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Description

Update: Sometimes, you just lose a leg and learn some magic

For

▶︎▶︎____________________Letum24 | Male | 5'11'' | 152
Human | 8-24 | Virgo
Nohr

▶︎▶︎____________________
S t a r t i n g C l a s s : Wyvern Rider —>Malig Knight

W e a p o n : Axe: Steel Halberd Axe | Tome: Dragon's Enmity: After combat, inflicts -5 SKL, -5 DEF, -5 RES on Target, and -10 MAG on user until the end of user's next turn.

W e a p o n P r o f i c i e n c y : Tome: S | Axe: C

U n i q u e A b i l i t y : [Perfectionist] If Letum's HP is below half-full, +3 to Skill and +3 to Luck

LVL: 19+
    HP: 40
    STR: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [20]
    MAG: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [50]
    SKL: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [45] (Dragon Hairpin +5)
    SPD: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [40]
    LCK: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [14]
    DEF: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [50]
    RES: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [40]
    MOV: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [7]

▶︎▶︎____________________
P e r s o n a l i t y :
Letum's birth resulted in his mother's death, and his father treated him accordingly. The relationship between father and son forever became an awkward bond of grief, and resulted in a policy of mutual avoidance. As such, Letum grew up isolated, provided with libraries of books and the finest tutors, but without familial affection. The young man grew up studious, well-mannered and dedicated, and with a social awkwardness that bordered on coldness. Without the introductions to new people and places that are so important in one's formative years, Letum never truly learned how to handle new people, or make strong acquaintances. What he came to value instead were intellect, discipline, and striving for perfection.

After their chance encounter, the wyvern Persephone became his first and truest friend, and with her, Letum learned the meaning of freedom. Only on Persephone's back can he know the feeling of flying loose and fast, trusting his intuition as well as his wyvern's. They work as a seamless pair, one calculating and cold, the other a fiery and instinctive huntress. To this day, Persephone alone can nudge Letum out of his routines and demand he fly with her, leaving the cares of the ground behind. Letum initially had no interesting in making friends with his peers in the Wyvern Riding corps, but since joining the Nohrian forces, exposure to more people on a daily basis has made some dents in his frigid exterior. Letum might never be friendly, but he's developed a kind of droll sarcastic wit that suits army life, and at the very least, earns an amused huff from Persephone every once in a while.

L i k e s: Persephone | Cats | Clear starry nights | Books | Training drills | Schedules | Free-flying on Persephone

D i s l i k e : Slackers | Heights | Being sick | Getting lost | Weather that prevents flying or training | Socializing

H i s t o r y :

The Rise

They say the sun never shines in Nohr, and for the most part, they are correct. Only the strongest of her people survive here, wielding either sword or lineage against the dark to stay aloft. But what happens to those who fall? With no warm sun to turn your face towards, how does one learn to rise again?

Letum's mother, Neta, was not one of the strong. For nine long months of a fitful pregnancy her health declined, and in the end, she did not survive giving birth to Letum. Letum's father, Gulius, was a physician, and delivered the child himself—and was himself powerless to save his beloved wife. That first hour of Letum's first breath marked the beginning of lifetime of father and son standing together awkwardly, unable to say anything at all. The babe didn't scream. The father didn't cry. They simply were, wife and mother growing cold beside them, and the good doctor wondered if his skill had been greater, would Neta have survived?

And was the child's life worth it?

Letum was born in Macarath, to a physician father and only the memory of a mother. His father was a life-long scholar, adept at his trade, and had his practice in the city famous for its medical care. Gulius was a stern and studious man, and the death of his wife only made him delve deeper into the recesses of his work. The door to his office may well have spanned a continent, for all the distance it placed between father and son. Despite his near total absence, however, the doctor managed to impart at least one life lesson unto his young son: emotion leads to agony—only perfection can stave off pain. Devote yourself to your work and no other, and you may find satisfaction. Do your work well, and you will never have to hold failure in your heart. Letum held this mantra in sacred trust. He had killed his mother, and this one message was all he had of his father. Dedication, therefore, became his cause, and he threw himself into his studies with single-minded commitment. His father's cast-away texts were his tutors, and he read them voraciously, wondering if his hands held the books in the same places his father's had.

Letum had little reason to venture outside his family's modest estate. Gulius was either in his office, or at his practice, and did not participate in society. The tutors he hired for his son were the now-retired academics of his own youth, more accustomed to dusty libraries than the fresh outdoors, and who had no interest in encouraging their student to go outside. They were instead pleased with how willing young Letum was to sit at his desk and follow their instructions, absorbing their lectures as plants devour the sun.

In short, Letum grew up to be a perfectionist. Hard on himself, and unable to accept failure, he put all his energy into achieving a standard his father would never notice. What he lacked of heart and soul, he made up for with dedication and meticulousness. Wake with the sun, run laps in the courtyard to stimulate the brain, study the natural sciences until eleven, eat a balanced lunch, mathematics until two, more laps in the courtyard to re-energize in the afternoon, then history and patriotic literature until dinner, 'Hello father, yes my day was well, I hope you are in good health,' bed, all to be repeated the next day. For nearly seventeen years, Letum followed this personal schedule, going without friend or familial comfort, finding satisfaction, if not solace, only in books. Some teachers threw around the word 'prodigy.' Others said such classification diminished the sheer amount of work their young student put into his studies. But none among them seemed to see the drastic flaw in their tutelage, until one afternoon, one white-haired professor looked across the desk at Letum sadly and asked:

"Young man, have you ever even been outside the city's walls?"

For the first time, Letum was unable to answer a teacher's question. Ask him arithmetic, pose a question of biology, and he would have the facts. For this, he had no reply that would satisfy the old man, who seemed suddenly remorseful before him.

"When your father was my student—but, aah..." He shook his head, sighed, and continued the lesson.

The Fall

The words, however, would not leave Letum alone. It fostered a feeling within him that he could not put his finger on, and it was not until some days later that he could put a name to it: Regret. It was both foreign and familiar, dogging his days since birth, yet kept at bay by ruthless routine. This realization made him somber, and then indignant. Should he allow himself to be defeated by this? Everyday, thousands of people traveled the roads between Nohr's bustling cities, or made their livelihoods hunting in her wilderness. Why should it be beyond his reach? And so for the first time, Letum acted impulsively. Before the sun rose on another morning, the young man snuck from his room, and the home he so seldom left, and ventured out beyond the city gates. He was, in his estimation, prepared enough. He had a pack with hearty rations, sturdy clothes on his back, and even an old map from on of his history books. His plan, if it could be called such, was to wander for a few days, and then return home, secure in the knowledge that he could excel on the road as well as he could in his study.

In hindsight, it could have been a better plan.

The first day went well enough. He traveled the main road, alongside merchants and fine carriages. It was easy enough to emulate what they did, stopping at way-stations for food or rest with seemingly seasoned traders, keeping to the populated roads. But this soon dissatisfied him. He did not want to simply take a stroll down the King's Highway, and head home after visiting a few road-side taverns. If he wanted to prove his mettle, he would have to dare to leave the road. On the second morning, he did just that, heading west and away from the domesticated road.

The landscape soon became barren and featureless, and Letum eventually realized that he was lost. All around him was dark, jagged rock and struggling scrub, with nothing to distinguish where he was going from where he had come. He thought he had kept the road to his back, but when he tried to head east again, he came to no paths except those used by wild goats. And thus he passed his third night sleeping upon a rock shelf, with only the starry sky above him for a blanket. He was so exhausted and surly the next morning that he ate more of his rations than he meant to, and only realized the mistake at midday, when he had less to eat than expected. Letum was frustrated. Less with the situation than with himself. He soon realized the map he had was out of date, and what use was history or math here? Clearly, knowing geography and directionals in theory did little to help him in the real world. The sun...if only the sun would shine, then he could find his way back. But the Nohrian sun was weak and shy, diffused through thick clouds, and Letum had to squint long up at it to even guess at his position.

And that's when Letum fell.

Down, down, for hours, days, but in reality seconds. Which way was up, which was down? For a moment he was sideways, wind buffeting his skin, and scraped him along the ravine wall. A sickening crunch! and the worst pain he had ever felt. Darkness. Letum lay breathless on the cavern floor for a long time, and when he finally raised his head, he could not see the sky. When he finally tried to stand, Letum was hit with a wave of agony, and crumpled immediately to the floor. His leg...Letum looked it over. It was either fractured, or badly sprained. A doctor's son, he could only tell that much with certainty, but he was as trapped as if his leg had snapped clean in half. In this pit, no one would find him.

The choice before Letum was simple: die here, or survive. It wasn't a difficult decision to make. In the near darkness of the ravine, he felt around with blind hands until he felt a broken branch suitable to his needs. With strips ripped from his shirt, he managed to splint the battered leg. Struggling, but determined, Letum rose again, shoulder braced against the ravine wall as he tested his weight in the splinted leg. To survive, he would have to walk out of here on his own, and his broken leg would just have to manage. He closed his eyes, took many deep breaths to stop from fainting—

And opened them again to see a golden pair staring into his own.

Letum was too exhausted and frightened to scream. He stepped back, eyes wide with new terror, and nearly crumpled on his bad leg. Somehow, however, he remained standing. Some part of him knew that, to fall now would mean the certain death he was already determined to prevent. For the golden eyes belonged to a great wyvern, folded imperiously on a rock ledge, looking down upon him. She was deep burgundy, like aged wine, and blended in with the dark stone around them. She did not seem overly concerned or hurried by his presence. Obviously, only one of the two here was a threat to the other, and it wasn't Letum. She could eat him at any time.

They stared at each other for a long time, and when the wyvern made no move to attack him, Letum grit his teeth.

"I'm going to get out of here." Who knew if he was declaring this to the wyvern, himself, or the universe at large. "If you're not going to eat me, then I have other things to do."

He turned his back on the wyvern, which took all of his courage to do, and set off hobbling along the narrow ravine. If there was one silver lining to this chaos, it was that he could no longer get lost. The ravine was a single long gash in the earth, like a vein, and Letum only had to decide which way he thought might lead towards life, and which towards death.

His back burned, but not with the sweating effort it took to walk on his fractured leg. No, it was the wyvern's eyes, boring into him. She was following him. No matter how far he walked that first day and the next, he could look back and see her watching from high above, either seated comfortably upon a ledge or clinging to the sheer stone with ease. It was as if she was mocking him—she could leave this place so easily, fly high into the sky and never look back, and yet she followed him. Predator. he couldn't shake the knowledge. She was stalking him, like a wild cat. Letum had read once about how some wolves would follow injured deer until they collapsed, sickness or injury doing half the hunting for them, and feast where their prey lay, whether it was dead or still alive. A cold bead of sweat traveled down his back. No matter what, he must not fall. Her dinner bell would be his death knell.

By the third morning in the ravine, his rations were gone. His water would soon follow. Letum tried not to look at his leg, or else the angry mottled purple and green would make him vomit. It was so swollen that it was hardly recognizable as a leg. He stared straight ahead. Determination alone kept him upright and spurred him on. Determination...and the wyvern. He be damned if the first time he ventured more than one mile from home, he was eaten by a wyvern. Letum didn't know if the reptilian beast was following him or driving him on. There were certainly times where fear of her was the only thing keeping him from sitting down...taking a short break....closing his eyes just for a minute. The young man also found it strangely peaceful to fall asleep looking at her. She might eat him, but she was magnificent. There were worse tombstones than the jeweled belly of a draconic beast, and in the morning, her glossy scales were the only thing reflecting the dim but precious sunlight into the chasm.

The lost young man started talking to her. Not about anything in particular, but in his delirium, she made a suitable ear. Letum spoke of vague facts at first: did you know moss can help you find direction? Though Nohr only has twenty species of native tree that continue to grow in the low light. Concerning native Nohrian species, Nohr had at one point at least twelve higher noble houses sworn to the crown. From there, he started to drift, and speak more of his own life. My father tended to a lesser noble house, once. He's a physician. We don't speak much. He hates me because I killed my mother. He would likely prefer it were I to die here, became food for your great belly.

The wyvern never answered, of course. She kept her huntress's distance and silence. Once, when Letum began to drift, he almost thought he felt a light nudge on his shoulder, and a glimpse of a ridged snout, but when he shook back to awareness, the wyvern was thirty meters away. It was getting more and more difficult to keep alert. How many days had he been wandering in this unchanging ravine, on a broken leg, running out of food and water? Three? Four? At home, these days would have passed quickly. Now six hours seemed an age. If not for the wyvern to speak to, madness might have been a greater danger than death.

A foolish thought. There were greater dangers yet to come. Five days in the ravine—two of them without food, and one without water—Letum heard the first sound other than his own voice. The wyvern growled, a low rumble that he felt shake the marrow in his bones. He stopped, and sought out the wyvern, to find her looming over him, suddenly close....and looking past him. Letum turned slowly, very slowly, and when his eyes finally agreed to focus through hunger and dim light, he saw a second wyvern, poised to pounce.

Any color left in Letum's failing body drained away, but he stood his ground. What else was he going to do? Run? He wouldn't stand a chance. Maybe....Letum didn't have a maybe. He hadn't had a plan for days now. He could only stare down that toothy maw and—

A gust of wind blew his hair into his eyes. Letum didn't see which wyvern had lunged first, but now the wine-red dragon and the new comer were spiraling in an avian grapple. It was almost a dance, save for warring tooth and claw. They fought, making a whirlwind of the dusty cavern floor, and Letum had to shield his face, as though dust was the worst of his problems. He heard roars, and snapping jaws, and when he finally felt a giant muzzle at his back, he was so incoherent with confusion and fear, that he almost confused it with relief.

But the snout didn't gobble him up. It only prodded him insistently, and he grabbed the wine red neck instinctively. In the next instant, he was falling. No! Flying! He was on the wyvern's back, and she was flying him out of the ravine, away from the barren land, above the cloud line, and, and—Letum felt the sun on his face for the first time in must surely be a lifetime.

The rose together, and flew for Letum didn't know how long, but eventually, the wyvern did land. Not far, were the flickering lights of a small town. There were screams as his flying savior landed among villagers walking the road back from the fields to their homes, but one brave woman actually managed to notice the mangled boy on her spiny back. This elderly woman cried out, in horror rather than fear now, and ushered some strong men in the vicinity to help Letum down. This was all Letum could gather before unfamiliar arms and darkness bore him away.

Letum awoke to clean white sheets, agony, and the blissful taste of water on his lips. The woman holding the cup to his lips brightened to see him wake, and explained that he had been slipping in and out of consciousness for a week now. The village medics had done their best for his leg, and fortunately, their elder had some rudimentary healing magic of her own, so while he might be a little wobbly from here on out, he was out of danger. Letum was, uncharacteristically, moved nearly to the point of tears by their kindness, and swore to repay them.

"Well, your wyvern is making the farmhands a little uneasy. Maybe get it out of here, and we'll call it even?"

"...My wyvern?" Letum asked dumbly. He hadn't been very smart the last few days, any way.

"Yes, the beast what flew you here. It's stayed all the while you were asleep. We figured it must be yours, to be so loyal."

The woman helped Letum totter out to the edge of town, where indeed the wyvern laid coiled like a cat. She rose her head as Letum approached, stared, then snorted, as if satisfied. He was amazed. She had stayed. And now, as she unfurled before him, she lowered her neck in invitation.
Letum turned back to the woman and nodded.

"In that case, let me repay you without delay." Startled, the woman tried to stop him, but Letum felt as nimble as a deer, relative to his time in the ravine, and hoisted himself onto the wyvern's back before she could grab him.

"Thank you, and farewell."

From then on, Letum and Persephone were inseparable. With wyvern at his side, and nothing behind him, Letum decided his life was due for a change. He had wasted almost seventeen years locked in a study, reading the same books, when there was so much more out there to perfect. He enlisted in the Nohrian army, inferring that a candidate equipped ready with a wyvern might make an attractive cadet. He joined Nohr's ranks, and together he and Persephone perfect becoming a seamless pair.

In recent years, tensions have grown ever more turbulent between Nohr and Hoshido, and the all-out war which has been lingering on the horizon now crashes about them like a storm, blotting out the sky. But with Persephone with him, Letum knows they will rise to meet it, crest it, ascend above the storm front, and perhaps someday soar into the sun.

▶︎▶︎____________________
T r i v i a :
• Letum is actually afraid of heights and falling. But he trusts Persephone so implicitly that he is fearless while fighting from her back.
• Thanks to his father's profession, and his own studies, Letum is a fair first-aid medic.
• All these years later, Letum does still have a bad left leg from his ravine "adventure," and often requires a brace for mobility.
• Persephone's name comes from a myth Letum once read, about a beautiful goddess rising again to bloom from the underworld. He thinks it suits her.
• Persephone is Letum's best friend. Since he was sheltered as a child, he never really learned how to strike up a conversation and makes friends. He also thinks small-talk is a waste of time, and Persephone is never one to mince words.
• At first, Letum had no idea why Persephone did not eat him right then and there, that day in the ravine. He was simply grateful that she didn't. Once he returned to civilization, however, and enlisted as a Wyvern Rider, he was able to research wyvern behavior, and concluded that Persephone probably did plan on eating him. Wyverns, his superiors in the Wyvern corps told him, only choose riders who can contest with them in a battle of wills. Prove yourself worthy, and they will be an invaluable partner for life. Though his memory of the incident was hazy with pain, Letum supposed that Persephone had seen something in him then—a skinny young man falling into her nest, staring her down, and attempting to walk out of her lair on a broken leg. Maybe she had followed him to see if he could do it, or how long he would last. There is no doubt now in Letum's mind that, if he had fallen at any point then, shown too much weakness, she would have eaten him without thought. Perhaps only when a second wyvern attempted to make a meal of him did she decided that he was worth protecting, worthy of riding on her back to soar above the clouds. Letum was strangely touched by the theory, and was more certain than ever that it was Persephone's will that kept him going those terrible days, and that she had saved him, body and soul.

R P : I prefer longer/Lit RPs, usually on Discord or in Google Docs, but I also love faster group/chat RPs. Either way, find me on Discord, and we can talk about our I--N OCs, and hopefully get something started!
Points: 1350

Description

Update: Sometimes, you just lose a leg and learn some magic

For

▶︎▶︎____________________Letum24 | Male | 5'11'' | 152
Human | 8-24 | Virgo
Nohr

▶︎▶︎____________________
S t a r t i n g C l a s s : Wyvern Rider —>Malig Knight

W e a p o n : Axe: Steel Halberd Axe | Tome: Dragon's Enmity: After combat, inflicts -5 SKL, -5 DEF, -5 RES on Target, and -10 MAG on user until the end of user's next turn.

W e a p o n P r o f i c i e n c y : Tome: S | Axe: C

U n i q u e A b i l i t y : [Perfectionist] If Letum's HP is below half-full, +3 to Skill and +3 to Luck

LVL: 19+
    HP: 40
    STR: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [20]
    MAG: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [50]
    SKL: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [45] (Dragon Hairpin +5)
    SPD: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [40]
    LCK: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [14]
    DEF: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [50]
    RES: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [40]
    MOV: ⌜◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎⌟ [7]

▶︎▶︎____________________
P e r s o n a l i t y :
Letum's birth resulted in his mother's death, and his father treated him accordingly. The relationship between father and son forever became an awkward bond of grief, and resulted in a policy of mutual avoidance. As such, Letum grew up isolated, provided with libraries of books and the finest tutors, but without familial affection. The young man grew up studious, well-mannered and dedicated, and with a social awkwardness that bordered on coldness. Without the introductions to new people and places that are so important in one's formative years, Letum never truly learned how to handle new people, or make strong acquaintances. What he came to value instead were intellect, discipline, and striving for perfection.

After their chance encounter, the wyvern Persephone became his first and truest friend, and with her, Letum learned the meaning of freedom. Only on Persephone's back can he know the feeling of flying loose and fast, trusting his intuition as well as his wyvern's. They work as a seamless pair, one calculating and cold, the other a fiery and instinctive huntress. To this day, Persephone alone can nudge Letum out of his routines and demand he fly with her, leaving the cares of the ground behind. Letum initially had no interesting in making friends with his peers in the Wyvern Riding corps, but since joining the Nohrian forces, exposure to more people on a daily basis has made some dents in his frigid exterior. Letum might never be friendly, but he's developed a kind of droll sarcastic wit that suits army life, and at the very least, earns an amused huff from Persephone every once in a while.

L i k e s: Persephone | Cats | Clear starry nights | Books | Training drills | Schedules | Free-flying on Persephone

D i s l i k e : Slackers | Heights | Being sick | Getting lost | Weather that prevents flying or training | Socializing

H i s t o r y :

The Rise

They say the sun never shines in Nohr, and for the most part, they are correct. Only the strongest of her people survive here, wielding either sword or lineage against the dark to stay aloft. But what happens to those who fall? With no warm sun to turn your face towards, how does one learn to rise again?

Letum's mother, Neta, was not one of the strong. For nine long months of a fitful pregnancy her health declined, and in the end, she did not survive giving birth to Letum. Letum's father, Gulius, was a physician, and delivered the child himself—and was himself powerless to save his beloved wife. That first hour of Letum's first breath marked the beginning of lifetime of father and son standing together awkwardly, unable to say anything at all. The babe didn't scream. The father didn't cry. They simply were, wife and mother growing cold beside them, and the good doctor wondered if his skill had been greater, would Neta have survived?

And was the child's life worth it?

Letum was born in Macarath, to a physician father and only the memory of a mother. His father was a life-long scholar, adept at his trade, and had his practice in the city famous for its medical care. Gulius was a stern and studious man, and the death of his wife only made him delve deeper into the recesses of his work. The door to his office may well have spanned a continent, for all the distance it placed between father and son. Despite his near total absence, however, the doctor managed to impart at least one life lesson unto his young son: emotion leads to agony—only perfection can stave off pain. Devote yourself to your work and no other, and you may find satisfaction. Do your work well, and you will never have to hold failure in your heart. Letum held this mantra in sacred trust. He had killed his mother, and this one message was all he had of his father. Dedication, therefore, became his cause, and he threw himself into his studies with single-minded commitment. His father's cast-away texts were his tutors, and he read them voraciously, wondering if his hands held the books in the same places his father's had.

Letum had little reason to venture outside his family's modest estate. Gulius was either in his office, or at his practice, and did not participate in society. The tutors he hired for his son were the now-retired academics of his own youth, more accustomed to dusty libraries than the fresh outdoors, and who had no interest in encouraging their student to go outside. They were instead pleased with how willing young Letum was to sit at his desk and follow their instructions, absorbing their lectures as plants devour the sun.

In short, Letum grew up to be a perfectionist. Hard on himself, and unable to accept failure, he put all his energy into achieving a standard his father would never notice. What he lacked of heart and soul, he made up for with dedication and meticulousness. Wake with the sun, run laps in the courtyard to stimulate the brain, study the natural sciences until eleven, eat a balanced lunch, mathematics until two, more laps in the courtyard to re-energize in the afternoon, then history and patriotic literature until dinner, 'Hello father, yes my day was well, I hope you are in good health,' bed, all to be repeated the next day. For nearly seventeen years, Letum followed this personal schedule, going without friend or familial comfort, finding satisfaction, if not solace, only in books. Some teachers threw around the word 'prodigy.' Others said such classification diminished the sheer amount of work their young student put into his studies. But none among them seemed to see the drastic flaw in their tutelage, until one afternoon, one white-haired professor looked across the desk at Letum sadly and asked:

"Young man, have you ever even been outside the city's walls?"

For the first time, Letum was unable to answer a teacher's question. Ask him arithmetic, pose a question of biology, and he would have the facts. For this, he had no reply that would satisfy the old man, who seemed suddenly remorseful before him.

"When your father was my student—but, aah..." He shook his head, sighed, and continued the lesson.

The Fall

The words, however, would not leave Letum alone. It fostered a feeling within him that he could not put his finger on, and it was not until some days later that he could put a name to it: Regret. It was both foreign and familiar, dogging his days since birth, yet kept at bay by ruthless routine. This realization made him somber, and then indignant. Should he allow himself to be defeated by this? Everyday, thousands of people traveled the roads between Nohr's bustling cities, or made their livelihoods hunting in her wilderness. Why should it be beyond his reach? And so for the first time, Letum acted impulsively. Before the sun rose on another morning, the young man snuck from his room, and the home he so seldom left, and ventured out beyond the city gates. He was, in his estimation, prepared enough. He had a pack with hearty rations, sturdy clothes on his back, and even an old map from on of his history books. His plan, if it could be called such, was to wander for a few days, and then return home, secure in the knowledge that he could excel on the road as well as he could in his study.

In hindsight, it could have been a better plan.

The first day went well enough. He traveled the main road, alongside merchants and fine carriages. It was easy enough to emulate what they did, stopping at way-stations for food or rest with seemingly seasoned traders, keeping to the populated roads. But this soon dissatisfied him. He did not want to simply take a stroll down the King's Highway, and head home after visiting a few road-side taverns. If he wanted to prove his mettle, he would have to dare to leave the road. On the second morning, he did just that, heading west and away from the domesticated road.

The landscape soon became barren and featureless, and Letum eventually realized that he was lost. All around him was dark, jagged rock and struggling scrub, with nothing to distinguish where he was going from where he had come. He thought he had kept the road to his back, but when he tried to head east again, he came to no paths except those used by wild goats. And thus he passed his third night sleeping upon a rock shelf, with only the starry sky above him for a blanket. He was so exhausted and surly the next morning that he ate more of his rations than he meant to, and only realized the mistake at midday, when he had less to eat than expected. Letum was frustrated. Less with the situation than with himself. He soon realized the map he had was out of date, and what use was history or math here? Clearly, knowing geography and directionals in theory did little to help him in the real world. The sun...if only the sun would shine, then he could find his way back. But the Nohrian sun was weak and shy, diffused through thick clouds, and Letum had to squint long up at it to even guess at his position.

And that's when Letum fell.

Down, down, for hours, days, but in reality seconds. Which way was up, which was down? For a moment he was sideways, wind buffeting his skin, and scraped him along the ravine wall. A sickening crunch! and the worst pain he had ever felt. Darkness. Letum lay breathless on the cavern floor for a long time, and when he finally raised his head, he could not see the sky. When he finally tried to stand, Letum was hit with a wave of agony, and crumpled immediately to the floor. His leg...Letum looked it over. It was either fractured, or badly sprained. A doctor's son, he could only tell that much with certainty, but he was as trapped as if his leg had snapped clean in half. In this pit, no one would find him.

The choice before Letum was simple: die here, or survive. It wasn't a difficult decision to make. In the near darkness of the ravine, he felt around with blind hands until he felt a broken branch suitable to his needs. With strips ripped from his shirt, he managed to splint the battered leg. Struggling, but determined, Letum rose again, shoulder braced against the ravine wall as he tested his weight in the splinted leg. To survive, he would have to walk out of here on his own, and his broken leg would just have to manage. He closed his eyes, took many deep breaths to stop from fainting—

And opened them again to see a golden pair staring into his own.

Letum was too exhausted and frightened to scream. He stepped back, eyes wide with new terror, and nearly crumpled on his bad leg. Somehow, however, he remained standing. Some part of him knew that, to fall now would mean the certain death he was already determined to prevent. For the golden eyes belonged to a great wyvern, folded imperiously on a rock ledge, looking down upon him. She was deep burgundy, like aged wine, and blended in with the dark stone around them. She did not seem overly concerned or hurried by his presence. Obviously, only one of the two here was a threat to the other, and it wasn't Letum. She could eat him at any time.

They stared at each other for a long time, and when the wyvern made no move to attack him, Letum grit his teeth.

"I'm going to get out of here." Who knew if he was declaring this to the wyvern, himself, or the universe at large. "If you're not going to eat me, then I have other things to do."

He turned his back on the wyvern, which took all of his courage to do, and set off hobbling along the narrow ravine. If there was one silver lining to this chaos, it was that he could no longer get lost. The ravine was a single long gash in the earth, like a vein, and Letum only had to decide which way he thought might lead towards life, and which towards death.

His back burned, but not with the sweating effort it took to walk on his fractured leg. No, it was the wyvern's eyes, boring into him. She was following him. No matter how far he walked that first day and the next, he could look back and see her watching from high above, either seated comfortably upon a ledge or clinging to the sheer stone with ease. It was as if she was mocking him—she could leave this place so easily, fly high into the sky and never look back, and yet she followed him. Predator. he couldn't shake the knowledge. She was stalking him, like a wild cat. Letum had read once about how some wolves would follow injured deer until they collapsed, sickness or injury doing half the hunting for them, and feast where their prey lay, whether it was dead or still alive. A cold bead of sweat traveled down his back. No matter what, he must not fall. Her dinner bell would be his death knell.

By the third morning in the ravine, his rations were gone. His water would soon follow. Letum tried not to look at his leg, or else the angry mottled purple and green would make him vomit. It was so swollen that it was hardly recognizable as a leg. He stared straight ahead. Determination alone kept him upright and spurred him on. Determination...and the wyvern. He be damned if the first time he ventured more than one mile from home, he was eaten by a wyvern. Letum didn't know if the reptilian beast was following him or driving him on. There were certainly times where fear of her was the only thing keeping him from sitting down...taking a short break....closing his eyes just for a minute. The young man also found it strangely peaceful to fall asleep looking at her. She might eat him, but she was magnificent. There were worse tombstones than the jeweled belly of a draconic beast, and in the morning, her glossy scales were the only thing reflecting the dim but precious sunlight into the chasm.

The lost young man started talking to her. Not about anything in particular, but in his delirium, she made a suitable ear. Letum spoke of vague facts at first: did you know moss can help you find direction? Though Nohr only has twenty species of native tree that continue to grow in the low light. Concerning native Nohrian species, Nohr had at one point at least twelve higher noble houses sworn to the crown. From there, he started to drift, and speak more of his own life. My father tended to a lesser noble house, once. He's a physician. We don't speak much. He hates me because I killed my mother. He would likely prefer it were I to die here, became food for your great belly.

The wyvern never answered, of course. She kept her huntress's distance and silence. Once, when Letum began to drift, he almost thought he felt a light nudge on his shoulder, and a glimpse of a ridged snout, but when he shook back to awareness, the wyvern was thirty meters away. It was getting more and more difficult to keep alert. How many days had he been wandering in this unchanging ravine, on a broken leg, running out of food and water? Three? Four? At home, these days would have passed quickly. Now six hours seemed an age. If not for the wyvern to speak to, madness might have been a greater danger than death.

A foolish thought. There were greater dangers yet to come. Five days in the ravine—two of them without food, and one without water—Letum heard the first sound other than his own voice. The wyvern growled, a low rumble that he felt shake the marrow in his bones. He stopped, and sought out the wyvern, to find her looming over him, suddenly close....and looking past him. Letum turned slowly, very slowly, and when his eyes finally agreed to focus through hunger and dim light, he saw a second wyvern, poised to pounce.

Any color left in Letum's failing body drained away, but he stood his ground. What else was he going to do? Run? He wouldn't stand a chance. Maybe....Letum didn't have a maybe. He hadn't had a plan for days now. He could only stare down that toothy maw and—

A gust of wind blew his hair into his eyes. Letum didn't see which wyvern had lunged first, but now the wine-red dragon and the new comer were spiraling in an avian grapple. It was almost a dance, save for warring tooth and claw. They fought, making a whirlwind of the dusty cavern floor, and Letum had to shield his face, as though dust was the worst of his problems. He heard roars, and snapping jaws, and when he finally felt a giant muzzle at his back, he was so incoherent with confusion and fear, that he almost confused it with relief.

But the snout didn't gobble him up. It only prodded him insistently, and he grabbed the wine red neck instinctively. In the next instant, he was falling. No! Flying! He was on the wyvern's back, and she was flying him out of the ravine, away from the barren land, above the cloud line, and, and—Letum felt the sun on his face for the first time in must surely be a lifetime.

The rose together, and flew for Letum didn't know how long, but eventually, the wyvern did land. Not far, were the flickering lights of a small town. There were screams as his flying savior landed among villagers walking the road back from the fields to their homes, but one brave woman actually managed to notice the mangled boy on her spiny back. This elderly woman cried out, in horror rather than fear now, and ushered some strong men in the vicinity to help Letum down. This was all Letum could gather before unfamiliar arms and darkness bore him away.

Letum awoke to clean white sheets, agony, and the blissful taste of water on his lips. The woman holding the cup to his lips brightened to see him wake, and explained that he had been slipping in and out of consciousness for a week now. The village medics had done their best for his leg, and fortunately, their elder had some rudimentary healing magic of her own, so while he might be a little wobbly from here on out, he was out of danger. Letum was, uncharacteristically, moved nearly to the point of tears by their kindness, and swore to repay them.

"Well, your wyvern is making the farmhands a little uneasy. Maybe get it out of here, and we'll call it even?"

"...My wyvern?" Letum asked dumbly. He hadn't been very smart the last few days, any way.

"Yes, the beast what flew you here. It's stayed all the while you were asleep. We figured it must be yours, to be so loyal."

The woman helped Letum totter out to the edge of town, where indeed the wyvern laid coiled like a cat. She rose her head as Letum approached, stared, then snorted, as if satisfied. He was amazed. She had stayed. And now, as she unfurled before him, she lowered her neck in invitation.
Letum turned back to the woman and nodded.

"In that case, let me repay you without delay." Startled, the woman tried to stop him, but Letum felt as nimble as a deer, relative to his time in the ravine, and hoisted himself onto the wyvern's back before she could grab him.

"Thank you, and farewell."

From then on, Letum and Persephone were inseparable. With wyvern at his side, and nothing behind him, Letum decided his life was due for a change. He had wasted almost seventeen years locked in a study, reading the same books, when there was so much more out there to perfect. He enlisted in the Nohrian army, inferring that a candidate equipped ready with a wyvern might make an attractive cadet. He joined Nohr's ranks, and together he and Persephone perfect becoming a seamless pair.

In recent years, tensions have grown ever more turbulent between Nohr and Hoshido, and the all-out war which has been lingering on the horizon now crashes about them like a storm, blotting out the sky. But with Persephone with him, Letum knows they will rise to meet it, crest it, ascend above the storm front, and perhaps someday soar into the sun.

▶︎▶︎____________________
T r i v i a :
• Letum is actually afraid of heights and falling. But he trusts Persephone so implicitly that he is fearless while fighting from her back.
• Thanks to his father's profession, and his own studies, Letum is a fair first-aid medic.
• All these years later, Letum does still have a bad left leg from his ravine "adventure," and often requires a brace for mobility.
• Persephone's name comes from a myth Letum once read, about a beautiful goddess rising again to bloom from the underworld. He thinks it suits her.
• Persephone is Letum's best friend. Since he was sheltered as a child, he never really learned how to strike up a conversation and makes friends. He also thinks small-talk is a waste of time, and Persephone is never one to mince words.
• At first, Letum had no idea why Persephone did not eat him right then and there, that day in the ravine. He was simply grateful that she didn't. Once he returned to civilization, however, and enlisted as a Wyvern Rider, he was able to research wyvern behavior, and concluded that Persephone probably did plan on eating him. Wyverns, his superiors in the Wyvern corps told him, only choose riders who can contest with them in a battle of wills. Prove yourself worthy, and they will be an invaluable partner for life. Though his memory of the incident was hazy with pain, Letum supposed that Persephone had seen something in him then—a skinny young man falling into her nest, staring her down, and attempting to walk out of her lair on a broken leg. Maybe she had followed him to see if he could do it, or how long he would last. There is no doubt now in Letum's mind that, if he had fallen at any point then, shown too much weakness, she would have eaten him without thought. Perhaps only when a second wyvern attempted to make a meal of him did she decided that he was worth protecting, worthy of riding on her back to soar above the clouds. Letum was strangely touched by the theory, and was more certain than ever that it was Persephone's will that kept him going those terrible days, and that she had saved him, body and soul.

R P : I prefer longer/Lit RPs, usually on Discord or in Google Docs, but I also love faster group/chat RPs. Either way, find me on Discord, and we can talk about our I--N OCs, and hopefully get something started!
Points: 1350