Dylan Laizere

Description

<p><strong>APPEARANCE</strong><br />Dylan is all sleight-of-hand and charlatan smile, the fire-thieving trickster god with fifty-two chances to immortality laid out before him; wrapped in smoke, a lean vision of feathers and fur rendered in cathedral granite. He is sleep and silence, black voids, fine silks and sharp teeth clothed in a suit, looking like some kind of Rat Pack gangster or assassin, an angel of death waiting patiently to collect his dues. Standing at six-foot-seven, he makes for an intimidating figure: broad, square shoulders and a disarming charlatan's grin. His coat is mostly gray, unmarked with the exception of three Grading stripes and the occasional lick of tangerine--over his belly and groin, in horizontal stripes down his back and limbs, and in a mask over his lean, fine-featured face. Between his ears, two ridged horns curve outward from his skull; hard, worn smooth, polished, and an unblemished shade of bone-white, they curl around each ear in a single, tight spiral. His hair is a pale blonde (touched with black and jade-green) that slinks down from his head in an almost mohawk-like fashion. <br /><br />His most distinct features, perhaps, are his scars. Three parallel, inch-thick, pink-knotted ridges of scar tissue run from his right shoulder to his hip, wrapping around his torse and spanning a total of four feet; these are accompanied by a mangled, circular-shaped mass about four inches in diameter on his left shoulder. He is missing the pinkie and ring finger on his right hand, as well as the first joint of his middle finger. All these are courtesy of a draconis rapine he met on Candrice, along with the resulting weakness in his right side and lack of dexterity. A newer disfigurement--the most grotesque of all--marks his face: crushed beneath the rubble of Ajita, ribs cracked, body bleeding out, Dylan somehow managed to survive--but walked away without his left eye and the majority of the flesh surrounding it. A eyepatch masks the empty socket, but he has a habit of touching two fingers to his left brow, as if to make sure that his eye hasn't somehow come back.<br /><br />As for the remaining one--it has been established by those who know him well enough that Dylan's eyes (or eye, really) are the most expressive they've ever come across. Despite his best efforts, intense emotion etches answers in near-English in his single iris, each time threatening to betray dark secrets to the world when it doesn't deserve to know shit about him. For all his efforts to shield the inner layers of himself, his eye betrays him every time. When something disturbs his fragile surface, it shifts to reflect the change—iris movement, nervous glances, and anguished stares alternate to spell out secrets his lips would never tell for the entire world to see.</p>

<p><strong>PERSONALITY</strong><br />Dylan is slow to warm to others; most don't make it past his outward mask (kept only as a courtesy to public society, all suave gentlemanly manners and dapper charm) to even scrape the surface. In public, he represents the eye of the hurricane: slightly withdrawn, eerily calm, watching with total apathy as people flex their muscles and make a fuss when they beat him at something. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he won’t even put in the effort in social situations, his cool, calm arrogance laid out with no accompanying masquerade, and so he has come to rest on the thickly-woven myth of his own brilliance.<br /><br />He is fiercely protective, to the point that it can be a fault; his son, Requiem, and his dearest friend (and confidante, and crush since he was a kid), Koani Grader, are the dearest things in existence to him, and he will stop at nothing to make sure they stay safe.<br /><br /><strong>HISTORY (in brief)<br /></strong>Born in Watani as Dylan Laizere. Family is the cream of the crop. Father is a lawyer; mommy is a psychotherapist. Is the second-youngest of six siblings. Parents hold great disdain for the luoko genes that have come out in him. Starts schooling in Janardan at seven. Majors in conversation, sociology, fashion design, and leadership. At thirteen: seventeen-year old girlfriend is from relatively unwealthy family; gets accidentally pregnant and knows that the family won't let her keep the egg. Dylan says that he'll take care of it, and they agree that he'll raise the kit. However, she commits suicide days later--Dylan holds himself responsible. Deeply affects his view on relationships. Shortly afterwards, he becomes friends with Koani at Janardan. At fifteen, his third-eldest brother, Vercorsae, is diagnosed with a terminal bone disease and dies months later. At sixteen, he, his parents and younger brother are involved at a hold-up in a restaurant. Dylan is the only one to escape. His eldest brother, Xael, aged twenty-six, then became the legal guardian of the siblings. At seventeen, Dylan, hot and raging with hatred for criminals, adds sharpshooting to his repertoire. Joins USR at twenty-two and is privately tutored while in the military; continues with this course for Master ranks. In the same year, he unknowingly fathers his only child, Requiem. When twenty-six, he recieves his first Grading stripe after saving a comrade's life, and becomes a Kugsuem. <br /><br />At thirty-two, he is stationed at Candrice IV. When the rapine come, he runs the evacuation at the base camp and fights until he's half-dead, losing part of his right hand and serious wounds over his torso. He is found and taken back to Ramath-lehi on an airship; although he was able to be saved, he is badly crippled. After earning two more Grading stripes for Candrice IV, he develops chronic PTSD. It grows to such an issue that he has to be dismissed from the USR. At thirty-six, he starts a fashion line called Hearse and hits it real big. Shortly after, he meets his wife (who he doesn't really love), Rail Taiqrez, who works for a special sector of the USR. The two make several attempts to start a family, all of which end in miscarriages. While on an assignment in the Black Market, Rail and her partner were shot by a gang. Her partner died, but she has only minor injuries, and contacts Aci and the USR. Against her advice--and that of the USR--he finds her, kills two of the gangsters, grabs Rail, and makes a run for it. He is shot in the shoulder and ribs and loses conciousness; when he awakes, Rail is dead. Dylan buries himself in business until he meets his son, Requiem, and buys a mansion in Ajita for the two to live in. The two bond very closely, and shortly after a reunion with Koani, Requiem begins dating her son, Cayson.<br /><br />When the earthquakes hit Ajita, Dylan had Requiem leave and stayed behind to assist with the evacuation (oh, 'int it cruel, how history repeats itself?). He was buried in rubble and lost a good deal of the right side of his face and now he wears an eyepatch and feels ugly but he's alive so it's okay. Sort of. :{<br /><br /><br /></p>