Approved CoL Bio - Aiel CCed

[Nynaeve]

Winter Mist

 

 

Name: Darin Berghald

Age: 27

Nationality: Amadician

Occupation: Child of the Light

Height: 5’ 11”

Weight: 185lbs

 

Appearance:  Darin is a heavyset man, but he is muscular, rather than fat.  He is dark haired and eyed, with a scar across his face that he feels has affected his life too much. It runs from his eyebrow to his chin, and is ragged from where it was caught on a rock while on a family trip.

 

History:

Foreboding clouds lingered in tattered traces of the storm. It had raged overhead like war fought among the heavens, and the rain had lashed down on the cliffs, making conditions treacherous and despairing. Blood splattered the rocks, running as the rainwater ran and mingled with it. It also decorated the lad's face and clothes; pink rivulets falling to the stone like bloody tears. He could not see the other. The one he had fought lay, in fact, not four or five yards from him, but he would never stand or walk again. 

 

Shudder. A small movement, scarce more than a pulse of life through a body that should be dead. The fall should have killed both of them, but somehow he was still alive. Lying there, not really cognizant of surroundings or memory, Darin counted those clouds. His cheek was on fire, and every muscle in his body screamed for relief. I would not come.  He drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours as the sky rolled overhead. The other figure did not move either.

 

Feeling returned, inexorably pushing more pain through his body. Glimmers of memory were beginning to return. 

 

******************************************************************************

 

A dare, it had started as a dare. Who could get the closest to the edge of the cliff and lean forward? Darin dared his half brother, probably out of teenage bravado, trying to prove he was just as good as his pureblood brother. So what if he was a by-blow from a drunken mistake lay at his feet by an uncaring mother he had never seen. Silence had been exchanged for gold, and Darin had been absorbed into the household. In public, he was treated as their own son. In private, he would be beaten for the slightest mischance, shouted and sworn at, and as a result he pushed himself hard to compensate.  His half brothers all fought with him, and Darin developed a complex: he would be better and force people to realise that illegitimacy was not a reason to hurt another, even if it took hurting others in turn to prove it.

 

His build was similar to that of his half brothers, but he lacked their bulk. While he was built heavily, the others ran to fat, and while Darin practised wrestling and fighting as often as he could, his half brothers were indolent. Darin was forever deprived of dinner whenever he was chided or beaten, and he spent his nights devising cruel methods to get something to eat. A few times he actually carried them out and did not get caught – his porcine half brothers would not dare to go to their father about him, not with the threat of a broken bottle at the throat. And eventually, on a trip to the coast, he had snapped and taken up the challenge that his half brother had thrown to him - to go as close to the edge of the cliff as he dared, and lean forward.

 

Insults had been exchanged, most of them concerning Darin's parentage, and he had snapped. He had drawn back from the edge when his half brother's attention had been diverted by something out to sea, and Darin had slammed into his back, taking them dangerously close to the edge.  They had wrestled for a long time before eventually; both disappeared over the cliff and down the jagged rocks.

 

It was a miracle he could move.  His half brother was certainly dead, and Darin felt he might be better if he had not have survived.  He could easily claim to their father that they had both fallen over the edge after a rockslide or something, but father would probably believe Darin had deliberately set out to kill his beloved son. His face a ruin, Darin pushed himself to unsteady feet as soon as he was able, and tottered back towards the sternly cynical gaze of his parents.

 

The scar would never heal, and the left hand side of his face would forever be a mass of writhing scars, as though he had been burnt in a fire rather than met several rocks in rapid succession. They were grazes, but deep enough to permanently disfigure him. With time, he healed, but his ‘parents’ never looked in on him once. His strength restored quickly; but not as fast as his hatred for his situation. Soon, the eighteen year old Darin was enrolled with the Children of the Light, in the capital of Amadicia.  His father wanted nothing more to do with him, and promised no letters or correspondence; nor did he want to know how Darin was doing.

 

He was exiled, alone as he had ever been, and found his only solace was in learning how to wield a weapon to defend himself. Occasionally, he remembered the cruel moments of his past, and if he turned into a bitter man, reclusive by nature and more violent than necessary in the pursuit of his career, he did not blame himself. It was purely at the feet of his father that all of his insecurities and failings could be placed, not his. He was not to blame.  There was nothing but the Light.  There was nothing else to believe in.

 

He did believe one thing.  When pressed, when forced and focussed, the light burnt.

 

 

 

Nyn

CoL

[Ghaul]

  seems good to me - approved