Member
Riley Hart
Alby47
Roleplay:
Steelbird LandingSparrow
What Do You See?
¤ Age, approximately.
Late twenties.
¤ What Are You?
The Stalker
I am a hunter by trade. I wait silently amongst the trees for my prey to appear and strike without hesitation. Most believe that jaguars are the apex predator of the jungle. I am what the jaguars fear.
¤ What defines you?
COOL: Sparrow is icy cold under pressure and hard to rile. You are the very definition of a smooth operator. But of course, cold means distant…
Let Go of Your Past
¤ Who are you?
I am Sparrow. I go where others can’t. I was born in the chaotic streets of the city once known as Rio, used by the people around me to scavenge in places few others could fit. I was born in blood, the offspring of bandits fighting over anything and everything that remained. I was born in violence, punished for every failure. I was born, but I did not live. I was taught that nothing mattered but doing anything to get food. They spoke nothing of beliefs, the Gods did not want them in their mind.
They called themselves the Forsaken. They claimed that they had been abandoned by the Gods and that their ruthlessness and merciless killings were a result of it. I was taught no differently. I learned to kill without hesitation and without remorse. My elders always said I was good for nothing, that I was a runt among the children and that I would never be as strong. I was determined to prove them wrong. If they couldn’t see that I was strong, I was going to show them. In the Forsaken, you were judged for how good you were at scavenging and killing. So I scavenged and killed.
I was never taught regret. It was never an emotion I was familiar with. That has not changed throughout my entire life. That same night, I killed Leader’s favourite pupil. Slaughtered him in his sleep. I watched the light fade from his eyes as he awoke to his demise. I would not be cast aside any longer. Now that the competition was gone, I would no longer live in his shadow.
But instead of becoming Leader’s favourite, I became the most hated. I was beat until I bled, whipped until I could no longer stand. They cast me out into the wild with nothing but my clothes. Since then, I’ve lived off of the wilderness and the bounties it offered. I became one with the jungle and trusted nothing and no one but myself. I know the jungle better than anything and it now fuels my livelihood.
¤ What do you want?
I want to prove Leader wrong and be the most feared predator of my enemies. I live to sustain myself and I serve no one else. I live to show myself that we don’t need to scavenge to survive.
¤ What do you believe?
I believe that the two most powerful things in the world are patience and time. Nature’s pace is the only one I follow, patience will bring you sustenance if you give it the time it needs. Patience may be bitter, but the fruit it bears is sweet.
¤ What do you follow?
I follow the trails of the animals and the hints they leave behind with my eyes. When no trail is evident, I follow the sounds of their calls with my ears and their patterns of movement with my memory. If nothing else, I follow my need for self-redemption.
¤ A scarcity embodied:
I embody the scarcity of freedom. I am trapped inside my own head, fighting myself to earn the validation of a leader I despise. It is evident to those around me. A few have noted that I punish myself for simple mistakes, mistakes that others may see as nothing.
¤ Basic Instincts:
The pair of knives sheathed under my left arm never leave me, not even while I sleep. Without even thinking, I will landmark escape routes around me. In a conflict, I always keep my distance and let the arrows speak for me.
Spill Your Guts
¤ What is the worst thing you've ever done to stay alive?
The dead month... There was someone that had followed me from Rio, someone that I eventually considered a friend. For weeks we searched the jungles, waiting to find something to eat. We waited in the trees just like I’d done for years before. And nothing ever crossed our trails. It had been weeks of living off of leaves, mushrooms and the few berries we could find. My hunger got the best of me. As I waited in a tree above, I told him to go down to look for a trail and as he examined the jungle floor I put an arrow in the back of his head. He sustained me for another two weeks until I finally came upon a deer. The memory still haunts me to this day, as does the taste…
¤ Who do you owe?
I owe Pepsi for teaching me of The Ways. I give him a free pound or two of meat from each hunt so that he may continue to enlighten me.
¤ Who owns you? Literally or figuratively.
The jungle owns me, nature owns me. She holds my life in her hands every single day. My life depends on her bounty just as it depends on the tools I use to collect it. I am her apex predator, and she is my controller. She decides if I feed or if I starve, if I climb or if I fall.
¤ Who's intentions do you question?
I question everyone’s intentions. It’s the reason I still live and breathe to this day. Trust no one, question everything and never turn your back to a man with a weapon regardless of standing.
¤ Who or what do you worship?
I worship the Earthen Mother, nature herself. I pray to her each morning before the hunt so that I may live to see another day, so that I may nourish myself in her bountiful jungles and find my way out of them unharmed.
Hear the Whispers...
It comes to me while I pray. I close my eyes and as I speak, I begin to notice more and more around me. The silence, the smell of the jungle, the gentle touch of the wind and the humidity in the air, it all comes to me. Around me, there is an endless forest filled with life. I see a figure in the distance, just a silhouette in the fog. The Earthen Mother. She paces towards me, her featureless form made merely of mist. As she does, I realise I can no longer move. My eyes are fixated on her as the fog closes in around both of us. It is when she touches me that she begins to speak. A whisper, nothing more. A single word. Normally a location or direction.
Sometimes she remains silent and simply shows me. A gust of wind showing me the way, perhaps a trail invisible to me before. Always guidance, never judgement. The mother is fair in that way. She guides my step and allows me life.
Own What You've Become
Ah, Sparrow. Maybe they should have named you Falcon or Hawk... Their loss. Let's see what scars run deepest…
¤ You have seen one of the monsters from the western rift. What did it look like? What did it say to you?
It was nearly ten feet tall. Black as the night sky with yellow eyes that pierced through the darkness like arrows. I tried to take it down but my arrows bounced right off of it’s scaly hide. When it saw me, it turned to me and made a sound that almost resembled a laugh. When it spoke it’s four words, it sent a sickening feeling through me, “Your mother will suffer..”
¤ There is someone who wishes you join you on your hunts. Who is it? Why do you keep refusing?
Spade has been eyeing my place since I first started. He’s asked me countless times to show him how to hunt and to allow him to hunt on my grounds. I don’t trust him. He doesn’t take to the ways of the Earthen Mother, nor do I believe that he truly wants to be my partner in this. When we first met I caught him trying to steal a cut of meat from me. I won’t let him on the Mother’s hunting grounds.
¤ Who is your best customer? Your worst? Who wants to take control of your business? Names only, please.
The best? Pepsi. The worst? Shank.
Wants to take control? Spade.
Relationships Can Prove Fatal...
¤You had some kind of relationship with one of the other characters that is no longer the case. Who? And what was the relationship?
Avenue. We used to speak. He was the father of Milk's child. I respected him once, when he first introduced me to Hope. Avenue made me believe there was more than just violence, slaughter and mayhem in the world. And then he destroyed that image. That coward ran off with my sister's child in the night. I couldn't run fast enough to catch him and I will forever feel guilt for that. There is nothing between us now. He is a coward, nothing will change that in my eyes.
¤There is one character who you think could hear the voice of the Earth Mother if you could only teach them. Who?
Hemlock. I watch her harvest the plants without regard or care for the one who makes them. I watch her from the trees while she remains unaware. It would be dishonest of me to say that I haven't thought about ending her life while she defiled the Mother's grounds. I had gotten as far as drawing my bow before the Mother corrected my way. She spoke to me that night in my prayers, the same night I caught a glimpse of Hemlock spying on me through the trees. The Mother had shown me a sign. Hemlock can be taught of the ways of the Earth Mother.
