With his imposing stature of 4’ 6”, Cor isn’t usually noticed. His scrawny frame drowns in his worn-out clothes that are constantly in a state of being too big. By the time he grows into his clothes they are in tatters and so he gets the next set and the cycle continues.
His brown hair would be unruly if it weren’t kept cut close to his head and it almost always holds some level of dirt in it. The dirt extends to the pale skin on his face as he refuses bathing or washing of any kind except when his father is around. That being said, as he lives in the castle he isn’t as dirty as he could be if he were, say, living on a farm. Despite his dirty face, his clothes often surprisingly cleaner.
Cor’s eye colour matches his hair with a dirty brown. The boy’s face rarely leaves the expression of a scowl excepting for when something bothers him when it easily portrays rage. If he smiles or laughs it is generally at the expense of someone else.
Cor is never still. Even if his life depended on him hiding quietly, he wouldn’t be able to stop from wriggling at least a finger.
Cor is rather feral and has no respect for authority. This could come across as quite the problem in a city like Syliras but the boy’s other issue is that he’s smart. Up until this point he has managed to reign himself in, to lie when spoken to and has quite gotten away with it. As to whether that will continue will be up to the Knights.
The boy does have a soft spot for animals and that’s about it. His best friend is an old guard dog, Pan, who is blind and nearly lame. Cor carries the dog to the gates on a daily basis to let him have a good sniff of the different interesting smells entering the city. Woe to the people around the boy when Pan finally passes away.
Cor’s primary guardian is his Grandmother and the two do not see eye-to-eye, especially as they each refuse to learn the other’s language. The in-between of the two is Cor’s father who is rarely at home. It is then that Cor will be on his best behaviour but it doesn’t last long as quickly as his father appears, he is often gone again. Cor’s grandmother mends the boy’s clothes, prepares meals, and keeps the small apartment but doesn’t often stray from it on account of bad knees.
The boy could be easily manipulated, especially if someone took him under their wing as a father-type figure. Though he doesn’t like authority, he does have heroes and would happily help them with their tasks but wouldn’t give much thought as to whether those heroes were the good guys or the bad guys. He doesn’t appreciate being looked at in a condescending manner and doing so is a quick way to his bad books. The boy doesn’t trust very easily and when that trust is lost it is hard to earn back. He is also horrible at making friends and can be rather cruel so people wanting to be his friend would have to put up with that first.
First we must make mention of the figures of importance (whether he sees them as such) in Cor’s life.
Rama Alspach: A Benshiran who has lived a long hard life. The Syliras man who bought her married her and she lived a comfortable enough life until he passed away and then the young brat her son dumped her with came along. Rama has long arguments with her son, Nathan, whenever he comes back and is rather unhappy but is too old to return to her proper people. She doesn’t speak much common and has little to do with society as a whole partly because of this drawback and partly because she sees them all as evil.
Nathan Alspach: Cor’s father, the only son of Rama. He is a man of few words and with little care for much at all. When his wife died of a cough that killed both she and Rama’s husband in one merciless blow, Nathan was shattered. He left his young son in an apartment with his elderly mother and signed up as part of a trade caravan. Ever since then he spends most of his time on the road and hasn’t a clue about how to act around his boy. Even when his mother is berating him for not raising the child once again, he sits there quietly and simply doesn’t care. One day Nathan brought in an old dog, Pan, which the caravan owner was about to kill. It’s the only gift that Cor can remember receiving from his father.
And last but not least: Cor might have been a good boy had the circumstances been different. Might have. His grandmother at least wasn’t uncaring, but he was too much for her to control. After he learned how easy it was to step over the boundaries, he began to despise her. Even as a child he was hardly at home, instead choosing to run with packs of children, stealing and brawling until they were broken up by the Knights and he was dragged back home. The next day he’d be out again. Now he’s at an age where that sort of thing could be dangerous and he might not be delivered back home so easily. He has learned to adapt. To be smart. He uses his quick wit, eyes, and hands to get what he wants. As to whether he will always be successful that is a different thing altogether, but for the time being he’s alive.
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Corrin Alspach 
by Cor Alspach on January 23rd, 2016, 5:53 am 