically average child, who more favored the intellectual side of excellence. This all changed when he hit puberty. By the time he hit his teens Maverick was tired of being subpar, and of being less skilled that his fellow peers, and so once he entered into squirehood he began to train with a gusto that was only challenged by his religious zeal.
Thanks to the face heel turn that the passing of his childhood wrought, Maverick is now growing into his own. The boy's confidence is stabilizing and finding cause to exist, his skills are forming quickly, and his drive is set for the foreseeable future.
The only major bump in the road of Maverick's life recently was the sudden death of his grandfather. A man of no small skill, he died on the cabrin not of a sword or hammer wound, but of a crippling heart attack. Maverick was devastated, the man who had been a father to him and who had prepared him for his life, his grandfather was now gone. The only thing young Maverick had to remember his grandfather by? The family weapon that bore his own name, a weapon that Maverick himself was forced to retrieve from the battlefield upon which his mentor had fallen.
Gnosis Story(Pending):
Darkness is an inevitable part of life. The sun sets and the light fades. But yet, in nature there is never a true void of illumination. As Syna fades her thoughtful lover Leth takes dominion of the night, casting his reflective glow on to the world. Men fear darkness yes, but in reality it is never total. Yet, that is only the reality of the physical world. Darkness of the soul can be all consuming. Mortals have but one heart, one heart alone with no lover to take its place when its brightness burns out.
The light of Maverick Seer, son of Adam Seer, grandson of Gondellus Seer, is now being smothered underneath a blanket of suffocating grief.
I should have seen it. Should have recognized.
But I thought he was so strong. I didn't know that his age would take him from me, not like this.
If I had only progressed sooner, if I was only a knight now, I could have been out there with him.
Maybe I would have noticed, saw him faltering, moving less fluidly, something. I would have been able to warn him.
Maverick lay slumped against a wall of the squire dormitories, as the thoughts passed through his tight head. He didn't know how long it had been since he had gotten the news of his grandfather's death. The news that a noble knight, never defeated in any true pitched battle, had finally fallen not to an enemy but to his own heart while fighting a foe on the kabrin.
Maverick stared down at the simple axe in his hand. It was a battleaxe, made of steel with no embellishments or engravings. The weapon had been loaned to him from the knighthood for his training, and at this very moment it disgusted him. Maverick gripped the bare wooden shaft, wishing that his hand was instead holding in a death grip the wrapped leather handle of another arm.
The family weapon of the Seer line, the axe from which the bloodline drew their namesake, was no longer in the hands of a living Seer man. It was with Maverick's grandfather when he fell to Tanroa's hourglass. The blade was likely still at the very spot upon which his father-figure had fallen, and the longer it stayed there the longer the time some animal or vagabond had to drag it off to somewhere else.
Seer had been in the hands of Seer knights for generations, passed from father to son to daughter to son. The blade was the soul of his bloodline, it held Maverick's surname, it was practically a kinsman itself. Maverick had heard the stories as a child, of how the blade had been lost, stolen, chipped, beaten, and damaged countless times over years. And the young squire had also heard of how it had always been retrieved by a faithful member of the Seer line, sometimes even at the risk of their own life. It was more than a axe, it was a symbol, one that carried with it a duty.
Maverick stood, gripping the axe he held even tighter and gritting his teeth. The young squire felt his wet skin contract over his cheekbones.
His father was no more, gone before he even knew the man, he had no siblings, his mother was no Seer woman, and his grandfather had just died protecting Syliras, serving his god, and doing great honor to his family as well. Maverick would not let his family down. The axe carried a duty, and he was the only one left to bear it. He would be faithful to the legacy of his family. He would honor the memory of his grandfather. He had to, or everything the man had taught him would have been for nothing. Maverick, without faithfulness, would be nothing.
Maverick dropped his borrowed axe into a leather loop at his side and set off through the dormitory. The squire limited his shaky, but strengthened feet to a brisk pace. He wasn't sure if the chaperons of the dorm would approve of what he was about to do, but he couldn't risk losing his family's honor, the respect of his ancestor's- he had to look inconspicuous. Maverick's stomach shifted at the thought of deceit, the chaperons were like mothers to him, the thought of deceiving them tore at his very soul and yet at the same time his grief-stricken heart was pulling him forward. Maybe there was no right thing to do, but this was the most right- it had to be.
Reaching the entrance to the dorms Maverick exited briskly, walked a good many paces, and then broke off into a run for the gates of Syliras.
...
Getting out of the city had been easy enough. Hunters and traders came and went all the time, so did the people who wished to visit the hot springs or travel to the Mithryn outpost. The guards at the gate had all but asked him to leave.
Now Maverick ran through the forests of the Kabrin, ran in the direction where he had been told his grandfather and his men had fallen. The knight who had come to Maverick to inform him of the death had -when the boy had pressed the matter- told him that the knights had been ambushed only a mile or two outside the city. A mile or two Maverick could run- in this moment, he could sprint it.
The young man's legs felt nothing but numbness, his chest expanded in pressure but didn't stop him, the pain of grief was worse than the physical anguish. The only thing that truly suffered him was his head, as it felt as if a stampede of Yukmen now continuously crashed against the inside of his skull with every hard footfall he took.
It was but twenty minutes or less by the time he caught sight of it. Bodies, none of the fallen wore Syliran plate, but they were in the correct location. It made sense, Maverick noted as he slowed his run to a walk. The squire looked around, as his chest contracted and expanded quickly. The knights would have taken the bodies of their own, and left the rest of them to rot and be torn apart by carrion creatures.
The knights were not wasteful, no they were known for being highly efficient, they would have retrieved the weapons, armor, and bodies of their own.
Then why hadn't they brought back Seer?
Maverick began to walk around the small area in which the battle had taken place. Judging by the bodies, dried blood, and trampled grass, it appeared as if a party of mounted knights had been ambushed and quickly driven off the nearby road and into a small clearing off the kabrin.
Maverick frowned, as he stepped over a body with only half of its neck connected to its torso.
These men were monsters, but they were still men. If only they had chosen a different path, then things could have been diff- Maverick stopped his train of thought. These men had caused the death of his grandfather. That made them evil men, despicable men.
But they were still men.
Maverick took a deep breath. He didn't want to be like this, full of hate. He wanted something more. These men had been dealt with, as they should have been. But still, if there had been another way -Maverick's heart sided violently against him as he thought it- a good man would have been obligated to pursue it.
Stopping at a large tree and glancing down, Maverick looked at a collection of bodies with the tell tale signs of having been felled by an axe.
Seer. Maverick thought, with a leap of his heart.
But where was it? The squire could not for the life of him locate the blade, as he glanced between the bodies and the ground.
Maverick was beginning to lean down to examine a body when his eyes caught sight of something interesting. A low hanging limb had been clean chopped through on the tree in front of the bodies.
Maverick glanced around, it was possible that in his last throes of life his grandfather had hurled the axe in an attempt to kill his attackers. Clearly the old man had missed Maverick noted, as no body was laying behind where the limb was cut. Even still, Maverick couldn't doubt that his grandfather, one of the greatest men he had ever known, would still have had to strength to throw his weapon a great distance even in his own death throes.
With a worried heart Maverick set off forward, using the cut limb as the basis for his path.
It took only a minute or two of walking to see that he had been correct, Maverick caught a glint of steel on the forest floor.
Wanting to run but suddenly not finding the strength, Maverick walked to where the familiar leather-handled axe now lay. As the squire stared upon the weapon that he had left his city, run two miles, and fretted over failure to find, he collapsed to his knees.
The squire had enough strength to get here, after he had been informed that his whole world had shattered and that was it. Now, as he reached a hand out for his axe a thought donned on Maverick. This was all that was left, he was now truly alone.
"Why didn't you guide his hand?" Maverick said, as he all but sobbed.
Maverick felt weak. Crying, collapsed on his knees and now he was questioning his god... no this was wrong.
The boy looked up to the sky.
"I need something!" he screamed, as a single pair of tears streamed down his face.
His grandfather was what he had believed in, the one he was loyal to, the man he trained to please, the one he aspired to fight beside. Now, that man was gone.
Everything was gone, taken by a world that seemed to want to lure him into happiness only to take it way. His father had left him, his heart betrayed him and made him question if he was too sensitive, too weak. And now the gods his grandfather had followed, whom he had followed for his grandfather's sake had let the one constant of his life fall in battle. To make matters worse, he was out in the middle of the Bronze Woods, a place that could kill him at any moment, simply because he couldn't let a family tradition die, simply because his heart wouldn't let him dishonor the memory of dead men.
His own humanity was killing him.
This was about more than his grandfather. Gondellus was a good man, who had died well.
It was just as much about Maverick's own internal battle as the physical one that had slain his grandfather.
Why did he have to love?
Why did he have to care about every damn thing?
Why -even now- did he have to refuse to give those ideals up!
Why did his heart have to refuse to let him be like everyone else, accepting of whatever came their way, willing to say whatever they needed to succeed?
Even as the thoughts ripped through the boy's head he knew he couldn't give up his loyalty to his moral compass, to his gods and the memory of his mentor, but he also couldn't stop questioning everything he was or ever had been and he didn't know why.
"Give me something to believe in!" the boy whispered, his voice calming.
"How do you know that I did not guide him, child?" a calm, soft, and subtly strong voice said kindly from behind Maverick.
A shock ran up the collapsed squire's spine. Slowly he shakily rose and turned to face a brunet, clad in sandles, a beautiful golden belt, a simple otherworldly persimmon tunic, and engraved bracers.
In utter disbelief and shame, Maverick looked into the eyes of the man who had addressed him, eyes that had the pride of a thousand men and the mercy of a million behind their golden surface. But the most astonishing part of the man's form was not the eyes, but the prismatic wings folded nonchalantly behind his back.
Maverick dropped to his knees, shame welling up in his heart.
"My lord Yahal, I don't deserve to kneel in front of you," Maverick said weakly in a drained voice, wanting to beg for forgiveness for his sacrilege, his shouted demands, but being at a loss for words and feeling too defeated to do so.
"I see the anguish in your eyes, I seek not your apologies but to offer you a friend," the otherworldly face of the god moved in compassion.
Maverick looked on weakly.
"I have seen countless mortals throughout the ages and have memorized the faces of almost just as many. I can read the questions on my follower's faces and you my son hold the face of one who questions their very core beliefs. Yet, I know that you refuse to lose faith in those beliefs, even though they refuse to allow you peace. No, I would not shame you, I would help you, for the gentle heart you hold speaks to my own," the man said slowly, with a softening of his beautiful eyes.
"But, I question you when times become hard. I would have blamed you," Maverick said, his heart wanting to grasp at his god's words, but his shame not allowing for it quite yet.
"And yet in so many other times you did not question me. You have offered prayers to me since the day you could speak, thanks to your own faith, and that of the great man whom we now both mourn," the god said, as he brought himself to a kneel down on one knee in front of Maverick.
Maverick looked up hopefully.
"Does my grandfather's spirit live on in your realm then?" the squire asked.
Yahal's eyes softened.
"And thus you demonstrate why I hold you so dear, Maverick. Even when broken you worry for another. Your prayers always hold pleas for your dealings with others and for others themselves. Yes, you ask for steadfast strength and faithfulness, but you do it so you can use those qualities to assist your fellow man. A fine knight you will make if you keep these qualities," Yahal said slowly.
"Th-thank You?" Maverick said, surprised.
Swallowing Maverick began to feel a bit inferior in his god's presence.
"It just hurts so much, I do not want to sound arrogant in saying this, but I feel that I my own goodness is killing me. That it stops me from connecting with others, finding something or someone to believe in. And now you come to me, one of the few things I know I could or have ever believed in, and it's in a time when I question you, " Maverick said, with a solemn heart.
The boy closed his eyes.
"I haven't even done anything to deserve your presence, to warrant your appearance."
Yahal shook his head.
"My son, what more is there for you to give me that rivals the years of your life? The hours you have spent on your knees, praying to me and the other gods of uprightness? The years in which you have fought to stay faithful to who you are, even though you have failed more than you have succeeded by doing so? What about risking yourself in a woods wrought with danger, for the sole purpose of remaining faithful to a legacy long ago established by men greater than yourself? No, a great act takes but a moment, you have been faithful in a thousand moments and in this moment you have shown who you truly are. I think I can give you a few in return," the god said.
Maverick listened. It made sense, but it didn't as well. There were others more faithful than he, why was his god showing himself to him?
"You struggle with a fundamental beauty of humanity that never ceases to tear at your souls: free will. As a god I see much, but it is always through the lense of who I am, what I represent. You as a mortal see through every lense imaginable, Maverick. You can view goodness at one moment, only to be assailed by chaos and corruption in the next. You can not be perfect because perfection is not the only thing you see, or that you feel. You were born with a good heart, raised by a man with an even greater one. Your early life had built the foundation for good ideals and yet as you grew, as each tick passed, as each brick of your life was laid down upon that foundation, the cruel nature of humanity and the world has at every turn attempted to destroy the great structure you are trying to build on that foundation. I can see in your eyes, words, and actions that said structure would not be a castle or manor for your own amusement, but a monastery for whatever cause or god you feel is closest to your own heart, a home for any good man who might need a place to rest their weary head. Nevertheless, the world is not kind, but you have tried to keep that foundation of good and that is what I care about, what you should continue to care about. I don't know if you will succeed in building of yourself what you wish, but I can do my best -through what I do see- to help you create that reality," the god explained.
Maverick could not believe what he was hearing. Yahal's words sounded right and yet to accept what he said almost risked vanity, but to not accept them risked rejection of what the god saw Maverick might be able to build.
"But I'm not perfect, not pure. How can I build something with those qualities if I do not posses them?" Maverick asked, unsure of how to process the magnitude of everything he had just heard.
Yahal nodded warmly in confirmation of Maverick's words.
"No, you are most certainly not perfect, but you try and you care, and most imperatively you keep caring, in my experience this is enough to do great things," the god explained.
Maverick wasn't quite understanding what he was hearing. Almost as if picking up on this, the god continued to speak.
"I do not, nor should any rational god, seek to make my followers perfect. I only ask that you try and do the things that a perfect man would," he said in his soft and yet shockingly strong tone.
"But why show yourself to me?" Maverick asked.
"You felt that you were alone and in many ways you are, but Maverick, and you would do well to remember this, I do not abandon my faithful. I would help you build that which you seek to erect, I would help you forge a good man from the kind, caring adolescence I now look upon, if you would but allow it," the god answered and offered.
Maverick's eyes widened. His heart still ached, but the mere presence of the god
dulled even the worst of the pain and whatever it did not heal had been bandaged by his words.
"What would I have to do?" Maverick asked slowly.
Yahal put his hand on the teenage squire's shoulder.
"I ask that you continue to follow your good heart and that whenever you question it that you turn to me. In moments like this, when your duties are challenged and when your very life may be at risk, I ask that you remain faithful. Finally, one day, or even every day from now on, you may be asked to stand up to corruption as one of my own, in these times I also ask that you be my voice and my sword," Yahal explained.
Maverick nodded.
"I want to be a good man, someone worth the life he was given," the squire answered, the tears drying on his face.
"I charge you with no small task, Maverick. I offer help, but I also offer duty. Do you understand the weight upon which I now seek to lay on your young shoulders?" the god cautioned.
"Surely not as well as you, but I will do my best to fight for others and for what you see in me, even if I can not see it in myself, because I want what you see, I've always wanted it," Maverick said, speaking as truthfully as he could.
"Then you have already taken the first step in rising above the darkness of this world," Yahal spoke kindly, as he squeezed Maverick's shoulder.
Maverick was about to speak, to thank his god for everything, when with a shock his words escaped him and his blue eyes widened.
The squire felt a surge of something like air rushing through every bone in his body, permeating every inch of what made him Maverick Seer, invading every pore and follicle, almost as if he was being cleansed heart, body, and mind. Every fear, every bit of corruption in his soul suddenly felt conquerable, able to be fought.
And he would be able fight it now.
And then, as his blue eyes refocused and his body stopped tingling, Maverick blinked and his god was gone.
Maverick gripped Seer as an odd serenity washed over him, spreading from his shoulder blades and out in every direction. He had taken more than one duty up this day, duties which he would take to his grave.
He could not fail.
Housing:
Maverick is put up by the knights of Syliras, in the Squire Dormitories.
Skills:
Knightly Skills:
| Skill | Experience | Total | Rank |
| Weapon, Battleaxe | 20 SP | 20 | Novice |
| Weapon, Heater Shield | 20 SP | 20 | Novice |
| Riding, Horse | 10 SP | 10 | Novice |
| Horsemanship | 15 RB | 15 | Novice |
Lores:
Syliran Culture
Religion: Yahal
Religion: Yahal
Possessions:
Clothing:
- Simple White Shirt
- Simple Brown Pants
- Simple Undergarments
- Simple Red Cloak
- Simple Black Boots
- 1 Waterskin
Equipment:
- Steel Heater Shield, Engraved with the image of a battleaxe.
Backpack:
- Comb (Wood)
- Brush (Wood)
- Soap
- Razor
- Balanced Rations (1 Week’s Worth)
- 1 eating knife
- Flint & Steel
Heirloom:
Item Type: Battleaxe
Value: 10 gm(Base) + 15gm(Handle Tip) = 25 gm
Name: Seer
Appearance:
An old axe of medium weight, seer's handle is wrapped in worn blue leather. Additionally, the axe bears engravings of the windoak on one side of the blade and a tyv on the other. Finally, the handle ends in a sharpened metal tip that resembles a spearhead.
History:
Seer is the ancestral weapon of the Seer line, passed down from father to son to son. The weapon has been lost in battle, cracked, chipped and misplaced. Yet every time a seemingly horrible fate befalls the axe, the family that wields it as their weapon and namesake has always retrieved and restored it.
Ledger:
| Name | Revenue | Loses | Total |
| Starting Package | 100gm | # | 100gm |
| Heater Shield, Steel | # | -20gm | 80gm |
| Zypherian Sled Dog | # | -50gm | 30gm |
| Armor, War Dog | # | -20gm | 10gm |
| Saddlebags, Small | # | -4gm | 6gm |
| Journal | # | -3gm | 3gm |
| Quill | # | -5cm | 2gm, 9sm, 5 cm |
| Ink | # | -1gm | 1gm, 9sm, 5 cm |
Threads:
| Date | Name | Awards |
| # | # | # |
| # | # | # |
| # | # | # |
| # | # | # |
| # | # | # |
| # | # | # |
[*]Credit to Fallon for the Awesome CS
