"Well I try to close my eyes
Clear my mind
Just listen to the wildflowers grow
Such whispers on the breeze
It don't come easy now
Over all this noise"
Echo, by Watchhouse
BASICS
NAME: Gorvin ("Vin")
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/Him/His
ORIENTATION: Straight
BIRTHDATE: Late Winter 2730
AGE: 46 as of Early Summer 2777
LOCATION: High Reaches
OCCUPATION: Weyrfolk / Holdless
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'6", Wiry
PLAY-BY: Andreas Pietschmann
FULL APPEARANCE:
Vin is a man on the shorter side with a lean, wiry build that can easily be mistaken for a weak one. He has scruffy brown hair, beginning to gray, that he keeps somewhat long, letting it fall over his face to at least partially obscure the brand on his forehead. He has light brown eyes, and medium-fair skin weathered by Turns in the elements—both before and after being made Holdless. He has a full beard, but keeps it trimmed since coming to the Weyr. His voice is soft, but with a certain strength to it. The quiet isn't hesitance, but simply a lack of volume.
He has a still-distinct burn scar on the back of his right hand, though the wear of age is finally starting to make it more difficult to notice. His hands are often stiff, held in sometimes unnatural-looking positions, especially in the cold and early in the mornings.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Vin is a man whose outward tendencies have been strongly shaped by the life he's led. He has a habit of talking to himself to fill silences, and doesn't like to share what he sees as his. He tends to hoard food and possessions alike, and convincing him not to squirrel food away in his sleeping space will be difficult. He sees every little bit of material as potentially useful, and is loath to get rid of any of it. While he can have difficulty getting close to people, once he does this extends to them too. His people are his, and he can quickly grow jealous. While highly independent, both as a matter of stubborn pride and a fear of the consequences of asking for help, he does still crave companionship. He has a deep-seated mistrust of other Holdless though, assuming that they're all violent criminals even if they claim otherwise--after all, what incentive do they have to tell the truth about their crimes if they are?
He is, by nature, rather quiet and mild-mannered. Despite his many Turns outside of society, he's still outwardly polite and, for his former station, rather well-spoken. He's clearly uneducated, but when he speaks he's a reasonably good orator despite his lack of sophisticated vocabulary. He doesn't make friends easily, but he does make acquaintances. He seems very much like a "turn the other cheek" sort of guy. However, he hides a very strong vengeful side. Vin believes not in justice, but in retribution. He thinks fire has the power not only to burn away material possessions, but also in a symbolic way his own feelings. Only through it can his hope of reprisal be sated. However, he is capable of behaving, curtailing his more destructive urges if only because he knows that he wouldn't survive many more winters alone and isn't eager to live among other Holdless.
Vin has a bit of a sweet tooth and enjoys baking if only because it allows him to indulge it.
HISTORY
FAMILY: None he's in contact with
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: Cothold in Telgar territory
HISTORY:
Vin was the middle child of three boys at a mid-sized farming cothold, and loved his family dearly despite sometimes feeling like a bit of an outsider among them. His parents and brothers were gregarious, outgoing people; Vin was not. Still, he was mostly happy despite often being the target of his brothers' jabs. Mostly. As a young teen, Vin realized the extent of his capacity for grudge-holding when, after his younger brother had made fun of his introversion one too many times, he waited for nobody to be around and then kicked his beloved carved canine figurine into a cook fire. It felt nice, to feel in control for once. To feel like he gave as good as he got despite rarely speaking up in his own defense. To get revenge.
When the charred remnants of the toy were found by a tearful brother that evening, it was assumed that it had been accidentally kicked into the fire. Nobody suspected Vin. Who would believe that he quiet, meek boy had a dark side? And he found that he liked it that way.
Still, for Turns he didn't repeat his actions. It had been an extreme reaction to pressure that had been a long time building, and as he and his brothers grew up sibling squabbles just didn't feel so important. But something else began to build in Vin: love. He noticed a girl named Ellemine, and thought she was just the most beautiful, wonderful person in the world. He befriended her, and they became close. Then one day she told him she'd received a marriage proposal. From another man. Vin had waited too long to speak of his own feelings, and had no way of knowing that they would never have been reciprocated. Their friendship slowly died away, and a grudge began to grow.
Vin was convinced that Ellemine's new husband was not only aware of his feelings, but was flaunting their new marriage on purpose, just to rub it in his face. Why else would they publicly act like such a happy, in love couple every time he was around? For Turns, Vin let his resentment and hatred swell until one day, he couldn't take it any more. He snapped. He planned. He waited for a Gather and, begging off due to his dislike of crowds, went in secret to the man's fields and set them ablaze. He watched them burn, and felt... nothing. No more hate, no more anger, only peace. He barely noticed one of his hands being burned when the stick he had used to start the fire collapsed onto it. He left only at the first sign of shouting as the smoke was spotted.
It was the burned hand that did him in. Nobody had seen him trying to help put out the fire. In fact, nobody could remember seeing much of him at all that day. And yet he had a burn that he claimed was from the firefighting efforts. Justice was swift, for Vin's crime was unforgivable. He was branded and cast out of the Hold.
Vin didn't take particularly well to being made Holdless, though things could have gone worse for him. He knew how to fend for himself, but what he missed most was company. He had none. He didn't trust the other Holdless communities that he knew were out there, considering them all to be violent criminals when he had never hurt anyone. A few times his first winter, he tried begging for food at nearby cotholds. None would help, and come the next spring their fields too mysteriously burned.
He moved south, into what he was fairly certain were Benden lands. The winters were somewhat milder, and even on his own Vin managed to get by. He stole, when he felt he had to. It was a lonely existence, and he sometimes felt the weight of it crushing him. He longed for any sort of human contact beyond briefly trading with other Holdless. Even after he stopped consciously feeling the loneliness, it affected him. He started talking to himself just to hear a voice. He started to wonder if joining up with murderers and worse would really be so bad, but the few times he tried never lasted for long. His demeanor and his stature marked him as "weak", and so he became a target. It only took one person to decide to steal from him to ruin things.
Somehow, he continued. The Turns passed with little to mark them save for his age increasing. In his early forties though, that age started to catch up with him. His hands were a little stiff in the mornings, they ached in even the slightest chill in a way they never had before. It didn't affect him much at first, but it grew worse over time. Preparing his meals became difficult during the winter, and he had to plan his days around not doing much with his hands early in the mornings. Tasks like tanning hides became almost impossible, and he had to trade for the material for his warmer clothing. It was on one expedition to visit a somewhat-nearby Holdless encampment to buy leather that he heard about the chance High Reaches Weyr was offering.
It wasn't nearby. It took him the better part of the next Turn to make his way there, hoping the directions he occasionally managed to get from wary Traders were accurate. But he knew that he had few other options. He was going to have to either try his luck at the Weyr (what sort of suckers were they, anyway?) or with a larger group of Holdless, because he wasn't sure how many more solo winters he might make it through.