Anther

[Anther]

When you've never been clean, it's easier to pretend you don't want to be.

Player name: Kat

Name: Anther

Age: 19

Race: Human

Height: 5'10"

Weight: varies

Description

It's easy to be ignored when you're one of the unwashed, and Anther is good at being ignored. Shaggy dark hair lays in clumps to his shoulders, its original color unknown. It's kept from his face in a thong when he wishes to see clearly, otherwise he lets it crowd forward to hide his features; a brief physical barrier against the outer world that wishes him harm. His eyes are a pale color, as though light bleached a more vivid color into something pale and lifeless. The color itself is a hazel, shading towards green more than brown. Of his skin, not much can be said: baths are few and far between for people like him, and his ruddy complexion might be more of an effect from dirt than anything else.

He is a lanky lad, slim with the touches of boyhood that are fading into a more adult masculinity despite what is certain have been years of malnutrition. His shoulders are rounded, making him seem narrow, and there is not much meat to him at all. His muscles are wiry, but visible should he choose to shed his many layers of clothing. . .though perhaps 'rags' would better describe what he wears. He picks cast-offs and pieces of once-whole cloth, cobbling them together with a single minded tenacity and ingenuity that only the very desperate manage with any success.

Of desperation, there is plenty to be beheld in Anther. It lurks in his pale, darting eyes. It can be seen in the way he holds himself, half-hunched as though self-conscious of his height and appearance. It remains in his actions, of his animalistic wariness of strangers and his hatred of anything to do with the wealthy or law enforcement. He breathes it, day and night, and it's rare to see trust in the young man. Yet still, he retains sometimes the youthful exuberance of any proper young man or woman, which he displays only when his luck is very, very good or he manages to snatch up a pittance of raw alcohol.

He is crass, and hard without much in the way of softness besides the occasional trace of betrayal or sadness that hasn't been beaten from him over the years. He is ruthless in his own way, though still clumsy at times over his own awkward height, and will likely do anything to survive.

Possessions

Two badly treated daggers grace him, though he keeps them in odd places depending on what clothes he can acquire, and he has yet to find himself a belt capable of holding their weight without sliding or sagging atrociously. He has a small, hoarded wealth of coins (usually between three to ten of them, depending on how lucky he is). He keeps his mother's silver comb in his stash with the coins, which is a spot he appropriated in the ruins: a small hole made when a building collapsed and another was build on top of it. He also keeps a sparse blanket in there for when weather gets too chilly.

Other than that, he doesn't own much. What he can steal -- if it isn't bishanti -- gets fenced for coin to spend on food or a decent pair of shoes.

Powers/Strengths

He's an agile creature, with the aloofness of a street child to boot. He is of as quick a mind in the clever way of the wary. In that same way does he fight, and in the streets he's considered to be pretty good, where pretty good means alive and not dead. He's a survivor, and he'll do whatever he has to to keep on living. Most flinching has been stomped out of him by years of living on the streets.

He's a superb thief, relying on a blank expression and the natural curve of his shoulders and downtrodden look to keep people scornful and unwary of him. Of course, as he has aged it has become harder and harder to do so, and so he has manuevered to be more clean, more within the lines of society's whims and wishes so he can tread closely unnoticed to those with full pockets on the market streets.

His small pack of companions can be a great strength in a time when their small area is threatened. They hold their own, and give violence where it is due and offer nothing but the bridled contempt for the others of the street until they are outmaneuvered; then they flee.

Weaknesses

He is getting to be of an age where the harmless, submissive look doesn't get him anywhere he wants it to. He is undeniably street, no amount of grooming or fancy clothes could do much to change that. His eyes have a look in them that have the guards giving him more than a dismissive glance, and his height prevents him from running about underfoot in play as he slips a purse here or there. Though of a quick mind, he is slow to adapt, and slow to grasp the problem at hand. It is a different one than his upbringing of hardship has prepared him for, and he finds himself bewildered when perfected techniques do not work.

As such, he often will resort to brutish violence, and each time he does so he brings himself closer and closer to the line that the guards won't tolerate.

He is jaded, and closed to most ideas that don't involve what he already knows. He has no illusions of grandeur, no dreams or hope of something better. He has shut down, and fights to protect the small comforts he expects from his life. Perhaps it is because of this outlook, but his intelligence remains low. The written word is unfathomable, and numbers are out of the question.

His pack, his small group of companions who do not quite constitute a gang are a big weakness upon the streets. Together they are stronger, but without they are made more weak, unusually so. They rely on eachother, and are likely to be irrational if any of their own are threatened.

History

Parents are only good for dying.

This was something one of the homeless kids he saw in the markets once whispered to Anther with a grin that was missing a few teeth. Barely clinging to survival with his family as it was, with an oft sick father and a weak mother, Anther couldn't do much more than stare. Perhaps the other child was merely teasing, or perhaps he was simply relating experience to Anther. In under a year, the foreboding feeling that had grown from that moment blossomed into an uncomfortable fear when his father's sickness turned into something fatal. Weeks of watching the once strong man shrink into a bed-ridden shadow, and the growing despair in his mother's face turned Anther into a fretful thing. It was a relief when his father finally passed, though it precluded his mother falling apart. Burdens grew, and her thin shoulders had never been enough to carry them; father's death wore away at her until only a wisp of a woman remained. Then, nothing.

Street life wasn't as bad as Anther had thought it would be. Grief hollowed out his cheeks and deadened his eyes, but he learned to survive off of even less than what he'd made do with, and hunger quickly filled the place of love. In the first few months of his street life he figured out the underlying territories that made up Marn, from his spot in the ruins to the marketplace and street stalls. He tangled with other street kids, and when he was beaten until he was bruised and bloody he gradually began to learn the basics of fighting dirty. Understood, but not in practice; as a child of eight he stood a slim chance of making a fair showing against older or bigger kids. He was a scrawny brat, and so he learned more to hide than to lash out.

A full year and some extra months had passed since his parents died when he met Yoger. The other was more or less around the same age -- so both of them estimated unconsciously -- and they ran into eachother in a hiding spot both had claimed at differing times as their own. Possessiveness set in, and as both were of a similar build they stood ground and beat eachother into near senseless heaps. Respect was born there, and the beginning of a tentative friendship tempered with wariness. They agreed to share the hidey-hole, and quickly found that the two of them, working separately, could store up more than working singly. They could afford to protect their tiny hoard, and a solemn partnership was forged.

They did not make great gains, but together they stole and wheedled enough to survive. In time, a third child was found. Her name was Rue, and at thirteen she was fresh to street life. But, she was big for a girl, and was built for strength instead of feminine wiles. She was a bully, and frequently got into fights to take for herself what the other urchins stole. In her, Anther and Yoger saw safety -- someone to defend what they had gathered for themselves. Rue was wild, and full of contempt for every other urchin upon the streets, but she was also a desperate child trying to survive the older thieving dens and gangs of hooligans. Anther and Yoger slowly and carefully approached her, and eventually won her over to fight for them, and to protect their tiny piece of territory. They became a den of sorts, thieving where they could and fighting where they must. Though both boys were slow to trust the older girl, eventually they melded into something that approached family, though the word was never used. That word was anathema in the streets.

Anther's fifteenth summer heralded the first of many changes. He really began to grow, and he found himself clumsy where once there had been feral grace. It was this newfound awkwardness that brought back a younger thief to their den's hole, and it was thanks to luckiness on Yoger's part that they caught the boy as he waited for the opportunity to steal their meager possessions when they were not looking. Smart and sly, the young thief was bold and unabashed as the den held him and questioned him. Of his family, no answer. Of his status, no answer. Rue figured the boy for a runaway, and with a ruthless streak seldom seen in girls she suggested beating him thoroughly and dumping him in the river. But Yoger saw something else, something useful.

The new boy, with a name of Sagath, could read and write. He knew how to act and clean as though he'd studied the merchant class. They struck a deal with Sagath: they would protect and feed him if he used his knowledge to help them improve their thievery. After much sullen thought on the matter, Sagath agreed so long as he kept a stash of coin for himself.

Though Sagath wasn't trusted by the other three, and vice versa, they worked out an uneasy harmony that turned profit. Anther, with his increased visibility as an adult, often would run interference so Sagath had an easier time stealing from the places he marked as vulnerable. Rue remained a stoic source of tension, not trusting Sagath int he least, and she would often prowl the few alleys that were 'theirs' as the others stole: looking for trouble makers and other thieving dens who might think to encroach upon home turf. Increasingly she talked about 'real jobs' and the world of the grown ups. She was the oldest out of all of them, but still she stood by them. With her homely face and muscled body there weren't many places that would take her up, and so she stayed with the den.

But they were all growing up, and Anther and Yoger soon found that their maturing bodies made thieving a more difficult task. Their marks started to turn from daytime string-cutting to evening fumbling with drunks and unwary citygoers. Where finesse wouldn't do, violence took precedence. Rue delighted in these outings, and the three would go hunting the streets while Sagath watched their hole in the dark.

It was on one of these outings that Rue killed a man with her fists. He was 'only gutter scum' so she reassured her mates, but an uneasiness had settled over the den. They weren't ready for the adult world, and if they became known as dangerous t hey'd be hemmed in by the guards and killed themselves. Yoger made a reluctant Rue promise to never come close to killing another again, and all three endeavored to teach Rue how to thieve better. Privately, Anther despaired of their future. He saw Rue's way as the only way open to them, as he grew and lost the more delicate of his skills. He turned to lockpicking and cheating, and found his way into taverns as he grew older. The crowds were easier for the more adult him, but the consequences were more dire.

Soon enough he was taller than his companions, and even Sagath was growing. Only Rue stayed short, and she had never been the delicate type. It was when he turned eighteen that the den decided to challenge the older thieving dens, and expand their own territory and influence. The first few months, they met with more injuries and fights than they'd ever experienced before. Several times, they faced down death. Anther was scared of meeting that death, and he became vicious. They all did.

Anther turned nineteen, and that year he realized that his den was fighting a losing battle. Guards were ever vigilant, and more experienced dens had turned their unfavorable eyes towards the tiny den. Anther realized that he'd do anything to keep himself and his denmates alive, from killing anyone who stood against them to tampering with the forbidden.

And if any of it has to do with thievery, the more the better.