Orphvius

Felwinter Cala'cast was always up to trouble. This was usually in the form of petty crimes that no one could prove, or much cared to prove. This was possibly caused from the lack of attention his single father was able to provide. Being a single parent was difficult, and life was rough on the borders of Norland. Felwinter's father was the caretaker of the deceased, he pulled the forsaken bodies out of the cold waters of the nearby river and laid them to proper rest under the earth. Felwinter looked much like his father in many ways. He was lean and thin with high cheekbones, dark hair, and pale skin. He was also on the smaller side and tended to have a large personality to compensate with the burlier Highlanders that surrounded his youth. And unlike his father, he did not appreciate his family's line of work. Or the dead strangers frequently taking refuge inside his home. After one particularly rough day Felwinter laid down to rest in his threadbare bed and somber off to sleep. He felt a pressure on his chest, as if someone had laid iron in his lungs. Soon the pressure woke him from his slumber, and he tried to lift his head. He couldn't. He was frozen. His heart raised and fell in his throat and in the corner of his shared room he saw a figure standing erected in the gloom. Time seemed to slow as the tall hairless humanoid danced into place beside his bed. It smiled without eyes. Yellow teeth splayed in an unnatural grin as it reached out to touch the boy's face. But it didn't, instead the hand slid next to his ear and the other hand mirrored the action and together he pinch the ends of Felwinter's ears. His head started to ring, and the monster muttered "Da halfwicc ma" right before the boy slid into unconsciousness. Gossip spread that children were being visited by evil fae and demons, this had little effect on the people of the village, it was simply nonsense. But as the children's cries became worse and worse the more religious folk among the village started to worry the children were being cursed and they gifted the children talismans of protection against the dark such as hagstones and tiny silver trinkets, the witch metal, to ward off the dark forces attacking them. (Religious not magic) After the adults had proven they could not protect them against these monsters the thirteen children could only find solace in their own kind. They met and devised a plan to escape into the woods and find the source of their curse. They set out through the mountains away from home, farther away than any of them had been before. eventually, the party came across a Shepard's field. The grass was dried and barren in strange, seemingly random patches across the grove where black wooled sheep lay rotting and dead. Traveling uphill they found the Shepard's cabin laying lonely and whitewashed from the winters bleak sun. Knocking on the door the elderly blind Shepard was met with the company of 13 young children between the ages of eleven and fourteen. The ancient Norlander told them of how crows had been spotted flying in strange circular flight paths from the woods and landing in his field planting strange white seeds, killing the grass. On occasion they would attack a sheep and plant the seed in its eye or open wound turning it's wool black and sickly and it soon being put out of its misery. That was how he lost his sight; he was attempting to scare the crows away from attacking his prized ram when they turned on him, scratching his eyes out with their talons. He ran quickly to avoid the seed, but his prized ram was killed in the process. The children asked where the birds hailed from, and the man pointed roughly southeast. The children followed a bleary path through the dense woods and came across a small fortress of black stone and a yard of dry weeds. Young workers labored in the large yard, filling up holes with coarse earth. The workers whose eyes were the deepest black kindly showed the children inside. The interior happened to be a library full of large shelves and thickly bound books and oddments of all sorts. Most areas were courted off with deep red veils that limited one of the long halls to a strangely disproportionately large door in its tiny, warped frame. Behind the door led a stairwell that wound deep into the mountain. At the end there was a large office that was filled with exquisite oil paintings of birds of all breeds. Behind a desk covered in books, candles, and keys sat a tall handsome man with dark skin, long hair, and those black eyes. He greeted the company and welcomed them to 'The Midnight Library'. He explained that they were drawn here by the book of Reni Malisif which had the gift to draw in the corrupt. (Sorry, this is taking forever, and I don't want to explain everything in detail. Basically.. they steal the book from Mr. Morningside, the man behind the desk and run off into the woods with magic plot armor aiding them. Now they are attempting to destroy the Reni Malisif) The children of thirteen stood in a circle, taking their shoes off and slicing their palms and bottoms of their feet as to bind themselves to the earth, and to each other as brothers and sisters. Next, they dropped blood onto the book into the center, one from every hand. They let the book ablaze to release their curse. The book fought back. The blood was drawn from their hands and feet and the ichor crawled onto the book to extinguish the fire leaving the cover only slightly singed, but the pages were leaked red. The children's skin became cold and hearts colder. They bound themselves in blood and swore to protect the book from the followers of Mr. Morningside. They made a sanctum of protection laying out stones around their small clearing which they named, Phantom Forest, after the one-eyed spectral hound, Black Shuxz, which prowled the boarder of their new home. After several years the children, now nearly adults, discovered a new way of life. They ate the fungus and the plants and fish from the stream and even found a new worship. They believed sleeping under the moon protected them from the demons and named the entity, The Allshadow. They often celebrated and danced under the Allshadow's grace, singing to the night and naming the stars above. But, after a time the children, who were no longer children began to fight over the book, debating how they might destroy it once more, who would keep it safe. Felwinter, or Sixth brother he was called, also the youngest decided to act, the book could not fall into the wrong hands and the Order of Reni Malisif was no longer safe. That night the book was stolen and Felwinter ran. They followed. He had planned this and built a small raft to get him across the water and onto the other side, the others could not follow and without the power of the book, the sanctum was ruined and Black Shuxz could enter the Phantom Forest at last. Felwinter would start his journey into society after six years in hopes of learning of the arcane, unseen, and a way to destroy the book properly. (Alright so note time. If you haven't guessed already Felwinter suffers from sleep paralysis except on a more fantasy/extreme level where he experiences things that aren't really happening and can't separate fantasy from reality. Obviously, there is no magic involved here, well unless you want there to be I suppose but I doubt that.. anyways the only real strange thing that has happened here that was probably real was the fact the 13 children had sleep paralysis roughly at the same time which sleep paralysis can be caused by stress and possibly depression. Not sure what that implies or if you're going to allow that but this story is told from this kid who is very troubled obviously and when he goes into the real world it will be a journey of figuring out what has really happened to him. The Midnight library is not a real place, most likely made from some ruin or something that the children.. or maybe it was only ever Felwinter.. slept in and he filled it in in a dream or something. Another thing here that is odd is the book of Reni Malisif which is a real physical book. This book was probably a childhood sketchbook that was turned into basically a Book of Shadows which is like a witch journal. The reason his hands/feet are cold are from the cold weather and probably some kind of frostbite that renders his hands pretty frail and weak. So yeah, I think that covers it- and no, this character won't act like a total crazy person and will instead have odd tendencies like refusing to travel at night during a new moon and never letting anyone touch the book. So yeah, that's the character, if this doesn't work out which I totally understand because it's kinda a hard character to make sense of and really let into your world let alone deal with but if it is something you may like or if you need any changes then let me know and I can change it or maybe make a new character, or not.. whatever's your fancy One more note, where the hallucination demon touched Felwinters ears, he slit the tips of his ears off to points)