Russet

Russet is a fast-talking, fast-moving busybody. He has a strong belief that if you want something done right, you must do it yourself. He is meticulous, efficient, organized, and overly-responsible; often ending up in codependent relationships in which he is the "caretaker", which almost always crash and burn. He enables those in his life, and cleans up their messes for them, doing damage control; the most notable of these being his sister Mauve, who he finds a way to defend no matter what.

Though his heart is dedicated to helping people, he cannot stand when others help him, as he feels they will mess up and he'll have to do it all over anyways. He is very bright, and even though he's not smug about it, he almost always adamantly believes he is the smartest Ptithian in the room. He micromanages everyone and everything around him because otherwise his stress will drive him crazy, but overworking himself leads to stress anyways. He is disciplined, decisive, and hardworking.

Russet is polite enough, and enjoys spending time with his Flock. He takes his job incredibly seriously, and is hypervigilant to make sure he can save as many Ptithians as physically possible. Though his magic itself does not heal wounds, he can use it to locate them, and is good enough at his craft to save lives in emergency surgeries. 

Russet was born into a very large gryphon family with eleven older siblings; the closest in age to himself being roughly seven years older than him while the rest were only about a year apart. 

His mother was a hard worker, and a mortuary assistant to Suuriesh, who could use her magic to "see" internal damage, which she used to identify the cause of death; an ability Russet inherited. He didn't get many memories of her in the only three years their lives intersected, but she did her best to support her large family and gave as much attention as she could to what ended up being thirteen children.

Having lived in The Seaside Clan, there was always danger of a hunter or occultist attack. 

Shortly after Russet's mother laid her last egg, she was killed in one of these attacks on her way home, caught as collateral when trying to protect a morshin from a hunter, not even getting to live to see her child hatch.

Russet's father was thrown into a bout of grief. He'd already been incapable, but now on his own, his incompetence truly began to affect the thirteen gryphon children. He was quickly overwhelmed without his wife there, and didn't know how to take care of the brood or the home itself. The surroundings became messy, the children went unbathed and unfed for large quantities of time, and their father stayed curled up helpless in bed.

Russet started picking up the slack almost immediately in an attempt to increase everyone's quality of life. He learned to cook --having to pile various items to reach the stove, clean, and take care of his new sister when she hatched.

Because his father never got around to naming the hatchling, Russet named her Mauve, and despite being a young chick himself, took to caring for her as best as he could.

Around this time, his oldest three siblings became adults, and left almost immediately.

Russet's father lost his job as a janitor after not coming in to work for large chunks of time, and not doing much while he was there, and fell into a deeper depression; rarely leaving his room and relying on his children to bring him food and try to cheer him up. Russet especially took it upon himself to help, wanting nothing more than for everyone to be happy and healthy.

Another handful of Russet's siblings left shortly after their father lost his job. It was getting harder and harder to keep food on the table. They were old enough to handle life mostly on their own, and couldn't afford to keep the rest of the household afloat with their measly income, so they left one-by-one as soon as they were old enough for their own good.

There was often so little food in the house, so quickly snatched up by the older siblings in a bid for survival of the fittest, that Russet would frequently go hungry to offer what few scraps he had to Mauve. They were closer to one another than any of the other siblings, who hadn't fostered much of a bond with the youngest two due to the huge gap in experiences and age. He almost took on a parental figure to his little sister, as he was the only one to look out for her.

In a panic to keep his family together, Russet, just over six at the time, practically forced his father to write down a resume with what Russet said, as he hadn't been taught to read or write himself. He brought it around town, Mauve trailing behind him, trying to find someone to hire his father and using the excuse that he was currently too ill for the job search himself, but would be better enough to work soon.

Miraculously, his mother’s old employer, Suuriesh was in town, and wanted someone to clean his summer home and garden while they were gone. Out of pity, empathy, and a loyalty to his old assistant, they gave Russet's father an interview. Even more miraculously, his father cleaned up enough (with the help of Russet) that he was able to get the job, which he then only worked for just over a week before falling back into the rut of disappearing.

Still leaning on the crutch of grief, Russet's father went back to huddling as a shell in his room. He'd weep for hours, and as always, despite Russet's best efforts the house fell into a state of disarray again. 

To avoid his father getting fired again, Russet started taking his key to get into the mortician’s house and would clean in his stead. He would make it seem like his father had been the one there instead of himself, and his hard work resulted in caq coming in each pay period. He kept the fact that he was the one cleaning, organizing, washing, dusting, trimming hedges, and planting flowers a secret; the young gryphon was worried that if the doctor found out his father wasn't coming in to work, he'd be fired again and they'd lose their income. He knew that they needed the money, as the siblings who did work had begun to keep their earnings as much to themselves as possible in self preservation and with the goal of leaving when they could. 

And his older siblings did leave, as soon as opportunities presented themself. One-by-one, they would pack up and disappear without a goodbye, cutting all contact with the remaining children. The house emptied. By the time he was eleven, only Russet and Mauve remained... Nobody had taken the pair with them.

In the meantime, Russet had developed an interest in Suuriesh’s library. He taught himself to read with medical textbooks, He also started bringing Mauve to work with him, teaching her to read too. 

Russet became fascinated with the way medicine worked. He decided he wanted to use his inherited ability to become a doctor of sorts himself. He wanted to save lives, and fix the problems the diagrams on the pages he scoured depicted. He studied the textbooks religiously in his freetime after cleaning,staying as long as he could to avoid going home to his pitiful wretch of a father, wanting to memorize every little detail he could.

After forging some signatures, Russet got himself and Mauve enrolled in school, relieved to have a way to get Mauve educated and away from the house even when he couldn't have her with him. He was happy that they'd be fed daily, but at that point, so much of their growth had been stunted due to being malnourished that the pair would get odd looks from other students for being so small. 

Despite his best efforts to protect her, Russet couldn't stop Mauve from becoming the target of a lot of bullying. Having been only a chick himself when their mother had passed, he'd never learned how to properly keep himself well groomed, much less Mauve. He'd stand up for her when he caught it happening, but unfortunately, he was not capable of being omnipresent.

He became skilled at multitasking. He balanced getting high grades with keeping up on the ruse of his father's work, cooking and cleaning for his sister and father, and when he became old enough, took on a second part-time fishing job to save up for a way to leave home. 

He did the best to be a positive role-model for Mauve, but he'd never had one himself, and he was spread very thin. She began to act out, lying, stealing, picking fights... everywhere Mauve went, trouble started. She became louder, angrier, more of a delinquent, and to make up for it all, Russet would swoop in to save the day. He became damage control, fixing the problems she caused before any repercussions could come to her, bending over backwards to find her anything and everything she wanted, going through mental acrobatics to excuse her behavior and come to her defense. She became a self-destructive underachiever, and he would do her assignments for her without a second thought.

She became a known menace --but she was his baby sister, and so as soon as she shed a tear or claimed she was sorry for her actions, Russet was there to pick up the pieces.

Teenage Russet began to notice recruitment posters for The Flock, which piqued his interest. He thrived in an environment of organization and discipline, the pay would be better than both jobs combined, and it would give him an opportunity to train in medicine and truly make a difference by saving lives. He would've signed up immediately if not for being too young, but decided to do so once he reached the right age.

At twenty, he realized he could leave his neglectful blob of a father behind. He'd saved enough money to get himself out --but only himself. He'd have to leave Mauve behind, sentence her to several more years of suffering, but this time, alone.

So he stayed. 

Around this time, he'd been dating, and had gone through a couple of dysfunctional romantic relationships. His boyfriend at the time had had a rough life himself, and ever the caretaker, Russet was there to comfort him. He mistook enabling his boyfriend as loving him even with his flaws. The boyfriend took advantage of this, and eventually, like all relationships Russet had been in and would continue to be in, this one crashed and burned.

Finally, Mauve when Mauve was considered a legal adult and no longer under the custody of their father, Russet found a new place to live, and decided to move himself and his sister out. 

Of course, his father begged him to stay, guilt-tripping his son by saying he would be abandoning him with no way to take care of himself. Despite his tendency to caudle, Russet was able to tear himself away, telling his father he still had the job cleaning for Suuriesh, but that he'd have to do it himself now.

Finally a little bit more free, Russet moved into his new home in Ichy Colo with Mauve, leaving their father behind without looking back, and stopped showing up to Suuriesh’s summer home. He never checked in to see whether or not his father got his life together, and his quality of life skyrocketed.

Now he was only cleaning up after and covering the responsibilities of one extra person instead of two, and was no longer working two jobs and going to school. Although his schedule was still overloaded, having lived the life he had up until that moment, he considered everything he dealt with to be easy. He even began to develop anxiety that he wasn't working hard enough (which Mauve would ease by giving him another mess to get her out of).

He decided to finally join The Flock. As expected, he thrived in an environment of protocol and rules. He was underestimated and overlooked at first due to his small, lightweight stature, but quickly proved to be more than capable of any task he was put up to; and what was more, he'd find a way to outdo everyone else around him. He became a favorite among his superiors, as he would do whatever they asked swiftly, but without cutting corners. 

In the thick of battle, his skills became invaluable. His small size benefited him; he was quick and agile enough to avoid getting struck by the enemy, and could easily maneuver himself to injured allies. He could tell when injuries would require an on site surgery, and when it was just a flesh wound that could be patched. 

Even in the heat of life or death for everyone around him, Russet's main fear was not being able to take care of Mauve. When on the frontlines, he'd have much of his pay sent back home to her (though had a lot kept in a local bank for safe keeping, as he knew her well enough to know she would blow most of it as soon as she got ahold of it). When home, he couldn't relax either, having to rein in all of the chaos Mauve instigated when he was gone.

As a busy individual, Russet tended to be more focused on what was in front of him rather than major world events. When archeological studies came out about the apparent doomsday of the past, he was indifferent, considering it to mostly be speculation and hysteria. He was too focused on saving lives and keeping Mauve out of trouble to entertain "The End Of The World" as being a tangible threat. He thinks the quests other Ptithians have set out on to talk to the Cardinals are overreactions and wastes of time, and doesn't plan on wasting any of his energy on participating in them.

Besides, if the world did devolve into calamity, he'd be perfectly adapted to fix it himself.