- █ █ B A S I C S
█ NAME ▬ Pietr.
█ AGE ▬ 26.
█ NICKNAME ▬ Piper.
█ GENDER ▬ Male.
█ RACE ▬ Alchemist.
█ ORIENTATION ▬ Gay.
█ OCCUPATION ▬ Chop Shop Co-owner. General Unsavory Element.
█ PARTNER ▬
█ SLAVE ▬
█ █ A P P E A R A N C E
█ HAIR ▬ Pale blonde.
█ EYES ▬ The real one is green.
█ BUILD ▬ Tall and toned. Strength without bulk. [6'2"]
█ TATTOOS ▬ None.
█ SCARS ▬ Many, and varied.
█ BIRTHMARKS ▬ None.
█ █ P E R S O N A L I T Y
█ THEME SONGS
█ ▬ Alien
█ ▬ Skid Row
█ ▬ A Little Priest
█ ▬ Welcome to Your Life
█ ▬ Something to Believe In
█ ▬ Dark Necessities
█ ▬ Battle Cry
█ ▬ Safe in the Dark
█ ▬ Famous Last Words
█ ▬ End of All Days
█ ▬ Black Synagogue
█ ▬ Not While Im Around
█ ▬ Lions and Tigers
█ LIKES
█ ▬ His brother. Not that way, freaks.
█ ▬ Traditional, home-cooked meals.
█ ▬ Repurposing discarded objects.
█ ▬ Maintaining a healthy body. It all goes to Pepper someday.
█ ▬ Working with his hands. Gardening. Butchery.
█ ▬ The cute, delicate type.
█ DISLIKES
█ ▬ Waste, in general.
█ ▬ Any threat to Pepper.
█ ▬ Crises of his faith.
█ ▬ Cold weather. Snow.
█ PERSONALITY TRAITS
█ ▬ Reliant on family tradition and faith.
█ ▬ Concerned older brother.
█ ▬ Easy-going. Accepting. Welcoming.
█ ▬ Unless you're a cop. Then, ******** off.
█ ▬ And if you're mean to Pep, you're meat.
█ ▬ Flirt and court, not ******** and run.
█ ▬ Kill outright, not maim or torture.
█ ▬ The marquis of making do.
█ ▬ A cannibal with a heart of gold.
█ ▬ And an absolute fashion disaster.
█ █ H I S T O R Y
█ BACKGROUND
Pietr has never been a child.
The first thing he remembers is the way the fish's gills splay and contract as it drowns in the air, flopping foolishly against the plastic bottom of a five gallon bucket. He is small, and the air is cold on his nose and fingers and through the toes of the throwaway shoes he's already outgrowing, but his mother asks him to look into the bucket, so he does. This is some skinny little fish she caught in the polluted Saxon river, but she lays it on the bench and what she says is, "Come thank the fish, Pietr. It's giving us its life today. It's important to be grateful." And she scrapes the scales away while the thing is still living. Slices into the thin belly and through the spine behind the gills, and then the fish is only meat and bones, and she rolls them into separate sheets of old newspaper. Mother says how it's important, using everything. How the bones and scales will let her lure birds, or maybe a cat. Birds for feathers to put in the wilted linings of their blankets. A cat for fur to wrap tiny Percy in to keep him warm. Bones for broth and meat to chew. There is always something, even if it's foul, and Pietr eats the rats and the toads and the lizards and the tiny freshwater crabs that look like little spiders. And he is grateful.
They have scars, his parents. Long and deep, like there had been something they wanted to dig out from beneath their skin. He touches the one on his father's wrist when they sleep, all of them in a pile on whatever moldy carpet they've scrounged up. It's a long time before he understands what it means, and that it's the reason why they scurry through the city's underbelly like the quietest of mice.
At four, he's old enough to be taking care of Percy by himself while mother looks after the new baby, and he makes sure his two-year-old brother doesn't try to put gravel or broken glass into his always-hungry mouth. Sometimes he wets a rag in rain water and the kid chews on that for hours, even though Percy sometimes looks sullenly at little Pippin nursing. There's barely enough milk in mother's body for the baby, though, so Pietr digs through the garbage behind grocery stores and makes Percival stand as a lookout while he climbs on milk crates to worm his way into dumpsters and then back out again with a veritable trove of treasures. This has to be done after dark, when the stores are closed, and it's important not to leave behind any trace of their pilfering, because people are strangely stingy about what they want to waste, and the first couple places wise up; they put padlocks on their garbage. But it's crazy the kind of things people throw out-- mostly-good produce, just because one side is moldy. Same with bread. Cheese, just because it's hit some stupid, arbitrary expiration date. Meat is rarer, but he takes it when he finds it, holding packages between his hands and figuring it's probably alright if it's been cold outside. These windfalls are far between, because it's important not to visit the same place too often, but when he comes home with this kind of thing in a battered canvas sack, mother cries, and Pietr feels proud, because obviously these are tears of joy. She's the one who taught him to be grateful, and it doesn't occur to him that what she might be feeling is shame. Freedom, she has found, is not as free as she and her husband hoped. For people like them, it means hiding and suffering and getting sick. It means injuries and hours of grueling work. It means no medicine and no help and no protection that they don't make for themselves. But it also means being together, and she tells Pietr that this is the thing that matters the most. Always being together.
Family is the most important thing in the world.
So as he gets older, it's Pietr who takes care of the other two boys-- parental and protective, even though the gap between their ages isn't that wide. He beats up the other slum rats who try to pick fights or steal from his family, earns himself scars and a few beatings of his own. He hacks apart old car tires and resoles their old shoes with thick layers of treading to keep out busted glass or nails. He's the one, now, who forages for them while mother and father work. He makes little fires to cook the tiny, anemic-looking fish he sometimes catches in his plastic-bottle traps along the edge of the river. Never big enough for real warmth, but his brothers hold their hands out for the little spark of heat, and the little scraps of food, and Pietr always feeds them before he feeds himself, because they are littler. Father has always told him that because Perce and Pepper are small, they need more. More help, more holding, more resources. Little things can be precious, and whenever possible, it's important to treat them that way.
So he knows, when Percival gets really sick. He knows because he pays attention to both of his brothers, watching them like a shepherd, always corralling them out of harm's way. And they are, all five of them, sick all the time. Mother and father with fatigue and stress and a simple lack of everything. The boys with colds and stomach bugs and all the things that go along with exposure to the elements. But Pietr has learned that "sick" only lasts for a time, and then goes away. It's a migratory bird. So it's unsettling when it chooses to nest inside Percival's narrow ribcage. Unsettling, being able to hear its wings fluttering inside his brother's chest when they sleep. He tries to keep the middle sibling warmer, piling every threadbare piece of cloth he can find on top of the boy. Tries to let him get his rest. Takes Pippin to be his lookout when he scrounges, because the kid is big enough now to stand still and watch for danger. And Pietr stays out longer than usual, tells himself that if he keeps digging, maybe someone will have thrown away some medicine, and he can make Percy all better. That tense look will stop being on his parents' faces. But no one has, and he doesn't, and he can't, because when he comes back with Pippin their brother is laying there dead.
It's important, always being together, but Percy died alone. Pietr left him, and then he died, and this is what he confesses to father when the man pulls one of the blankets over Percival's face. This is the thing Pietr says over and over and over, and he's old enough now that he shouldn't be crying about things-- eight entire years old-- but he does, because Pietr should have stayed. It's his job to protect them, and now Percy is dead, and Pietr is bad. He will never be good again after this. There's no way. There's nothing he can do. Percy is gone, he's dead, and Pietr is the one who did it. Pietr left him alone. And he is snapped and he is crying and then mother is there, and father is taking Pippin outside, doing Pietr's job, protecting the little one because Pietr obviously can't.
And what mother says is that Percy didn't die because of Pietr.
Percy died because he knew that it was his time. Percy wasn't suffering anymore. He would never suffer again. He would never be sick, and he would never be hungry. Never be afraid or upset. Because Percy was dead, and he'd died the most peaceful death imaginable, in his sleep, warm under all those blankets Pietr brought for him. He was safe now, beyond all harm, so Pietr shouldn't cry, and he shouldn't feel bad. But she was crying, too. Holding her eldest son so tight that it was almost hurting him, and later, in the dark, while he lay beside Pippin and tried-- failed-- to sleep, he could hear her crying again, arguing with father in hushed tones.
They don't need to know--
I won't lie to them.. he was their brother. We shouldn't even be talking about this..
We still have two sons. I'm not going to watch them starve.
What happens is father lays Percy out on a tarpaulin, the one they sometimes string up as a roof when it's raining and whatever tenement they're in has leaks in the ceiling. And the kid is only two years younger than Pietr, but death has made him look small, and the knives make him smaller bit by bit, piece by piece. Mother has Pippin away in a corner, and the room is full of a dead smell and a blood smell and Pietr feels sick, but what father does is tell his eldest son that this is how Percy lives on. This is how his death doesn't go in vain. This is how he can be part of them forever, for always, every bit of him going into every bit of them, so that they are themselves and Percy. So he watches all the organs as they're pulled from his brother's body, and he listens to father saying how careful you have to be, how you can't puncture here, or here, or here, because there are things inside that will spoil the rest. Pietr is eight, and he focuses on each incision, listens to the sound the knives make when they turn his little brother into meat, and then Percy is just flesh and the smell of him cooking makes Pietr ashamed because it smells good. It smells fresh, and his stomach rumbles and clenches with hunger, and when it's done mother is crying, but she says for them to thank Perce for feeding them.
And he does.
From Percy, they have food for a longer than Pietr can remember anything else lasting, and it's like Percy has turned himself into the loaves and fishes mother used to tell them about. Because Percy is part of him now, Pietr talks to him sometimes. Does it without shame, because why wouldn't he speak to his little brother, who saved them and prolonged them and made Pippin look almost healthy for the first time in their lives?
But it doesn't matter that Pepper is healthy, because Pietr's never going to leave him like he left Percy. Even when their parents are around, he's almost always only an arm's length away. He doesn't let the other boy out of his sight. And it's a compulsion that lessens only a little as another two years go by, and then only because Pietr is taking care of mother, too. It started with the stumbling. Once or twice, not too often. Little tremors, little bursts of strange laughter that they can't afford for anyone to hear. But slowly, it gets so bad that she can't walk on her own. Gets so bad that her arms spasm sometimes, out of her control. When they have to move, father carries her, and when he's not home, Pietr has to roll her onto a sheet of corrugated tin and try to drag her. But this makes noise and it leaves tracks, and it's too much for one ten year old kid, and nobody talks about what will happen if they have to run. If there are lights in the dark, looking, mother can't be a mouse anymore.
And the thing is, mother knows it.
She weakens and she weakens, and father won't do it. Doesn't have the heart. Or maybe it's because mother is his heart, and he's afraid of trying to live without her. But Pietr drags her from place to place on the makeshift travois, and he feeds her by hand, and he cleans her when she messes herself, and he can see how his mother has become the fish in its bucket, drowning in open air. And he knows, because she tells him over and over-- Death is not the end. There are worse things, and this is one, this slow wasting away. She says that she will never be gone, that she will always be with them, that if he does it quick she won't have time to be afrai--
And he does it. With the almost-blunted awl he keeps for soling their shoes, and a brick from the ground. Drives the metal spike through her temple, and then she's peaceful, she's at rest, she's beyond her suffering. These are the things he tells Percy, who is already dead, so he understands. These are the things he tells Pippin, who is alive, and still there to watch when father beats Pietr half to death for what he's done. Father is bigger and stronger, and he leaves his eldest son bleeding in the dirt, and he cradles mother and he cries. He rocks and he sobs and he howls, and this is confusing, because death is a gift, death is a mercy, and maybe this is when Pietr begins to doubt, or maybe it's later, when father slaps the knife into his hand and says, "You did it, so you do it."
And he does. With reverent affection, an eleven year old boy strips the meat from his mother's body with hands that shake from the beating he took. There are broken ribs on him, but that can wait, because he murmurs while he works, speaking to mother, reminding Pepper that this is natural, this is right, this is best. They will be mother now, both of them. None of her will go to waste. Down to the eyes, he dismantles her, and it's the first time he sells himself, getting those eyes dipped in glass and polished perfectly round.
One belongs to Pepper, one belongs to Pietr, and they keep them in their pockets because mother watches over them. There isn't one for father, and maybe that's why he stays away longer and longer. But in his absence, they become mother in the same way they became Percy. Because it's Pietr, now, who cooks all the food for them. Pepper who points out the places with the most remaining walls, the most sound roofs. And Pietr knows that alchemists are born, not made, and he knows that ingredients don't matter as much as intent, and maybe that's why the things he makes help them feel stronger, healthier, more durable. It's just whatever he can find, thrown in a battered pot, stirred while he stares at it. Focuses on what he wants for Pep. Feel better. Less tired. No pain. He always has to choose, because there's only ever enough for one dish--if that. So it needs to be what Pippin needs most. And things are strange and strained when father is around, like the three of them don't fit together as well now that mother's quieter. Father makes deals in the dark, and Pietr's stupid but he isn't dumb. He's a slum rat and he knows a drug deal when he sees one. Knows that father's selling, and probably using, from the way he shakes and tics and rubs his nose. But when he comes home, he brings the things that they can't scrounge from trashcans-- new clothes, new blankets. And Pietr knows the man is trying, and he knows there's something he can sell to be of help-- knows it from the time with mother's eyes-- but it's important to be there for Pippin. Important to never leave the kid alone. That's how Percy happened, and Percy is with them, and death isn't bad, but things were better before Percy was dead, so can't Pippin just be allowed to stay safe and grow up and be healthy? Only if Pietr's always there. So he's grateful that even if father's getting in a little deep, he's making it possible. If Pietr had to provide on his own, it would mean leaving Pippin by himself.
Well, soon he has to. Because late one night father stumbles back and he's full of holes, and the holes are dripping blood, and he collapses in the loose gravel outside their little lean-to. And what he says is to run. What he says is that they're going to smell him out, and the boys can't be here, they have to go, he's dying anyway, just leave him. So Pietr waves off his crying little brother, barking an order to gather up the supplies. And there's no time to do this right, no time to remove father's flesh so that he can join mother and Percy and be part of them forever. All he can do is vice father's head between his knees to stop the man from shying when he carves out the eyes, and this isn't like with mother because father is screaming when he does it, and bleeding from all the wounds in his torso, and Pietr knows that even if they had time, father's flesh is already ruined. His eyes are their only inheritance, and he is dying, and it's just the two of them now, so they run. And they douse themselves in the muddy water at the riverside so that any lycans coming behind them will have a harder time, and Pippin cries, and Pietr carries the smaller boy on his back. They move and they move and at the first sound of a passer-by, they move again. It takes days before Pietr is satisfied that if they were going to be caught, they'd be caught by now. The dangers around them were the ordinary ones: slave-catchers and murderers and poverty. He's thirteen, and his father is dead, and he can scavenge with the best of them, but Pietr only knows a couple ways to get money for the things he can't scavenge. You steal it, you steal something else to sell for it, or you sell what you've got on offer. None of these are things he'll allow Pepper to be part of-- it's his job to keep his brother safe, and the kid is so little-- and that means leaving Pippin alone, so he puts it off. Tries to make do. Afraid, even at his advanced age, that when he comes back he won't have a single member of his family left alive, and he will have to find a way to consume Pippin's small corpse all on his own.
But it gets to a point where the options are possible danger or slow death from exposure, because the winter months are coming, and both of them will freeze in the snow without better shoes and coats. Even with the enchants Pippin's always working on-- and the kid is getting good, waterproofing their tents and gloves-- Pietr knows that the real answer to the problem is money. And he makes it in any way that he can, in those dim, desperate days. He does whatever he has to do, short of leaning in with any of the gangs-- because that didn't end well for father, did it? Picking pockets. Hocking stolen goods. Sometimes, when he's particularly brave, he slips out of the slums and in through open apartment windows a little further uptown. Takes things from the closets, when they look like they might fit. Fills the pockets with non-perishables from the cupboards to bring to Pippin as treats. But he's young, and he's cute enough, all blonde hair and green eyes, so the most reliable way is to sell himself. And most of them aren't too rough, already aware of how perverse their tastes run, paying little boys in dark alleys. And Pip can never, never know, and Pip will never have to do this, never, never, not while Pietr's alive to do it instead, and he washes in gas station bathrooms before he goes back to his little brother, and mostly life is alright.
And then there's a night when it's not.
It doesn't take long, because Saxon isn't a gentle city. He's almost fourteen, starting to get a little of his height, starting to look older than most of the regular ones are into. And this is a new guy, and he doesn't want to pay-- which Pietr's encountered before-- but he also doesn't want to leave the kid capable of standing. There's a brick wall Pietr's head collides with and he's out for the count, and it's dark, and the guy leaves him there in the alley. But what Pietr worries about isn't how he's been used, because that's his job description, really. And it isn't how he's been beaten all to hell, because he's had worse. It isn't even that the ******** stole everything valuable Pietr had on him. What's worst is that lights-out forehead-kiss from the bricks, because that's what has him laying there on the pavement for hours longer than he should be. It's what keeps him from getting cleaned up and going back to camp on time to make sure Pepper is alright.
It's the wee hours of the morning when he stumbles back toward their little hovel. He's bleeding from a split lip and a dozen smaller scuffs, and his heart is beating in his chest about a million miles a minute, because as he gets nearer he can see that Pippin is there, and he's scrambling backward on the dirt, and there's a figure over him, larger, reaching. Pietr doesn't know who this is, doesn't know what they want. And he doesn't ask. What he does is fish a broken bottle from the garbage and calmly, quickly, shove it in through the guy's throat, like he's trying to core out his Adam's apple. He twists the jagged glass in the wound, mincing the torn flesh, sending gout after gout of blood raining onto his brother below, and then plants a foot at the center of the guy's chest and shoves him backward.
And after that, Pepper is worked up, but he's fine, and that's the only thing Pietr gives a single ******** about. Pepper is the only important person in his world. So important that Pietr is willing to cut out his own left eye, because he can't leave the kid alone and he can't stop working or Pip will suffer in other ways. And he gives that eye to Pepper like a secret weapon, to keep him safe in the times when big brother is still on the way. But it's father's eyes they wear most, looking out of each other's faces to find where the other is, how they're doing, what they're facing. Pietr blinks in constantly, the attack on his little brother an affirmation of what can happen if he leaves the kid alone. And it's Pippin who says they should eat the guy, and Pietr hates the idea, thinks it's an invasion and a sacrelige, but he can't deny Pepper anything, and they don't take the eyes, and the former threat is just meat. And Pippin isn't wrong-- they always need the food.
And that's how life is for a long time. When he can, he gets Pepper his own set of knives-- good ones-- with the admonishment that he never go hunting, never try to take down game on his own, never bite off more than he can chew. But of course Pep doesn't know fear anymore, and it's not long before Pietr is close to seventeen and looking in on his little brother to find the kid hamstringing some lycan in a gaudy suit. Pip knows where to cut to get limbs flopping limp and useless-- Pietr's drilled him on it enough. Achilles tendon, and run. Popliteal artery, femoral artery, brachial artery, and run. They don't know the words, but they know where to find them, and that's what counts. But Pippin doesn't run, and so Pietr leaves the spot where he usually sets up business, because ******** if he'll let his brother get strangled because of a moment of childish exuberance.
What he doesn't have are eyes in the back of his head. What he doesn't know is that someone follows him through the alleys in the dark and hangs back watching. This is a man Pietr's been on his knees for more than twice, but he doesn't know the name Ricard Cross because it isn't exactly like johns go in for the getting to know you phase before they get off. So here he is, shaking his head at Pip from across some gravel pit they've staked out. Here he is, hefting up a brick and throwing it hard right into the almost-corpse's face to quiet the way Pippin's quarry keeps cursing and threatening and generally drawing attention to himself. And s**t, yeah, the guy is down for what looks like the count, but Piet does a Tropicana orange juice commercial on his throat with the awl at his belt just to be sure. And then he fixes a stern look on his little brother and reminds him that you don't just do this, Pep. Not out in the open, not without surprise on your side, not where you can get found out, not where you can't hide from the lights if they come. But Pippin's already at the guy with his knives. He's hungry, and the meat is right there, and so Pietr rolls up his sleeves and goes to get the splitting maul for the joints.
When he comes back, Rick's just standing there, cool as a cucumber, and even Pippin doesn't go after this one. It's not subtle, how Pietr sidles between them, even with the twenty feet of space Rick's given them and their corpse. He's pretty sure he can't take this guy-- not with violence anyway-- but he's willing to try like hell just to give Pip half a chance at escape.
Thing is, Rick doesn't seem phased. Not by the body, not by the way they were starting to take it apart, and not by their talk-- which he had to have heard-- of eating their kill. What he says are the things Pietr has been telling Pippin: doing this in the open is sloppy. Gravel is hard to clean, with that much blood involved. The place is like a bowl in the ground, full of echoes (great for hearing others approach at night, terrible for stealthy murders). If they're going to process the body, it'll have to be somewhere else. And the guy sounds so reasonable, so knowledgeable, so much like one of them because the death doesn't get to him at all. And Pietr isn't even seventeen yet, and it's hard making all the decisions, and he knows the things that could happen if they get caught, so he keeps himself between Rick and Pippin, but they follow the man. Owing anyone anything is bad, and he doesn't really trust anybody but his little brother, but in this situation the options are limited, and the empty building Rick takes them to is better than Pippin winding up trained and sold to some uptowner somewhere. And he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Rick leaves them there with their body and the next time Pietr sees him, the guy has brought them a perfectly good set of arms-- fresh even. He's not sure if it's a gift or a test, or maybe both, but it happens almost regularly, Ricard bringing them parts that they dispose of all the way down to the bones. And eventually, once it's clear that they aren't the colossal bunglers they first appeared to be, he offers them a deal.
If they dispose of the bodies he brings them-- some of which aren't quite all-the-way dead-- he'll set them up in a permanent location. Pietr knows nothing about business, but he understands the concept of an investment when he sees it, and it isn't long before the boy have their little run-down tenement fixed up enough on the inside to make it into a half-way decent chop shop. This is risky as s**t, considering Blood Nation's rain of fire sanction on meat markets that aren't run specifically by their members, but as it turns out, Rick's situated them far enough inside Crownless territory that burning their place to the ground is a little iffy. It helps, of course, that the brothers are discreet. It also helps that the first time some vampire supremacist ******** comes calling, Pippin tells him that he can't move, can't even breathe, has to stay still-- and the green eye he's wearing in his hollowed-out socket makes the guy as docile as a lamb while Pietr feeds him through a meat grinder still living. This kind of thing happens every so often, but they handle it, and Pietr only gets fangbit once or twice, which doesn't hurt all that much, and it gets them in range to bury an awl in through their eyes or their skulls.
He's bigger now, stronger from a steady diet and the reduced illness that comes from sleeping under a roof. He doesn't have to rely on the street business anymore, and so now, when Rick comes by, it's with a corpse for handling. Or sometimes with a live one from the boss-- it's Crownless they've fallen in with-- that needs to be kept for a while or finished off, and Pietr has no qualms about that. But if it comes down to loyalty, it's Rick he works for and Rick he reports to, as polite and well behaved as the alchemist is with the other members that come sometimes with the boss' orders. Rick's the one who realized Pip needed glasses, and brought them. Rick's the one that brought them meat and sometimes new shoes and coats when they were still in the gutter. So Rick is the one Pietr relays the answers to when he settles Pippin's bright blue eye on the meat that's still alive enough to talk and asks, " What are you trying to hide?"
█ ABILITIES
▬ O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU [ grey eye ]
One of Pietr's eyes is actually one of his father's eyes, coated in glass. This makes it a little unsettling to look at, but beyond that, the item is enchanted in such a way that, using it, he can see what his brother is looking at. Of course, this also works in reverse, since his brother has the other eye, them being a matched set. The eyes, that is. Every now and again the enchant wears off and they have to take them out to rework it. Not a pretty sight. This is the eye he uses the most often, since the number one thing in the world he's concerned with is Pepper.
▬ OUR MOTHER OF MERCY [ dark blue eye ]
One of the spare glass eyes Pietr keeps on hand is actually his mother's, preserved in glass. Pippin has enchanted both of the eyes in this set to impart a feeling of safety and comfort in the wearer. The thing is, Pietr tries to use this particular eye as little as possible, understanding how dangerous it could be to function under its effects when a situation really calls for fear, or anger. He's used the eye less and less as he's grown older, saving it for special-- terrible-- occasions.
▬ THE BEST POLICY [ brilliant blue eye ]
The last of the eyes Pietr uses is his brother, Pippin's, preserved in glass. When people look into this eye, they tend to feel an overwhelming need to answer Pietr's questions truthfully. This has been endlessly helpful when it comes to dragging information out of people for Ricard before the brothers make the unfortunate an entree in their chop shop. It's also come in handy for raising Pippin all alone and keeping him (relatively) out of trouble.
▬ STONE SOUP
A life of extreme poverty has outfitted Pietr with the skill set to make a meal out of almost anything, including ingredients that others would avoid like the plague. This has extended to his potions and elixirs, which are always more potent when Pietr includes corpse parts, or at least something unpalatable-- which makes them hard to stomach for regular people, but no less effective. Be careful, though, since what Pietr considers an "elixir" probably looks like a chunky stew, and you won't want to know what the chunks are. This likely comes from the fact that Pietr would alchemize a lot of the meals he shared with Pippin when they were younger, turning them into potions for endurance or constitution, which they desperately needed when living on the streets. Fact is, Pietr can't do pills, powders, or tablets at all. You'll be best off if what you want is "chicken" noodle soup that calms your anxiety.
▬ YOUNG, SCRAPPY, AND HUNGRY
Oh, you've had it rough? Good luck, buddy. You're looking at a bonafide survivor, and when the chips are down there's nothing this guy isn't willing to do. For someone whose faith is keystoned by death, Pietr avoids actually dying himself-- and it goes double for his little brother. Guy's willing to beg, steal, borrow, or barter to keep Pepper safe and breathing, so never underestimate the importance of desperation.
▬ ******** THE SYSTEM
As in, Pietr isn't a part of it. As in, he has no papers, no legal documentation, no chip in his neck. He isn't a person. He doesn't exist. Can't hold a legal job. That hasn't stopped him. He's an enterprising s**t, and nowadays he has ties to a little outfit you might have heard of, called Crownless.
▬ NO ONE IS ALONE
Pietr hears voices. When he sleeps, when he wakes, when he's enjoying a meal of well sauteed human flesh. Guy's got demons on the doorstep, which isn't surprising, since he may have helped to summon one in the past.
█ EXTRA
Pietr's number one weakness and best motivation are both his brother, Pepper. He treats his sibling perpetually like a young child, and would do anything for Pepper's benefit. Pietr has fought, stolen, whored, murdered, and cannibalized to keep Pep safe and fed. The easiest way to make him hate you is to be mean to the kid.
Pietr speaks in a quick and dirty slum pattois that, between shortened words, compounded syllables, bad syntax, and slang can be difficult to understand. He tries to slow this down for uptowners, who sometimes can't grasp a single word. The rest of the time, he sounds a bit like this.
Pietr's weapon of choice is a scratch awl, which is like an icepick, except it's for wood- and leather-working. If he needs to, he'll bury the thing in your neck without hesitation, so tread lightly.
Pietr has actually become a pretty good cook, with or without conventional ingredients. Just uh. Ask before you consume anything that looks like meat.
As a kid, Pietr learned to simply swallow food without chewing it if it was too unpalatable, so as not to let things go to waste. This is a talent he still employs if faced with food he doesn't like-- even though he's no longer in a position where every meal is the difference between life and death. It's also a skill that he employed as a young teen, working the world's oldest profession.
Pietr has very little in the way of traditional education. Once shown a manual task, he catches on quickly, and learned most of his skills in this way. However, he reads even worse than his little brother, and knows very little about subjects like geography or history. He's exceptional at sums and anatomy, though.
Pietr uses some of the bonemeal from the chop shop to fertilize a small vegetable garden, since he and his brother can't survive on meat alone. He sells the remainder to organic farms outside the city, since there's no way for him to go through that much bonemeal. After all, it's a good source of extra income, and the farmers just assume it's livestock bonemeal. Waste not, want not.
Pietr's remaining eye suffers from Deuteranopia-- that is, red-green color blindness. This may explain some of his clothing choices. It should also be noted that, because he has only one real eye, his depth perception can be a bit off.
Pietr is absolutely s**t at curses, and he can only manage enchantments by causing himself phenomenal amounts of pain-- likely a tie to that time when he, you know, sliced his own eye out of his head. As such, he almost always leaves the enchant work to Pippin, since Pietr's real strength lies in potions and elixirs anyway. It should be noted that he is mostly a self taught alchemist and that although his effects are good ( and much better when he's using material othwr people probably wouldn't eat ) they can only be imparted to food. That means, in theory, Pietr could make you a lasagna to speed hair growth.. but not a pill.
Pietr and his brother Pippin technically don't have a real surname. 'Barker' is just something they came up with once they fell in with Crownless, trying to make themselves sound like citizens. The fact that this makes him "Pietr Barker", with parents whose names were May and Benjamin (yeah, that's right, posthumously "Benjamin Barker"), has led to some Spiderman references over the years. Unfortunately for the people making them, Pietr's childhood wasn't exactly abundant with comics, cartoons, or shitty film adaptations, so it sails right over his head.
His face claim is Trip from Drammatical Murder.
Despite looking extremely similar, he and Pippin are not twins. In fact, Pepper is four years Pietr's junior.
Most threads involving Pietr will probably also involve Pippin, either in entirity or in part, since Pietr has a massive complex about his brother. Don't be surprised if Pietr mamabears you if you're interested in Pip romantically. Also don't be surprised if you're interested in Pietr and the guy drops you flat if Pippin doesn't like you. These two have mostly relied on one another their entire lives, and you might make them bicker, but you can't get between them.
