Profile
1000yrs ago, Bran’s first ‘life’
Natlan
His father was a hunter, his mother was actually a scholar from a wealth family that fell in love with him. She taught Bran when he was growing up, but she was always a bit disappointed that he enjoyed running out to the woods instead of studying like she did. Bran, sensing this, decided that he would show her how great the woods were. He did this by taking a notebook out into the woods, sketching the plants and animals he saw, and writing as much about them as he knew. Then he would come running back to show her.
This just became something he did after a while, and studying the living things around him became a passion of his. He became an expert on the behavior and environments of different plants and animals in the woods, filling book after book about them even well into adulthood. He also became an expert tracker and hunter, and in adulthood some of his ‘notebooks’ were published as authority texts. People would come from other countries to hire him for his tracking abilities or to get information about different animals.
Vision: One day he was tracking what he thought might be a new breed of wolf, when he stumbled upon their den. Backed into a corner by the whole pack, he was given his dendro Vision. The burst of elemental energy caused the vines to go crazy, ensnaring most of the wolves. Bran ended up starting into the eyes of the leader of the wolves, the only one still free. After a long moment of their eyes being locked….Bran threw the Vision that had appeared in his hand as hard as he could at the wolf’s head. It bounced off its forehead, stunning it long enough for Bran to take it out with his sowr. When he could finally catch a breath his thoughts went ‘Hey having a Vision is handy!” ‘....Wait, I have a Vision!?’ and then ‘Wait, where the hell is my Vision??” Followed by several frantic minutes of looking for it.
-His first wife was a lady hunter named Adena with red hair and a pyro Vision. She shot out the eye of a monster that was attack Bran, and Bran could only go ‘hi’ in response. They ended up having a few adventures together, and then got married. Bran adored her. Eventually Adena would become the leader of their small village.
-When they were teenagers, Adena heard about a civil war going on far away in a nation called Mondstdat. Since she had been hearing about the slavery practiced by the nobles there and how much of a headache that could be to other nations, she thought it would be good to support this woman who was fighting against that. She approached her uncle, who lead the village before her, to ask if they could send assistence. Her uncle didn't want to be invovled in war so far away, and that had nothing to do with them, so told her no. She went away, but later gathered a few of those she was close to - including Bran. She purposed that maybe there wasn't offical help being sent, but if a group of hunters from thier village happened to accidently wander over to Mondstadt, then that was another thing. So, that was what their little group did. They reached Mondstadt just in time to help Vanessa with some of her final plans
-One day, longer after they had returned to thier home vilalge, Bran told his wife and children he would be back soon, then went off into the woods to hunt. He rememberes heading off into an area he knew well - and the next thing he knew he was lyingon his back in an area much farther away from where he had been, feeling like death itself. Feeling weak, dizzy, and very confused, he got to his feet and started trying to make his way....somewhere. He didn't get far before he collapsed. Fortuantely, he was found soon after by a search party from his village who told him they had been searching for him for three days. He was sick for nearly two week, fading in and out of consiousness, with a very high fever. No one could figure out what was wrong with him, or if he would even survive. Eventually he started to recover, and was back on his feet. His wife scolded him for heading out hunting when he was sick, and all he could tell her was that he felt fine when he had first headed out.
-It wasn't until decades later that Bran realized something was wrong. His children were grown, and even his grandchildren were getting very mature. His wife had aged. He, however, hadn't changed at all. It took him a long time to accept it. He apolgozied to Adena several times over it, despite her telling him that it wasn't his fault, and that he should see it as a blessing from the gods. Bran wasn't nearly as sure about that.
-After Adena's death, he stayed around the village to protect it, seeing it as his duty. As he started to outlive his children, and even his grandchildren, Bran started to feel suffocated in the village itself and moved to living in the hills around the village. He couldn't stand to be in a place where he had lost so much, yet it was his home. He felt he had to stay nearby. He would come down to help when it was needed, but otherwise started to detach from the village. Eventually, much to his shock, he realized that he was being worshiped as something like a god of hunting and tracking by his village. Despite his protests that he was only human, they didn't seem to believe him. The treated him as if he was beyond him, and he hated it. Eventually they started asking him for things he didn't have the power to do. He felt pressured, and like he was going to crack. Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore - he just left. He also changed his name to 'Bran' so that he would completely sepreate from this 'god' identity they tried to force on him.
-His home village was in a large valley. Now the valley is the site of a large lake/swamp with no one realizing there used to be a village there. Seeing it makes his heart ache, so he doesn’t go to the lake much. He can’t visit the graves of his family anyway, because they’re so far underwater.
- Undetermined years ago (700 years or so?)
Inazuma
Bran had a child with a woman who worked as a merchant - it was an unexpected pregnancy after a brief relationship. Bran immideately married her - both to take responsiblity and after so long wandering with no purpose this chance at a 'normal' life was appealing to him. Their little boy was premature, and they were terrified that he wouldn’t survive a month, but he managed to overcome the odds to live. Yet...he was never that strong after that, and got sick easily. His parents fussed over him. Bran made sure to be attentive, teaching him everything he knew. There was a tree outside their house, and Bran would carry his son out to show him the birds.
The boy grew to ten, proving to be curious and intelligent but still very weak. Bran and his wife took turns staying with him. Bran started taking up more work with the Adventurers guild to pay for his son’s medicine. He hated being away so much but he couldn’t help it. /
One day he came back to find his wife frantic because their son had collapsed. He rushed out to get a doctor but by the time they came back it was too late and their child’s life slipped away.
In a burst of grief Bran stormed outside with this claymore and swung it at the tree in front of their house. It was nearly split in two. He and his wife buried their son in a small forest clearing near the house. Their relationship turned rocky for a long time after their son's death. Eventually they had another child, a girl this time. Both her parents were very over-protective of her, not even wanting her to leave the house. Bran tried to teach her everything, but still keep her safe. he didn't want to lose another child like that. But his daughter saw it as suffocating. Unberable. One day she ran away.
Bran tracked her down easily - once he had someone's trail it was incredibly hard to lose him. Once he caught her, he unloaded on him about her feelings, about how unberable it was, about how she almost hated him for treating her like a replacement for a sibling she had never meet. When she gained an Anemo Vision during his, Bran was forced to see what he had actually been doing, and that he had cared more his own feelings than anything else. He hadn't treated any of this other daughters like this. He also wondered if the Vision was a rebuke from Barbatos himself.
So he had a long talk with his daughter. He asked only that she come back for a little bit - so he could teach her how to defend herself and maybe how to use her Vision a little. Then he would let her go, with no agruments. She eventually agreed to this.
Bran kept his promise, but his wife was infurated by this. She was terrified of losing another child, didn't want to listen to any of the arguments, and saw it as Bran taking away another of their children. It put another strain on their relationship. This worsened once she realized that Bran wasn't aging. He had been avoiding telling her what had happened to him, that he was immortal, because he had wanted to ignore it, pretend that he was normal for a while. It hit her hard, and left a lasting scar on their relationship. Still they stayed together.
Bran stayed until his wife died. After he buried her, he shut up the house and left.
Sumeru
Bran actually tried to be a scholar in Sumeru for a time! People had said he would be good at it, and he thought that maybe it would be a good change of pace. It took a while for people to acknowledge his more studious expertise, because even though the adventurer’s guild would was more than willing to vouch for him, the scholars were side-eyeing him for a long time because they weren’t sure that he actually had the sort of knowledge that would be useful to Sumeru Academia. He had books published already, including one or two that were still in the University’s library, but they had been published hundreds of years ago and who would believe it was him that had written him. Eventually he did manage to make an impression on the scholars and was accepted into their circles...sort of. He actually became in demand for other scholars that wanted to do field research, but always felt as if they were treating him more as a pet adventurer than a scholar. So he started to lose interest in staying.
Because while he found some of his fellow scholars interesting, he also found the Academia a bit too cutthroat for him, and he was actually beginning to get bored of some of the politicking among the scholars. He could keep up if he wanted too, but he really had no interest in it. Beside, he had a boyfriend, a fellow scholar named Tarekthat he’d taken up with who was also getting bored with what he saw as people less interested in knowledge itself and instead people interested in proving they were more knowledgeable than anyone else. Eventually Bran just decided he was going to go back to being an Adventurer, and asked his lover if he was willing to come with. His lover, also having become rather jaded about the academics, agreed and they two left. They traveled together for years, exploring different parts of Teyvat, and writing books about what they had seen or stories they had been told. Neither of them were trying for fame, just for the joy of doing it - and maybe spiting some of the scholars who had turned up their noses at them. Bran’s partner became good at fighting in his own right, something Bran was very proud of.
When Tarek got older and retired from the adventuring life, they settled down and ran an inn together. They ended up having two daughters as well. When his partner died, Bran handed the inn over to a trusted friend and took off into the wilderness again.
-Approx 400 years agosnezhnaya
Bran married a woman who was part of the weaver’s guild. He admired her craftsmanship, and fell in love with her. She was a widow with a young son from her previous marriage. Bran loved the boy, and thought of him as his own son. For a while it was good, the child looked up to him and Bran tried his best to be supportive. But as the years went on, and the boy grew up, he began to get resentful. He had admired Bran, had wanted to be like him. Yet despite waiting the Vision he so desired never came to him. He didn’t have Bran’s easy charisma and confidence either and some people called him ‘arrogant’ for attempting to immidate those qualities without understand them. He wanted respect and was annoyed that he couldn't figure out how to get it.
He also got it into his head that Bran held some sort of secret to immortality that he wasn’t sharing because they weren’t blood related. Despite Bran trying to explain to him that he isn’t, has no idea where his own longevity came from, and in any case immorality isn’t all it’s cracked up to since it’s a very lonely life...his son didn’t believe him. After a fight about it, his son left their house completely. Bran’s wife convinced him to give their son space - she was worried as well but knew that if they chased after him he would pull away further.
When Bran caught rumors that his son had headed into Khaenri’ah/Abyss in search of answers, he panicked. Quickly he went searching for him to see if that was the truth, sure that the boy had gotten in over his head. He used his old knowledge of where the country had been to try finding a way in, but it still took him longer than he liked to find an entrance.
When he finally emerged from the Abyss again, he was alone. Bran was hollowed-eyed and has refused to say what he saw down there, even to confirm if that was where his son had gone. He apologized to his wife about it, but after a long disscussion she placed on blame on him. They stayed together until her death. Bran stayed around the area for a while, earning himself rumors about a strange spriti in the woods, but eventually left.
Approx 200-250 years agoLiyue
While spending some time in Liyue with the Adventurer's Guild, Bran was given a commission from a well-known local architect named Faishi who was annoyed about monster attacks at the construction site of a building he had designed. Yes, he had asked the Millelith for help, but he didn’t think they were making enough progress. He was convinced there was more to it than just a couple of monsters causing trouble, and the Millelith were…. not. The Guild had thought that maybe Bran, with his tracking expertise, could help figure out if there really was something going on, and the origins of it if they were.
Fai Shi was aloof, and clearly not sure if he thought Bran was up to the task. He insisted on going long when they went out to the construction site, so he could look over the damage himself. After a brief skirmish where Bran figured out that it was a group of hillichurals who had been driven out from their original camp by stray ruin hunter, Fai Shi admitted that he did have some skills.
Although his actual commission was done, Bran stayed around for a while to see what Fai Shi had been so interested in coming out here to check on, even though he had to use a cane because of an obvious limp, something that hadn’t made the trip easy. Architecture was something that Bran hadn’t studied much, so he found it interesting and hung around, eventually accompanying Fai Shi back to the city. Fai Shi was actually annoyed about this, since he thought Bran didn’t think he would be able to get back on his own because of his limp, and pity was something he hated. Bran, meanwhile, had just wanted to talk with him a bit more. Bran stayed around Liyue for the next couple of years because he was interested in studying geo Visharps. He and Fai Shi ended up meeting up often over those couple of years, and even though Bran eventually realized he had fallen for Fai Shi, it took much longer for Fai Shi to realize he returned those feelings, and that Bran liked him just for who he was with no other motivations.
After a while they were married, and ended up living in a house on the edge of Liyue Harbor that Fai Shi had designed. One of the apprentices that Fai Shi took on became like a daughter to them. But as happy as he was Bran could not stop the march of time.
When Fai Shi died, Bran went along with his husband’s final wishes and, with help from Wangshen Funeral Parlor, had him buried on a high hill that looked over Liyue Harbor that they had visited together often. Fai Shi, who had never gotten along with his birth family, hadn’t wanted to go along with their plan to have him buried in the family gravesite, especially since Bran wouldn’t be there with him. When they found out about what had happened, the family was pissed at Bran and blamed him for it, as if Fai Shi had nothing to do with the decision.
Bran stuck around for a few more years, but once he was sure that the apprentice that had looked up to them as paternal figures was doing fine with her own career, he gift her the house they had shared. After that he just slowly sort of...faded away from Liyue, barely coming back as he tried to move on.
-Because he was detached from the higher social circles of Liyue with Fai Shi gone, Bran didn’t realize that Fai Shi’s family was taking their revenge on what they insisted was petty revenge against them for not approving of him by slowly but surely making people outside of the Adventurer’s Guild forget that Bran existed or that Fai Shi was ever married in the first place. They even held the fancy funeral they had already been planning shortly after Fai Shi’s actual burial. It was only centuries later, when he was visiting the Traveler and his granddaughters in Liyue that Bran realized that history now claimed Fai Shi was buried with the rest of his family, and that he was only one of Fai Shi’s ‘workers’.
-125 or so years agoBran fell in love and married the head of the guard in Fontaine, a woman named Emilai, after they had worked together several times. She was bright, purposeful and lively, and Bran adored that. He always jokes that their first date was the day she asked him to stand as second in her duel against her superior officer that had seriously annoyed her. They eventually had several children, and she became well known as a weapon’s instructor. When she eventually passed on Bran retreated into the wilderness in Fontaine for a while. It was nothing new to him, it was what he always did when he lost a long-term partner.
But to his surprise, a few years later he turned around one day to find one of his youngest granddaughters had tracked him down. Now grown, she had been curious about the grandfather she barely remembered, and wanted him to meet her own child - a daughter named Penelople. Although he didn’t really feel like going back into cities yet, he did start to get to know these grandchildren of his better. He also started teaching Penelope himself, and trained her to defend herself.
When an adult Penelople became a doctor, earned her own Vision, and then decided to go traveling to learn more outside of Fontaine, Bran decided to go with her.
Comments