Tristan
spoiler alert: more or less all of his backstory...not sure where in the main story it will go, though
- full name:
- Tristan (don't know his last name yet...)
- story:
- Shattered Soul
- nickname:
- none
- age:
- close to 20 by the end of the story
- hair:
- long and dyed in stripes to resemble a rainbow, usually braided
- eyes:
- hazel
- likes:
- Kelly, art, math, silence (especially mental silence), open-minded people, being treated normally, having a social life, pasta of all forms, excessive amounts of jewelry, colors
- dislikes:
- Luce, noise, fire, death, being treated like a freak, three out of four of the voices in his head, psychiatrists and mental hospitals, cajun food, anything in just greys or black and white, PINK
- distingushing features:
- well, besides the hair...he almost always has too much jewelry, often in clashing colors
- something interesting:
- Happy actually represents Tristan's magical gift...and because both Tristan and his gift are off-balance, so is Happy...
Tristan is the poor hero of Shattered Soul. Kelly was the first character I created (as she was originally the character I created for my friend Mark's Mage game...with some changes), but Tristan is the main character. And because he's the main character, I do mean things to him. ^_^
Tristan is quite insane, and it's not just a misunderstanding caused by his (barely) hidden magical gifts. There is something wrong and off-balance in his head, and because of that he can be unpredictable/uncontrollable. He hears voices, four of them, and they aren't just figments of his slightly telepathic imagination. Of course, his magical gifts don't make his situation any better...as they have done very little other than cause trouble for him.
Part of Tristan's problem is that he shouldn't have been born a mage. Neither of his parents carry the magical gifts necessary to produce a child with as much power as Tristan has, as is evidenced by Tristan's completely mundane older brother, Tyler. But Tristan has gifts that put him above pretty much all mages except for the royal family that Kelly belongs to, and some various others. It wasn't supposed to happen, though, and because of that, something is wrong with both Tristan and his gift. It makes him unstable, though at the same time, rather intelligent.
When he was six, Tristan encountered the first negative side effect of his instability. See, he had always been able to hear the voices in his head (three at that time...the fourth didn't show up until he was eighteen), but they were always written off as imaginary friends. After all, he was just a little boy. But then one day he brought a new toy of his in for show and tell at school, a toy that he was very proud of, and a close friend of his took it. It was only play, and the boy would have given it back, but Tristan got upset. Then Happy (one of the voices) told him "burn," and before he knew it, the kid was burning to death. It was Tristan's magic that made the kid burn, but he didn't know that.
Right after that, he got taken away from his family, for observation. No one believed him about his not having any kind of matches to burn the other boy, but they quickly realized that Tristan wasn't stable. He then spent the next eight years in various institutions as they tried to make him a little less loony.
Tristan, unfortunately, happens to be quite social. He likes having friends and being with others, but at the same time he is afraid to spend too much time around people. He knows very well that he doesn't have complete control, and that he might not be able to stop the fire if he gets upset with the people around him. Still, he has worked very hard to act somewhat normal and sane, so that the good doctors would let him out into the world, under supervision.
At the same time, Tristan is not very fond of talking about himself and his feelings with people he doesn't trust. So when he was little, when the psychiatrists urged him to tell them how he was feeling, he didn't want to do it. He decided it was much easier to show them, so he created a sort of color code for his feelings. What he wears reflects how he is feeling, and he is very good about updating at least his jewelry to match his mood, which makes his emotional state more or less an open book to anyone who knows what color means what emotion.
Tristan is coupled with Kelly, a fellow "freak." Technically they are a homosexual couple, as Kelly has the body of a male (but the soul of a female). Neither Kelly nor Tristan feels that this is appropriate, though. Kelly views herself as a female, despite what her body says, and she clearly states that it is quite heterosexual for girls to like guys, so she is obviously not gay. Tristan, on the other hand, considers himself "Kellysexual." He has no interest in anyone besides Kelly, male or female, and he would still love/be attracted to Kelly if her body matched her soul. Of course, since most people don't quite understand the concept of "Kellysexual," Tristan normally just calls himself "bendy straight" (straight with bi tendencies) to keep people from seeing him as even stranger than they already do.