Taavetti
Name: Taavetti (Taavi for short)
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Craft/Rank: Wherhandler (although he's a dab hand at baking and haunts the kitchens regularly)
Appearance: damn boy u pretty
Taavi's got a lot going for him, appearance-wise. A good strong jaw and a bright smile that ought to go 'ting' in the sunlight have both done a lot for him. Since getting out of prison, he's taken to growing his hair out. He likes his long dark brown hair to brush his shoulders. (Small bit of rebellion from the conman, or is it that he believes he can pull off the roguish look? Could be both). He believes it makes him roguishly handsome. Others feel it makes him look like he's too damn lazy to get to the barber and get it cut like any other man.
At 5'10'', he's neither short nor tall. Just average. It's all in how he holds himself. Confidence sees him through well enough, or at least he hopes it keeps people from noticing his merely average height. He keeps himself in good shape though. While he's never been able to amass a large amount of muscle, he keeps a sleek swimmer's build, thanks to the wher patrols. He's damn proud of it too. It's not unknown for the man to occasionally declare a war on shirts, just so he has an excuse to walk around shirtless until someone yells at him to put more clothes on. Either that, or he simply loves the feeling of not wearing those sharding red jumpsuits anymore. They itched.
If asked for his best feature, he'd just smirk and ask if he ought to turn around, 'cos my a** is pretty amazing'. In reality, that award probably goes to his eyes. They're of a particularly light shade of green not often found among the Pernese.
He keeps himself clean-shaven. This is not because he wants to, exactly, but rather because any of his experiments in facial hair tended to result in people laughing at him and dragging their friends to see the train wreck.
Personality: All of life is a game to Taavi and he's in it to win it. He's rather self-serving with his drive to win, honestly, and occasionally misses that other people might get trampled under his feet. He doesn't mean to be mean, though, and often tries to make it up to them later. That is, if he notices that he's hurt someone. He's very much a big picture man and will often miss small details like that. Someone else has to point them out for him. This 'small detail blindness' leads to some problems with his long-term plans, though. Really, the man is much better at short-term, at least for now.
In fact, most of his schemes fall flat due to his difficulty with planning anything out for a long time. The guy just gets bored and moves onto something else. He's also got a reputation as a bit of a lech.
He's extremely confident and not at all ashamed of much. Trying to shame him will result in him just laughing in your face and attempting to turn the insult---or shaming attempt---on you. The only ones that can get through this are his closest friends. With other people, he likes to keep his distance; the thing is, it can be difficult to realize he is keeping his distance simply because he is so friendly and open, or at least seems as much. He talks. A lot. Like he chatters incessantly, constantly cracking jokes and generally making himself into the life of the party. He's a charmer, or at least he tries to be.
Honestly, the man's extremely attention-hungry; he just can't get enough of it and will act like a fool to get it. If he makes someone smile, it's all the better; he loves doing that and will go out of his way to try and make a sad person grin. He likes making people feel like they're the most valuable person ever. In his own way, he's a people-pleaser, trying to get along with most everyone.
He's also manipulative as hell. He's spent most of his life learning where the levers are with people and simply can't seem to stop himself from pulling on them. He wants to be liked. If acting contrite can do that, he'll do it. If producing some sob story will help, he will absolutely tell a story fit to make a statue cry. He has no problem with faking vulnerability and conning people into it. Basically, he will lie through his damn teeth, if he thinks it will suit him and his.
He's painfully aware that he's a leech who absolutely cannot survive without social interaction. Just stories of the white rooms were enough to keep him in very good behavior. He needs people the same way he needs food.
History:
Family:
Taayel (father)- Journeyman miner, 52
Vettirin (mother)- Journeywoman Harper, 51, unknown
Taara (sister)- Journeywoman Healer, 30
--Annika (Taara's wife) - Journeywoman Harper, 31
Vettiyel (sister)- Journeywoman Dolphineer, 30
Rinyel (sister)- Journeywoman Smith, 29
Ok...Taavi's family life has not been the best thing ever. There was no abuse, no emotional neglect, nothing like that. It's just that his parents argued constantly. Taayel and Vettirin simply got together too young; they mistook classic teenage lust for 'true love' and paid the price for it. After Taavetti's birth, his mother (Vettirin) felt restless and uncomfortable. The young couple felt that babies were the answer to everything; surely, their relationship problems could be repaired if they had more little lives to love, yes? Taavi was followed by three siblings, all sisters (one set of twins four turns younger and one sister born a year after them).
Unfortunately, problems can't be solved by throwing enough babies at them. If anything, the extra mouths to feed made things even more tumultuous in the household. Taavi tried to keep his younger sisters distracted and unaware of the problems, but there was only so much he could do. One day, he woke up and found his mother simply missing (his parents weren't even sleeping in the same room at this point; his mother preferred to sleep out on a couch). Scared out of his mind, Taavi woke up his father. Taayel was not surprised to find his wife gone and simply did what he could do. He did his best to raise his family on his own, on a Journeyman Miner's wages.
Overall, it was a fairly happy little family. There were tough times, but they scraped by. They could, at least, depend on Taayel’s parents to help support them if things got really tricky. But then the worst happened.
Mining is a dangerous trade, with so many things that could go wrong. When Taavi was 10, Taayel got caught up in a mining accident. His right arm was injured very badly and became infected. Amputation was the only thing that allowed him to live. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of work around for a one-armed miner. He took a job grading gems. The pay was a lot less and things got considerably slimmer, including the children.
Taavi did his best, he really did. He took up baking, but quickly learned that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. He had to find the money to buy the flour, eggs, milk, everything he needed, in order to get MORE money. It was a very baffling system. He also learned that being a baker wouldn’t necessarily help feed his family; anything that his family ate meant less money for the group in general, including for other things that were needed, like clothes or fuel.
So he branched out. Taavi learned how to deal with people, how to haggle and get what he wanted. Social skills: he had them. He also learned how to hunt, so his day basically started with checking the traps, getting whatever he caught to the butcher, trading cuts of meat for flour... etc, etc. It still wasn’t an easy life, but it was easier.
And then he found an even easier way to earn money. People were so easy to manipulate once you knew where the levers were. When he was fifteen, he learned that people would see what they wanted to see. He could offer them a worthless shiny stone and claim that it was a diamond and he sorely needed to sell it----and for a low price because he was really in a rush, so he could see his poor ailing Auntie in Fort-----and they’d snap it up. People were practically begging to be fooled. He had a very easy supply of worthless stones, thanks to his dad's grading.
When he was seventeen and out of his home, Taavi got even better at it. He learned to keep moving; after all, people would recognize a pretty man if he stayed in one place too long, especially a particularly charming one.
And that was it, for years. He simply traveled around a lot and conned people. He was in the middle of a con when he was finally caught, five turns ago. He was running the old fiddle scam with a partner (“What’s that? Money? Ohshit, I forgot my wallet. D: Here, take my violin as collateral. I’m a Harper, I need that to survive…” “Excuse me there, Mr. Waiter. May I see that violin? D:!!! My goodness, it’s a Robinton! I could sell this for thousands… any collector would recognize it…but I need to leave right now to catch my dragon to Fort. Here’s my name. If you get this violin, we can sell it for thousands” and then just wait for the shill to shell out money at the ‘poor harper’)...
Too bad for Taavi, the Dragon Guard got to his partner first. Seems like the restaurant proprietor had seen the scam before and wasn't about to be fooled. He called the Guard. Taavi found it considerably more difficult to charm them. ("What violin? Oh THIS violin? I was just... holding it. For a friend. Who's a Harper. I don't remember ever saying it's a Robinton... what a horrible time this is to live in, when people can do such th... what are those handcuffs for. What's the gag for. You haven't even bought me dinner ye--mph mphh!")
His sentence passed fairly well. That probably shouldn't be terribly surprising. Taavi naturally got along well with people and, the only real difference, was that he just got to see the same people every day. That really only enabled him to get to know them better. He chattered quite happily with the guards and played the loveable rascal card for all it was worth. With his bakercraft experience, he was eventually allowed to help in the kitchen.
One turn ago, he was released and realized he had no where to go. No place would hire a known criminal just released from Warden's. Rather sheepishly, he found he had to stay. Luckily, he'd befriended a wherhandler who was happy to share an egg with the ex-prisoner.
And then Gustav. No verb could really follow up Gustav. He was the verb, a massive movement loaded up into one word. He knew this was his person and wouldn't leave Taavi alone ever.
Currently, Taavi has settled in well to the life of a wher patroller. He rather likes it, even. It reminds him of his youth and hunting in the woods. Now he just has a partner.
Other stuff:
Gustav
Name: Gustav (alright, it's technically Taavesk. But, as Taavi says, do YOU want to argue with a murderbeast about what he's called?)
Color: Brown
Age: one turn
Appearance: ohgod what is this murderbeast doing here. D:
Gustav is massive. Even at a turn old, it's clear that this wher will grow up to be a horrorterror all on his own. He's extremely heavily muscled, even for a wher. He outweighs many of his bronze siblings by sheer dint of mass. They may be longer, but he's almost certainly heavier. His wings are unusually small, but that doesn't bother him. He's certainly not going to use them anyway. His head is oddly angled and his knobs unusually short and flat against his skull. This only adds to the geometrical appearance of his head. His neck is short, but his tail is strangely long. Although capable of lifting it off the ground, he prefers to just let it drag. His entire body is low to the ground, like a crocodile.
Basically, he is an ambulatory tank that can think for itself. Try not to get in his way, unless you think the 'flattened to the ground look' is really in this season.
His hide is a dark burnished brown, almost black. Around his head, it's lighter, very nearly a red color. It's almost pretty, if you enjoy the color of rust. Since he's in a perpetual state of annoyance----as near as anyone can tell----his eyes blend in almost perfectly with his head. An unwary viewer might think he doesn't have eyes at all.
But he does.
And he's watching you.
Try not to be terminally unwary.
Personality: He's not overtly aggressive. Some whers may snarl and snap, but not Gus. He's almost sedate, especially for a wher. He's almost... non-responsive, in some ways. It would be very unwise to test this by threatening Taavi, though. Gus will absolutely fight to the death for the sake of his bonded and it is surprisingly difficult to injure what is, for all intents and purposes, a walking mountain of wher muscle. Most whers aren't the chattiest creatures around, but it's like Gus is trying to balance out Taavi's relentless chatter with absolute silence. The entire reason Taavi started calling him 'Gustav' was because the wher didn't tell him his name when he first hatched. It was days before Gus mentioned that his name was probably Taavesk, but he liked the sound of Gus.
He simply doesn't talk a lot. He prefers to communicate more viscerally. If he's hungry, he'll communicate this with sharp pangs, the taste of blood and the snap of bones, along with a picture of the feeding pen. While he's probably intelligent, it's a an animalistic sort, the kind of cunning that keeps a predator from a trap.
What he is, is loyal. Taavi is his bonded and Gus understands that completely. From his point of view, his job is to make sure Taavi gets to where he needs to go (even if Taavi doesn't know this yet; it's alright. Gus will grab Taavi's shirt in his mouth and bodily drag him, if he needs to). More than just wher and handler, they are partners. If Taavi is there, Gus will be there too. If he's too large to fit, he'll wait outside. He will wait forever. He has the patience of geology.
Unfortunately, this patience is extended to his desire to possess things. If he wants something, he will get it. He may wait a very long time for it, but he'll get it in the end. He may have to follow the current owner to the ends of the earth. This doesn't bother Gus at all. Taavi has already had to return things to frightened owners, but has had trouble explaining the concept of ownership to Gus. As far as Gus is concerned, 'I want it/Taavi wants it' means 'It belongs to me/Taavi'. Unfortunately, Gus likes shiny things. He's got a magpie's eye for glitter.
Really, for a wher, he's very nearly tame. 'Very nearly' being the operative words. Gus loves killing. Taavi has already learned not to put more than one wherry in a feeding pen and certainly never release Gus on an entire packed pen. If left to his own devices, Gus will happily slaughter far more than he needs, for the sheer joy of killing. He listens to Taavi when he says 'stop', but it's not likely he'll listen to others.
Note: Gustav was originally written by giftwrapped. <3 Love my murderbeast!
