Annatto Beribeme

Annatto was born in PE 20. 

Annatto facts:

• He's 5'9"/174.3 cm
• Annatto doesn't have the best sense of direction. He had a passible sense of direction in the city he grew up, but he has immense difficulty learning new places. And so because of the places life leads him, his sense of direction is comparable to an acorn's.
• Annatto and Lark had/have cute nicknames for each other. Lark called him Raspberry and he called her Lemon Drop
• As of PE 54 he's missing his right ring finger.

Annatto was born to a prostitute in Northern Aquariall. His mother abandoned him around the age of 6. At some point after that Annatto was taken into/joined a gang where he spent most of his formative years. When Annatto was in his early twenties/very late teens he began to befriend Nori Beribeme, a member of law enforcement (I'm yet unsure if he knew that at first or not). Nori was a good influence on Annatto and became almost a father figure to him. His membership in the gang and participation in illegal activity began to weigh heavy on Annatto's conscience, leading him to go to Nori and rat out his gang to the authorities on the eve of a particularly big scheme.

Nori had had an inkling before that Annatto was probably apart of gang life, but upon coming clean to him Nori took Annatto as under his wing as time allowed. Nearly every member of the gang was arrested. And although Annatto wasn't, he had to serve a penalty of 4 years of community service. Right at the end of his penalty Annatto met his future wife, Lark Bonnevali. In wake of the end of his community service sentence, Lark became the new focus and anchor for Annatto's life. Lark's thirst for adventure led Annatto all over Aquariall after her. Both because of this travel and because Nori is just a very busy man, Annatto did not see much of him in these years.

After they had been dating for 5 years Annatto received news that a few members of his former gang had escaped prison, and had every reason to believe they were now gunning for him. Up to this point Annatto had been able to mostly avoid the topic of his former membership in a gang with Lark. Annatto was still hesitant and afraid to share this history with his girlfriend, despite their present danger, and instead ended up dragging her around Aquariall in an attempt to keep the gang members off his tail. All without telling Lark much of anything. A decision he would forever regret.

After much frustration Lark finally corners Annatto enough for him to have to come clean about everything. Lark was shocked and angry to discover that he'd kept his former gang involvement from her, AND the fact that there were people trying to KILL HIM chasing them. Betrayed and angry they got into a heated argument as Annatto tried to explain himself, finally Annatto quit the fight to go out for a walk and get some night air to calm down. Not long into his walk Annatto was jumped by his pursuers.

Meanwhile Lark was left fuming after the abrupt end to the argument. When her boyfriend did not return in the morning Lark went looking for him with some anger and quiet anxiety. An individual on the street informed her that he had left (likely either misremembering a conversation, or thinking Lark was looking for a different person). Now wounded and convinced that Annatto had left her now that his deception had come to light, Lark decided to return home to Malchester. Along the way discovering that she was pregnant with Annatto's children.

Meanwhile Meanwhile: Nori learned of the escape of the gangsters he had helped imprison, and of the subsequent disappearance of Annatto. Nori dropped much of his work in order to try and find these escaped criminals, and to discover the fate of Annatto. Hoping against hope that he was still alive. After nearly half a decade of searching Nori not only brought the gangsters to justice, but joyfully found Annatto to be alive - albeit very worse for wear. For the past 3-5 Annatto had been kept tied up in a basement on the brink of starvation and physically tortured.

In the coming years Nori all but adopted Annatto. He and his family helping Annatto to both physically and mentally recover from his years in captivity. It was during this time that Annatto took on Nori's family name (likely at the prompting of Nori's spouse). From early on after being freed Annatto had had a strong desire to return to Lark, but had not quite been in good enough shape for that to yet be possible. After several years of recovery, Annatto, with the help of the Beribeme family was able to finally begin his search for Lark. 

In the early summer of PE 63 Annatto arrived at the Bonnevali estate. His arrival unfortunately happened not long after the death of Lark's brother in law, William. Already wracked with grief, the family was none to pleased to see the man that - as far as they knew - had lied to Lark, gotten her pregnant, and abandoned her. Interrupting his attempts to explain, he was challenged to a duel by Lark's mother, Bonnevali herself. Who promptly whooped his butt. It was only after the pleading of Lark and the intervention of her husband, Aebel, that Bonnevali stopped beating Annatto. Aebel quickly dismissed Bonnevali and the rest of the family and had a stern talk with Annatto as he recovered. The whole family was slow to trust, and while Aebel wasn't eager to give him the benefit of the doubt, he still extended the kindness he could to his future son in law. 

Lark was not willing to see or speak with Annatto for some time, but also didn't want him to leave. Aebel served as Annatto's main interaction point to the family for his first week there. With her father overseeing the conversation Lark allowed Annatto to explain his side of the story, and gave him the ultimatum that she would give him a chance again, if he could befriend his daughters, Sugar and Spice, now almost 11 years of age. Annatto had learned of his daughters and his apparent fatherhood for the first time while still in the heat of his duel with Bonnevali, and had spent the past few days recovering from that discovery even more than he had been recovering physically. 

Over the next year or so Annatto succeeded in endearing himself to the family and his daughters. Despite her initial hesitance, in the end Lark was eager to reunite with Annatto, and some time in the coming year or two they were officially married. Annatto has never gotten over the guilt and regret of leaving Lark alone to raise two daughters for over ten years, even if it wasn't entirely his fault. He's had a lot of grief thinking about and wishing he could have been there to be a father and a partner to Lark. He's definitely a bit of a try hard in his attempts to support and love his daughters, awkward but trying his best to compensate for the time he lost. Because of his desire to fully experience fatherhood they may have had more kids later, but I'm not sure on that.