Post by Emma on Oct 25, 2010 18:08:01 GMT -5
Name:
Helaku Vuorinen
Age:
Seventy; appears fifteen
Race:
Elf
Occupation:
Hive Drone of Maléfica Company
Allegiance:
The Hive
Physical Description:
Helaku is almost a picturesque example of ‘unimpressive’. Besides hiding his naturally pointed ears, he requires very little magical alteration for blending in among humans. Though he is long and lean as all elves are, he’s painfully short at 5’7” due to starving often in his childhood. He also doesn’t possess much muscle at all, and is merely skinny, a runner rather than a fighter. His skin is a light golden from working in the sun, and his eyes are a dusky blue and his short, close-cropped hair dark blonde.
However, much to his chagrin and many girls’ pleasure, Helaku’s face possesses much of the elegant bone structure so common in elven beauty, if it is gaunt. Though his complexion isn’t quite perfect due to being an adolescent, his oval face, square jaw, long, thin nose, high cheekbones, small forehead, and strong chin give him an overall very attractive face that many girls jump at, much to his terror.
Appearance-wise, Kieran runs enough of a tight ship in the Saloon that Helaku rarely has to worry about his wardrobe. Kieran demands he wash and brush regularly and that he wears fine, though simply designed clothing to sate the guests’ high-class appeal. Helaku always starts his day off looking fresh and gentlemanly, but quickly becomes very dishevelled. He never carries conventional weapons, and only takes along very small ones such as daggers and stilettos if it’s absolutely necessary.
Personality:
Helaku differs from other elves in many ways due to his completely different upbringing. Having spent his life among humans and treated badly, he has none of the arrogance that the elves are so famed for, or even their mystery. Panicked, shy, and easily frightened, few ever suspect Helaku of being more than human, or even pay attention to the lowly Drone desperately slaving for his Hive boss. Helaku deals with a lot of flak dealt out to him in enormous quantities by female Hive members and especially his own uncle, who thinks very little of him, which has give him the opinion that he isn’t worth very much. He will always bow his head and do his duties with perfect, albeit clumsy, obedience.
However, Helaku isn’t at all bitter about it. He takes it with ease, as he considers it nothing more than his lot in life. When he isn’t pulling drunks off one another and fleeing attackers and angry bosses, he’s actually a cheerful, very down-to-earth young elf that’s likely one of the few sane people in the Hive, and perhaps in all of Alagaësia. Incredibly slow to anger and willing to make friends with anybody that doesn’t try to axe him, he is also rarely kind-hearted. However, all these likeable qualities are actually disadvantages in the Hive- his kindness is taken to be weakness, and he is often picked on for it.
Helaku is also very intelligent when it comes to book smarts, which is helpful for saving his bacon since he’s entirely inexperienced in all-too-necessary street smarts. He is one of the very few educated Drones. Helaku has learned basic destructive magic from his late father, but dislikes harming people, and has had almost no combat training whatsoever. Kieran has given him lessons in hand-to-hand martial arts, which Helaku is proficient enough in to allow him enough time to call for help- but not quite enough time for help to actually get there. By far, his most brilliant tactic is to run away screaming.
History:
Helaku wasn’t quite ‘born’ in the usual sense. His father Czardas Vuorinen used and abused his mother Myaja Kolbjorn as a pawn and a plaything, entertained both by her beauty and the wild, caged animal nature she developed when she was with him. When she became pregnant after such abuse, Czardas was beginning to tire of her. However, eager to have an heir and have him away from the Riders’ meddling, Czardas tricked Myaja into bringing unknowingly poisoned food as a gift to King Vänskä Könungr. It was immediately discovered and she was flung into jail as a traitor. During this time, Czardas visited her, stabbed into her stomach and tore out the child.
Ignoring her screams, he abandoned the woman he had once desired and fled Du Weldenvarden. He escaped to Broddring, where he disguised himself as a human and joined the Cathedral as an Oracle- or, to be more precise, a blood mage. Using the forbidden magic, he developed the fetus until it became a fully-grown, healthy baby. Helaku was nursed by various women at the Cathedral, but upon being weaned he went to live in Czardas’s manor in Carvala. Due to their hiding, he was not schooled in Ilirea despite having magical potential. Czardas taught him basic spells and literature.
Due to his duties as a very holy individual, Czardas also did a great deal of travelling. However, Helaku had not turned out to be the heir and minion he had envisioned him to be, and Czardas began to pay less and less attention to his son. Helaku often went hungry and grew very slowly as a result, and today is a mere 5’7”. However, Helaku became very knowledgeable about the world and even learned a great deal of magic- however, his father never told him of the true nature of an Oracle, and Helaku naturally never learned blood magic except for disturbing rumours that he read in ancient texts.
Helaku had a generally unhappy childhood, which only seemed to grow worse when he was sixty- Czardas began embezzling money from the Cathedral and was caught doing so. When he tried to run away, the Paladins found him and executed him. Everything of Czardas’s was sold- including Helaku. Days later, he found himself at the seaside slave market in Teirm, held up for a very high price due to being an elf.
However, unknown to Helaku, a man named Kieran Kolbjorn saw him at the market during the auctioning. Kieran noticed the startling resemblance to his sister, and upon learning the slave’s last name, quickly drew conclusions. He bought Helaku for a staggering amount of money and took him to a place called the Maleficent Saloon in The Tears. There, Kieran introduced himself as his uncle, made Helaku an honorary Drone of the Hive, and set him to work. Helaku proved to be a failure in physical fighting, but his vast knowledge was handy enough for Kieran to consider him worth keeping.
