Mer Sil'Sunderland
Details
Full Name: Mer Sil'Sunderland
Race: Sil'Norai
Sex: Male
Age: 18
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 130 lbs
Birthdate: 19 Frost 4604
Birthplace: Unnamed Settlment near Sunderland, Radenor
Profession: Ranger
Housing: None
Partners: N/A
Sexuality: Gay
Titles: Self-Appointed-Gentry
Factions: N/A
Fluencies: Common
Ineptitude: Silvain
Appearance
The pride and joy of House Olsen; Mer found himself often draped in finery. He stood shorter and leaner than most Sil’Norai, which Meredith and Viki exploited as reasoning to garb him in attire with open chests and backs, short sleeves that loomed around the limbs to express what would’ve been sideboob should he have been a woman.
One notal difference from his race was his hair. Meredith and Viki chose, that to hide him best amongst others, Mer’s hair must be dyed a shade of brown similar to that of Viki’s. Years of rigorous dye applications made any chance of the silvery locks of a Sil’Norai showing through near impossible. Body hair was nary a problem, the shade so light that it grew in the thinnest form. Meredith often regaled about how perfect his legs looked from a far, and how with poor vision she may have believed their son to be their daughter. Of course, such musings were offered after wine.
Personality
Mer is difficult to hold a conversation with. Not in the sense he is hard to understand, or that he is not open. Mer is easy to understand, very open, but also demanding to no end. Through the flames kindled within him by mothers of Gentry positions, mothers of duelling personality types, and a childhood that largely looked like a social experiment from the outside Mer was released into the world as nothing more than a spoilt brat who believed everything belonged to him. He was destined for greatness as his mothers always would express, so why did passersby on the streets of Radenor not agree? Why when he requested room at inns for a discounted price due to his pedigree was he laughed out, or worse threatened with hostility if he did not leave? Mer simply did not understand it and carried very little self-awareness that he was ever the problem.
In no under certain terms, Mer has the personality of a complete and utter brat.
History
Displaced Child
The gods played both poor fortune and great fortune with the life of Mer Sil’Sunderland. Not that he knew much of the gods, being both a Sil’Norai, and even further a displaced Sil’Norai raised within a bastardisation of his culture. A performance by two women who had their hearts set on raising a child.
Born in the kingdom of Jorikford, a few miles from the holdings of Sunderland, Mer belonged to a family of Sil’Norai he knew not the name of in his current life. A name that mattered no more after what Uldred did. For reasons that remained elusive to all but Uldred and his inner circle, Mer’s family and the community they existed within were butchered one night during the season of Frost. Nary a soul survived, except for that of Mer. Bought salvation by an illness that clawed at his life, Uldred’s men presumed the small babe dead already. Too bloodthirsty to check the pulse of a small creature, it was the great fortune of two women that they came across Mer before the sickness could do what Uldred could not.
Meredith and Viki Olsen took a Sil’Norai child of their own from that day onwards, renamed him to Mer, and besmirched his culture by adjusting his surname accordingly with their holdings rather than applying the name Olsen. Thus, two landed gentries whose hopes of an heir were slim to none were offered one in the bloodshed of a man who had already been so intertwined in their relations. Meredith, in secret, was the mistress of the not so revered Kyng Uldred, her reward for such loyalties of reporting the comings and goings of Sunderland was that she may take Mer as her child. For Meredith, it had never mattered about the union of herself and Viki, her goal was and was always to be establishing an heir, and becoming Reeve of Sunderland before her time should come to lay down her life. She had never expected that to do that she would need to drape a Sil’Norai child in human attire that looked out of place against glowing skin, and dye silvery locks brown every two weeks, but the world had a funny way of getting oneself to one’s desires.
Mer Sil’Sunderland in one night found himself displaced from his true family, and made a pawn in a game he would never truly understand.
The Hidden Child
Despite the secret arrangements with Uldred, there was a performance to be done by Meredith, a performance that Viki unknowingly had also signed up for. A Sil’Norai child to two human women was bound to have some level of scandal to it, therefore Meredith very gently guided the family unit into a private education at the hand of a tutor she had selected. Within such tutorings, Mer was taught the very basics of what a child born of Gentry origin would learn, with added flairs both for and against Uldred based upon the hidden hand of both of mothers. Occasional lessons in his mother tongue were included, though they were often so slim that Mer never got past being able to hold a basic conversation in Silvain. Mer was crafted into a moderately educated child with no friends outside the home, and both a hatred and fear for the Kyng who ruled over him.
Such elaborate tutoring persisted for years, Meredith would offer gold to omit the wrongdoings of Uldrid from history lessons, Viki would offer gold to ensure there was a very well-laced objection to the idea of a butcher Kyng where less expected in the appropriate books. Both mothers unknowingly worked against each other in the upbringing of their child, which in turn bred a child of such results. Before either mother knew it their war in the form of education bred a brat who saw no need for any form of knowledge. Viki had honed a weapon against Uldred, a boy who believed himself more than his stature. Meredith had honed a weapon for Uldred, with the composure her confidant would learn to appreciate as his own son should she get her way.
Mer became a problem child, and that would only increase in his teen years with the coming of both puberty and a need for independence. A problem child, who seemed to begin to notice the problems in his artificially constructed world. A carriage would arrive every third Wednesday of the month without fail, a man would await inside that carriage for Meredith, and as said carriage rode off the two inside would engage in... Diplomacy as Meredith would call it every time Mer questioned it. A questioning every third Thursday, until Mer came to understand in his later childhood what was happening. With a growing understanding came the maturing of Mer, and the once carefree Sil’Norai child found himself far more interested in his body and other bodies due to the sins of his mother…
Troubled Teens
Puberty swept over Mer like a plague in poor lands. A meek boy became a broody brat overnight, rather than just an outright brat. His body matured beyond the confines of the bed he had inhabited a bit too long, and the act of sealing the child away in the family home of Olsen was long dead. The Reeve, an incompetent yet power-hungry man, cut his deal with the women. Mer was safe in Sunderland, safe from the wandering of the Kyng, but they would join him in his crusade to overthrow Uldred when that time came. Meredith naturally capitalised on such an offering, sealing the future fate of her wife, the Reeve, and the insurance of her child’s life when the tide of blood had to come.
With the future set in Meredith’s mind, she invested the coin she believed was needed for her son’s prosperity. The level of education Mer received increased in quantity, though remained at the same quality. Quantity over quality became a thing, but such shortsightedness was not what Meredith was going to allow. Alongside his literature-based studies, Mer was offered the way of the weapon. The sword was not a correct fit, nor did he take well to the instructor bashing him in the face in the first training session. Despite the Sil’Norai being adjacent to becoming brutish men… Being raised by two women made Mer less so inclined both psychologically and physically with his statuesque lithe build, which ruled out the likes of an axe or hammer. Finally, much at the behest of Meredith, and the encouragement of Viki, Mer found himself with a budding affinity for the bow. Through his teens, Mer indulged in both the learnings of the book and the offerings of the quiver, forming himself into an archer come his maturity. Though, he was never told why he had to learn the way of war. Meredith and Viki hadn’t exactly bought him up to be silent and complacent, but it was one thing he felt was definitely kept from him for a reason. The Wednesday-Man as Mer called him informed such beliefs.
So that Mer may understand what he had come to know of Meredith and her Wednesday-Man, on the eve of his maturity both his mothers decided it wise they arrange a special gift for their son. Mer had grown up with nary a friend, nary a source of daily contact other than his mothers, tutors, and any house staff. His isolation came to an end when he was offered the company of a bought and paid-for man and woman for the night. The woman found herself rejected after a few minutes of shared time, becoming the object of Meredith and Viki’s passions that night, further opening up their marriage. The man, on the other hand, taught Mer all he needed to know in the span of a few hours just as he had been paid to do so. It hardly shocked Meredith and Viki that their mothering style and family type had given them a son who enjoyed the same sex.
Reaching his maturity, coming to the end of any natural studies, and becoming more and more adept at the bow, Mer began to develop a strong sense of superiority beyond what had bubbled up as a child. Viki was the gentle mother, and Meredith was the stern superior mother, through years of being their focus Mer had become a monster by the definition of Viki and a son to be proud of in Meredith’s eyes. A self-important archer who knew best was... Difficult to control. Mer got troublesome for Viki and the Reeve with his antics around Sunderland, yet Meredith seemed unphased. For all the hidden strikes Meredith had made against her wife, all her conscious positionings, for once she was shortsighted and that was what destined her marriage to die.
Disinherited
In a desperate move to protect their position in Sunderland, Viki and the Reeve met in the darkest of nights. A decision was made, Mer would be given all he needed to comfortably be pushed from the nest, but he would be publicly disinherited in order to avoid the watching eye of the Kyng. It happened on a Sunday morning, and by the time Meredith knew it was far too late.
For Mer it all happened so quickly, he was handed a new bow with ample amounts of arrows, a backpack full to the brim with all the supplies he may possibly need. Viki spoke of proving himself to them as a good son would do, Mer took that to heart, yet before he could question the need to he was marched out of Sunderland by a gentle accompaniment of drafted men by the Reeve. For Viki and the Reeve, it was a further test to see if they had the control needed to wage against the Kyng, though it was not easy performing such a test on her own son.
The news never reached Mer, but days later the marriage of Viki and Meredith Olsen found itself dissolving in real-time. The family died with the exile of Mer Sil’Sunderland.
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