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| History and Early Life |
Ozzrick has always been poor. In his earliest years, he lived in Tale with his mother, a traveling dancer then a member of a gypsy-esque troupe of performers. He was conceived ‘on the road’ by — from his own perspective — a nameless, faceless ghost who never became a figure in his life. Despite initial upset from her fellows at the unplanned for conception, however, Ozzrick’s mother, Isamene, was thrilled and a doting, if distractible, mother. After the rest of her company came to accept it, Ozzrick was raised primarily under a ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ mindset within the troupe, and in his pre-teen years considered most of their number to be almost as much ‘family’ as his mother was.
He learned to dance, perform skits, tell stories, juggle, perform all manner of necessary chores—and, he learned to steal. Though time would eventually rough him up, Ozzrick was an attractive and buoyant child, bright smiled, eager, and ready for the world. Certain members of their traveling band saw this as prime opportunity to cash in on, and between his childish charm, sense of adventure and determination, Oz made for a small and quick-witted pickpocket, distraction, or empathy-ringer for crowds during performances and elsewhere.
Around his thirteenth year, however, things began to change. His mother became involved seriously with a woman from outside of the troupe who had little interest in Ozzrick and limited patience for Isamene’s attention on him, as he was ‘a grown boy’ by then, ‘not needing of so much doting attention’ lest he be spoiled by a mother’s overbearing protection. Ozzrick was by then old enough to recognize and categorize her behavior as a form of jealousy, but also free spirited enough himself that he didn’t particularly mind her drawing away his mother’s attention. It left him more free to do as he pleased.
Less and less a ‘pretty’ young boy by the day, Ozzrick got into progressively more trouble on his own as the years went by, picking fights, wandering off from the troupe for first days, then sometimes weeks at a time. He earned scars, took to collecting various mementos from the places they traveled, and developed a free footed ‘live and die by the moment’ attitude towards the world. Still, he remained with his mother’s performance troupe. Until they traveled to Oba.
Sometime in his seventeenth year, the group of mixed but primarily Tale-native performers made it into the blistering deserts of Oba to try a hand at making their coin in the fire capital of Tendaji—and Ozzrick found that he loved it there. Despite the burning heat that most of his company seemed to despise, Oz found everything
else more than enough to make up for any shortcomings of the heat: noise, activity, food, coin,
merchandise. Oba seemed emblazoned with color, richness, and opportunity, and they stayed long enough for that culture to sink in its hooks.
Soon Ozzrick would come to find he did not necessarily
want to leave again—at least, not in time to part together with his mother’s troupe.
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