[piosenniel]

Dedicated Character - Dúnedain Youth – Amanaduial the Archer - SEE POST 47

DUNEDAIN YOUTH – son of the woman (Nuranar) and the soldier (Osse).

NAME: Faerim. (Fay-rim)

AGE: 17

RACE: Dunedain

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: Although only just recruited to the army, Faerim has used a broadsword for some years, as he is quite strong enough to handle the long, heavy weapon generally used by older soldiers. Having worked as an apprenticed blacksmith since he was 15, he is also quite handy with a whole series of knives, and keeps one inside his left boot for jobs or for general safety purposes – carrying around a sword is basically asking for trouble for such a young man. Although the broadsword is the weapon that he works hardest at, he was also taught from the age of about twelve or thirteen to use a bow, although his father scoffed that it was a ‘sissy’ weapon: because his arms have been strengthened from using the broadsword, he has become very apt with this, and made a few adaptations to his own bow so that his shot is even more powerful.

APPEARANCE: Faerim is quite light, his skin pale and unlined, and lightly freckled, contrasting with the lean, sharp structure of his face. His hair, which falls straight and messily around his face and ears, is spattered light blonde-brown colour and his eyes are light blue. Such light colouring can sometimes seem to give him an almost childish look, but along with his slim, sharp face, it more often than not gives him a sort of elfin charm that he is quite aware of! Faerim is not vain, but is quite a charmer, and a romantic, but on his young face there can also be seen lines of hardness and anxiety, and when angry his entire face has a way of freezing up, his icy eyes frosting over completely. Faerim stands at about 5 ft 11, and although his shoulders are quite broad, he is quite slim, but well toned – he is stronger than he looks, and well able to wield a broad sword, without being held back by extra bulk. He wears high leather boots and dark trousers, usually worn with soft, loose white shirts, more often than not under a leather jerkin or shirt tunic, and a habitually worn long, rather battered black cloak, attached at the shoulders – at 17, Faerim is one year too young to be recruited to the army in peace time, but due to the desperation of the military in the recent attacks, he has been brought in early, but in the haste has not been fitted out with armour. He uses basically his father’s old armour when needs be.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Faerim is charismatic and charming, but not arrogant with it – generally. Arrogance does not come easily to him as he has seen what it can do: the youth resents the way his father has squandered much of the one-rich family’s money on drink and gambling. But it is from his father that Faerim has inherited his fierce temper, although it is less easily aroused than in his father, and his cutting tongue. Premature lines of worry and anxiety can be seen on his otherwise unflawed skin, for his father’s behaviour, and the pressure he has put on the young Faerim, have caused him to age a little before his time. But despite this, he is in general quite a happy go lucky young man, a charmer and a romantic, good with ladies but able to dodge out of trouble. His home life is too serious as far as he is concerned, and so he tends to ignore solemnity outside of it, almost to the point of audacity sometimes. But he respects the captains, especially the distant Hirvegil, whom he almost uses as a role model – not that he would ever admit this to his father. He is proud and ready to fight for what he believes in – but not always outright, but cleverly: if offended, he will remember, and can come across as quite cold because of this, until he is satisfied with some conclusion. Faerim wishes to join the military really because, well, it’s what his family have always done – and although it may be a family corroded by gambling and drink, it is still his heritage, and he intends to keep it up. His warm, charming nature draws friends, but family is at the heart of it all – even if he doesn’t exactly get on with most of it’s members.


HISTORY: Born in spring of TA 1987, Faerim is the eldest child of Carthor, and with this has come quite a burden: his father has always put pressure on him to become strong, to join the army and fight for Arthedain, as his forefathers always have. Because of this, his father taught him from when he was very young with one of his old swords: the child found it hard to wield because of it’s weight and because of this hard lessons were learnt by Faerim – and maybe this was the start of a somewhat formal, almost distant relationship between father and son, although as he grew older, Faerim’s attitude towards his father was tinged with respect for his father’s past. He went to school, as befitted the son of a ‘gentleman’, and learnt quite quickly, but was generally more interested in the social side of living, and developed a vibrant, warm but fierce personality that got into fights quite often. At fifteen, he left school and became apprenticed to a blacksmith, to earn his keep and learn some more practical skills, in his mother and father’s hopes that he would also grow up a little. It didn’t exactly happen that way – it generally just meant that Faerim now had a little more freedom to do what he wanted with, and he generally became a bit of a scallywag. But despite his somewhat rogue-ish nature, Faerim still kept firmly to his aspiration of joining the army when he came of age, and having repaired or forged enough weapons for other men, he himself forged his own first broadsword, with the help and guidance of Blacksmith Master Talston, a steadfast, gruff individual who, although he wouldn’t admit it, had become quite fond of his apprentice, who had become quite skilled, and had been hinting that maybe it would be better if Faerim stayed to take up the job as a profession – after all, he reasoned roughly, could either of them really see Faerim obeying any officer he didn’t want to?! But the youth laughed it off and kept practising his skills with broadsword and bow, living life in any way he pleased – until he got his military wish a year earlier than expected, when the fell army, led by the nightmarish Witch King, attacked Arthedain. Faerim became both archer and skirmisher, whatever was needed really, and began his early career in the army…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amanaduial's post ------- SEE POST 62

Faerim threw himself down against the remains of the wall he had posted himself behind, his hands covering his head, as the top of the wall exploded and the rubble rained down on his light hair and face. Scrabbling back onto his knees, the youth brushed the debris from his clothes hastily and peered forward through what had been an arrow slit in the wall. His light eyes scanned outwards across the lower level and beyond, and widened as his gaze followed the black masses further and further outwards. His skin paled further beneath the light spattering of freckles as the full extent of the black army, and how little they seemed affected by the desperate army of Fornost – or what was little of them. Beneath him, on the lower level where a few orcs had breached the walls, chaos reigned: houses burned and smoked, the fell flood surged over the rubble, and from above, Faerim could hear the screams of those who had fallen prey to the catapult shots and arrows of the enemy. And all the time came that irrepressable booming of the ram hitting the gates...

Wrenching his horrified gaze from the scene below and turning his back to the wall, the youth pulled open his quiver of arrows and counted those that remained – a laughable four, and one so cracked that he doubted it would fly. He swore under his breath and looked back through the arrow slit to the lower level. Loading his bow with arrow number one, he scanned the area and picked out one particularly despicable individual who, along with a second orc, was hacking at the door of a house with a pitted axe. The opposite of his younger brother, Faerim’s sight was excellent, so that some had sniped before that the seventeen year old had got the eyesight for the both of them: as a result of his eyesight, the youth could see every detail of the vile creature, down to fresh bloodstains around it’s hands. Feeling sick at the thought of whose blood that might be, the young man sighted briefly and fired.

The orc fell backwards with a satisfying yell, the axe falling from it’s stumpy digits as it clutched, unseeing, at the arrow now embedded deep in it’s chest. Beside it, orc number two gave a snarl of surprise and followed the line of the arrow upwards until it came eye to eye with Faerim. He could feel it’s eyes on him through the arrow slit, but it wouldn’t last for long: defiant until the last, the archer gave a quick wink and loosed his second precious arrow. Not waiting to see whether it found it’s mark, he looked about searched the lower area and prepared to let off one more of his arrows towards another orc. But as he did so, a deafening scream came from along the wall beside him and a soldier toppled off, a crossbow bolt buried in his chest. The sound caused Faerim to jump at the last second almost wasting the shot. Twisting his mouth in irritation, the young man re-sighted, his muscles tensed to shoot-

The gates swung open.

With yells from the men and inhuma roars from the black hordes, the enemy poured into the city of Fornost. Faerim's arrow fly awry, lost in the masses, but the youth barely noticed, his horrified eyes fixed on ther scene below as beasts twice as tall as a man attacked the army of his city, battering them aside with brutal weapons. And his father was below...

Faerim took a deep breath and strung his bow with the fourth arrow – and then realised that it was indeed his last. Have to be careful when you’re out on a limb, that’s what Brander—

Brander. Dammit, his younger brother – where was he? He had been in the manor house, with their mother, but now…a fresh sluice of fear washed over Faerim. His father would be fighting in the frey below, a swordsman as he was, but at least he had some way of protecting himself - but a vivid image of the orcs, flowing from every side into the room around his blind brother, drove itself into his mind. Brander wouldn't stand a chance. Saving the last arrow, the Dunedain youth checked his sword and, in a strange crouched position, ran across to the shelter nearest to the wall where he had been crouched. Darting inside, he slipped quickly past the other soldiers there, taking on a busy air that meant none stopped him, the sprinted across the courtyard at the back towards the street of larger houses on the second level on the outer wall.

Of course, Faerim was under no impressions of his brother being helpless – for years, Brander had made it painfully clear, both to his older brother and to his parents, that he was determined to be as independent as possible. But, Faerim mused angrily, that independence – being able to look after himself in a domestic situation – was frankly worth nothing in this situation. What Faerim valued – his strength, agility, speed and skill with weapons – were nothing to Brander: a sword, or even a knife, would be more of a liability that an aid to the blind boy.

The white stone of a beautifully delicate, ancient spire, reaching so high it split the sky, suddenly shattered as a barrage of stones hit it. The debris pratically exploded and huge chunks of the base fell to the ground, coming so close to crushing Faerim that his cloak caught beneath it as he rolled agiley, coming to rest on one knee in the shadow of one of the houses. Breathlessly, without taking time to compose himself, he wrenched his cloak from beneath the shattered remains of the face of some ancient statue and kicked the side door of the house open. Half jogging in, he heard a noise from the landing above and fell to a crouch to slip one of his knives from the inside of his left boot. Satisfied that the noise had ceased, he took the stairs of the grand, sweeping staircase three at a time, cloak flying out behind him as he yelled for his brother – it was only a matter of time before the enemy broke through, and surely one of the captains would have arranged something? Either way, he needed to find out and bearing in mind he hadn’t an idea where his father might be now, he needed to make sure Brander and his mother were safe. “Brander? Brander!”