Post by Esko on Feb 25, 2018 13:29:38 GMT -5
NAME: Kalzen
RANK: Pirate
AGE: 18 Turns (born month 7)
GENDER: Manly Man
ORIENTATION: Homosexual (though he tries too hard to be hetero)
DRAGON: ---
WHER: ---
PETS: bronze firelizard Longsword (if he's adopted, I'm willing to cover the costs!)
APPEARANCE:
Standing an around six feet tall, Kalzen is an imposing man with a muscular physique. With broad shoulders, tanned skin and well-toned arms, he could be mistaken as a man who worked as a smithy or a farmer. He has large, strong hands that are rough, but not thickly calloused. His hair is a medium brownish, almost auburn, though it can look slightly blonde in certain lighting. Kalzen's eyes are a rich blue, with thick eyebrows that have a sharp arch to them. His voice is a little husky from crying a lot as a baby.
Kalzen's face is a semi-long heart shape and a softish jawline, usually decorated with some form of facial hair. It is rare for him to be clean-shaven, but sometimes he will neaten up for a formal occasion. One noticeable thing about Kalzen's facial hair is that a few greys show up; early greying likely runs in his family. With all his muscle and height, he could be a scary man if not for the jovial smile that's always on his face. Kalzen is horribly proud and everything about his appearance suggests just that. He walks with a confidence in himself that can turn heads.
On most occasions, Kalzen doesn't care for what he wears. If he wasn't pressured by society, he'd wear almost nothing at all, and during rest times he likes to relax without a tunic. However, since society doesn't care for one little man's preferences, his outfits tend to be simple; a plain tunic and comfortable trousers. Kalzen tends to look good in most things he wears, and he knows this. If looking to impress an interest, he will wear something a little tighter to show off his muscle, and if he has to he will wear something formal.
PERSONALITY FAULTS:
Kalzen is, simply put, an asshole. A likable asshole to his friends, but an asshole none the less. If he establishes he doesn't like someone, he gives them grief until the day Thread vanishes forever. This gives him the reputation of a bully, and that reputation is entirely based in truth. While the only person he truly dislikes on the boat is his adopted sister, any time he spends on the mainland he's sure to find someone to bother. He often takes pleasure in annoying the living shit out of any prisoners that come to the boat, even the few who decide to save their lives by slaving their lives to The Bronzer. Most of them are thrown overboard anyway, so what does it matter to him what they think of him? He sometimes even enjoys being the one to kick them off the side of the ship. With a knack for the ruthless, Kalzen will likely always have a mean streak.
Pray for anybody he wants to have a relationship with, because Kalzen is a man who can't take no for an answer. If there's something he wants, he'll take it without any care for the emotions of the other person. Horribly stubborn to a fault, he will kick and claw until he gets what he wants. Once he sets a goal, he has a sort of tunnel vision that often keeps him from acknowledging the other things in life. Overconfident and brash, he tends to dive into things without thinking, far from his cool and usually-collected father. If he's angry, everyone will know he's angry. If he's sad, he'll push everyone away and seclude himself.
His own homosexuality presents a particular dilemma for him, for he grew up cracking jokes about men like himself, mocking their proclivities. It provides a point of insecurity for Kalzen that really hits a sensitive spot, though he desperately tries to seem unaffected if someone makes a gay crack at him. Men aren't supposed to be homosexual, right? They're supposed to drink, be rowdy and lay women. Women, not men. He tries to be extra scornful towards those kinds of men, in hopes of maybe...scaring his gayness off? He feels that if he were to be exposed, it would be the end of him.
PERSONALITY STRENGTHS:
While he wasn't blessed with his father's (mostly) rational thought process, Kalzen has a sense of charisma that will be a blessing for him, if he ever has hopes of becoming The Bronzer's next captain. He has a tongue that can quell the masses, so long as they don't know him and his darker sides. He finds friends easily in other guys, though they tend to be more of the Holdbred-minded sort. He's not the most loyal kind of friend, but he's not nearly manipulative enough to bother using them like tools. So, usually, a lad can trust Kalzen to have their back. He doesn't try to be a dickbag right off the bat, instead he tends to give someone a chance. The chance might be a really small chance, but a chance nonetheless.
While he does have that one point of insecurity, for the most part Kalzen carries an easy confidence in himself and his abilities. He's willing to take risks, whether those risks reward him doesn't matter. Even if nobody else is willing to do it, Kalzen will take the leap into the unknown without a care to how he's judged. So what if not everybody agrees with him, or nobody does? Doesn't matter, he'll still take the chance. Skeptics will only push him further to try new things and take new jumps, and will feed his arrogance until he crashes. Even if he fails, he'll get up and try again.
FAMILY:
Father: Kalahan, Captain of The Bronzer (+51 Turns)
Mother: Zelna, Journeyman Harper (+24 Turns)
Adoptive Sister: Karo of brown Gargerrith (-1 Turn)
HISTORY:
While stopped at port, 51-Turn Kalahan met Zelna at a Tidewalk Gather. It marked the beginning of a brief fling with the much-younger woman, and soon after the fun he set sail again. Until he returned a Turn later, to be confronted by an angry Zelna with a babe on her hip. The babe, whom she named Kalzen, was suddenly thrust into his care as Zelna ran off to one of the northern Weyrs to start a new life. Whatever. Kalahan was at least happy he had a son instead of a fussy daughter, so he could raise him to be a strong boy. Besides, he needed an heir to the boat, so perhaps the Harper's pregnancy had been a blessing after all. He doted on the boy some, but was also prepared to teach him the ways of the Fishcraft as soon as he could remember things. Life seemed good for both the captain and his crew, as they were catching a surplus of fish that Turn.
Then, Kalzen's life was shattered by the arrival of that girl. While he would forget the day the skinny little thing was dumped onto the deck, the four-Turn-old seemed to hate her from the start. And Karolinna returned the hatred, when he bit her and she tore a chunk of his hair out. He still has a faint grey spot from that incident. He used his strength to his advantage as he grew, and during every one of their frequent fights he used his size to try and subdue her. While this worked at first, she eventually learned to use her slightness to slip out from under him. Still, he usually won the fights, earning subtle praise from Kalahan. He didn't quite understand the frustration it wrought on Karolinna, but took satisfaction in seeing Kalahan tell her the fights would build character. His sister tended to use more creative insults though, as creative as children can get. Kalzen usually retained the advantage in most aspects of life; his father taught him things about the mainland, and left Karolinna in the dark. He would later learn what her purpose on the boat was, but didn't quite understand it then.
As he progressed through childhood, Karolinna suddenly began getting mentored in the Fishcraft by one of his father's best men, Quilken. This made Kalzen terribly jealous. Why did she get special attention from someone besides his father? He wanted what she had, and that led him to relentlessly bother her at every turn. He began to make typical childhood "you like him" jokes, which often prompted responses in the form of punches and kicks. Karolinna didn't realize he was getting what he wanted out of her; reactions. It fed a cycle of fighting between the siblings, though it never got so out-of-hand that Kalahan bothered to stop it. Karolinna began to win a bit more, but Kalzen still held the advantage. For a while, life for him was fantastic.
When he was twelve, Kalahan became frustrated with Tidewalk's lack of preperation for Threadfall, after the signs were clearly there. He joined the fleet of ships traveling with Oria and M'ton to the new location in the Western Circle, and The Bronzer headed with those ships right into the Threadstorm. The Bronzer was one of the few ships to make it out. Kalzen and Karolinna were ushered inside, and it seemed only luck got the boat out intact. The captain found himself beholden to a Weyrhold that was dead before it was born. But, he remained loyal to Mavros, even when all the Weyrs of Pern made the choice to abandon them to die. That Turn was the Turn Kalzen turned thirteen, and when The Bronzer began to pave its path as a notorious pirate ship. He saw a much more cruel side of his father then, as Kalzen witnessed prisoners being tossed into the sea. Sometimes, the captain even held them until the seas chopped in a storm before throwing them to the water. Both he and Karolinna were becoming utilized for raids, the former doing heavy carrying and the latter squeezing into tight spots to get to things. Kalzen never had the guts to voice his displeasure about the piracy thing, since he hated the idea of his father disapproving of him.
When Kalzen was fifteen, a boy about his age was taken from a cothold they raided. He was a scrappy thing, and more resembled a scared puppy than a man. While his older, male companions stood their ground and died as a result, he begged for his life and was thus accepted on the boat...for drudgery. He was often set to scrubbing the deck and doing dishes. Most of the crew left him alone, but for some reason Kalzen found himself drawn to him. He began to purposefully run into the boy, and learned that his name was Kyhon. Kyhon was jumpy and reluctant to talk at first, but slowly began to accept his presence. That shy acceptance turned into a strange sort of friendship, and by friendship I mean friendship-with-benefits. Kalzen was discovering something about himself, something he thought was ugly. It took him long enough, but something about men began to stir something that women should have. Granted, he didn't have much experience with women, and he blamed that for this sudden homosexuality. Kyhon suddenly became his dirty little secret, and he hoped to Faranth that his father wouldn't notice. He didn't seem to, anyway.
The secret continued for two Turns, as Kalzen's feelings for Kyhon began to deepen. The other boy wanted to be open about their relationship, as he was tired of sneaking around just to give a morning kiss. Kalzen already proved himself a capable heir, his father was already proud of him, how could it hurt? But the other boy couldn't handle the risk. For once, he refused to take a risk. Instead, he claimed something of his was stolen. When the item was found in Kyhon's belongings, he was grabbed by a furious Kalahan's men and dragged to the deck. The captain was set off by his precious son's things being touched by the boat's equivalent of a drudge, and took it to the extreme. Kyhon cast one last desperate look at Kalzen, obviously hoping he would save him with a confession. But Kalzen just watched as his lover was thrown overboard. He was presumed dead as The Bronzer sped off, with Kalzen trying desperately to not seem affected. He was just a dirty drudge, Kalzen told himself, though he knew the boy was innocent. He was determined to distract himself and hide his grief, and he told himself it needed to be done.
Just one Turn later, Karolinna was trusted with the task of fetching a firelizard clutch from Mavros. When she didn't come back on time, Kalahan left port with the promise that he'd come back to get her when he had time. He was a man of business, after all. Kalzen relished the time without Karolinna to bother him, and hated the idea of her returning. Now, he waits for his father to return to port, after hearing word that he was getting a ride to Mavros from a bronzerider. He decided to go onto land to shop for things, when he found a lady selling a firelizard clutch. Having only enough spare marks for one egg, Kalzen decided to buy the biggest one. It hatched into a bronze, which he named Longsword.