Character Name: Mordecai "Fireheart" Al'Rakkand
Character Age: 56 years old
Height: 6 foot 4 inches
Race: Mesalian
Alignment: Lawful Good
Appearance
Mordecai is a tall and well built man, aging as he is, he shows almost no signs of frailty, save that his wounds slow him down much, much more than they would when he was a younger man, and both take longer to mend, and are more serious threats to his life. His hair is a short cut dark mass with growing streaks of silvery gray, a frost like shadow of a greying beard spanning the lower half of his face. The lines of his face are almost indefinitely hardened into a scowl with the certainty of carved stone. His eyes are a steely blue grey that could challenge the stare of a bird of prey. His face bears many small scars, but one in particular lays diagonally over his left eye, from his cheekbone to his inner eyebrow, a marred pink angry line from a battle long since past.
He normally dons a simple tunic with his sleeves rolled up all the way to bare his bicepts, with a sleeveless leather vest with brass buttons, tattered from the elements, leading down to his leather trousers, tucked firmly inside his high-topped boots. Around his neck is wrapped a sand colored scarf he commonly wears in journey's into the desert; the feeling of getting gritty sand in your mouth is never a pleasant one.
Around his waist is a sword belt, with two swords upon his left hip. Both are of a peculiar style - they're sleek, slightly curved, one edged swords that are of very high workmanship. One is standard length, the other is a companion sword of only half length. As he says to anyone who bothers to ask; One sword for duty, one sword for honor.
Theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqoN1ua-ROw
Abell tried comforting Mordecai when Lynn died, but even his father's words seemed to hold no weight to the boy's heart. It was the spring, then. The falling cherry blossoms and the ravaged, but still beautiful countryside of the Middle Realm was invisible to him. A hand gripped his mind with icy fingers of grief, squeezing so tight he might have died from heartache. Might have, had she died any other way. With that cold hand came a fire - a passion that came with the death of his love a day before his twentieth year, a passion that blossomed into hatred and was nurtured by his bull-headed stubbornness. A hatred for the men of Dusk, and the horrors they forced upon his people, but more than anything he hated them for killing Lynn. The Xitians were what took her away - the Xitians took the only thing he had to live for away, but by the same hand, they gave him nothing else left to lose.
He had been lonely as a child, growing up on his family's farm, days travel from the nearest town. He'd never known his mother, which always seemed to be a touchy subject with Abell. He spent his time playing in the woods as a child, and as he grew into an adolescent, he spent his days hunting squirrel and tracking deer. He and his father were effected by the slavery the same as anyone else, but fortunately it seemed that the Xitians were more focused on keeping chains on those in cities or other large focal points of the population, and he and his father only saw patrols every month that would seldom bother them except for collecting "their share" from their harvests. Abell learned early that he couldn't refuse them. He'd tried the first time, and had earned himself a scar about an inch long over his left eye. After that, he'd paid their demands readily enough. They took seven tenths of their crop, no matter if it was a good year for the harvest or a bad, making most winters harsh, cold and uncertain, but they scraped through. Abell hated the Xitians, but he didn't talk much of it with Mordecai. He didn't have to. It was an unspoken certainty that the men who bullied them were certainly evil people, and since the beginning their farm was a stop on the rebellion's underground railroad. Mordecai remembered nights where they'd take in handfuls of people who were evading punishment, so many of them that their small dining room didn't have enough chairs, and they had a meager meal with everyone sitting or standing anywhere they could find room, and the travelers would sleep on the floor and leave the next night. They always left at night, he remembered.
When he was old enough, Abell finally told him that he wasn't truly his father. At least, not by blood. Abell was his father in a way, and that Mordecai never doubted. A woman had come along the railroad during the winter. She was sick, almost collapsing at his door. She came with him, at the time just a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and more blankets than the woman dared use for herself. Abell tried to nurse her back to health - keeping her in bed, warm and trying to get her to eat, but she had a severe fever some days and broke into cold sweats others, delirious from her condition. He never even got her name, he recounted sadly. But from her, came Mordecai, and Abell raised him as if he were his own son.
It saddened Mordecai, but Abell said that he had his mother's eyes, and she probably couldn't be prouder were she here to see him. Even so, it put distance between him and Abell, not much, but he never quite felt the same after that, and Abell took notice. He was quieter, kept to himself, and perhaps wasn't as happy anymore. But it didn't last for long.
Two years later, a girl around his age came down the road, seeking shelter. That was a bitter sweet memory, the first time he'd met Lynn. She'd escaped from one of the cities to the north, bearing news of the terrible oppression of the Xitians. She said they'd set up 'camps' now for the rebels they captured, with high walls, disease and execution, back breaking labor and starvation. She didn't know where she was going; she didn't have anywhere to go. According to her the railroad had been broken, the rebellion had gone silent.. Abell suspected as much. He hadn't seen any more rebels since Mordecai was nine.
She stayed there, for awhile. At first she said it was just until she could figure out where to run next, but it never happened. She stayed with them, and Mordecai was head over heels for her. That was the sad thing in it all. She was a branded rebel, the Xitians were never far, and yet he loved her. She seemed to make him happier than Abell could remember him ever being. When the Lucins came back, years later, the Xitians redoubled their efforts to keep the Mesalians under control, and the monthly patrol came much, much early than expected. Mordecai didn't have time to hide with her in the woods this time. They ran her down on horseback on the road while Abell could only hold him back and watch.
After they buried her, he knew Mordecai wouldn't stay - the cold forge of revenge bid him to join the gathering armies even as they gained momentum in the fight to save their people. He knew what he planned - and yet he couldn't stop him. He gave him an old sword that was likely passed down in the al'Rakkand family tree for generations. It was light and sleek, curved with only one edge - nothing like the barbarian like crude implements Mordecai dimmly remembered the rebels keeping when he was a child, and resistance was still in motion. It was a wonder that it was never confiscated - and as he took this sword, he heard his father's words that sounded too odd from an old farmer. Remember Mordecai; Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather. It's easier to give in than it is to hold to that duty. Easier to give up in hopelessness sometimes, and easier to trick yourself into fighting to the death in others. Don't ever mistake the two. And no matter how comically stoic those words from his father, a man who must have known nothing of war sounded he remembered them mirthlessly, and they saw him through more than one battle and close call with fate.
As he set off that day with the warm rays of the fading sun at his back, after helping to dig the grave of the only woman he'd ever loved, Mordecai thought his heart to be iron. That the Xitians and their cursed flames would bend - no, break upon him like hot steel to an anvil. He was right in some ways, wrong in most. He might have been iron, but he was a horseshoe at best. Hard, sure, but horseshoes won no battles. To survive the war, he would have to be a sword.
After three days walking and riding, he finally reached one of the camps. A banner flew high over it, a red lion's head over a rippling white background. A Mesalian symbol of defiance - a sign that not another step of homeland would they give until staining the very earth red with their blood. Retreat was never an option - and if possible, even more so now. Lucins were among them - their strange powers and ways beyond his understanding, a poor farmboy from the south-western plains. There didn't seem to be much of an organization about them - but there was a leader. Rorand Redmane - a hero of the war that the men around him rallied upon as much as the banner they marched with. With an unbreakable will, and a pride like a lion, and hair as red as apples the man drew his name and legacy. He took one look at Mordecai - wearing his father's sword truly as if a country bumpkin had stepped out from underneath a rock with the idea of being a soldier - and told him to go home. Indignation flamed crimson in his face, as he demanded the right to defend his homeland, his people, and his family, the same as any other soldier. And at first they laughed. But Rorand was curious. What could possibly make a backwards countryman so insistent that he should fight - and possibly die in battle?
There was no laughter about losing someone dear. They had all undergone similar stories - and lest they forget, they were not soldiers since the day they crawled from their mother's wombs. They let him try - they gave him the chance to be accepted among them, even if doubtfully. They did not have to wait long for him to prove himself. Not two weeks since he arrived in camp, he marched into battle along side them, unflinching and as dedicated as the best man among him. Perhaps even a touch more reckless. After that first battle there were no more doubts. He sat around the fire with the most seasoned of warriors, wounds and all, and shared in their quiet pride and loud revelry. He came to know that they were one of many divisions of a hastily formed military - the 3rd Main Battle Division. "The Lion's Pride", as it came to be known to the other soldiers for their banner that flew high and proud even as they stormed into the fray. The longer he stayed - the more he realized how lucky he was to come into the company of the revered division. He could have met up with a support division, put there to help the wounded, or a rear guard. But fate, or destiny perhaps, would have it be that he came to be a part of them. He survived the first battle, but the second, he fought. The losses were always grave, the wounded always high, but the Mesalian people were stubborn and determined, Mordecai no exception. Even as the front lines fell to the Xitian fire, from men who were not men, but invaders foreign and hated, every man who could continue the charge did, wounded or not with the fervor of a freed and furious people.
As the days stretched into weeks, and the weeks stretched into months, Mordecai was no longer a grieving backwards farmboy. Perhaps though, he was a grieving, scarred veteran. But he was no longer a boy, he was a man by all accounts, and to his fellow soldiers he became a man of steel, who hated the Xitian more than most - perhaps anyone knew. He was held in almost as high esteem as the head of the division itself. He was given, or perhaps earned, the highest honorary position that was available to anyone in the Mesalian ranks: Banner-man. The position was considered the heart of the division - the steel in their backbones, for as long as that banner hung high, the Meselians would push forward. Through blood and turmoil, death harrying at all sides, they would kill and be killed to see that banner fly higher - and the one trusted with the responsibility of rallying them into that horrible fray was the banner-man.
He accepted that honor, and rode into many a battle with the cry "Rally to the Lion's Pride! Once more! One more into the fray!". And as he rode with that banner upon his back, he did fight with the fierceness fitting of a Lion. But it was not the end for him - over the years even as he gathered more scars hard won from battle, he rose higher still, to becoming Redmane's Field Commander, head of the lines that crashed into the Xitian ranks beside the Lucin by day, and by night at his side, trusted with strategizing and planning. He was a hero to his fellow soldiers - they would speak of him in awed tones, almost as ferverently as they did of Redmane himself. The tales they spun of him named him "Mordecai Fireheart", more of a legend than a man. The soldiers would follow him to hell and back - they would ride into Dusk outnumbered one-hundred to one loyally at his call, and at the end of the war, most of the division expected to do just that. They were almost drunk with pride and courage - They were the Lion's Pride, the company of heroes that struck terror into the heart of the Xitian ranks, they were the head of the spear that was the Mesalian people's righteous fury. They were warriors, down to the greenest recruit, who would fight for Mesalian honor with grim determination to their last breath, to the last man before they would give in.
As the war drew to a close, the fierce pride that was characteristic of the Mesalian forces was the staple of the Mesalian people. It became known to the Xitians, to the Lucin, to the world, that Mesalians were a people that would never again be conquered - would never again kneel to anyone. That should the Xitians ever make their way back, their armies would be waiting at the portal - the villagers, man or woman, would march with hammers, hoes and scythes, lay down their lives to defend their families, their freedom, and their people. And at the head of the column, that Lion's Head banner would wave - ever waiting for another challenger to test Mesalian steel.
And the people did rejoice and mourn, as the Dusk portal was crumbled. The price had been high - the revenge bittersweet to the extreme, but they had won. Already the Mesalian people thought of the next war - the wrath of the Xitians when they found a way back to their lands. Colonies were stretched out among the Forbidden lands, and hope lay with them for the day the Xitians returned, that they would be a sanctuary that, if all else failed, would live to avenge their beautiful people another day.
After their final victory, to the dismay of Mordecai the unity that had come to the Mesalian people dissolved before his eyes - they went back to life as they had known it, splitting into nomadic tribes, and so too did their glorious armies, and his beloved division. He grew cynical, and almost bitter that the people who had fought so hard to rid the chains that bound them broke apart just as they had before. He thought that the people had learned something - that they had learned the strength of unity, that together they could be the stone that no one could move, that by breaking apart they forfeited all the progress they had made.
Even Rorand Redmane, for all the good that the bastard was, was content to go back to a hero's welcome, and abandon the way of the sword for a soft life of living in luxury in adulation and fame. Mordecai was not content with such a life. Clinging to the ways of war - the only thing he knew after all these long years, he and his most loyal men of the Division, the same men that would have rode onto Dusk with him instead made camp outside the ruined Xitian gate with the Lucins, who did not forget the heroism they shared together in the war and welcomed them with open arms. The banner of The Lion's Pride still flew high - and each day Mordecai ran a harsher line. Training did not stop. From sunrise to midday drills were ran, and with the dying sun they made camp behind sharpened stakes pointed inwards in a circle around the gate. Over the years, the last division of the Mesalian army faded away. Men, as loyal as they were, were homesick and left to be with their families once more, and with each man that left, The Field Commander's mood darkened. When the civil wars swept his beloved homeland, he grieved, for the Lion of the Middle was no more. Her people would suffer, and die at the hands of these battles he could sit and do nothing. A commander of one.
Eventually, he began to let go of the past. His only friends left - the Lucins he still made camp with pitied him. They called him "The Dedicated One". A sad name, for a hero who's time had long passed like ash passing through his fingers. Over the years, he came to terms with what had happened, and sought purpose in life once again, a purpose he thought to find in the Forbidden Lands, where he did not have bittersweet memories of a time long past. He'd grown into a stranger then. A stranger to his people, and almost to himself. The fires of passion that carried him on their wings were gone, leaving behind a quiet, solitary man who didn't take pleasure in his war stories. He was bitter about the war now, for it struck too close to the days in which every friend he'd ever known abandoned him. They'd moved on with their lives, he hadn't. But yet, there wasn't much more to him than what the war made him, in a way, making him despise who he was.
In the Forbidden Lands, he was sure, none would remember the name Mordecai Fireheart. His name would fade from history in the same way Redmane's would. Only he had the decency to live off something other than his name alone in the present.
Even as bitter as he is, he remembers the price he and his men paid in blood, and tries to live for every man who died by his side in the war, and lights candles beside the old banner he and they fought beneath, giving a quiet prayer each night in hopes that they were somewhere better than this world now.
Honest - Mordecai sees no point in lieing about anything when it would serve no point. He is honest in that he speaks the truth, but also honest in that he would carry a secret to the grave if he gave his word upon it. It can be a fault at some times or another - he doesn't even bother lieing when it would offend someone else to speak the truth as he saw it.
Stubborn - Once his mind is set on something you may as well try to move mountains to change it.
Headstrong - Mordecai would go alone into battle against a thousand Duskspawn if he had to, and he'd do it still wearing that scowl of his when he is dealt his mortal wound. Even as he ages he refuses to acknowledge that he is no longer a young man, and cannot fight as well as he used to, but he would never let that stop him from trying.
Cynical - Mordecai is one to see the world through bleak shades of grey. If anyone was a stronger pessimist then they'd be suicidal. He's careful not to let it show, most of the time. All men are entitled to share their sorrows; but sulking has it's limits if one is truly a man and not a whiny excuse for one.
Honorable - One of the most important things to Mordecai, is honor. He sees it as the only true measure of a man's worth, and despises cowards and those who would prey upon others weaker than themselves. In addition, Mordecai refuses to use lethal measures against Lucins and Mesalians unless they pose a threat to other's lives. As a matter of fact, he rarely resorts to drawing his sword to settle disputes. Against Xiatins however, even his honor may make an exception for, as grim as that idea may be.
Skills
Blade Master - Few can truly claim the title Blade Master. Mordecai is one of those few, and facing him in single combat is very inadvisable should he choose to draw his sword.
Leadership - Mordecai is an excellent leader, and in the war he loved the men who served under his command. He made an explicit rule for himself that he would never ask one under his command to do something he would not, and to lead by example for all who wished to follow.
Tactician - Mordecai has spent many a night leaning over a battle map, racking his brain on how to work him and his men out of a desperate situation, and has more often than not turned a battle with a cunning wit and a sharp eye for strategy.
Skinning (Learning) - Mordecai, due to lack of work around the outpost, is restless, and eager to find something useful to do to pass the time. Merc has been teaching him how to skin and prepare animals for the group. He currently only knows the basics - but there isn't much to skinning. With more practice he'll get better.
Name - Allegiance, Relation - Summary
Rook - Duty-bound, friendly - Mordecai has come to like Rook. He sees him as a capable leader and an honorable man.
Daniella - No allegiance, Acquaintance - The girl was easy enough to talk to, and she had managed to make him laugh, but she held foolish ideas about the Xitians that he could not agree with. The Xitians held no honor in his eyes; slave masters and cowardly vultures were never honorable. She tried to dispute him about it, and angered herself in doing so. He is not sure of where he stands with her, so it is simply easier to remain neutral.
Mittendri - Honor-bound, friendly - Mordecai has become trusting and friendly to Mitty. He still owes her for his set of swords, perhaps more than he had before, and is bound by honor to his commitment, but he doesn't necessarily mind.
Dr. Colette Morteen - Honor-bound, love - Mordecai has come to realize deep feelings and affection for Cole, and strives to bring out the same in her for him, and through it all Cole doesn't seem to mind.
Merc - No allegiance, Acquaintance - Mordecai only knows the man named Merc as a man who teaches him how to skin and prepare animals. Merc seems to have some sort of animosity towards him, but Mordecai tries not to let himself be drawn into disputes of any kind, as a part of maintaining his honor.
Dusken - No allegiance, acquaintance - A strange, cheery girl who seems to be permanently upbeat.
Dawn - Unknown, Unknown - Mordecai is slightly irritated at Dawn's wanderings from tutor to tutor in the sword, for she'd given him the impression that she wished to be his student in his Odyanka ken-ryu style. Instead, he has witnessed her asking some upstart for schooling.
None the less - he would not draw himself into it. If she wished to dishonor him by seeking a new teacher, then she could have at it, but he would not chase after her.
Joel - Student, acquaintance - Joel wishes to be taught the use of the sword. Mordecai is more than happy to fulfill that wish, so long as he can be taught.
Zarkaylia - Duty-bound, friendly - Zarkaylia fought in the war, same as him, and seems to share some of the same ideals and experiences with him. She's easy to talk to, and seems to be a good leader.
Conradian - Duty-bound, acquaintance - Conradian, much like Zarkaylia, fought in the war, same as Mordecai. He hasn't gotten much of a chance to talk with Con, however. So although bound by duty to follow his and Zark's leadership, he would not go so far as to call their relationship 'friendship'.
Xemnes - No allegiance, estranged - Mordecai does not believe in holding onto past judgements - new information requires reevaluation of how a person or a situation is judged, but right now, his current view of Xemnes is that he is a coward, and one who wishes to intimidate others lesser than he.
Darren - No allegiance, cautious - Darren is an obstinate man-child who is honorless, and irritating. But, as usual, Mordecai refuses to draw himself into disputes, but would more than gladly pounce at the opportunity to reduce him into a shriveling worm, begging upon the ground for mercy, should he cause violence within the camp, as Master Rook seemed to imply he would.
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