Profile

Name: Elijah
Age: 37 (estimated)
Birthdate: Celebrates August 26, 592 as his birthdate. Estimated.
Class: Brawler
Weapons: unarmed (preferred), daggers
Country: Kanemoria (Roma)
Family: None known.
Languages: Trade [S], Romani [A]
Blood type: O


HISTORY

Elijah doesn’t remember his birth name.

He was bought on the underground slave markets in Colndor when he was four, plucked from some Adveni household where the windows had been left open for nighttime ceremonies. Or from an orphanage. Or maybe from straight off the street. A good boy, strong and sharp as a tack, and only half Adveni at that, the slave barker had announced, ready to be taught whatever sort of work you had for him. It was crowded, and Elijah doesn’t remember it well except for the stench of his own rotting clothes, of the other unwashed slave candidates -- Adveni and non-Adveni alike -- and the press of bodies.

His early life is a sequence of barely strung-together memories, flashes of insight and scenery. A floor to sweep, a house to clean, tasks to look after whether he wanted to do so or not. Elijah was the name given to him by his master -- it was a name from the Megami Dragon scriptures, meant as an insult. “Master” was a rich Riva politician whose name Elijah was never permitted to speak. Just “your lordship” and “master,” and “sir” when anyone was around to hear, so no one would get suspicious. Even though everyone likely already knew what he was.

Elijah was not one of the plantation workers, sent to toil in the fields until his hands and feet were blistered and his skin was rough and wrinkled from the sun. He knew, theoretically, that there were children just as young as him out there, but he never saw them. His duties were all working inside the manor, among servants that were mostly Kanemorian natives -- natives that got paid for their work. Elijah wasn't even allowed to sleep with the other slaves, considered too precious to let the other slaves taint him with concepts of rebellion. He spent his nights on a cot in a tiny room in the manor basement, containing only his bed and a chamber pot -- because he was certainly not good enough for the servant’s quarters, either. Every night he was chained to his bed and the door bolted so he could not run away, and every morning the other servants came to let him free, jesting about the master’s mongrel dog. He was mocked daily, kicked and beaten to within an inch of his life when he fought back, and soon enough, he learned to lower his eyes and capitulate to his master’s demands, no matter how demeaning they were.

Nothing changed as he grew older. He was never given any freedom, nor any coin; his master claimed that he kept the coin accounted for, so that Elijah would eventually be free. Even as a boy, Elijah knew it was a lie. There was no coin for a Adveni slave, and no freedom, just the illusion of eventual peace provided as a lure to drive him onward. He remembered the man’s smile, his leering eyes, his empty promises. He remembered the other servants laughing and calling him mutt, giving him his supper in dog bowls.

He remembered lies, and humiliation, and above all else, suffering.

And then, in the midst of it, his master's second son approached him when he was 18.

The boy was older than Elijah by a few years, but he spoke carefully to Elijah. He promised freedom and rest from his endless work, if Elijah would only do as he asked. He listened to the requests of the master's son, and, surprisingly, found them amenable. The promise of freedom afterward seemed like a true one, and Elijah agreed to it. In return, his master's son, Silas, told Elijah a secret about his master that no one knew.

When the work was done, Elijah's master was dead, and Elijah was gone. Silas helped him stow away onto a ship to the mainland, working as a ship's boy. He disembarked as soon as the ship hit ground, and set about hiding himself until he heard from his master's son again, promising that his freedom was secured and no one was searching for the murderous slave boy anymore.
Colndor was no different, but anyone born there knows Colndor never truly changes. When at first, no news came from Silas, Elijah tried his best to find real work in the city, but the fact was that there was none to be had -- especially not for a desperate half-Adveni down on his luck. Elijah had no other skills, no other knowledge -- just the memory of the slave markets, the knowledge of what he had been made to do for his master, and the knowledge that if he was ever found, he would be executed.

So he did the best thing he could think of in order to hide: He dove back into the very market he’d been sold out of as a boy. He watched the slave traders, studied the children they picked up off the streets, attended the markets and watched which ones sold and for how much coin. He taught himself to read and write, stealing books from libraries and studying handbills on walls, imitating what he saw and listening to other people read them aloud to each other. He stole and pickpocketed his way through life, those days, living on bare essentials as he saved away his coppers until he could buy himself a proper appearance. Adveni traders were not uncommon on the markets, but he needed to look less like a Adveni and more like a merchant who happened to have a few drops of the blood in his ancestry, and that took money. And it took even more money to earn a place in the slaver market.

But, in the midst of it, Silas contacted him. And Silas had money. All the money Elijah would need, though he only offered it in small amounts. It was enough to buy Elijah good clothes, a haircut, a bath and a place to sleep. It was enough to buy his first entry into the slave markets. And it was enough to press some coins into the hands of other Adveni -- the parents of the first child he bought and sold.

Elijah was twenty; the boy was something near five. The child could barely speak, but he wasn’t addled, and his body was intact, and that was what mattered to the markets. He sold, giving Elijah enough coin to buy himself up the ladder. He picked up another street child, sold them, and climbed up the ladder, again and again and again.

By the time he was in his mid-twenties, he’d established himself a place in the city. He was Kanemorian enough that the locals put up with him, even if they grumbled about it. And he was Adveni enough that the Adveni of Colndor pointed their children to him as an example, a councillor, a way out. Elijah became famous for using his wealth -- left to him by a wealthy Kanemorian merchant father, of course, rest his soul -- to send less fortunate Adveni children along to Norey, or into Chimer or Azudesce, to seek their fortunes. There was never a future waiting for Roma in Colndor, but in any of those other cities, there was a chance.

It couldn’t have worked out better if Elijah had planned it. He rooted through the children, evaluating them and sending them to whatever markets they were best suited for. He worked the markets for so long that he made a killing off every child he sold, no matter their age -- though the youngest ones always sold for the most, he could sell children of any age, as long as he picked the right buyer. Sometimes he worked directly with nobles from across Eire who were looking for a servant like he had been, their own personal pet dog. He became respected among the markets, one of their most-known names.

Nobody ever really notices when Adveni children go missing.

Elijah is free now. At least he tells himself so. It doesn't matter if Silas holds his leash, pays his bills, runs an underground network that Elijah helps to fill with new blood. He's free.

He's free.



PERSONALITY

Elijah treats most everything he does with a detached, professional air. He is very businesslike and respectful -- a Roma who knows his place, the people of Colndor might mutter to one another. He’s always quick to quiet when Eire natives begin talking; he knows better than to speak in Romani in their presence, and he treats most all of them like his direct superiors.

Elijah distances himself from the rest of the world in order to try and maintain his place in it. He has passing relations with the Roma of the city, of course, and the caravans who pass through, but he maintains his contact carefully. He never wants to be seen as too much of an ally to the Roma by those outside of its society, though he also doesn’t want to be seen as a traitor by those within it. It’s a very carefully moderated balancing act that he performs most every day of his life.

Elijah has very few people who know him closely and personally. He is seen as a man who is too busy for friendship because, by and large, he usually is. Nobody gets close enough to ask him personal questions about his life, which he prefers -- it makes it easier to not get caught. Most Roma keep their distance out of respect, reasoning that he has friends elsewhere, for certain, family of his parents or such like. Most Kanemorians keep their distance out of eye-rolling disrespect, only begrudgingly putting up with him in the first place.

He only rarely loses his tightly-held temper but when he does, it’s a sight like nearly nothing else. He still hasn’t worked through his personal conflicts from his time serving as a slave in Megam, and it shows in how he handles his temperfits. When angered, he explodes out of his professional, businesslike shell and becomes an entirely different person. Loud, furious, and occasionally violent, he takes out his frustrations on whatever target happens to be nearby. These fits are usually brief, and he is often back to his old, distant self within minutes, but nobody who sees one of his fits of temper could forget or dismiss it easily.




APPEARANCE

Elijah’s mixed-Roma blood lends him deeply tanned skin, with dark, long red hair and pale green eyes -- a mark of luck among Roma people, but just another indication of his dubious heritage to him. He is tall and lean, with little muscle on his frame. What is there is the bare minimum required to defend himself against children who fight him, of which there are never very many -- he can afford to hire bodyguards to protect him against more valid threats on the streets of the city. He dresses very finely, wearing sharp fashions of the finest material, and uses a walking cane at all times. He wears a pair of spectacles, though he is loath to admit that he can’t function well without them. He has a soft tenor voice and tends not to speak often in mixed company, often letting other people do the speaking for him, and he carries himself with the manner of a nobleman.

His mixed blood has been a blessing, lending him credence among other Roma but also giving him enough of a native Kanemorian bearing that his business partners tolerate him.


pb is Richter from Tales of Symphonia: Knights of Ratatosk