âItâs a hard question, âWhat do I do with all that darkness? How can I live with it and still be free?â I think the answer is⊠you donât.
You don't live with it and also be free. You live with it instead of being free, and you build something worth building anyway.
You keep walking. Thatâs enough.
Everything else is what happens between the moments where life lives.â
Age: Unknown, likely mid to late 30s
Character Concept: A person made into a weapon, who chose to be a shield instead, traveling town to town, a healer with a shadow in their bones, with a past that made them a killer but could not make them cruel, answering the question âHow can I live with it and still be free?â with the only honest response.
A biological chassis retrofitted with something cosmic, taken by surgeons and grafted with alien night that merged into the darkness that lies just under the skin, with the result being a body that is no longer entirely either. Most who endure the process die on the table, but those to whom the shadow takes are no longer one creature, being instead two things sharing one shape that has adapted to accommodate both, a compromise between the frame and a passenger that doesn't fit.
Its name is that of an effigy, vanishingly rare, made of wax ceremonially sculpted for magical purpose, the act of making a likeness, shaped to contain a spirit, to bind or harm, to be pierced, bound, controlled, designed for use as a warning, or a weapon, by its makers. The body of an invult heals differently, moves differently, perceives things mundane senses shouldn't catch, with faculties that extend past where human senses end and reflexes that answer to two minds instead of one, pulled from the blackness between stars woven into a single body.
The child who would be Quin was born into a people scattered by war, a diaspora with no homeland left, only memory and movement, dispossessed from a legacy reduced to stories and rumours, childhood tales and whatever could be carried on their backs. Their family settled in a border town that didn't want them but tolerated their labour, fleeing the war, the atrocities, Quin had a different name then, lost as they ran alongside friends, family, all hoping to escape; the war found them anyway.
When the camps opened, their family was rounded up in the first wave;Â refugee stock was easy to process, cheap, the child watched their parents processed into a different line, learning early that grief is a silence you carry in your teeth. They were separated because they fought, not heroically, just desperately; a guard's nose broken with a rock, three teeth knocked loose before they were restrained, they can still feel the blood of the finger they took from one of the men.
Their parents were the lucky ones.
Eradication would have been easier.
Resistance earned them something worse than a quiet death, for so it went that the institution had a project and a need for fresh bodies, for test subjects who wouldn't simply hollow out and expire, individuals with will, troublemakers, survivors. People who clung to life despite all odds, who met the implacable end planned for them with every ounce of strength they could smash against that ungiving wall and still struggle to stand when their body pleaded that they, please, just fall.
They never learned the project's official name.
The subjects called it "the rending" in whispers, in the dark, in the spaces between procedures.
The goal was hybridisation, or so the rumours went, of grafting something Other into a living human vessel, something not native to the material plane, something pulled squirming from the blackness between stars, where the ordered curve of space gave way, beyond the colours of time that they fished out of the dark and tried to domesticate. Most subjects died on the table, while some survived the initial surgery only to degrade over weeks, their bodies unwinding at the seams, a few lasted months, their decline tracked with detached precision, compiled with exactitude in the projectâs notes, twelve bodies that no one would ever see in the light of day again.
Subject R-EH-4091-V did not decline.
The thing grafted into them was shadow, not darkness as absence of light, but darkness as substance, the stuff that waited behind the eyes, that pooled in the back of the mind, spawning fears and doubts to accost waking thought, the weight at the bottom of the world. It settled into their bones like it had been waiting, speaking to them without words, it showed them the shapes behind the surgeons' eyes, peeled back the layers of body and mind like the thin film between onion skins as it scraped raw the nerve of who they were and left bare what remained.
The void that was supposed to empty them out instead filled them with something that knew how to survive.
The R marked their bloodline, the dispossessed of a people deemed unfit to live in the shade of the new regime, the EH marked their defiance, the 4091 was just the next number in the sequence, the -V was added later, in different ink, when the surgical team took interest. Already they bore the mark of their claim, the symbol of a black triangle, inverted, engraved in heavy sable on the back of their left shoulder; it had been applied early, asocial, the camp's designation for those who wouldn't conform, wouldn't break properly, couldn't be classified.
The irony, they learned later, was that the black triangle was meant for prisoners deemed "workshy", and here they were, the hardest-working subject in the project, their body endlessly adapting, endlessly enduring, because it refused to do the decent thing and die. A thing of ink and raised scar tissue, darker than the surrounding skin, they didnât know it but, when the shadow inside them stirred, when the hunger and despair and the desire to kill their captives became the whole of their thought, the edges of the triangle sometimes blurred, drifted, like ink in water.
When the project ended, Subject R-EH-4091-V was scheduled for termination along with the other V-series survivors, someone higher in the chain of command lost funding, or lost interest, or lost a political battle, whatever the case, the camp was liquidated, all evidence was to be destroyed. But they didnât die, when the guards came and the fires were stoked, the scent of chemical poisons thick in air abuzz with the anxieties of changing tides, they didnât walk like so many others, bare shoulders hunched against tho cold and the dread, the knowledge of what was to come.
The shadow showed them how, unfolding in a cloak of crooked, unnatural limbs to make of them a thing of darkness and movement that carved through the guards and fences as they passed, feeling nothing but the impact of fist and boot and bullet as they pulled the camp apart in a cathartic tempest of fear and grief and rage. They emerged into a world that had not been waiting for them, no army, no resistance cell, just open ground and a sky they hadn't seen in years; when what was left of the camp was out of sight they found a clearing, surrounded by trees and sank into the grass, lost in the sounds and scents of living things long forgotten.
To scream and rend the ratted prison uniform that was all they knew, to vent their emotion to the unblinking sky.
The designation on their forearm reads R-EH-4091-V, inked with the same mechanical precision as everything else; they can't remove it, haven't decided if they want to, but, over time, they derived something pronounceable from it, and that became what they answer to. âQuinâ, a traveling scholar gave it to them, a person with kind eyes and poor boundaries who had asked their name in a roadside inn; when they opened their mouth to answer, they could find the name they knew, it just wasn't there anymore, only the number which they shared in their helplessness.
The man nodded but didnât press, instead taking pen and paper to work it out; in his words, the numbers on their arm reduced to 5, Quintessence, the fifth element, the substance of stars, that which binds the earthly and the divine. It was the sum of everything, of life, the universe, the gradient of all that was and all that had been, of all that had been done to them, compressed into a single syllable; so, they chose it, the first thing they'd chosen since before the camp.
In the time since, Quin has taken to travelling and the world, as it is wont to do, has moved on.
They donât know what to call themselves, a freelancer, mercenary, a soldier of fortune in a world that has moved past the war they knew into yet more distant atrocities, but the people who witness them have a thought or two, filling the gaps with rumours that follow in their wake. Some say they're a ghost, a camp victim who doesn't know they died, and some say they're an avenger, hunting down everyone who wore the insignia of their nationâs greatest shame, some say they're just a wanderer with a talent for violence, earning just enough coin through cards to pay their way.
Some call them a hero, helping towns too small to matter to anyone else.
"Quin" is what they offer. Just Quin.
The rumours fill in the rest.
All of them are true. None of them are complete.
Quin doesn't care about completing the picture, they have their own mouth to feed, a body that still surprises them with its capabilities and a shadow inside that sometimes whispers directions to places they've never been, following when the whisper makes sense, resisting when it doesn't. The marks that were laid upon them remain as reminders; they were classified as asocial, a thing that couldn't be integrated, couldn't be made to fit; the classification was correct, theyâve never once thought what it might mean to settle down, to build a stable life.
Most days, they donât even remember the faces of those they had lost.
The institution's mistake was thinking that was a weakness.
They travel light, helping wherever they can.
They are Quin. The fifth. The quintessence. The sum.
And they are not finished yet.
Professor Aldric Teague: A linguist and folklorist who collects dying languages the way other scholars collect rare books, with a particular taste for the eldritch. His research has a way of brushing against things that powerful people would prefer stay buried, a habit that will eventually get him killed if someone isn't there to pull him out.
He gave Quin their name because he couldn't bear to call a person by a number, and he has written to them ever since, his letters rambling and warm and full of questions he doesn't expect answered. Quin keeps the letters in a waterproof case, and they have never once asked him to stop writing; sometimes they find the words to write back, and if they know where theyâll end up, they make sure he will too.
Lin: A clerk who processed intake forms, requisition orders, and disposal records for the project, and who told herself for years that pushing paper wasn't the same as holding the scalpel. She knows exactly how many people went into the camp and how few came out, and she has spent every day since the liquidation trying to balance a ledger that cannot be balanced, because she knows it should have stopped.
Quin found her three years ago, running a network that smuggles survivors across borders, and they have an arrangement now: Lin provides intelligence on active projects, and Quin provides a silence she mistakes for complicity, where all they see is guilt. She doesn't know that Quin knows who she is, or that they still count her among the names, and Quin canât decide whether her atonement is real, or that they can keep choosing, over and over, that helping works on her too.
Another V-series survivor who walked out of the same project and reached a different conclusion about what the world deserves, an efficient, clean and final solution. EnsĆ believes that institutions like the one which made them cannot be reformed, only dismantled, and is willing to work alongside monsters just long enough to ensure the fire takes.
EnsĆ and Quin cross paths every few years, share a meal, trade information, even work together when the need is great enough, parting ways before the tension in the room becomes a fight neither of them wants to finish. EnsĆâs patience is absolute, carried by the same dedication as Quin, marked by a ruthless quiet that makes them look downright chatty, the only thing wrong being the assumption that Quin would ever agree with them.
Short Term: To end every fight with more people breathing than when it started and not to hesitate when it can't be done.
Long Term: To keep walking until the road runs out, and to leave something useful behind when it does.
Personal: I survived because something in me refused to die. I still don't know what that thing is. I'm traveling until I find out.
Quin is tall and lean, carrying themselves like someone who's been walking long enough that stillness feels unnatural, with clothes to match, practical, road-worn, layered for weather and wear, a deep hood, gloves, a coat that's seen years of sun and rain and hiking boots that have been resoled more than once. Their hands are scarred, among them the number on one forearm, and the inverted black triangle that sits on their left shoulder, visible when their collar shifts, each rendered with mechanical precision, the marks of a past that they donât hide but donât ever intentionally draw attention to.
Everything about them speaks to someone who has been on the road a long time and isnât planning to stop, but although their face is watchful and hard to read, it doesnât take much to surprise a laugh out of them, crinkling their dark eyes at the edges, a flash of uneven teeth, bright against darker skin. They wear piercings, through one eyebrow, their bottom lip, an earring that rings with the sound of a small bell, all of it topped by a mess of hair parted to one side and long enough to pile at their shoulders, the whole giving them a rough and tumble exterior that sits counter to an easy smile.
That casual manner vanishes the moment the atmosphere cools, their languid demeanour revealing itself for what it really is: the calm, loose bearing of someone who has been holding themselves in check with respectful constraint, and constantly gauging just exactly how much pressure to exert. When the moment comes and all warnings fall away, not so much an act of will but a loosening of control; the air crystallises around them, a shimmer of solidified force that catches the light like oil on water, dark and iridescent, something that isnât quite metal or cloth but protective just the same.
As the transformation is completed, their silhouette has sharpened, not so much armoured as completed, like this was the shape they were always meant to hold and the mundane body was just the waiting, their movements flowing like the interplay of shadows and light. Dramatis personified, a featureless visor hides their eyes behind a mirror, the sheer black of the whole of their form broken by lines of white tracing along the edges of the faceplate, down forearms and legs like gauntlets and greaves, meeting as a heavy belt at the waist.
But what stands out most is the scarf, a bolt of substance that doesn't sit on their shoulders, but streams behind them, impossibly long, catching air that shouldn't exist, wrapping their body and accentuating their motions. It blurs their silhouette into overlapping afterimages every time they move, drawing their enemies to swing at where they were, where they seemed to be, where the scarf suggests they might be, none of them Quin, dancing in the spaces between.
In public, Quin is quiet, but itâs not brooding, they've just learned to be watchful, lending them a thoughtful reservedness and, because of that, they notice things, sharing what they see in short, direct statements, no drama, just facts, because itâs easier that way. In a fight, they're fluid and relentless, the shadow comes out to play, and they let it, but when the fight ends, they put it away again, because, even though they know that there are times when it simply cannot be avoided, theyâd prefer not to hurt if they can help it.
But silence isn't absence, when someone tells a joke, Quin listens and, when it's funny, they laugh, sometimes too loud or at the wrong moment, sometimes at something that wasn't meant to be funny at all, a strange relationship with joy that hits them harder than they expect, that lands whenever it lands; most people just assume they're strange, and the ones who don't assume they're kind. It catches people off guard, a child tugs at their sleeve and instead of brushing past, they crouch down, all two metres of them folded like a praying mantis, to listen with complete attention; theyâll share their food with strays or remember the names of innkeepers and the help, not because they're trying to build a reputation but because it matters and they pay it forward without ceremony.
With companions, they're present without having to make it a performance, without demand, protective in ways they don't know how to articulate; they'll stand between an ally and danger without announcing it, without explaining what it cost them or take watch during the longest stretch of night because they don't sleep well anyway. They don't fill silence with stories, but if someone else is talking, they're listening, really listening, the kind of attention that makes people feel seen, and if asked a direct question, they answer honestly, sometimes too honestly, because their filter between thought and speech got damaged somewhere along the way.
With enemies, they're terrifying, not because they rage or threaten, but because they don't stop, not for hurt or pleading, not when someone else is in danger because of who they face, walking through darkness and silence and pain like those things are old friends, because they are. But thatâs where the light breaks through sideways, because they always give a warning first, just one, but if the enemy laughs, if they press, if they threaten someone under Quin's protection, then the shadow eats, and Quin doesn't pull the leash; they offered.
The warning was the feeling. What comes after is just physics.
After a fight, they put the shadow away, though it doesn't always want to go, and sometimes their hands shake, sometimes they have to walk away from the scene and breathe through it, counting backward until the numbers are just numbers again. When they come back, they're Quin, they check for wounds, and they've lost track of the times they've stabilised a dying stranger who tried to kill them five minutes earlier; when asked why, they don't have a philosophy, they just know that they can fix hurt.
It's that simple. It's that impossible.
The combat, the danger, the adventure, those aren't the point, only the intervals, and the fighting is just what they have to do so that life can keep happening, neither a curse or a burden, but a tool broken and reassembled, not the shadow or the camp or the number on their arm. Those are simply circumstances, they're what happened to Quin, and they're what Quin can do, but they're not who Quin is, because who they are is someone who helps where they can and smiles, knowing that theyâve made people happy; those who would, couldnât manage to take it out of them.
They don't talk about the camp, not because it's sacred but because it's boring; the camp was small, cruel, but small and the world is so large, it has bread and sunrises and people who say thank you and mean it and they'd rather pay attention to that, because the past is a number on their arm and the present is a road that needs walking, a town that needs help. They're not healed, but they're not trying to be, because the shadow isn't going anywhere, and they've made a kind of peace with that, but healing and wholeness are different things; wholeness is a kind touch, a shared meal, a dumb joke, a child's wave, the moment after a fight when everyone is still breathing and the adrenaline fades, when life fills the space carved out by the pain.
Moral: No one else gets broken on my watch. I know what the inside of a camp looks like, I won't be the force that puts someone there, and I won't stand by while it happens.
Aspirational: Being alive is good. Everything else can be figured out from there.
Methodological: Adapt, endure, outlast. The project taught me that survival isn't about strength, just refusing to fold when every system is designed to make you fall.
Internal: Sometimes I forget to eat. Sometimes I forget to sleep. Sometimes I forget I'm not still in the camp. The shadow remembers for me, and what it remembers is worse.
Moral: I don't know how to stop. Mercy was a procedure to the surgeons. I know how to heal and I know how to kill, but the space between, capture, surrender, letting someone walk away, that's a language I never learned.
Social: I answer questions with silence. Not to be cruel. I just forget that other people need words. The shadow doesn't use them. Neither did the guards, really. Orders and screams, mostly. Conversations are still... difficult.
