CHARACTERS
ALYN SMYTHY
Alyn (pronounced AY-lin) is a bold and inexperienced thirteen-year-old orphan. Born and raised in the middle of nowhere, she speaks with the indeterminate drawl of a mixture of mid-west US accents and stands at a height of 4'9.
She grew up bullied for her differences and learned quickly to conceal them beneath her aviator's cap and loose potato-sack breeches. Until meeting Hughes, she was unaware of what she was: a faun, though it is unknown where she comes from. Beneath her hat, she hides blunt horns and long ears. Beneath her breeches and boots, she hides furry dark brown goat legs. Like most West Haven orphans, she is illiterate.
She is trained as a journeyman alchemist, and works tirelessly to please Master Hughes as an apprentice blacksmith. Though he is rough and unkind to her, she is characteristically resilient and guaranteed to bounce back. She runs her mouth constantly and is curious without tire. She rarely thinks about what she is saying, and will often come off as blunt or stupid. While she can be dutiful and obedient, she can also be arrogant, disrespectful, and uncooperative. However, she is always earnest, despite her spirit.
Young Alyn dreams of making something of herself and fantasizes about becoming a hero.
MASTER DREW HUGHES
Book One
Master Hughes is hardened and rough, a burdened survivor of a repressed life of loss. He began drinking at age eighteen, and did not stop. Book One depicts him at sixty-two. He is grouchy, snappy, and very irritable, accustomed to a reclusive and mostly undisturbed lifestyle. For thirty years of his life he lived on a very simple schedule: wake at six; coffee and potion. Three square meals, one or two blacksmithing classes in between, and a flask of mead in the evening with another dose of potion.
He teaches blacksmithing at a West Haven college, where he advances journeyman to masters. Alyn Smythy is the one exception, and her lack of knowledge and experience in his trade aggravates him. He has no tolerance for failure or slow progress and is quick to voice his distaste and disappointment plainly. His barking at and bruising of students teaches them to always do their best. Though his methods of teaching are far from conventional, he gets the job done. No slackers. The world is no longer 'PC' enough to take notice.
Master Hughes is, though a long-time drunk, a very poor drunk. He stands at 6'7 and is sturdily built, but hides his form in a patched old trench coat that is one size too big. When he loses his temper to a greater extent than usual, his skin becomes piping hot to the touch and smoke will pour from his ears and nostrils. He able to control this function when he is calm, but to avoid the eyes of others, chooses not to.
His motherboard-patterned jade and emerald great-sword is his prized possession, and, though he keeps it to himself, he has an affinity for flowers. Though he has never seen a sunflower grown in their desolate world, it is his favorite plant species. He believes that if a sunflower can grow, any smaller flower has a fighting chance.
ABRAHAM WALTERS
A former 'Captain' from Ban-Ken. He lived and breathed Shir influence from infanthood to exile, and despite the path he takes to return to the old ways, he starts to question it all after discovering the kindness of people beyond the superficial society within the great wall.
Abraham is twenty-four years old, and survived the plague by a hair's breadth, after receiving a questionable cure from Drew Hughes. The plague and exile took its toll, however, leaving Abraham with an appearance comparable to a corpse, much different to his plump city figure.
He has the eyesight of a mole, and wears small gold-rimmed spectacles that balance on the bridge of his Roman nose.
In the first book, he wears clothes generously donated by Master William Octienne. He despises the purple tie and its heinous golden paisley.
Abraham is a nervous fellow, and speaks politely, but timidly. He is also best described as a snake, for though he may smile and nod and be kind to another's face, he is quick to backstab when it serves him. This was trained into him in his youth after he learned that favors were only traded, not given, and no one could be trusted.
He is cunning and deceptive, but cowardly. When feeling particularly guilty--which he is unfortunately prone to--he speaks to himself. He rolls his hands and prods at his spectacles when nervous. He is particularly fond of bourbon and regrets his own tendency towards sympathy.
Abraham is particularly talented at mathematics. His heart is locked away.
ELLIOT BELL
Elliot immigrated to the USA at the age of eighteen, after he realized that pursuing a career as a fencing instructor was inevitably unrealistic. Though he loved his sport, times were hard. Sport, especially costly sport, was not a priority for most in the modern day.
He met an African foreigner at his landing port in North Carolina, and, unable to pronounce or remember the man's name, called him Tim. They traveled together. Elliot trained in alchemy and dabbled in psychiatry, and worked tirelessly to earn the money to feed Tim and his eccentric abundance of exotic animals.
Elliot and Tim stumbled across a young Drew Hughes many years before the story takes place, and the Englishman helped to drag the fallen aristocrat out of the gutter. He is extremely compassionate, and an undoubtedly loyal and dependable friend. His supportive disposition makes him indispensable to Hughes, to Tim, and soon after meeting, to Alyn. He always knows the best course of action to bring peace to his companions and to knock sense into them when needed.
Elliot enjoys drinking tea out of his own tea set, which is painted with the union jack to remind him of his home. At sixty-one, he retains all the energy and spirit of his younger self and is always seen smiling. He is dwarfed by his closest friends, standing at an average 5'8.
As a long-time fencer, he is well-trained with swords and retains a grace and elegance in his motion that defies his age of sixty-one. He has aged well.
In fights, he is known to make use of his alchemical talents and carries a toolbox filled with an arrangement of potions and vials by a strap over his shoulder.
"TIM" [CHIMWEMWE CHIUMBO TENDAI IHIJIRIKA]
There is little known about Tim. His perspective is glimpsed in teaspoons throughout the story, as he often keeps to himself and speaks to his animals when looking for someone to talk to, rather than to his friends. Upon arriving in the United States from Malawi, Africa, he immediately decided that he did not enjoy the loudness of the people, and opted to conveniently lose his translating book in order to avoid conversation.
After forty-three years in the country, he still remained ignorant by choice and took comfort in knowing that his companion, Elliot, did not mind. They are able to understand each other just fine with very few words spoken, and, in fact, get along famously. Tim relies on Elliot for his support.
Tim is an inventor and nanotechnology scientist that works under the radar to pursue his own ambitions while avoiding the spotlight. He is focused and innovative but often detached from the real world. His goal is to formulate a technology to allow animals to speak, for his belief is that if they are able to speak for themselves, then people will finally realize that they have rights, too. He never explains this, as his motives are his own.
He works with nanotechnology, and takes extreme care with his eight animal subjects and friends. His hands are very steady. His animals, provided intellect by his work, are a family to him.
Tim can often be spontaneous with his work, and it is not uncommon for him to prick Elliot or another with needles or other instruments out of the blue. He constantly sees things that can be improved in his work and in other technologies and enjoys taking the time to fix, tinker, and better nanites and devices.
He picked up the tea-drinking habit from Elliot. He is likely to mutter rude comments in a loving manner when he sees his friends doing silly things, but always in his own language.
EVELYN MARSH
Evelyn Marsh appears delicate, with a fragile, bony frame, but has a strong will. She fights for what she believes in and for who she believes in and provides strength and spirit to those weaker than her who have lost their own.
She grew up inside the walls and was infected with the plague and impregnated at the young age of fourteen. She was the last person that Ban-Ken's infamous hero saved, and was lucky to be taken outside of the city. She was left with directions to a refugee camp and soon made a life for herself teaching the tortured souls to read and write and be hopeful. She named her daughter Hope and taught her to always be prepared for the day that their hero would return stronger.
Evelyn opened a flower shop in Northwood, filled with miraculous, colorful plants grown in a place that she kept secret and close to her heart. Her daughter grew to open a tailor shop across the street and together they made dyes to produce the brightest colored clothing in all of Kentucky.
Evelyn brought life and love to Northwood and spread it to everyone that she came across as a florist.
She spent every night of her life, from sixteen to fifty-eight, waiting in the Northwood Inn's tavern with an eye out for a man long-since rumored dead. Evelyn believed in her hero, and never failed to. She has three scars on her left cheek that she carved herself. The plague escaped through these scars with the cure.
Evelyn can be fierce. She is protective of innocents, after once being a victim herself, and will jump into a fight if that is what it takes to keep a friend, or a stranger, safe. She does not typically fight, however, but spends much of her free time helping and healing her small band of refugees, and keeping them going while hiding them from Ban-Ken's eyes.
LORD PALLIS SHIR
Lord Pallis is famous for his ever-present smile. His teeth are always showing, well-presented and white. He has a delightful presence among company, with an amiable and charming disposition and polished, but never stiff, etiquette. However, Lord Pallis has been known to lose his temper. It is widely acknowledged that to wrong him is almost certain to lead to drastic punishment. Disrespect or disobedience could result in immediate leave to the ground floor incinerator.
He is admired and respected by his people, and very seldom results to such brutal action. If his mood falters, he more often takes it out on criminals, test subjects, and rebels that remain loyal to the glimmer of hope that Ban-Ken's long-lost hero represented.
The man is a result of an experiment in the Shir manor laboratories. Lady Elaine Shir partook in unloving intercourse with a fairly successful test subject in the hopes to produce an enhanced child.
Pallis grew with accelerated development in his left brain and increased perceptive, logical, and analytical thinking. His right brain, as a result, was left underdeveloped. This caused a lack of emotional comprehension, empathy, and value for human life, and assisted in the development of manic depression. His extreme moods are dangerous for all involved. Later in life, Pallis also became agoraphobic. He is a high-functioning psychopath.
Pallis has a particular fancy for lavender perfume and uses just enough to conceal the scent of cigarettes. He began smoking one cigarette a day at age eleven, and by the end of his life, had thirty to thirty-five in a day.
He enjoys schedules, punctuality, chamomile tea, and classical music played on vinyl. His favorite composer is Johann Strauss II.