"You know, you can order me around, right?"

Childhood

In the outer city of Baldur's Gate a half-elf woman gave birth to two tiefling twins, to the shock of both the mother and the father. The two children grew up poor in the slums, and unfortunately stood out in their childhood as tieflings weren't very common. When Zervir was a child, they had neighbors who would take care of horses, cows, sheep, goats, and the like. Zervir dared his sister Zelda to spook one of them, but when she denied, Zervir decided to do something different--he would try to ride one of their neighbour’s horses without any training. While his sister watched, Zervir climbed over the fence and climbed on some hay stacks, and when the time was right, leaped onto one of the nearby horses. The horse panicked, and Zervir desperately tried to scramble on top properly. After maybe about 30 seconds, the horse reared, and Zervir fell off, breaking his leg. That was the last time Zervir tried to mess with his neighbour’s animals. His parents had to drag him off his neighbour’s property with apologies and bring him to a cleric in the city. Even a few years after that when Zervir wanted to pet his neighbour’s goats, the neighbours shooed him off. He still did it anyway when they weren’t looking.

Fire

At the age of 8, their home caught on fire, resulting in them having to stay at a neighbour's while the parents tried to rebuild the house. As the parents got more and more poor by the fire's costs, the family one day went into Baldur's Gate, although the twins thought they were just going to play around and explore. To their surprise and in a sick twist of fate, by the time the two children came back after roaming around for an hour, they were greeted by a noble man standing beside their parents holding a contract. Smiling, the nobleman explained that the two children would be residing and helping out with his aristocratic family, and in return their parents would receive coins every month for the children's help. With all that done with, the two children were brought into the patriar family and by extension Baldurian courts in the Upper City, living with their new employers for the rest of their childhood and teenage years.

Teenage Years

During his days with the noble family, he was kept in separate chambers from his sister with the rest of the male servants. By no means did Zervir truly enjoy his stay, but he did get used to it with not much choice. Zervir was among the youngest servants, between himself and his sister. The rest of the servants were in their later teenage years, or adulthood and seniority. Zervir was taught by some of the more experienced servants to be a jack of all trades. Although Zervir was slow, not understanding the aristocratic life having lived as a poor boy, no one gave him any mercy and punished him for any wrongdoings. Over the next few years, Zervir continued to train with the other servants. To any letters to his family, Zervir lied and told them their lives were fine. By the time their contract came to an end, Zervir was well trained in multiple roles including: grooming and tidying his masters, cleaning, gardening, carrying stock to the storage room, and so forth. Their masters offered them a better contract; ten years for a much better pay--coins that they’d actually receive personally instead of their parents. He obliged, not knowing what else he would do with his life. After his sister agreed to stay as well, Zervir continued his jack-of-all-trades role, helping out wherever he could. He built up muscle, as constant demand of his physical needs taxed his body while he was still young and energetic. Unlike most of the other servants, he had a hand in every chore, although it was much more of a variety than just focusing on one single job. Eventually, he was approached by the steward of the household to start taking on some of his roles; he was growing old with age and needed someone young to start to take over. At the very least, this came with an even higher pay rate. While Zervir hesitantly agreed, he was pushed into harsh tutorship with whacks of rulers to pay attention to mathematics and economics. It wasn’t by any means something Zervir was comfortable with, mathematics not being anywhere near his strong suit, but he was pushed to learn. He had to keep track of several different book logs which hurt his head. Zervir’s free time became much more limited taking on this role; when he did get it he would often sneak onto rooftops and sit with his sister, staring off into the cityscape and look up at the stars. Other times, he would playfully flirt with the other female staff.

Adulthood

In his early twenties while roaming the backyard, Zervir stumbled across a dying raven, its wings heavily damaged and it let out long croaks of pain. He tried to nudge the raven a bit but it would not move. The first thought that ran through his head was to bring it to Zelda. As he picked up the raven, a flash of emotions came through; emotions from the life of the raven--hope, freedom, hunger, hurt, despair. A flash of darkness--cold--sorrow, and then a woman with pale porcelain skin wearing a black dress with feathers, combed back long black hair and giant black wings. The Avatar of the Raven Queen greeted Zervir, lacking a physical form, but this was the way someone like him could understand her without sending cryptic messages for a first meeting. He doesn’t remember much about the meeting but does remember a few things: memories are important and it is necessary to make and keep them, life is sacred and all souls must eventually move on, and while one may temporarily extend one’s life, no one can be immortal and cheat death without consequences. Zervir woke up in his bed and looked around to see himself being taken care of by one of the clerics in the town that the nobles called for his aid. He had been unconscious for the past 4 hours, and no one was able to awaken him. He apologized profusely, but the feeling of a bit of sorrow and heightened emotions overwhelmed him until it slowly faded the next morning.

Dreams

Zervir had a dream a week later with strange visions and messages. A raven’s head, followed by a bird’s bones half buried in dirt with worms. Roses shifting throughout days before quickly bending over and wilting. Crows circling and cawing in a clearing in the woods. Overgrowth of plants and wild weeds. And then, night time and glowing yellow eyes in the middle of the clearing looking back. At first, he didn’t share this information with Zelda, not sure what to make of it and just ignoring it as something he ate that messed him up, or just high stress. Another week later, Zervir had a different dream. It was him looking down at his hands which were crackling with a black eldritch energy crackling and sparking with purple bolts inside the dark magic. As he stared at the crackling energy in his hands, he saw a feather fall past his face. Then five feathers. Then dozens upon dozens as raven feathers fell from the sky and drifted past him to the ground. He isn’t able to recall a face or the true form, but a shadowy feminine figure with large black wings reached out to him. Feeling the call of the mysterious force that desperately tried to pull him in, he reached out and made a pact with the Raven Queen. Ever since that night, Zervir found himself capable of strange magic that he never once had.

To Present Day

Eventually, Zelda and Zervir trained together. It was complex, but very fascinating. Another spectral raven was summoned by Zervir, and he used it to his advantage. As Zervir collected more coins from the extra (and cheating at) work, he promised Zelda that one day they’d take a few months off from their jobs and go explore the world for once. A nice vacation, one they never had as children. And that time would hopefully be soon. A few months ago, Zervir was caught by the staff in a closet with one of the female servants in her young twenties as well, and almost got fired. Zervir promised it wouldn’t happen again, although that wasn’t a promise he could easily keep. They were given light punishment, but Zervir kept more on guard with any intimate encounters. One morning, a light mist rolled in...