Rory Michael Kavanagh
D.O.B. 16 August 1920
HOMETOWN Bridgnorth, Shropshire
OCCUPATION Turret Gunner
EMPLOYER RAF
HEIGHT 182cm
VOICE low, soft, and raspy,with a thicker tongue than his father would prefer. He is terse, saving most of his conversations for his sister, Rose
GENERAL APPEARANCE Thick, wiry red hair he used to wear in a well-styled pompadour, but that has since been trimmed short for ease and efficiency by the RAF. A strong brow, crooked jaw, pillowed pink lips and dreary green eyes that are a bit too wide-set.
LIKES tailored suits, well-polished boots, the smell of sweat on a man's neck, american tobacco in hald-rolled cigarettes, hair wax, a close shave, his sister's stationary.
DISLIKES small talk, sun burn, stains in expensive fabric, mess of any sort, really, when men clap him on the back, when women gush over him, being touched by most everyone, really
BASIC PERSONALITY Introverted and poorly socialized, Rory finds he understands people far better from a distance. Despite his impeccable breeding and manners, he tends to blend into the fray while others tend to seek the spotlight. He is intuitive and keen, but he prefers to chronicle his observations in his journals, rather than engage with those he observes. He lacks the mind for numbers and sciences, but he finds a thrill in the exploration of tomes and tales, both fiction and non. Of course, since such endeavors are fanciful and useless, he tends to focus more on his physical excellence. He is very adept at sports and hand-eye coordination, and his marksmanship is a badge of honor for him. Of course, he remains humble before all but Rose, his twin sister, whom he is unabashedly proud and boisterous with.
BRIEF HISTORY Rory lives his life in a series of shadows. The most welcome of which having been the first; the one of his twin sister Rose. Despite being three minutes younger, Rose was a natural-born leader, leaving Rory to happily follow. He found comfort in her shadow, trusting his twin to be social enough for both of them. People often assumed her sunny disposition and social efficiency extended to him, so long as he remembered to smile and nod politely whenever people looked to him for a response. He was able to coast by on his sister’s charm and personality, and he lived his childhood in ignorant bliss of never considering that his own may not be adequate.
Of course, such ease was short-lived. As he approached the transition from childhood to manhood, he was faced with the second shadow he would find himself living in when his eldest sibling, Warren, went off to medical school to follow in his father’s footsteps. Warren was far more eloquent, well-mannered and intelligent than Rory quickly realized he could ever hope to be. It appeared to the younger Kavanagh boy that pleasing their parents came easily to their first-born. He, however, struggled in school; the only saving grace he was afforded was his aptitude for physical education. If it wasn’t for his excellence on several sports teams, Rory may not have graduated at all. The bar his brother had set for pleasing his parents was exhausting for Rory to try to reach, and it only served to show him that, whoever he was, it was inadequate.
Of course, the largest and most detrimental shadow Rory had the crux of dwelling under was that of the expectation his parents had of what their young son would be. For as long as he could recall, his parents had always spoken of the importance of the Kavanagh name; the pedigree and dignity that was expected of one bearing the proud name was never misunderstood. He would excel in his chosen field (preferably medicine, as his brilliant father had), make a reputable man of himself, find a lovely woman of equal (or better) pedigree as himself, and build an equally impressive family that would then carry on the Kavanagh legacy, as had so many generations before him. It was right around the same time that Warren had proven to him that he could never live up to his father’s intellectual prowess that he also realized that building a family would be an even more insurmountable task.
The first boy Rory ever fell in love with was named Iain. It was the summer he turned fifteen, and Iain was a newly hired stable hand. His inky black hair fell in his coal-colored eyes in thick ringlets, and his muscles rippled beneath his tanned skin as he hefted bails of hay or shoveled muck from pens. He spoke in a Scottish accent so thick it sounded less like speaking and more like gargling pebbles. That summer, Rory found an unearthed passion for riding, and his cricket skills developed exponentially. Every night, he would dream Iain would throw him into the fresh straw, smothering him in his weight and the smell of sweat and muck and earth; every morning, he would have to wake early to wash the stickiness from his sheets.
Of course, it was only when the entire nation was cast into the shadows of war that Rory found an answer to the many questions that threatened the certainty of his future. All men could find honor in fighting for his country. So, on September 10th, 1939, Rory Michael Kavanagh enlisted in Her Majesty's Royal Air Force with nothing to lose. He was assigned to work one of the turrets in an A.W.38 Whitley, and he found, for the first time since his childhood, that he had no time or energy to dwell on his inadequacies. And, in doing so, he found he excelled.
