Devil May Care
05-30-06, 11:00 PM
{Short, I know, but at this point there isn't much to tell.}
*Name ~ “Shard”
*Age ~ 12
*Race ~ Human
*Appearance ~ Shard comes off immediately as the poor, unkempt boy he is. With food being on a find/steal basis he has become incredibly scrawny and malnourished. Though agile and quick, Shard isn’t very strong. His hair, which is blood red, comes down to his eyes and is all over the place. Under that, dull blue eyes lurk, and a boyish yet cute face. Most of the time he doesn’t have shoes, and has a pair of tattered black pants that he found once. Other then that, his shirt often depends on what he can find since most shirts fall apart after a month or two. In the right pocket of his pants the handle of his rusty dagger sticks out. Though few have ever seen it, there is also a black crystal lodged in his spine at the base of his neck, which causes those two vertebrae to be immobile. The stone is large enough to be seen through the flesh, as it is half exposed, and is perfectly formed to the elongated hexagram shape famous in crystals.
*Weapons ~ Rusty dagger – Found in a garbage can, a very rusty and chipped dagger that isn’t very effective. The blade is only somewhat sharp.
*Skills ~ After four years of street work, Shard has managed to be delicate and quick enough to steal a purse or anything else from a person that isn’t looking, but isn’t good enough to steal right before their eyes yet. If the person is distracted, he can snatch it real quick and hopefully not disturb the person. He has avoided getting into fights, and cannot use his dagger efficiently in combat but has it for tool purposes only.
*History ~
”When children are young, they are told fairytales; stories of brave knights casting aside a great evil and slaying a powerful darkness, then everything ending in happiness. In those moments of enlightened happiness, waiting for sleep to drift in and solidify their imagination in the dreamscape beyond, the blissful innocence of children is to be awed. The truth behind the fairy tales is often much more gruesome, and a lot of the time…the knight doesn’t win. Sometimes the dragon gobbles up the puny armored punk and spits him back out like a badly seasoned tart. Sometimes – nay, at every chance it gets – fortune is cruel. Good blunders and evil plunders, fate casts the pure hearts into desecration shortly after creation. This is the sadness of life, and all that holds back its tide of darkness is the love and hope of those who still have the ignorance to believe they stand a chance.
Ignorance is bliss. But you, my boy, are not ignorant. Every night, instead of telling you fairytales and prettied up versions of real events, I sit before you on this bed and spill the truth; as gruesome as it is. You have no chance against evil, boy, and don’t you dare try to go off and be a hero. Vain hopes that you will be like the fabled knights that slew evil and brought dragons to their graves are just myths to be used a leverage against the innocent hearts of simpletons. Child, you are mine, never forget that. You belong to me, and you are not a hero.”
The dream that was nothing but a voice ended abruptly as something hard slammed into the boy’s chest. His grogginess and fatigue were swept into notice instantly by the fear that he was being attacked. It hadn’t been more then an hour since he lay down in the alley to hide a bit and sleep, but it seemed that this morning the thugs were going to be more persistent than usual. They wanted something. Turning in his secluded cubbyhole, he reached for the rusty dagger that he had no clue how to use and squinted into the dim morning light.
Nothing.
Glancing around, he saw that a brick from the building above had landed on him. Picking it up, the kid examined the thing for a moment before carefully setting it aside. After a moment, he moved out and peeked up at the roof of the small, squat building; again, nobody. It was odd for a random brick to be thrown at him without anyone nearby to claim the action and do further damage. There was no reason for anyone to be afraid of him. With a yawn, he decided to get up since he was awake anyways and shoved the dirty blankets off him. Ruffling his red hair, he sat on the rim of the cubbyhole for a moment, thinking of that memory. It was one of the few memories he had of his father, speaking to him when he was a child. The rest he seemed to have forgotten, either by force or coincidence. Ever since running away, in his mind, it has been as if he never had parents.
The boy’s mother had died early in his life, but he didn’t remember when. It was just that one day his father told him she died and never spoke of her again, as if disappointed in her death. Most of everything else was a blur, an indecipherable blur up until the point in which he woke up on a boat outside of Radasanth. With only the clothing on his back and a dagger he found in a trash pile, the boy had started his life as a street rat. Stealing things from street vendors and people who aren’t paying attention to stay alive, he gave himself a new name, “Shard”, due to his fractured memories, and did his best to survive.
Standing up, Shard glanced around once more before sliding the dull blade back into his pants pocket and taking off down the alley. If someone had wanted to hurt him, they would of stuck around and wouldn’t wait for him to go out into the public. The alley connected to a busy section of the bazaar, which was beginning to wake up with the rest of the city. Patrons, innumerable, already began lining the streets as the markets opened. Groaning at the necessity, Shard took an apple from an unwary victim as he passed by. His agility and skills in this had increased exponentially in the four years since his arrival to this fate.
A life such as his gave Shard little time to think, as most of the day was spent trying to get money and food to survive another night, but whenever he had a moment to sit down and relax his thoughts went back to that single vivid memory. Each time, he considered whether he believed it or not, whether fate was truly cruel enough to ensure that he would always fail. It definitely had taken dark turns for him, leaving him a petty thief on the streets of the enormous city of Radasanth, dodging thugs and city guards. There was no salvation for a runaway like Shard, and nobody would take in a filthy child with no merit other then his dim sense of morals. Stealing wasn’t fun for him; he simply performed it as a necessary evil. Somehow, the boy had morals that survived the horror of his past life.
Sitting on an abandoned roof, eating the tolerably rotten apple and staring into the rising sun, Shard thought that maybe, one day, he would meet a knight. Maybe the knight would end up being his real father, to take him away to be trained to be a great hero.
“Hah…like that will happen. Forget it…I can’t fool myself. Dad was right…evil always wins.”
Shard’s sigh was entwined with remorse and defeat that would shock ignorant adults…
*Name ~ “Shard”
*Age ~ 12
*Race ~ Human
*Appearance ~ Shard comes off immediately as the poor, unkempt boy he is. With food being on a find/steal basis he has become incredibly scrawny and malnourished. Though agile and quick, Shard isn’t very strong. His hair, which is blood red, comes down to his eyes and is all over the place. Under that, dull blue eyes lurk, and a boyish yet cute face. Most of the time he doesn’t have shoes, and has a pair of tattered black pants that he found once. Other then that, his shirt often depends on what he can find since most shirts fall apart after a month or two. In the right pocket of his pants the handle of his rusty dagger sticks out. Though few have ever seen it, there is also a black crystal lodged in his spine at the base of his neck, which causes those two vertebrae to be immobile. The stone is large enough to be seen through the flesh, as it is half exposed, and is perfectly formed to the elongated hexagram shape famous in crystals.
*Weapons ~ Rusty dagger – Found in a garbage can, a very rusty and chipped dagger that isn’t very effective. The blade is only somewhat sharp.
*Skills ~ After four years of street work, Shard has managed to be delicate and quick enough to steal a purse or anything else from a person that isn’t looking, but isn’t good enough to steal right before their eyes yet. If the person is distracted, he can snatch it real quick and hopefully not disturb the person. He has avoided getting into fights, and cannot use his dagger efficiently in combat but has it for tool purposes only.
*History ~
”When children are young, they are told fairytales; stories of brave knights casting aside a great evil and slaying a powerful darkness, then everything ending in happiness. In those moments of enlightened happiness, waiting for sleep to drift in and solidify their imagination in the dreamscape beyond, the blissful innocence of children is to be awed. The truth behind the fairy tales is often much more gruesome, and a lot of the time…the knight doesn’t win. Sometimes the dragon gobbles up the puny armored punk and spits him back out like a badly seasoned tart. Sometimes – nay, at every chance it gets – fortune is cruel. Good blunders and evil plunders, fate casts the pure hearts into desecration shortly after creation. This is the sadness of life, and all that holds back its tide of darkness is the love and hope of those who still have the ignorance to believe they stand a chance.
Ignorance is bliss. But you, my boy, are not ignorant. Every night, instead of telling you fairytales and prettied up versions of real events, I sit before you on this bed and spill the truth; as gruesome as it is. You have no chance against evil, boy, and don’t you dare try to go off and be a hero. Vain hopes that you will be like the fabled knights that slew evil and brought dragons to their graves are just myths to be used a leverage against the innocent hearts of simpletons. Child, you are mine, never forget that. You belong to me, and you are not a hero.”
The dream that was nothing but a voice ended abruptly as something hard slammed into the boy’s chest. His grogginess and fatigue were swept into notice instantly by the fear that he was being attacked. It hadn’t been more then an hour since he lay down in the alley to hide a bit and sleep, but it seemed that this morning the thugs were going to be more persistent than usual. They wanted something. Turning in his secluded cubbyhole, he reached for the rusty dagger that he had no clue how to use and squinted into the dim morning light.
Nothing.
Glancing around, he saw that a brick from the building above had landed on him. Picking it up, the kid examined the thing for a moment before carefully setting it aside. After a moment, he moved out and peeked up at the roof of the small, squat building; again, nobody. It was odd for a random brick to be thrown at him without anyone nearby to claim the action and do further damage. There was no reason for anyone to be afraid of him. With a yawn, he decided to get up since he was awake anyways and shoved the dirty blankets off him. Ruffling his red hair, he sat on the rim of the cubbyhole for a moment, thinking of that memory. It was one of the few memories he had of his father, speaking to him when he was a child. The rest he seemed to have forgotten, either by force or coincidence. Ever since running away, in his mind, it has been as if he never had parents.
The boy’s mother had died early in his life, but he didn’t remember when. It was just that one day his father told him she died and never spoke of her again, as if disappointed in her death. Most of everything else was a blur, an indecipherable blur up until the point in which he woke up on a boat outside of Radasanth. With only the clothing on his back and a dagger he found in a trash pile, the boy had started his life as a street rat. Stealing things from street vendors and people who aren’t paying attention to stay alive, he gave himself a new name, “Shard”, due to his fractured memories, and did his best to survive.
Standing up, Shard glanced around once more before sliding the dull blade back into his pants pocket and taking off down the alley. If someone had wanted to hurt him, they would of stuck around and wouldn’t wait for him to go out into the public. The alley connected to a busy section of the bazaar, which was beginning to wake up with the rest of the city. Patrons, innumerable, already began lining the streets as the markets opened. Groaning at the necessity, Shard took an apple from an unwary victim as he passed by. His agility and skills in this had increased exponentially in the four years since his arrival to this fate.
A life such as his gave Shard little time to think, as most of the day was spent trying to get money and food to survive another night, but whenever he had a moment to sit down and relax his thoughts went back to that single vivid memory. Each time, he considered whether he believed it or not, whether fate was truly cruel enough to ensure that he would always fail. It definitely had taken dark turns for him, leaving him a petty thief on the streets of the enormous city of Radasanth, dodging thugs and city guards. There was no salvation for a runaway like Shard, and nobody would take in a filthy child with no merit other then his dim sense of morals. Stealing wasn’t fun for him; he simply performed it as a necessary evil. Somehow, the boy had morals that survived the horror of his past life.
Sitting on an abandoned roof, eating the tolerably rotten apple and staring into the rising sun, Shard thought that maybe, one day, he would meet a knight. Maybe the knight would end up being his real father, to take him away to be trained to be a great hero.
“Hah…like that will happen. Forget it…I can’t fool myself. Dad was right…evil always wins.”
Shard’s sigh was entwined with remorse and defeat that would shock ignorant adults…