Ikur

[Ikur]

Name: Ikur Maetil
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Magic Type: Element Coreweaving (Sp. Metal)
Appearance: You are going over the slaves again, checking for members of the Hand of Roheir masquerading as slaves when your senses pick up the subtle sounds of footsteps brushing silently through the downy loam covering the forest floor. You can tell the footsteps don't belong to anyone of the Rebellion, and the slaves you are inspecting whisper with wide eyes. You hesitate for just a split second, staring into the wide eyes of the ex-slave in front of you. He is standing stock-still, evidently surprised at the image behind you. You try to see any fear in his eyes, try to detect any hint of a threat. Nothing. You turn, and stifle a gasp of surprise. The boy standing in front of you is young, too young to posses the self-assurance that rides on his shoulders. He stares at you under a veil of jet-black hair, which completely covers one eye and throws the other into deepest shadow. Somehow, that one eye of night triggers in your mind the memory of the searing heat and acrid smoke of a forge. As he shakes the long hair out of his other eye, you begin to notice more then his dark brown gaze. His hair is cut short in the back, sweeping up towards the front of his head as it gets longer and longer, until it falls in front of his eyes. As he shakes it back, the dappled sunlight shines unfettered, and you notice that what you thought was jet-black is actually streaked with thin white hairs. He stares you down, daring you to speak. You don't. Instead, you break his dark gaze and examine him. He is definitely not a spy for Roheir; they are trained to not be seen, to be supremely uninteresting, so much so that your eyes slide right over them. This boy commands your attention, in his subtle and quiet way, but he is like a coiled spring, well oiled and full to the brim of a tightly controlled energy. He understands that you need to check him for safety, and he smiles a tight smile and obligingly raises his arms and stands still. As he raises them you hear a quiet jangling. No need for words, you stare at his arms. They are wrapped in white cloth, bulky and heavy-looking. He solemnly unwraps the first couple winds, hands up, and it bares seven or eight thin metal bracelets. They look as though they are organized in some way, but you can't quite pick out the pattern in the complex weaving of each ring. As he wraps the cloth tight again, winding it so the bracelets don't clank against each other, you look over his clothing. With as much care as he takes with the rings, the rest of his gear looks slightly out of place. He is wearing rough leather boots, turned down at the tops, with heavily scarred soles and toes. They come up to just below the middle of his shins, and are strapped with thin iron to give them strength. He wears tightly woven pants that ride well on his form, obviously meant for ease of movement. They are tight, but not enough to constrict movement. He is wearing a tunic that matches, similarly cut, which looks ratty and has rips in several places.
Over it all he has on a thick layer of hand made leather armor, constructed of many pieces, all sewn together with a thin strips of darker material. The leather is layered multiple times over his chest, shoulders, thighs and shins so as to give better protection but still maintain ease of movement in between, on the joints. Over it all is a bandolier-style sword belt, shoulder to hip, which houses a long curved dagger, hanging low by the left hand. He fingers its pommel, not in a threatening way, but as if it is a comfort item. The belt around his waist has a hugely complicated pattern burned into it, vines and roots ensnaring symbols that you don't recognize. Rising over his shoulder is a long handle, wrapped in black leather with a crimson wound tightly around it. The pommel is black, and has multiple red tassles hanging from it, which barely brush his shoulder. He smiles again, hair once more in a diagonal slant across his left eye, and somehow the enigmatic curve of his mouth speaks of hidden pain, wrapped up and ignored, but never forgotten. He turns around, arms falling to his sides, showing you the rest of the sword belted to his back. It is a monster, straight and long, shaped like a giant cleaver, hilt about a fourth of its length. You can hardly believe he can lift it, let alone fight with it, but he wears it like an extension of his body. It is cased in a leather sheath to match his armor, again made of multiple pieces sewn together, and as you watch, in one fluid motion, he draws it, arm fully extended overhead to clear the tip over his shoulder. He swings it easily point down as he pivots around again, driving it into the deep loam. It looks bigger unsheathed then in its leather casing, more menacing, darker. Its blade is heavily rusted in the center, almost black, with only a silver edge showing its sharpened edge, which runs all the way around, on both sides. Its tip is barely sloped, almost straight across. It is the weapon of a berserker. In another fluid motion, he swings it up and around his shoulder again, sheathing it one-handed and so swiftly it seems again to be just another piece of him. You motion towards the dagger, and he draws the wickedly curved blade smoothly, slowly. Its blade is well oiled and shines in the sun, throwing off brilliant beams of reflected light. It, like the cleaver on his back, has no crossguard. He slides it back into its sheath smooth as silk, and you nod. He gives you a genuine smile this time, but it doesn’t quite touch his only visible eye, shadowed and tight with pain.

NOTE: Though new to the group during the first, decisive attack against their camp, Ikur sides firmly with them. For the few days he was there, before the slaughter and subsequent move, Ikur began to slide back, let his guard down and call someplace home for the first time. But on the night of the attack, Ikur was lying on the roof of the meeting hall, and witnessed the beginnings of the bloody struggle. He was not bothered unduly by the violence, he had seen and been the cause of much of it in his short 16 years, but something else had tugged on his mind. He had disregarded it and attempted to cause some confusion. When the battle was over, he raided the dead bodies of Roheir’s soldiers for extra metal. That was when he had understood his frustrations the night of the skirmish. He had grown soft. Gazing at the stars, unconcerned, almost happy, unaware of the approaching force. And then his actions in the battle had shamed him and the harsh ideals he lived by. Causing confusion was a tactic that only paid off after the fight, and rarely did it do much. He was not an assassin or somesuch maker of quiet violence. There was only shame in hiding in the shadows or manipulating the minds of your enemies through confusion. So he left. Without saying goodbye, or cleaning the half-finished, make-shift forge he was so excited to begin to use, he walked away. Before the battle, he had been settling in to the life of the rebellion, and into slight relationships with the people that comprised it. Now he realized that he had something to do, for himself, so he could hold own to the values that made his life worth living. Without them, he told himself, he was merely surviving, not living. And surviving is not living at all.

(Ikur’s story of his journey will come as it comes, and it will explain his new, more haunted demeanor, I hope. (and if nobody cares where he was, it doesn't matter, the story will come, because I, for one, am interested. I have no idea what happened.))

[Ikur]

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I think this is the right spot to put the application...if not, I apologize...it's late.
Ikur

[Dusk Nightshade]

Approved.