Deryn's Backstory

[theshadowspeaks]

Born Yanix of the infamous clan, Tenebris, the Tenebris family were originally merchants that turned to a more criminal side, robbing those who came through expecting the Kayal, or fetchlings to be helpful. Yanix's father was killed when he was a small boy, he and his brothers quickly stepped up to fill the void left in their family from their patriarch being killed. The brother's were all skilled in different ways, but Yanix had a way of getting others to listen to him and follow him.

He was a terror to those who trespassed on their lands, often catching people who lagged behind their groups and disguising himself as them while his friends robbed or killed those captured as he slowly worked his way through the group taking them out one by one. Yanix was a radical believer of his father's teachings even if he had been the youngest when his father had been killed. He felt the travelers had no right on their lands. And he was willing to die to protect his families land.

Yanix had four brothers and one sister, Lehe, unlike her brothers and mother, Lehe didn't care at all about trespassers or humans being in their world, after all the Kayal were descended from the dwellers of the material plane originally. Yanix and Lehe were the closest of the siblings even if their views differed. One night, Lehe didn't return home from one of her walks to town . All of the brothers set out in search of their sister. Finding her in a bar with a group of travelers from the material plan, sitting in the lap of one no less. Their oldest brother tried to lash out at her, but Yanix ran between them taking the hit, telling Lehe she needed to say goodbye to her friends and come home.

But, she was as strong headed as her brothers and a fight broke out, though no one died Lehe left with the travelers calling her brother's brutes, much to Yanix's dismay. It was this moment that made him question not only his family but his own life. He stopped helping his brother's ambush travelers, and spent a lot more time at home helping their mother around the house.

Around six months later, everything changed again. Yanix woke to the sound of his mother screaming, his brothers were out in the woods that night as they often were, by the time he found her and what made the normally stoic woman scream his heart shattered. Lehe's body laid in the doorway, bruised and broken. He rushed past his mother, lifting her frail body into his arms in time to hear laughter from the distance. He stood up one of the black feathers of her cloak clinging to him as he grabbed his sword and ran out after the laughter, anger clouding his judgement, as his mother yelled for him to come back. He never caught the ones laughing in the distance, tripping and slipping through the veil, all memory and sense of self lost as he landed in a a bank of snow.

It was the sound of dogs barking that woke him, the snow and sun were almost blinding to him, he couldn't help screaming as the dogs and old man come towards him. The next thing he knew he was laying by a fireplace. The sound of wings and smell of cinnamon and licorice filled the air around him. As he sat up he realized the dogs were laid around him. Seeing the old man talking to two women dressed in dark colors. He soon found out the women would be keeping him until he remembered more. Since he didnt remember his name or anything, the women, Hilde and Sigrid helped make him a new name. It was pulled of Welsh words, Deryn Argall, The Bird of the Quiet Place.

Without his memories of home, Deryn became a happy and kind man working along side Hilde and Sigrid, he found he liked to be around their pet crows, something about the feathers called ot him, something important he couldn't recall, it was their idea to start decorating his hair with the feathers, encouraging him to be everything he wanted to be, despite the fact their town was so small, that all three being outsiders made them more isolated, they found a happy rhythm together, that was until a wanderlust took him over and he wanted to travel, through their outside connections, he was sent to the knighthood so he could become more than a farm hand.