![[Verified by Poison]](./images/checkmark.png "[Verified by Poison]")
"Specter" Dra-Thesnis
Race: Mixed Blood--Symenestra/Zith
Gender: Born male, but doesn't readily identify as either gender
Age: 20
Birthday: 61, Winter, 492
Birthplace: Kalinor
Gender: Born male, but doesn't readily identify as either gender
Age: 20
Birthday: 61, Winter, 492
Birthplace: Kalinor
Appearance
Androgynous and rife with clashing features, Specter is a product of two distinct races unceremoniously smashed together—and without his daily ritual of normalizing his face and body through morphing, he looks it. Incredibly slight at 5'7 and 120 pounds, his physical build is scarcely different than that of a pure-blooded Symenestra's, but it's evident that his thinness stems more so from emaciation than natural build: Between an accelerated metabolism, his inability to effectively liquify food, constant running and obsessive overuse of magic, staving away malnourishment is more work than he's willing to suffer. His skin tone is a slightly darker gray than typically seen in Kalinor, the shade difference exaggerated by his unmanageable mass of white hair. In jarring contrast to his pale features, his eyes are so starkly black that they look misplaced—he hates them with everything he has and changes them to a light amethyst even when he's dead alone. Stubs left from stunted wing development jut from his shoulderblades, just noticeable enough through silk clothing to warrant morphing them away as well. They are, however, badly scarred from various attempts to remove them, and difficulties with smoothing the complex skin forces Specter to leave circular spots of scar tissue where the stubs are flattened. He keeps his claws clipped short—in situations where longer claws are practical, he prefers to morph them to a desired length.
Instead of the full-blooded Symenestra's soft, deliberate grace, Specter moves with tentative delicateness that seems to imply he fears harming whatever surface he
treads on. With his Zith-bred curiosity and focus, he is almost perpetually wide-eyed and twitchy, with a bit of a facial tic and a subtle lisp that seems to link to Zith growling (or is otherwise a product of his sharpened teeth and fangs). His eyes, skin tone, limb length, teeth and wing stubs are always “corrected” to pass as pure-bred Symenestra in public, but in doing so he pushes himself horribly and tends to look ill. On an especially bad day, his eyes will be mismatched, muddied colors, one or both wing stubs will be visible through his clothing or his teeth will be in the process of assuming a sharpened state as he forgets (or is altogether physically unable) to touch them up.
Instead of the full-blooded Symenestra's soft, deliberate grace, Specter moves with tentative delicateness that seems to imply he fears harming whatever surface he
treads on. With his Zith-bred curiosity and focus, he is almost perpetually wide-eyed and twitchy, with a bit of a facial tic and a subtle lisp that seems to link to Zith growling (or is otherwise a product of his sharpened teeth and fangs). His eyes, skin tone, limb length, teeth and wing stubs are always “corrected” to pass as pure-bred Symenestra in public, but in doing so he pushes himself horribly and tends to look ill. On an especially bad day, his eyes will be mismatched, muddied colors, one or both wing stubs will be visible through his clothing or his teeth will be in the process of assuming a sharpened state as he forgets (or is altogether physically unable) to touch them up. His preferred form, which he's generally never seen without.
Character Concept
Specter is sweet and gentle as he is volatile, struggling with the dichotomy of a fragile heart and nonexistent impulse control. Neglecting to adapt to his partially feral nature—a product of his belief that it's pathological as opposed to who he is—has left him ill-adjusted and prone to erratic behavior. Many of his antics are comical (rearranging his home every morning because he can't stand to see the same environment for longer than a day, experimentally trying to melt inanimate objects with his venom, losing all ability to remain calm in the presence of cats), but despite his compassionate character he can become violent at the slightest provocation. He's a ball of pent-up manic energy, intelligent, ditzy and complicated to a fault, with few healthy outlets and a dangerously skewed sense of self. His desires, however, are childishly simple: Specter wants to be liked. There is scarcely a moment when he isn't trying to emulate Symenestran ideals, but it's all done in a puppyish, clearly desperate way.
He is kind to a fault and hates to see people come to harm, but Specter's morals are inscrutable at best and he tends to be self-serving. He sees people strictly as potential entertainment or antagonists, and he's yet to meet a single person he would consider anything else. Equal parts doormat and loose cannon, he's easy to manipulate, difficult to reach out to and near impossible to have an interaction with while avoiding an unexpected flare-up. He's an island of a person who tends to see life through an animal lens, which often leaves him struggling to relate, sympathize, or understand the social cues of others.
Although Specter has few hobbies other than spending hours in front of a mirror perfecting his eye color, his second obsession lies with free running. It's one of the only healthy pursuits in his life, but his joyful recklessness still makes it a testament to profound disregard for his physical and mental well-being. Aside from a propensity for ignoring physical exhaustion, he regularly pushes himself to the brink of overgiving by morphing to suit various situations and terrain as he runs (however, after his fingers became stuck at a freakishly long length for a season, he did cave and purchase a set of emergency climbing claws). Slipping through environments with mindless ease is his form of flying—after finding it, he no longer feels cheated by his lack of wings or inability to weightlessly climb.
Religion is no longer an all-consuming force in his life, after a lifetime of disingenuous dedication to Viratas, Specter left the faith in favor of Ionu (and at the exact moment he first read about the god, no less). Ambiguous gender identity, ambiguous moral codes and the subjugation of reality is the basis of his own existence, and in his eyes Ionu was his first “friend”—he's never experienced relating to a personality the way he does with the god. He's also never experienced having such a good reason to drink a lot, change his name to something ridiculous and inconvenience people out of boredom, so within four years of worship he's made sure to do all of these things in mirthful excess.
Likes: Shiny things, storing plants/oils/dead insects in tiny bottles, light-colored eyes, cats
Dislikes: Silence, remaining still for any period of time, being touched in nearly any way, flirtation (he finds incredibly few people attractive)
He is kind to a fault and hates to see people come to harm, but Specter's morals are inscrutable at best and he tends to be self-serving. He sees people strictly as potential entertainment or antagonists, and he's yet to meet a single person he would consider anything else. Equal parts doormat and loose cannon, he's easy to manipulate, difficult to reach out to and near impossible to have an interaction with while avoiding an unexpected flare-up. He's an island of a person who tends to see life through an animal lens, which often leaves him struggling to relate, sympathize, or understand the social cues of others.
Although Specter has few hobbies other than spending hours in front of a mirror perfecting his eye color, his second obsession lies with free running. It's one of the only healthy pursuits in his life, but his joyful recklessness still makes it a testament to profound disregard for his physical and mental well-being. Aside from a propensity for ignoring physical exhaustion, he regularly pushes himself to the brink of overgiving by morphing to suit various situations and terrain as he runs (however, after his fingers became stuck at a freakishly long length for a season, he did cave and purchase a set of emergency climbing claws). Slipping through environments with mindless ease is his form of flying—after finding it, he no longer feels cheated by his lack of wings or inability to weightlessly climb.
Religion is no longer an all-consuming force in his life, after a lifetime of disingenuous dedication to Viratas, Specter left the faith in favor of Ionu (and at the exact moment he first read about the god, no less). Ambiguous gender identity, ambiguous moral codes and the subjugation of reality is the basis of his own existence, and in his eyes Ionu was his first “friend”—he's never experienced relating to a personality the way he does with the god. He's also never experienced having such a good reason to drink a lot, change his name to something ridiculous and inconvenience people out of boredom, so within four years of worship he's made sure to do all of these things in mirthful excess.
Likes: Shiny things, storing plants/oils/dead insects in tiny bottles, light-colored eyes, cats
Dislikes: Silence, remaining still for any period of time, being touched in nearly any way, flirtation (he finds incredibly few people attractive)
History
Originally named Dra-Thesnis, Specter was born to Syla Jessamine and a Zith father neither know the name of. The two never discussed the issue at length, but the implication was that Specter was the product of his father's violent Zith curiosity—to this day he hasn't pushed the issue beyond that. Syla never showed resentment towards her child for the way he came to be, and raised him as inclusively as she could with traditionalist Symenestra ideals. However, their family was pained by her forced impregnation with a half-breed, and as Syla was modestly well-liked within the community the inhabitants echoed the sentiment. Specter was seldom faced with outright cruelty, but he was subject to constant passive-aggression and the gradual realization that those around him felt sorry for Syla. To collective relief she soon took a husband and a second (adoptive) son, but these developments only caused Specter to draw further into himself.
As Specter became increasingly reclusive, his resentment for the Symenestra was only matched by his zealous love for the race. He volleyed between devoting hours at a time worshiping Viratas and trying with desperate fervor to scale surfaces with his underdeveloped hooks to accusing family of cold-blooded murder for their participation in the harvest, often venomously asserting that the Symenestra should just allow themselves to die out. However, this pattern was changed with his discovery of Ionu in an old book. He instantly dropped part of his facade in favor of a new one: Through Ionu he was inspired to learn to change himself the way he'd always wanted to.
That coming season, he agreed to partake in the harvest—and under this guise he went to Lhavit with the intention of never coming back. There he sought tutelage in morphing, diving into the study with a voracity he'd known for little else. Despite a season's worth of fasting and static meditation, he seemed incompetent at the practice until he stumbled upon the utter lack of thought he experienced while running. Being accustomed to traversing complicated terrain (a product of learning to function in Kalinor) came into play as he moved through the wilds and was forced to overcome obstacles on a lark, vaulting over them or quickly threading himself through tight spaces. This, he found, was the way he could dissociate from his body. He'd spend days running on an empty stomach, and by the time he was growing capable of changing his appearance, he was barely more sentient than an animal.
As he was significantly overdue for his return from the harvest, within this timeframe Syla had decided to travel to Lhavit and find her son—when she finally did, he was half-dead and near unrecognizable. Upon his return to Kalinor, he remained on bedrest and was incoherent for days, doing little other than rejecting food, foaming at the mouth, biting people and shifting into forms resembling bad taxidermy jobs. He remembers little of it, but those around him recall it with a “It wasn't funny then, but it is now” sentiment (Specter, however, tends to throw tantrums whenever it's mentioned).
Little changed when he became functional in the city again, but something inside of him had started to shift. He began regularly changing himself to appear pure-blooded, despite how he was told that this imitation was insulting. Few were actually fooled by his new visage—he was still recognizable, after all—but the fact remained that he was treated differently, even if only slightly. This mere glimmer of acceptance, to him, was a profound victory. It was then that he began to call himself Specter, based on his ever-changing body (and also because he likes to think of himself as mysterious and phantom-like, but that's a bit more of a stretch). He doesn't appear to be aware that his new moniker is ridiculous, but neither does he seem to petching care.
Ultimately, Specter is intent on leaving Kalinor, but has yet to do so out of fear of rejection and abandoning a lifelong investment in earning Kalinor's favor (no matter how backwards his methods for doing so may be). His love for Ionu still pulls him towards Alvadas, and at this point it may only be a matter of time. As of yet, he still doesn't know.
As Specter became increasingly reclusive, his resentment for the Symenestra was only matched by his zealous love for the race. He volleyed between devoting hours at a time worshiping Viratas and trying with desperate fervor to scale surfaces with his underdeveloped hooks to accusing family of cold-blooded murder for their participation in the harvest, often venomously asserting that the Symenestra should just allow themselves to die out. However, this pattern was changed with his discovery of Ionu in an old book. He instantly dropped part of his facade in favor of a new one: Through Ionu he was inspired to learn to change himself the way he'd always wanted to.
That coming season, he agreed to partake in the harvest—and under this guise he went to Lhavit with the intention of never coming back. There he sought tutelage in morphing, diving into the study with a voracity he'd known for little else. Despite a season's worth of fasting and static meditation, he seemed incompetent at the practice until he stumbled upon the utter lack of thought he experienced while running. Being accustomed to traversing complicated terrain (a product of learning to function in Kalinor) came into play as he moved through the wilds and was forced to overcome obstacles on a lark, vaulting over them or quickly threading himself through tight spaces. This, he found, was the way he could dissociate from his body. He'd spend days running on an empty stomach, and by the time he was growing capable of changing his appearance, he was barely more sentient than an animal.
As he was significantly overdue for his return from the harvest, within this timeframe Syla had decided to travel to Lhavit and find her son—when she finally did, he was half-dead and near unrecognizable. Upon his return to Kalinor, he remained on bedrest and was incoherent for days, doing little other than rejecting food, foaming at the mouth, biting people and shifting into forms resembling bad taxidermy jobs. He remembers little of it, but those around him recall it with a “It wasn't funny then, but it is now” sentiment (Specter, however, tends to throw tantrums whenever it's mentioned).
Little changed when he became functional in the city again, but something inside of him had started to shift. He began regularly changing himself to appear pure-blooded, despite how he was told that this imitation was insulting. Few were actually fooled by his new visage—he was still recognizable, after all—but the fact remained that he was treated differently, even if only slightly. This mere glimmer of acceptance, to him, was a profound victory. It was then that he began to call himself Specter, based on his ever-changing body (and also because he likes to think of himself as mysterious and phantom-like, but that's a bit more of a stretch). He doesn't appear to be aware that his new moniker is ridiculous, but neither does he seem to petching care.
Ultimately, Specter is intent on leaving Kalinor, but has yet to do so out of fear of rejection and abandoning a lifelong investment in earning Kalinor's favor (no matter how backwards his methods for doing so may be). His love for Ionu still pulls him towards Alvadas, and at this point it may only be a matter of time. As of yet, he still doesn't know.
