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[whatsforbreakfast]

OOC INFORMATION
Name: TJ
Contact: teag or via PM
Other Characters: Ryan Farrow (OC)

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Ares
Age: 18
Canon: Vagrant Soldier Ares
Canon Point: Just after seeing Mikael off for his trip home (end of chapter 82)
Character Information:

The setting Ares comes from (which you can see a map of here) is loosely based on ancient Rome, though with many anachronisms-- the characters wear certain articles of modern clothes (high-top shoes, pants that look like Adidas) and modern foods like knockoff moon pies appear as well. The four main protagonists of the story are mercenaries based in the country of Chronos, at the end of a rare decade of peace. Tension is growing between the world's countries, however, and war appears to be on the horizon-- which many are actually looking forward. War and violence are the norm in this setting due to its conflict-laden history, and as it's only been ten years since the previous war's end, nearly every character has been affected by this background in some way; more wars are anticipated, and even though several main characters were young during the last one, they were still surrounded by people who wouldn't anticipate a lasting peace and were prepared for more conflict. It's by no means unheard of to start weapons training at a young age, and being at war is more normal than a time of peace.

Ares was born into a noble family, and was orphaned at a young age; when he was five, his father passed away, and soon afterward he and his mother were targeted by an assassin hired by his half-brother. His mother was killed as they both fled, and Ares escaped by jumping off a cliff. The head injury he suffered by doing so left him with amnesia, though, and he didn't even remember his name when he was found and taken in by Kiron, a legendary swordsman who'd recently retired.

Kiron raised him as his apprentice, and Ares quickly became skilled-- he was given his first sword at 6, killed his first opponent at 8, and killed an entire dojo's roster of students when he was 10. Training was the whole focus of his upbringing, however, to the point that Ares was surprised any time Kiron was actually nice to him (he wore the same clothes for seven years before he got new ones, this is the level of parenting going on here.) After seven years of training under Kiron, just before Ares was going to be sent off with his master's sword, a red-eyed swordsman showed up to challenge Kiron and take the blade for his collection-- by that point, Kiron had gone almost entirely blind, and was unable to win. The swordsman killed Ares' master but left Ares himself alive, telling him to come get revenge when he grew up, and to make sure the apprentice would remember this the swordsman cut out Ares' right eye. Did I mention he was twelve, because the fact that everyone has awful childhoods explains a lot about this canon.

Ares is next shown 6 years later, now a broke teenager on his way to be a mercenary, and he shortly meets Mikael (who is on the way to the same place, conveniently.) Unfortunately for Mikael, Ares decides they're traveling together, which is the start of a friendship that involves a lot of him bothering Mikael and Mikael dragging Ares away from fights. This quickly grows into a small group when the two of them are accepted into the Temple Mercenaries, where they meet two other boys, Baroona and Gohu, and they all bond a bit more on their first mission. They're sent to protect a village by defeating the bandits extorting them, which they handle with few issues; Ares even manages to kill their leader, a former military general.

On their next mission to invade a neighboring country, Minos, he catches sight of a noble's daughter in a port town they stay in for a bit and just about immediately falls for her. Fortunately for him, he and Ariadne get along alright (after he has his friends distract her bodyguard Helena so they can talk more, anyway). She's eager for more excitement and freedom in her life, and stows away on a ship to sneak off to Minos with them, where Ares finds and has to protect her. This leaves him out of pretty much the entire mission, and causes a little trouble for them later-- he tries to keep Ariadne from seeing him do violent things to people, he fails, she freaks out (understandably) and runs off, but at least Helena explains to her that he was just protecting both of them and she's being pretty ungrateful here. They all return safely after the Minosian king is successfully captured, which Ares had nothing to do with.

General Icarus, who hired the mercenaries for the Minos invasion returns to ask for Mikael and Baroona specifically, as they'd impressed him; Mikael asks for him to bring Ares and Gohu too, which Icarus soon regrets because the two of them are kind of annoying. They're meant to be Icarus' bodyguards for negotiations with another neighboring country, Daraak, which has started pushing into Chronosian territory. During the meeting, though, Ares notices the Daraakian leader has red eyes and assumes it's the man who killed his master. While the others go to leave, Ares snaps and attacks the red-eyed man, but both the Daraakian's bodyguard and Mikael interrupt-- Mikael has to restrain Ares and hold him down to get him to stop. He also apologizes for Ares (despite his friend's protests) to prevent this from becoming a bigger fight on enemy territory, as the negotiations ended in a decision to go to war.

On their way back, Mikael asks Ares if he's Kiron's apprentice thanks to information Mikael and Baroona got on Minos, but Ares refuses to answer; he stays silent even when Mikael accuses him of not considering them to be friends in an attempt to get him to answer, and Baroona's reassurance that Mikael is trying to help doesn't get him to respond either. Before Ares can reply, the soldiers that came with their group attack-- two of Icarus' colleagues back in Chronos assassinated the king to take over the country themselves, and they want Icarus dead as they know he'll aid the rebellion against them. It sucks to be them, though, because this is exactly why Icarus hired his own bodyguards. After the soldiers discover they failed to kill Icarus and the mercenaries by trying to impale their carriage, Ares finally gets around to his answer: he tells the others he does consider them to be friends, and admits he's Kiron's apprentice. Their responses are essentially "okay, great, can we kill these guys though?" because Ares apparently has no concept of timing. He kills a number of them himself, proving to them that he's definitely skilled enough to have trained under Kiron, and once the soldiers are all dead they go on their merry way.

Well, less merry when you consider they're heading off to a civil war, thanks to a fellow general showing up to tell Icarus he needs to hurry up and get back. Icarus outsmarts the two men who started the coup and the rebellion against them ends in a quick and decisive victory-- exactly as planned, because then Daraak decides to invade and a prolonged war was a bad idea. The mercenaries are hired again by Icarus (who is now king) to fight the Daraakian army and their Black Knights, and before the battle really gets underway the Daraakian leader's bodyguard, Cygnus, shows up again to taunt Icarus. He and Ares start to finish their fight from the earlier meeting, but they're interrupted by both armies beginning to move (and again, Mikael almost has to literally drag Ares away from the fight.) Ares seeks out the enemy leader on the battlefield, and when he finds the red-eyed man again, he cuts his way through several of the Black Knights before another interruption from Cygnus. The two of them decide to go off to the nearby forest to finish their fight without interference.

Ares takes the upper hand, but can't kill him; during the fight, he spots a photo of Cygnus and his girlfriend, and is unable to strike a killing blow. He lets Cygnus live, telling him he's got a girlfriend waiting too, and heads off to find the red-eyed man yet again. It turns out he's run off with some of his knights after the rest of the Daraakians surrender, and Mikael has also followed Ares for this confrontation. Between the two of them, they take out the knights and their leader... but it's not the right red-eyed swordsman. He's missing the scar Ares gave him as a kid. The actual Red-eyed Swordsman is lurking around, however, as the other one is his older brother and he wanted to watch. He attacks, and toys with Ares and Mikael before leaving, saying he's not interested in fighting kids already worn out from battle. The fight's more than a little humiliating for the two of them, and Ares and Mikael both mope all the way back to the mercenaries' base, where they continue to be moody and silent.

It's then that Mikael's departure is suddenly announced, and Ares confronts him about why he didn't tell them, as well as why he won't give them a reason for leaving-- Mikael refuses to tell him, and Ares gets even more upset, telling him they're not friends anymore. He gets over that fit, though, in order to see Mikael off properly. Ares, Baroona, and Gohu hijack his carriage on his way off so they can take him to a restaurant to hang out one more time, along with giving him goodbye presents. In turn, Mikael gives Ares the sword he took after killing the master swordsman Bellisk, saying that he won't need it anymore.

Ares is being pulled from roughly this point-- he's coming in from their return trip, after saying their final goodbyes.


Personality:

Ares wasn’t raised as a child so much as he was trained, and with no memories of his former life, his apprenticeship was all he knew. The path he was set on by his master is the heaviest influence on the person he became, especially considering his acceptance of the idea that it was what he was meant for. As a child, he was taught that there are two kinds of people, those who are blessed and those who are not, and he acknowledged that he was one of the latter. Despite his attempts to change that for himself and become one of the more fortunate, he realized at a young age that it wasn’t something he could gain just through effort, and resolved himself to his place in life when he concluded his fate was already decided ("as one of those who isn't blessed, I'm ready to walk down whatever dark paths my life leads me to with a smile on my face.") However, deciding not to act on his wishes for a better life never eliminated them, and they’re still shown in the series’ present timeline. When Ariadne complains about feeling like she lives in a birdcage because of her overprotective father, it brings up the memory of Kiron telling him to win his first fight if he wanted to live, and his response is to tell her to cheer up-- other people have it worse, and would live a life like hers if they could.

Ares was raised instead with high expectations and harsh lessons meant to prepare him for life as a swordsman. His first fight to the death was at age eight, forced on him by locking him outside with his opponent, and he was simply told to win if he wanted to live. When Ares was given his first sword at age six, he was struck until he stopped pleading for Kiron to stop and was finally prepared to fight back; at ten, he was expected to kill an entire training dojo’s roster of students despite his lack of combat experience. Kiron expected that Ares would be able to face and overcome these without failure. He was taught that progress was made through confrontation and experience, and as a result Ares is still motivated to seek out the strongest opponents in battle-- at times he even has to be physically dragged away from a confrontation when he doesn’t consider whether it’s actually a good time. Ares also has a tendency to intervene in others' conflicts to help them, such as Baroona's fight with Ouranos; while Mikael tries to stop him from interfering, Ares cares less about honor and more about helping his friend to survive. When they underestimate him and don’t put enough effort into the fight, he’ll even provoke them by taunting and toying with them to either enrage them or force them to acknowledge his ability, as he does with the former general Sion early in the series. Sion refuses to even unsheath his sword until Ares proves he has the skill to challenge him, but Ares doesn’t take advantage of that to actually try to kill him. He’s something of a show-off instead, dodging and blocking swings until Sion is satisfied enough to draw his sword, at which point Ares simply tells him he’s happy Sion finally got serious. His master instructed him to respond to underestimation by not only besting his opponent but humiliating them-- or, failing that, to kill them-- and that lesson still influences his reactions when he’s not taken seriously.

While he did grow to be prepared for swordsmanship in both skill and attitude, Kiron’s methods and the focus on training during his childhood hindered Ares in other areas. Kiron was a mentor and master, not a father figure, and through the majority of their time together he showed little care and affection toward his apprentice. The first time that flashbacks showed him giving Ares a somewhat affectionate gesture, it was when he switched swords with Ares at the training dojo; he ruffled Ares’ hair as he instructed him to handle all of the students. On their return home, Kiron suggested that he not overexert himself if he wasn’t up to training, but Ares brushed him off and considered it strange that Kiron said it at all (“master must be getting old, worrying about me like that.”) Meanwhile, Kiron considered the way Ares insisted he was fine to be proof that he’d grown up. The closest Kiron ever got to expressing positive feelings about Ares (unrelated to his skill) was in the last words he gave his apprentice: “It’s been fun,” according to the translation. Growing up in an environment where displays of both emotion and affection were absent to such an extent left Ares little else to emulate, especially considering his inability to establish relationships with anyone else. He was an outcast among children in the nearby village, as their parents refused to let them play with or speak to a child being raised to eventually kill, and the one friend he made when he was younger rejected Ares a few years later to avoid being associated with him. He’d already learned to hide his actual reactions and feelings, and his shock at the unexpected rejection was the only time he showed anything but persistent friendliness to them (even to a boy who fought him).

He does take after his master in some regards, but Ares’ personality isn’t by any means an exact emulation. Where Kiron was largely stoic, Ares appears to be carefree, upbeat (and often clueless). Once he manages to befriend a few of his fellow mercenaries, he's often seen hanging around them, asking to play cards with Gohu or pestering Mikael into joining the rest of them and actually trying to have fun once in a while.  However, he also uses elements of this as a front to make himself appear less capable than he really is. On his first mission, Ares feigns a lack of skill in front of both civilians and his comrades when he’s accused of not being a real mercenary, making it appear as if he fails to perform a move he’s showing off. He claims he can cut a piece of wood tossed into the air with his eyes covered, and while it appears to be whole when it falls, the village kid he was showing that trick off to later kicks the chunk of wood and discovers Ares actually cut it twice, splitting it into quarters. This behavior continues in fights as well: he plays with his opponent while being evaluated for the mercenaries, stopping to tie his shoe as the mercenary strikes at him, pretending to fall for a bluff, even catching sand thrown at him and tossing it back into his opponent’s eyes. He strolls right through an ongoing fight when he goes to confront Sion, feigning ignorance and asking him who the boss is (immediately after Ares has killed an enemy trying to sneak up on him along the way, without even turning to look behind him.) 

One of the earlier points at which he displays the way he uses his surface personality to mask his actual feelings is when Ares runs into the same village kid who’d doubted his skills for a second time. After discovering that Ares had only pretended to fail when showing off earlier, Mickey finds him to introduce himself and ask Ares to make sure to defeat the bandits the mercenaries were hired to fight. He tells Ares his parents were both killed by the same bandits, and on realizing Mickey’s an orphan like he was, Ares suddenly becomes more serious. Ares promises he doesn’t fight to lose, and that he’ll get revenge for Mickey’s parents-- but when Gohu shows up to tell him the rest of their group are gambling, Ares immediately returns to that carefree attitude and goes to join them, leaving Mickey with a more casual comment to “just believe me!” He uses the same tactic while he’s with Ariadne in Minos, after she’s stowed away to join them. He allows her to believe he’s something of a coward while he keeps her away from battle, in order to stop her from seeing him fighting (he even intentionally injures his leg on a tree to get her not to run off on her own); he fears she’ll hate him if she sees him kill, and covers for it with excuses to keep the two of them out of the way.

Keeping up a facade in this way is such an ingrained behavior for him that later in the series, immediately after coming out of an unresponsive state induced by spoiler-laden trauma, he’s still able to slip right back into the same personality. He cheerily tells Ariadne they should go out later, appearing to be his “normal” self. Once she’s gone, however, Ares kills the man who’d just been threatening her life, killing him more ruthlessly than his previous opponents even after the man asks Ares to hear him out-- Ares cuts his throat before he can say anything. Prior to this, he shows mercy to several opponents, especially when they’ve been humanized-- he’s unable to kill Cygnus, an enemy soldier, after seeing a photo of the boy with his girlfriend-- and after defeating Sion, Ares agrees to the request not to kill his men with no complaint. He also gives others plenty of warning before actually trying to kill them; in one case, he swings twice at an opponent without drawing his sword, and warns the man he’s been allowed to live both times. Ares only kills him after he refuses to back down. In contrast to his later, more violent behavior, the lack of change in his surface personality makes it even more clear it’s not fully genuine.

One of the key things that Ares generally keeps to himself is the fact that Kiron was his master. It’s something he could likely use to his advantage, considering that at least one master swordsman in the series wants to fight Kiron’s apprentice. All that was known about the apprentice, however, was that he was a teenager who happened to be missing one eye. With that information known to at least some, part of the reason Ares tends to mask his combat ability is more clear-- if he wants to keep his identity quiet, then being an openly skilled swordsman of the right age and description will draw more attention than simply being the right age with one eye. He’ll admit to it when there’s a good reason, such as the time he uses his status to ensure the assassins in Minos stay away; the leader agrees to leave after seeing Ares’ level of skill, asks to know who trained him before they go, and the answer makes the assassin throw himself right out the window to run for his life. Outside situations such as that, though, Ares doesn’t even tell his friends about his connection to Kiron, and it takes effort on their part to get him to say so. He remains silent when asked outright by Mikael, when Mikael then accuses him of not seeing their group as friends, and when Baroona reassures him Mikael is just trying to help him as a friend. It takes a little time for him to actually break his silence and admit Kiron was his master, and even then it’s likely the accusation that Ares doesn’t care about them that really prompts the admission-- when he finally responds and says he does think of them as friends, he also tells Mikael to stop being mad at him before he actually answers the original question.

The reason he keeps his identity quiet isn’t outright stated, but the way that his master died and Ares’ own reactions during the confrontation (along with his focus on revenge) point to lingering guilt about failing Kiron. He berated himself for his cowardice in running away, and returned when Kiron was already dead; Ares then attacked the Red-eyed Swordsman despite knowing he’d likely be killed. He was willing to risk death from the start of the confrontation as well, when he insisted the swordsman had to defeat him to fight Kiron ("As long as I'm here you won't be able to lay a finger on my master! You'll have to get through me first!"), and so his guilt appears to stem both from his failure to protect his master and his own survival. When he attacked and managed to strike the Red-eyed Swordsman, he declared that he was Kiron’s apprentice, and he was going to follow his master into hell-- then failed to follow through. The fact that he doesn’t often want to admit to his identity after that point seems to indicate he feels like he didn’t live up to it.

5-10 Key Character Traits:

-Driven
-Energetic
-Volatile
-Disingenuous
-Playful
-Hardened
-Protective


Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits!

Opt-Outs: Naga, arachne, nymph, werebear, and Ryan is a merperson so I'd prefer not to get the same one!

Roleplay Sample:

TDM: one and two! I'll provide a written one if needed.