Post by RHYS ANDERS on Aug 18, 2012 19:05:06 GMT -5
RHYS AELIAN ANDERS
The discerning gossiper will note that Rhys, the first and only son of Christopher Anders and Rhian Shaw, was born on the twenty-eighth of December, only seven months after his parents’ wedding. Anders was the third son of a moderately wealthy family, a scatterbrained but erudite scholar who would go on to become a professor of anthropology at the University of Bristol; his young wife was a dreamer who had found her suitor gentlemanly and charming during their brief courtship. If not for their indiscretion they likely would not have married: the first few years of their marriage were pleasant enough, but as time wore on they soon became disenchanted with each other. It was to no one’s surprise that, by the time their son was seven, Rhian had moved back to her hometown. Her absence was explained away easily enough: her lungs were too weak for city air, her parents were getting on in age, but of course Christopher couldn’t be expected to abandon his post at the University. It was an amicable enough arrangement that never seemed to cause their son any distress.
Most of Rhys’ early years were spent with his mother’s parents in the country – neither his mother nor his father were keen on parenting. When he was five years old, he caught what was presumed to be a mild virus from one of his grandparents’ neighbors; by the time they decided that a doctor’s intervention might be necessary, the illness had left him deaf.
Rhys paid far more attention to everyday life than either of his parents, even at a young age. He knew that their insistence on tutors over a school for the deaf was not because they were ashamed but because they were wary of his… peculiarities. When staying at his grandparents’ cottage, the smoke from their chimney would rise against the wind. When he met his paternal cousins for the first (and only) time, they spoke to him without moving their lips and soon found their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths. He was aware of his strange energy, and though he usually couldn’t control how it would manifest itself he was able to release it when he desired. His parents deemed it best to isolate an uncanny child than risk the suspicions of their neighbors.
He knew this and hardly minded. The summer months were spent with his mother (or, more likely, his grandparents; the occasional oddities that occurred in his presence made Rhian uneasy). The rest of each year was spent in Bristol with his father, learning maths, the finer points of lip-reading and speech or any variety of subjects from a continuous parade of tutors. He was clever and quick to learn if he was moved to do so, but a dull or disliked teacher would find themselves would be driven off quickly by inexplicable occurrences. That the Anders boy was both deaf and “off” was another poorly-kept secret.
The dearth of companions at his father’s didn’t bother him. During the summer Rhys managed to fall in with a group of local children, and in their company he almost succeeded in concealing his magic. There was one girl, Madelyn, who caught him using it once. Instead of being horrified, she guessed at his true nature – she had a step-sister, she said, who was a witch and attended some school full of other strange folk, and she was certain that Rhys would be sent to the same place. Maybe he should have been offended by her allegations – there was nothing wrong with him or his family – but instead he was intrigued. If there was an entire school dedicated to this so-called magic, that meant there was more to it than just petty tricks he could barely control.
As promised, the invitation to this mythical school materialized and was accompanied by a patient witch used to dealing with the parents of muggleborns. His father was baffled by her claims, but it didn’t take more than a few simple charms to convince him that she was speaking the truth. Months later Rhys was off to Hogwarts, eager to escape his grandparents’ suspicious surveillance and his mother’s anxious stares. Before boarding the Hogwarts Express he was under the impression that most, if not all, wizards and witches were from “muggle” families.
The first year passed in a blur. He’d expected to succeed in his classes without much effort, as he always had, and though the theory classes were easy enough he struggled with the actual spellwork. Fortunately, a prefect of his House took an interest in well-being, and they would spend hours in the Common Room repeating the same spells until he finally understood the pronunciation.
He returned to his muggle family with a head full of stories, and though his father was keenly interested and his grandparents listened politely, his mother shied away from every mention of Hogwarts and eventually avoided him altogether. That she was actually afraid of his magic was the first time she had ever surprised him, but Rhys was even more surprised to find that he didn’t really mind. Madelyn introduced him to her step-sister, an Hufflepuff who had finished her seventh year and wasn’t particularly interested in her little sister’s friends. More important was Madelyn’s step-father, a wizard who would allow Rhys to practice magic in their house (“A little rule-breaking never harmed anyone, boy”) or borrow a broomstick for flying. Eventually Rhys was able to draw money out of his father and buy a broom of his own – a Cleansweep. During his third year, he began taking Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures. He earned a reputation as a keen student, an occasional bully, and an aloof young man with potential but little motivation.
Rhys hates tactlessness, and it shows in every interaction he has with another. It’s difficult to call him a ‘people person;’ though he’s fairly social and usually enjoys being around others, he prefers to be emotionally distant and often chooses his companions from those he can feel, however slightly, superior to. He has a natural tendency towards aggression that he can normally channel into petty acts of troublemaking: he’ll bully those younger or weaker than himself if the opportunity arises, always “just as a joke,” and though he’ll occasionally shoot off a hex in the hallways or mysteriously acquire property that doesn’t belong to him, he’s often able to weasel out of punishment. It’s only in those rare moments where he feels inferior to another that he loses his temper; otherwise he tailors his behavior as needed, sometimes polite, frequently laid-back, generally personable and likeable. When in a group, Rhys either loses interest or becomes irritable, unable to follow a conversation involving many participants.
He’s intelligent, certainly but he is easily bored and generally ambitionless; he can maintain genuine interest in most classes for only a few weeks at a time before lapsing into disinterest and apathy. Arithmancy and Transfiguration are the only guaranteed exceptions to this pattern; he enjoys them in part because they’re usually seen as difficult subjects. He’s quite observant and has an excellent memory; if he applied himself to his classes, he would pass most without much fuss. When he does decide to accomplish something, as long as he remains intent on his goal he is unshakeable and won’t hesitate to stoop to underhanded methods to succeed.
That he’s naturally clever only heightens his own opinion of himself, and he thrives on the compliments and attention of others. To a degree Rhys thinks he’s infallible, and thus in many areas can be unbearably stubborn; he forms opinions quickly and strongly, and convincing him that he’s erred can be an immensely frustrating task – on a few memorable occasions he’s even disputed the verdict of a professor. Even if he realizes his mistake, it’s unlikely that he’ll admit it.
Despite his faults, Rhys can be a pleasant person to be around. He treats those he sees as his friends with respect and will, if the situation calls for it, consider their thoughts before making a decision. He’s surprisingly generous, trading gifts or answers to assignments for a few seconds’ worth of acknowledgement. When in a good humor – and he frequently is – he’ll tolerate jokes at his expense and return them with a few light-hearted ones of his own instead of malice. He doesn’t shy away from fights if he thinks he has even a slight chance of winning, but he won’t lunge into a hopeless battle if he can help it – it’s not cowardice, he insists, but strategy.
The sun shone brightly overhead despite the chill in the air, making the already-scant clouds look like nothing more than thinly spread mist. The Sea of Flowers lived up to its name: the tall grass speckled with buds and blooms grew as high as his waist, if not higher, and every time a wind brushed against the seemingly endless field the grass rippled as if a verdant wave was breaking. Anthony directed his gaze from the endless sky overhead back to the sea of greenery surrounding him, and then with a yawn looked lazily to the left. The Starmie a yard away from him bobbed idly in the crisp breeze as if she was drifting in a current instead of in midair, and though a flicker of acknowledgement ran through her consciousness when he glanced over, her attention was primarily on the Buneary scurrying alongside her. The second star fixed to her back rotated slowly as chime-like notes emanated from her core; a few seconds after the notes reverberated into silence the Buneary stopped abruptly in his tracks, bringing their aimless progression to a halt yet again, and squeakily imitated the larger pokemon. The sound waves of the Round distorted the air as they passed through it, but with no opponent to knock back, they dissipated quickly, causing the grass to wave as if disturbed by a breath of wind. The coffee-colored pokemon stared blankly at his star-shaped mentor before, with a dismissive nose-twitch, he scrambled deeper into the meadow.
The wayward course that the young Buneary was set on following would have irritated Anthony had they been at home – if you were going to delve into the streets and canals of Virenya, you had best have a destination in mind – but the pastoral scenery surrounding them kept him at ease. Virenya City was an antiquated utopia edged by an ocean that seemed as endless as the plains they now wandered through, but it was still a city and thus barreled into the future at a pace both breakneck and exhausting. A brief retreat to the rural countryside was pleasant, and even he had difficulty finding fault in the flowers and flora that abounded here.
A laugh, soft and vaguely feminine, sounded in the back of his brain, and Anthony glanced over to his soulmate; the gem at her center faced him, and though her appearance made her mood impossible to guess, he could sense her amusement. {You would be bored out of your mind if you lived in a place like this,} Enyo observed, secondary star still for a moment.
“You’re right,” he responded after a moment, lips twitching into a reluctant smile,“but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it while we’re here, is there?”
{Of course not.} There was a pause, and then, {I doubt that you’ll be enjoying it tomorrow when you have to start the long walk home and your feet are aching.}
Anthony grimaced at that but didn’t respond, instead scanning the meadow to locate the recently-acquired Buneary. The young creature’s random maundering had given way to lazy hops and toddling steps in a constant direction, and judging by the way the rabbit-like creature would occasionally stop to rub its nubby nose against stalks of grass, it was following some sort of scent-trail – hopefully not the trail of something larger and fiercer than the Buneary himself was. The coordinator swallowed a yawn and tucked his hands into his pockets, looking from the lapine to its apparent destination: ahead was a river cutting a wide and shallow swathe across the fields, barely visible through the tall foliage. “That’ll be the Silver River,” he murmured to Enyo, recalling the map that he’d studied the night prior. “It empties into the ocean… we could Surf to the coast and then follow it to Virenya.”
{We could,} the Starmie agreed, {but you’ll be uncomfortable after a few hours, and everything we brought with us will be soaked. If we can’t make it back to the city before it gets late, you’ll have to spend the night with wet supplies. It would be best to try to borrow the Ponyta again tomorrow for the trip home.}
He didn’t reply for a moment, only frowning slightly as he watched the newest addition to their team: Marzipan had increased his pace and was now bounding through the flourishing meadow, apparently set on reaching a target he couldn’t even see over the tall grass. Anthony, on the other hand, could make out the human figure walking alongside the shallow river; while the figure was too far away to discern many details, he could tell by their build that they were female and likely young. What would a young woman be doing in the middle of a Sea of Flowers…?
{I could ask the same for us,} Enyo interjected, exasperated. {She’s probably a trainer on her way to or from Anor. You shouldn’t let Marzipan wander so far from you; she might mistake him for a feral --}
{-- and he’d deserve any thrashing her pokemon gave him.} he retorted mentally as he, at a markedly slow pace, began to follow the path that the Buneary had taken. {Maybe that would teach him not to wander off.}
The normal-type pokemon in question had no notion of the conversation transpiring between his coordinator and the man’s soulmate, and even if he had known it would have mattered very little; he was too busy following the intriguing scent of human and fowl through the impossibly tall grass to possibly care about the opinions of the man who had caught him. Marzipan’s ears rolled up tightly in excitement as the grass ahead of him thinned out and the soil beneath his woolly paws gave way to smooth, viscous mud. He tumbled onto the bank of the river, and for a second his quarry was forgotten as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the clear water. When his own wavering reflection ceased to entertain, he glanced up again and caught sight of a girl and a duckling pokemon a few meters away. A shrill squeal of excitement escaped the Buneary as he gamboled closer, dark eyes wide in fascination. The Ducklett was a few inches taller than himself, but with its fluffy chest and lemon-yellow beak, it hardly looked intimidating. Marzipan opened his mouth, but instead of a delighted squeak the same strange notes that he’d uttered before escaped. He cocked his head to the side in confusion, and then, inquisitive about the effects the dissonant song would have on this strange blue bird, uttered a playful cry and released a Round again.
