BLUE JAY. MATEO R. YOUNG — 28, M.
Object Talent: Proficient in using all objects (+) no time limit on proficiency (+) can be used on any man made object (-) proficiency in only three objects at a time (-) does not make you a master, only well-above average.
HISTORY
cw: depression, death
BY DAWN, THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT OF YOU TO BREAK. The willow tree bent to your will, the wind howled your name, and you were left to beg for some semblance of mercy you did not deserve but tried to earn anyway. This is the dogmatic truth, you were a weapon made lethal by choice, a man forced repentant by fate. In your memories you carry a fist full of blood, a back littered with scars, the relief father provides as he gingerly tends to your wounds. You were a boy made of rage then, a summer river whose steam flowed into large bodies of water that tried, but failed, to contain all the hurt you felt. Nothing ever went dark enough for you, no dam could ever stop your anger. A boy like you burned like infinity, a blistering chasm that only widened with time and swallowed everything it ever loved along with it. So when the train comes to a squealing stop, and the midnight cicadas sing a song of farewell, you swear you the stars have never looked brighter than this. You leave not because you can, but because there is nothing they should save of you.
You die just as you had lived, annihilating everything within your path. The beginning is an accidental end, and when you attend your funeral it feels as though time has frozen. They’ve made a grave for you the size of their grief, six feet deep and without a body to mourn for. They lay a magnolia flower on top of your empty casket and it takes the world to stop you from shattering the illusion. Ultimately, you understand that no feeling is ever final, and one day this regret will come to pass like dandelions drifting in the wind. After, when your reflection looks at you without understanding and asks if you can continue like this, you respond that freedom feels fine, feels great, and you convince yourself that you can recreate yourself in the image of a new man. A man who doesn’t destroy but constructs. So you tinker, learn the reverse of what is already easy to you, and make good of the skills you possess. After all, planned obsolescence still requires a destruction of some kind.
CONNECTIONS
SNOW OWL﹒ TELL ME ABOUT DESPAIR, YOURS, AND I WILL TELL YOU MINE
It’s not home, but it’s never had to be. You found each other in the forgotten remnants of your past, tucked away beneath the rubble and the ruin. After everyone fled to their rose gardens and high perched towers, it appeared that you two were the last ones to falter. She was there for the same reasons you were, a longing for companionship even within a dysfunctional group. In that abandoned warehouse hesitation lingered like a ghost you could not say good-bye to. When the moment of terse silence concluded an understanding was made: you will not complete me, but for now you must be enough. This was a friendship made as an outlier in loneliness — nothing more. You do not think about how the silence feels like it might continue forever, or how how you would let it. The world may burn tomorrow, but at least you’d watch it with a friend.
PEREGRINE FALCON ﹒ HOW MANY PAINS MAKE AN AGONY?
cw: violence, guns
It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt. You hear the sound of the bullet before it lodges into her side, before her blood spills on the ground and you have to make a choice: save her or kill everyone else. The others had already moved into position, finding their marks like well-coordinated dancers on a stage they knew well. It was only you who had fallen behind, and PEREGRINE FALCON paid the price of your mistake. Still, your mission had to be completed and so you pried her hand away from yours, feeling guilty at how easy it was to do. Leaders must make sacrifices. So when they go back for her, find twice as many holes in her side than there had been before, they will tell you it wasn’t your fault, there was no other choice. The truth is however, there is always a choice.
THE CORVIDS : MAGPIE & ROOK﹒ WRITE IT BLOOD OR DON’T BOTHER
When you’re inoculated into their circle it is a testament to your resilience that you do not falter under their stare. You’re the last to be introduced and the first to be bested when needed. A roll of an eye there, a quirk of the eyebrow here, they exchange glances between each other that you don’t quite understand and you’re afraid you may never find out. ROOK speaks in low tones and with an expression that belongs on a statue; disinterested and cruel. MAGPIE follows in a similar manner but the voice that calls out to you is kinder, more understanding of your need to be needed. Oh, and that’s difficulty of it all. What they’re good at, you’re great with, and it seems they only come to you when their knowledge of new technology fails. They know don’t know your expertise is mediocre at best, passable at worst; but as you watch them squint at a screen, hesitant at a keystroke, you know you’ll always be needed. They may not want you, that’s fine, but you’ll become indispensable so that they can’t survive without you.
This skeleton is TAKEN by MAR and is portrayed by JOSEPH NORRIS. Their highest stat is INTELLIGENCE and their specialty is MARTIAL ARTS.
