Character 100-ish 038: Rutherford
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yrae
I'm going to run out of Llayans pretty soon, I'm sure. I never realised I had so many of them.
Oh no he looks like Jesus.
NAME Rutherford
WHO IS THIS PERSON DRAGON MAN!
GENDER Male
AGE 800-ish; stopped ageing in his 40s
BRIEF BIO Ffffffrig. Okay so. There are kind of two Rutherfords, if we're getting technical. I'll just stick with Real!Rutherford, who was born 800-ish years ago, when the kingdom of Llayad wasn't yet founded. At the time, the lords and ladies had their castles and their people, and identity didn't go much further than that. Rutherford was one of the random peasants living in the north of the not-yet-kingdom. As a child, he saw a lot of battle and violence. His friends, his lords, his neighbours, his family, everyone around him was injured or killed in raids, in feuds, in ugly violence. The new lord, not much older than teenage Rutherford, had promised an end to it all, but when his own parents were killed, the young lord only cared for vengeance.
It was then that Rutherford lost his faith in people and learned to fear death. He ran away into the mountains, not to die, but to instead search for dragons. Dragons were more common at the time, though people were hunting them for glory or riches or whatever, and the legends of their impossibly long lives were much more well-known. It wasn't long before he met Oak, a dragon the size of a freaking forest, and begged to learn the secret to eternal life. Oak didn't trust him at first--she never does with humans--but allowed him the chance to prove himself. So over the next thirty years, Rutherford lived in the mountains protecting the dragons from hunters. This is where fictional!Rutherford's story effectively starts, when Oak bestowed on him the secret of eternal life, but on one condition: Rutherford had to care for Oak's egg and, when it hatched, raise the dragon until it was able to hunt for itself.
So Rutherford cared for the tiny acorn-sized egg until, after a hundred and fifty years, it hatched into a tiiiny little thread of a dragon called Olive. After nearly 200 years in the wilderness by this point, having had no human contact, Rutherford ventured out into the world just to see if anything had changed. Things had--Llayad was now a thing--but the people had only just begun to change. There was considerably less fighting between castles, but now the nobility was oppressing the peasantry. So. Screw you, humanity. He buggered off back to the mountains, but not before a story teller could romanticise his life and turn it into Dragon Boy.
Many many years later, I think another hundred or so, Yan sought him out and, more specifically, sought out Oak. After hearing his story, Rutherford could kind of understand Yan's desperate need for life, and helped him to gain Oak's trust. Over the decades the two became friends, being the only two eternal people in the world. Rutherford could get his news on how the world was oh-so-slowly improving but still too set on killing the enemy without having to venture out into it, and found that Yan had a similar outlook on life, its value and the need to preserve it.
So that's been his life for the last 500 years or so, living in the mountains with the dragons, seeing Yan whenever he drops by, chatting to random travellers who pass him by but never seeking out the masses.
CHARACTER Hopeful recluse. He's moved past his childhood and doesn't judge humanity on its errors of hundreds of years passed, but on what progress they've made. He lives in hope that some day the world will settle down enough that he can comfortably go back to live in it, but he's comfortable enough with the little personal company he receives. He's a peaceful man who spends much of his time in philosophical thought.
POINTS OF INTEREST
He has dark brown eyes, which I only mention because they're closed in his portrait. He also doesn't look like Jesus, but eh, you win some you lose some.
Rutherford plays a musical instrument called a lap harp, which looks something like a cross between a guitar without the neck and a harp. It rests on the player's lap and is either plucked or strummed.
He's never left Llayad; not only does he not speak any other languages, but even his Llayan is now pretty archaic.
DRAGONS.
FSKING DRAGONS. YOU DON'T GET MORE INTERESTING THAN THAT.
Ironically, fictional!Rutherford was created first, and I liked him so much that he became real. Initially Ackerley also existed but didn't manage to win Oak's trust enough to learn the secret of eternal life from her, but then I decided that doesn't work because Ackerley was the main character and therefore was just the self-insert of the kid the story was being read to. So Ackerley isn't real but Rutherford and his dragons are.
Oh no he looks like Jesus.
NAME Rutherford
WHO IS THIS PERSON DRAGON MAN!
GENDER Male
AGE 800-ish; stopped ageing in his 40s
BRIEF BIO Ffffffrig. Okay so. There are kind of two Rutherfords, if we're getting technical. I'll just stick with Real!Rutherford, who was born 800-ish years ago, when the kingdom of Llayad wasn't yet founded. At the time, the lords and ladies had their castles and their people, and identity didn't go much further than that. Rutherford was one of the random peasants living in the north of the not-yet-kingdom. As a child, he saw a lot of battle and violence. His friends, his lords, his neighbours, his family, everyone around him was injured or killed in raids, in feuds, in ugly violence. The new lord, not much older than teenage Rutherford, had promised an end to it all, but when his own parents were killed, the young lord only cared for vengeance.
It was then that Rutherford lost his faith in people and learned to fear death. He ran away into the mountains, not to die, but to instead search for dragons. Dragons were more common at the time, though people were hunting them for glory or riches or whatever, and the legends of their impossibly long lives were much more well-known. It wasn't long before he met Oak, a dragon the size of a freaking forest, and begged to learn the secret to eternal life. Oak didn't trust him at first--she never does with humans--but allowed him the chance to prove himself. So over the next thirty years, Rutherford lived in the mountains protecting the dragons from hunters. This is where fictional!Rutherford's story effectively starts, when Oak bestowed on him the secret of eternal life, but on one condition: Rutherford had to care for Oak's egg and, when it hatched, raise the dragon until it was able to hunt for itself.
So Rutherford cared for the tiny acorn-sized egg until, after a hundred and fifty years, it hatched into a tiiiny little thread of a dragon called Olive. After nearly 200 years in the wilderness by this point, having had no human contact, Rutherford ventured out into the world just to see if anything had changed. Things had--Llayad was now a thing--but the people had only just begun to change. There was considerably less fighting between castles, but now the nobility was oppressing the peasantry. So. Screw you, humanity. He buggered off back to the mountains, but not before a story teller could romanticise his life and turn it into Dragon Boy.
Many many years later, I think another hundred or so, Yan sought him out and, more specifically, sought out Oak. After hearing his story, Rutherford could kind of understand Yan's desperate need for life, and helped him to gain Oak's trust. Over the decades the two became friends, being the only two eternal people in the world. Rutherford could get his news on how the world was oh-so-slowly improving but still too set on killing the enemy without having to venture out into it, and found that Yan had a similar outlook on life, its value and the need to preserve it.
So that's been his life for the last 500 years or so, living in the mountains with the dragons, seeing Yan whenever he drops by, chatting to random travellers who pass him by but never seeking out the masses.
CHARACTER Hopeful recluse. He's moved past his childhood and doesn't judge humanity on its errors of hundreds of years passed, but on what progress they've made. He lives in hope that some day the world will settle down enough that he can comfortably go back to live in it, but he's comfortable enough with the little personal company he receives. He's a peaceful man who spends much of his time in philosophical thought.
POINTS OF INTEREST
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Date: 2014-02-24 09:39 am (UTC)You are awesome! =D
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Date: 2014-02-24 11:03 am (UTC)