life is now a meritocracy
so i'm never going to die

Softboy who's really trying his best not to have to kill you.

chibi by skyofnewmoon

Personality

The snake-colored man is a quiet, shy, easily spooked, happy individual. Happy, at least, when his magic isn't acting up. He leans towards a cheerful disposition, but lacks a certain level of optimism when it comes to living creatures. They may be loud, they may be rotting without knowing it, or they may just be mean - the only stranger he's ever met led to him being lost and alone.

While he tends to lean towards solitude, it does not fit comfortably. He's much more able to be himself in a small - two or three individuals - group, he's just incredibly selective over who those are on initially confrontation. Once he sees you as a friend, it is likely to remain that way regardless of how you treat him; remember, he has no basis for how friendship is supposed to work, when when you live in an exceptionally small group you put up with a lot because there is simply no other option. Luckily for him in the short term though likely going to be problematic now that he's alone, everything was either easily overcome or simply pushed under the rug. Why could Fanny never come home? The world may never know. Why is Harriet being mean? Well, she didn't know she was but now she does so it's going to stop. Probably.

The ideas of cities terrify him because people can be loud. The idea of swamps and forests and marshes make him quake where he stands. Being around new things just does not feel Safe, BUT he does not anger easily so that's a good thing! In the frame of "fight, flight, freeze, and fawn", he's definitely on the freeze -> flight path. (284 words)

History

Nigel was born to a small, desert-dwelling family. His parents, Sidney and Morgan, were kind, soft, and absolutely terrified of leaving their quiet, extremely secluded world, and so he was able to meet less than a handful of others outside his family before his twentieth birthday. His two older sisters, Harriet and Fanny, left when he was young, and only Harriet ever returned - he was never told, but heard the hushed whispers that Harriet was permanently unable to come back. He knew from a young age that he had magic - his parents did not try to hide it from him, but they did not expanded on what it was except that it followed the pattern of Morgan's magic, and it just didn't seem especially important in the land where nothing grew but what Sidney was able to produce with his magic. He could hear a few faint whispers, especially if the food was starting to age, but really, it was a peaceful existence.

One day, when he was nearing twenty one - though he hardly thought about his age, as each year was, by and large, the same - a stranger came. As noted earlier, this stranger was stranger-than-strange because he simple never *saw* others, and, even more odd, they looked a great deal like Morgan. Morgan's face paled - as much as a face covered in light fur can pale, and was really more of a feeling than an actual change of appearance - and took the stranger aside. Nigel found Sidney, but even he was unsure of who the stranger was.

As probably surprises no one, the stranger was Morgan's brother that they had not seen in over thirty years. He'd come to warn his sibling that hiding from their magic was an excessively stupid option, and if they would only try to control it they could live a warm and fulfilling life. Likely feeling somewhat put out, Morgan responded that their life was warm, but the brother - later known to be named Lawrence - merely rolled his eyes and insisted that the family missed them, and asked about them often, and needed someone with a level head to watch over the family fortune and only Morgan would do. Of course, this last note was obviously incorrect, as Morgan had no head for numbers and was much better at doing whatever Sidney told them to to work in the garden. But, because Lawrence was family, they agreed. Sidney had no desire to go, Harriet had been and found it lacking, so Morgan took Nigel and off they went.

As they drew closer to the city - which city is unknown, because Nigel simply does not feel capable of containing information like that - the ground grew wetter, the trees more common, the rot everpresent. And the voices - oh, the voices! How they clanged in his head, robbing of his ability to follow his parent's footsteps.

And, suddenly, he was lost.

Most know that if you get separated from your party you should 1) not go to parties they're dangerous in how fun they can be and you may discover who you actually want to be and 2) stay put so that the other party members can find you. While Nigel attempted to follow 2), it had taken him so long to realize that Morgan was "missing" that he doubted staying in one spot would have helped (fun fact : it probably would have) and he decided just to run away himself because at least then the voices may not follow him. He eventually found the desert again, but it was different, and he had no way of knowing how to get home, so he wanders, alone, his powers growing without any attempts - yet - to control them.

This is the story of how Nigel did not learn almost anything about his powers because the only one who might know how to use them never talked about it except to hide from it and lost everyone that was important to him and doesn't know how to make friends because he's never had an opportunity to even know that you could have friends with people who are not your family.

But, this is not where his story ends, which makes sense as he has not yet fallen to the mushrooms, but it is also not where our story actually starts. There's more than five years missing between then and where we begin.

The rest of the story is similar to the beginning - desert, sand, quiet, and a lack of people. No friends. Now, no family. But in the desert, there is no one to hear scream... so that's a plus. But it is lonely, and not quite his favorite thing. Maybe someday he won't hear mushrooms telling him that they need him to murder someone so that they can feed because they are immortal and life does not exist without their end. Who knows. Maybe. (820 words)