Nalvage

Character Theme

Biography

Nalvage Einsof was born between Markev and White Peak, in 1663, until the Staunton Uprising. His father, both a hunter and a soldier, was relocated to White Peak in order to fight against the Renatian reclamation of their southern hinterlands, but was killed in action, resulting in Nalvage's widowed mother, Odava, and sister, Cretti, raising him to the best of their ability. The family moved to a homestead with what they had inherited from Nalvage's father and nothing else, the money was unsustainable, and by the end of the week, they were broke, and with little possessions other than the clothes on their back, they faced a life of hardship, going forward with only half of their family by their side to console one another, uncertain of what the future would hold in store for them. Nalvage was left his father's bow and quiver, and with the help of his family in cutting down the trees on their property, Nalvage was able to fashion and fletch arrows like he did with his father, and pursued to hunt for money. His sister helped to butcher the meat, his mother incapacitated by mental illness and depression after losing her husband and the likes of which restrained her from leaving her chair, and so together the siblings would haul their game to Markev for trade, mostly small game due to Nalvage's stature and age, but as he improved with age, he hunted larger prey. Eventually, the family got back on its feet again, enough so that Cretti could move out of the house, and into the city of Markev where she was apprenticed under a talented seamstress.

That left Nalvage and his mother, who remained a shell of her former self. Nalvage could recall the times he spent on her lap while she read him to sleep, and the evening prayers they would send to the Creator to protect his father. He could recall a time when the house didn't feel so empty, and when he didn't feel like he was choking on his silence, unable to bear the thought of starting up a conversation with her, and hearing nothing. Her eyes didn't move from the ring on her finger, once a source of comfort, now a haunting reminder of her lost love. Nalvage was afraid to stay in the house with her for long periods of time, fearful that he would end up trapped in the past like his mother, and so he went on small camping trips now and again, out in the wilderness. With the tanned leather of other game, he would set up shelters to sleep under while in pursuit of elk, or, when he felt particularly adventurous or confident, wolves. The thrill of hunting a predator was, sometimes, the only thing that kept Nalvage's heart beating in its bony cage, and to escape the shackles of fate, he would put his life in the hands of the Creator, and he would endanger himself with the possibility of being lost in the woods for good, unable to return to a house with a woman he didn't recognize, and to stay in that chamber with her collecting dust until he died.

But every time he finished a hunt and bagged game, he would return home. He would find her in the same chair, and he would give her a hug, and cover her shoulders with a blanket when it got cold.

There was one trip however that would change that. Nalvage went out in the morning in pursuit of a lone wolf whose tracks he'd found the evening before, and following the tracks up into the mountains west of his homestead. It was winter, and after a particularly thick snow, he struggled to find the tracks, only vaguely recalling their direction. The feeling, the desire to be lost, came upon him, and with his enchanted steps, he sought the direction the tracks went in, four about two hours, until he found himself up the mountain, in a thickly-laden forest. Unaware of how far he'd really trekked, he considered turning back, when he noticed movement. Uphill, there he was. A large, peppered-gray wolf, almost perfectly hidden amidst the snow. Its icy eyes hadn't fallen upon Nalvage.

From the corner of his eye, he barely registered that the wolf was not alone. In fact, he hadn't tracked the wolf for a few miles, but rather, it was the wolf that had tracked him. And so, with a bounding charge, a wolf of a pearlescent white coat leapt at Nalvage, and together they rolled down the hill. Nalvage yelped, trying with all his strength to keep the wolf's gnashing muzzle from his nose, dangerously close to losing his face. Instead, the wolf sank its teeth into the boy's arm, almost instantly welling the gray sleeve with a dark red that spread across its length rapidly. Nalvage screamed, alerting the other wolf of his presence. Finally, the two combatants rolled into a tree, Nalvage slamming the back of the predator's head against the solid trunk. The wolf took another bite of his arm, and tears blurred Nalvage's vision. Propping the bow against the wolf's neck, he pushed until the throat collapsed in. From the back, the other wolf attacked, sinking its teeth into Nalvage's leg. The birds flew off the mountain at the sound of the boy's roar, now louder than the snarl of the two wolves. As soon as the white wolf fell to the ground, limp, the young hunter turned to the remaining predator, all he could see was red. He notched an arrow to the creature attached to his leg, and sent it through the skull, leaving the animal dead. 

The snow beneath the tree stained with red, Nalvage fell into the sticky snow, his entire body shaking. Retrieving body wraps from his pack, he bound his wounds. He cursed, realizing he wouldn't be able to bag his share with wounds like this. He may not even be able to hunt for a good couple weeks. He groaned, rising on his wobbly legs, back against the tree, and wandered off the mountain, slowly, and painfully. He made it down the mountain, and actually to the main road between Markev and Arbor before he couldn't move anymore, he blacked out. When he came to, he was on a cot. He called to someone, and discovered that he was being treated in Arbor. He had to be treated for the next few weeks, and would be in rehabilitation for a little longer. So he followed through with the regime the doctors prescribed for him. He rested, and ate, eventually healing enough to begin rehabilitation, and prayed for his mother, and for Cretti to visit her. In Arbor, he demonstrated some of his abilities to the doctors, displaying how he could notch an arrow back into the bow without any tearing along his wounds or scar tissue, his breathing was regular, and that he'd make a speedy recovery if he could return home. Eventually, they released him, and he paid for a carriage to take him along the roads until he could see the mountains in the distance, and walked until he reached his house.

But when he finally arrived back at the homestead, he found the place burned to its foundation, with his mother in the same chair she always sat in, just a charred skeleton. There was nothing that remained, the meat on the drying racks was coal black, the leathers and clothes he owned were now only ashes, and even the very foundation had collapsed, an entire corner of the house sunk beneath the earth. Nalvage couldn't believe his eyes, his heart couldn't hold strong against the mounting darkness. So, he walked to a chair, right across from his mother, sat down, and began to tell her everything. Everything he though of her, every moment he felt like he didn't have control over his life because of her, how badly he missed her after his father passed, and how bad he missed her now. And he sat in that chair across from her, for a week, before he could find the strength to move again. Maybe he didn't care, or maybe he was bitter he couldn't burn another house to the ground with him inside it. But he saw, his father's two war axes survived the flames. So he took them down from where they were mounted in his parents' former bedroom, and departed, trying to cut the weight that dragged him down.

Moving to Markev with his older sister, Nalvage didn't have to wait long before he found employment. Someone approached him, offering him money, and in exchange, Nalvage would accompany the man as a body guard. Mercenary work was far from clean, honest work, but Nalvage had become so numb to the world, to the feelings of others, he accepted the job, and began his line of work as a mercenary. Sometimes he would protect people, sometimes he would have to kill people. His moral compass had vanished, and he felt no reason to feel bad about what he caused in the aftermath. He just wanted the feeling to disappear. Why couldn't the feeling ever just disappear?

It was on a hunt for a particularly popular nomadic bandit troupe that he discovered something he might yet have left to give the world, or maybe something that his world just lacked. Outside of a bandit fort, hidden in the encroaching dusk, Nalvage hunkered down low beneath the brush, spying a large man laden with jewelry. He had seen the man fight in the troupe's own sanctioned tournaments, and his spirit in combat was disturbingly jubilant. Even in those tournaments, he didn't remove any of his trinkets, stating that anything the opponent would steal from him would be theirs to keep. But no one could manage, not even to lop off a finger of rings. The bandit leader sang with ever victory, claiming all his opponent had, sometimes even their clothes. Nalvage didn't understand, couldn't the man fight better, especially if he removed all the metal weighing him down? From what he could tell, it would be too much of a hassle for the man to remove his jewelry before bed, and so he assumed that if he did manage to sneak into his quarters, the man would be like dead weighted to the bed.

This particular night, Nalvage made his move, stealing into the fort, and slipping into the leader's chambers. But he found the leader, not asleep, but awake. In fact, he was reading on a long chair, among stacks of books. The leader made direct eye contact with Nalvage, and closed his book, and withdrew a sword beside himself. When Nalvage tried to retreat, he was met by two guardsmen at the door. 

"Better men than you have tried for my life," The man started, as Nalvage stumbled to the corner of the room, "And many men have tried before you. But none have so fervently observed me. Tell me, what have you learned?" Nalvage, panicked, looked for an escape, but found none around him. But upon meeting the eyes of the bandit leader, he felt his heart steady. The man didn't have murder in his eyes. He had...something else, something Nalvage lacked.

So, Nalvage entertained the leader. He told him all he had learned about him, where to strike him, when to strike him. And as he talked, he realized in all those moments, the man never turned to face his direction. The leader's face was always turned toward someone else, who was turned toward someone else, until...they faced someone turned in Nalvage's direction. When Nalvage told the leader how he had discovered him, the man laughed, jubilant, like he was when he had won against an opponent in combat.

"How grand," He chuckled, sheathing his sword, "Let me tell you something, young man. There are two things you must keep by your side in this world, desperately so, and that is family and books. This is my family," The man gestured to the guards, "And these are my books," He turned to look at the pile of books in the corner, sighing, "And these are my books. You, however, have neither, and I pity you so, you are yet so bright." 

Nalvage, for the first time, felt himself at peace, and validated, and safe. He looked at the man, trying to understand where he was coming from, or maybe trying to understand why his joy was so bountiful. And then he looked at the guards, whose eyes stayed on their leader, not on Nalvage. They trusted their leader's judgement more than their own, like they were looking for the same thing Nalvage was. The man stepped forward, and this time, Nalvage didn't flinch away.

"I want to give you some books, but I can't give you a family. That is something you have to seek out in this world. Not just those of your birth, but that family that is unshakable, that never sways your heart. It is where your heart goes to steady itself. Please," The man rested his hand on Nalvage's shoulder, "It brings me great sorrow to see one so bright dash himself against the rocks. 'I have seen the likes of you before, and I have seen them on every shore,'" he offered a sad smile, "That's something I read in a book, and doesn't it just bring out your best self? The one you're looking for, even now, after hardship?"

Nalvage was silent. But, he rested his head on the man's shoulder, embracing him in a hug. The leader, stiff at first, then took him in his arm, warmly. After the long pause, the leader pulled back, setting to pack some of his favorite books and send them off with Nalvage, strapping them to his back. He sent him safely out of the encampment, before ordering the camp to relocate. Nalvage looked back to see the man, and he still looked so happy to be living the life he wanted, with all the knowledge in the world to comfort him. 

After that, Nalvage returned to Markev. He didn't acquire the bounty for the bandit leader, and he no longer desired to. Instead, he set himself to the books, learning, about how to trade and sell, about the stars, about hunting and local botany, and his favorite books, stories about heroes, and stories about love. So, he set out to find bounties that would take him beyond the scope of his world, and instead send him to new lands, to learn new things. A new, primal desperation to find something this world painted whole with the brush of the people. Whether he have to disguise himself, or consign himself as a soldier, he would seek for something to fight for, something to love.