RAIHL, DERRICK

[Derrick Raihl .]

DERRICK RAIHL .

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SKILLS

Archery - My Elven friend growing up really did teach me how to wield a bow with accuracy, and I find it extremely easy to hit anything that I put my mind to. It was something I learned because I had to in order to survive, but even now I feel most comfortable with a bow in my hands.

Black Smithing - Though perhaps I'm not as proficient at this as the Nords that surround me, I can generally make whatever I need to on the forge, and find that I get a satisfaction out of knowing that I can do something my drunken father could not.

Speech - I have a way with people, I know I do. Despite the beginning of my life and being stunted by that, life with my family now has made me a free man, and I can now become the man that I was meant to be this entire time. I find it easy to turn on the charm, and can usually get people to do whatever it is that I really want or need them to do. Perhaps that's why I rose in rank in the army so quickly and now am in charge of so much important information.

Stealth/Sneak - Another thing my best friend taught me growing up was the importance of stealth in your life. I still find that even in the most safe of situations, I step lightly and I'm always checking over my shoulder for any sign of trouble. I seem to have a knack for getting places without being seen, and I use this skill frequently.

Lockpicking - Perhaps I shouldn't be proud of this skill. But what's a kid going to do when you're starving? I did have a life of thievery in my younger days, and I learned how to use a lock pick pretty well, though I don't go flashing that information around too much.

One-handed - Sometimes you need something more up close and personal than a bow. For those times, Derrick uses a glass sword that he has a sheath on his hips, along with his faithful dagger, sharpened and modified over the years slipped into his boots.

WEAPONS

Glass Sword (Fine) - Since I rely on one handed when I have to deal with more 'up close and personal' situations, I keep a refined Glass sword sheathed to my hips. Though I'm more comfortable with my bow, I use this with ease as well.

Glass Bow (Fine) - I rely heavily on my bow. Having been trained since an early child with this, I keep it on my person at all times, and refined it myself to be able to draw the string back with great ease.

Elven Dagger - I kept the dagger that my friend gave to me when I was just a boy, though I've added a different handle and modified it over the years. I keep it in a sheath I keep in my boot, and think of him every time I use it.

APPEARANCE

I know I'm not as tall as the Nords that are walking around Skyrim, I think I'm fairly tall with my height of just below six feet tall. I'm not heavily muscled, but my body is fit and lean, weighting one seventy five. I have dark eyes and dark brown hair, with tanned skin and a bit of scruff from usually being out in the wild. I carry myself quietly but proudly. I try to always keep myself clean and my hair trimmed somewhat, habit from life with my family.

PERSONALITY

Charismatic - Derrick has a way with people, he really does. A relaxed demeanor helps greatly in this way. He finds it easy to be the center of attention, and doesn't ever feel self conscious. Instead, he's comfortable in his own skin and makes you feel comfortable as well, to the point where people are more likely to give him some information that they shouldn't. Though he can definitely turn on the charm around women, he's constantly held back by fear of turning into his own father, and generally doesn't take it very far.

Sly/Smooth - Derrick knows exactly what to say in every situation to get what he wants, and seems to be a master at manipulating situations for his benefit. He doesn't mind twisting words a bit to get something that he needs, and though he usually holds some respect for people, he doesn't mind bending the rules a little bit. Generally, he says and does things without anyone even realizing he's doing it.

Controlled - He learned the hard way that you never allow yourself to lose control. Even with a loving family that he would tell most things to, there's a part of him that just simply cannot give in and allow anyone to really see what's going on in his brain. He goes about life locked up when it comes to some things, and never lets his emotions get the better of him. In his mind, if you allow yourself to be taken over, then you instantly lose the upper hand in situations, which he'll never give up.

Loyal - Despite his charismatic personality, he's extremely loyal to those that he cares about. He loves his brother deeply and would do anything in the world for the rest of his family, which he's adopted as his own in every way.

Cunning - Because he may not have as much brute force as some of the other races around Skyrim, and because of his past, Derrick relies a lot on his own cunning. There's generally not a puzzle or a problem that he can't find a solution to if he's given the time he needs, and is usually very clever in coming up with abstract ways to go about things that others are stumped at.

Sarcasm - When he was young, being sarcastic was just a way to survive. That characteristic has spilled over into his adult life as well, and more often then not, Derrick can tend to be sarcastic, especially if he's dealing with people that he deems as less than smart. Many of those that he deals with during the course of a day fall into this category, so he tends to run his mouth at times. Sarcasm is the perfect way to deal with stupidity, is it not?

HISTORY

Where do I begin with my story?

I was raised by wealthy parents, but I was born to poverty. The beginning of my life started out much like most young children. My father was a would be blacksmith, forced to be such by his own father, though he didn't have the knack and didn't have the desire. His wife was an extremely gentle woman, born to wealthy parents in the Cyrodiil empire. When she ran off with my father however, they disowned her for her insolence. My father was as good looking and charming as he was lazy and incompetent I suppose. She used to tell me of the stories when I was young, though her eyes got a sad, far away expression when she did tell me the stories, as if she regretted the decision to be in the situation she was. It wasn't hard to realize that felt that way, though I knew she never regretted having me.

A year after marriage to my mother, he dragged her to Skyrim, looking for the freedom and a place to make a new start. Though he got both of those, his personality didn't change, and he failed in Skyrim just as he did back in the Empire. I think he hated me because I was just another reminder every day of his own failures. Regardless of the reasons, he did hate me, and took every opportunity to give me a harsh word or punishment. I couldn't understand then why he treated me so, but I learned from an early age that I would never get the love from him. My mother tried her hardest to shield me from him and to try and love me. And she really did. I loved my mother more than anything else.

Eventually my father turned to drinking to try and escape from his failures. What little money he made he took for mead, and what he didn't make, he borrowed from everyone around the town. I don't know why they continued to give him the money. From what I saw, it was because he pretended to be something he wasn't around everyone else. Here was the 'charming' handsome man that my mother had thought herself in love with and ran off with. However he did get it, he managed, until he was thousands of dollars in debt. In this time, we had almost no money to live on. To try and make enough to keep us both fed and clothed, my mother started to sew clothes for others. She made beautiful garments, working all day, every day just to try and keep us fed.

Around the age of six she gave birth to my younger brother. I think my father hated him even more than he did me. By this time in his life he was almost never sober, and the times he was, he was almost even meaner than if he was drunk. Mother never did recover from giving birth to my brother. From wealthy bloodlines, she was fragile in stature anyway, but that, mixed with the hard work she did every day, the meager food supplies, the harsh elements of Skyrim, and the strain of giving birth weakened her badly. As soon as I laid eyes on my brother I loved him, even if my father hated him.

A month later, he beat my mother for the first time. My brother had been colicky all day and she hadn't made a meal for us, which made him angry. I had been holding Devin to allow my mother a moment of rest when it started. Though she didn't fight back, I became enraged. Placing the month old child back in his crib, I attacked my father. I was so young that now I realize I did nothing bur provoke him more and make my mother have an even worse beating. He flung me easily aside, where I hit my head and could do nothing but watch in a daze while he used his fists against her. Later on he passed out from his drunken state, and I crawled back by my mother to help her. She was bruised, but didn't cry or say anything about it, even though it must have hurt like crazy. I finally begun to hate him. Not for his behavior toward me, but for what he had done to my mother.

She held me as I cried for her, and finally I fell asleep. She never seemed to become bitter for her life, and for the next two years did her best to protect us. Over that period her health started to fail her. I remember that during that period, I swore I would find a way to protect her and eventually we would get away from my father. I thought that I could get rich and give her everything she had been refused with marriage to my father.

I never got the chance.

Two years after she had my brother, she got so sick and run down that she died in her sleep. My father didn't even seem to care, but my entire life had crumbled around me. It was up to me now though, to make sure that Devin and I stayed alive. Quickly once she died, my father whisked us away to the little town of Helgen, escaping the debt that he had obtained in those eight years of living in Winterhold. We had nothing to live in but this tiny little shack, and his drinking habits didn't increase whatsoever. It was really by chance we survived that situation. Learning from my mother’s example, I tried to work hard to get the food that Devin and I needed. I hardly got a chance to rest, but I managed to get enough coin and food to support two growing boys with the necessities and managed to hide it from my father, being too drunk to care about his two children. It was out running an errand that I met up with the boy that would save our lives.

Along the trip to give a man the package that had been given to me, a pack of wolves attacked. I had no way to defend myself. My heart beat fast, but there was nothing I could do but drop the package and scramble up a nearby tree. They circled for what seemed like hours while I clung to that tree. Eventually my arm muscles tired so much, I wanted to let go. And probably would have if it weren't for a wood elf names Saveen. He had felled the pack of four wolves before I could realize what was happening, before helping me down. I was amazed by his ability to use his bow.

We became best friends. He taught me everything he knew about the ground, tracking and stalking prey, the use of a dagger and bow, as well as most of the different plants that were indigenous to Skyrim. Really, he taught me how to survive. In the next two years, I began to do odd jobs less and hunt more. I became a master with the bow that Saveen gave me, though there were still some nights that I would still come home empty handed and we would go hungry. Devin never complained though, which I was thankful for. We were thin boys, living on what I could hunt or gather, but at least we had each other. As time went on, I learned how to avoid my father’s anger and explosive temper when he was drinking. There were many nights that I would take Devin and leave our house during the night, sometimes sleeping just in the woods, and sometimes we would go stay with Saveen and his family, though eventually they left our area and we had no more place to stay. Still, we survived.

I was ten when 'tragedy' struck. Some men came to the house, carrying something that was wrapped up in a blanket. Our father had finally picked a fight with the wrong man, and he'd been killed. Though I suppose I should have felt something for him, even if it was only pity, as I looked between his body and my little brother, I couldn't muster anything but relief that he was dead. Relief and regret...regret that he had taken the life from my mother before his had been taken from him. I helped the men bury him, but only so I could be sure...

After that we were taken in by an old lady that lived on the outskirts of the town. She was good to us, I suppose, more so to Devin. Not that I could really blame her, since the years had made me sly, bitter, and completely independent. She didn't want me to hunt, thinking that little boys shouldn't do so until they were soldiers, and took it away from me. We lived with her for almost a year, doing chores and things for her in payment for her letting us live with her. It wasn't a bad time, since we had more food than we had our entire lives, and for once there was no threat of a drunken rage that would lead to a beating. Still, I felt cooped up, there being no freedom with her around.

A year after she toke us in, she died in her sleep. The town had no idea what to do with us until it was suggested that we be taken to an orphanage in Riften. I heard whispers of what that place was like, as well as the old bag running it. There was no way that we were going back into a situation like that! I wasn't going to allow anyone to govern us any longer. That same night, I got my bow and dagger that Saveen had given me, took everything of value the old woman had kept, took Devin by the hand and we disappeared.

It was tough, I'll admit it. Devin was five by that point. Though he was a good boy and didn't complain, he talked...boy could he talk. It didn't matter what he talked about, he just went on and on until I had a headache. Not only that, but I found it hard to leave him behind to hunt in fear that he wouldn't be there when I got back. His curiosity got him in trouble more times than I could count, but no matter how often I told him to stay put, he would always attempt to find me, usually while I was tracking our dinner in the woods. Despite being exasperated, I couldn't ever yell at him. He'd heard enough yelling in his short life, and without the memories of our mothers love to keep him going. So I let him come with me, which unfortunately led to a lot of days without food.

Finally I got smart. I would bed him down for the night and go hunting in the dark. Though I didn't get enough sleep, I did get us enough food. But unfortunately, we needed things that I couldn't scavenge for, which made me turn to stealing. We remained around a little village and I became a master at stealing. We camped out in a cave that I found. Though we didn't have a ton, it was dry and safe, a place where we could stay without anyone bossing us around. But I wanted more for Devin then he had gotten so far in life. I could read well and mother had tried to teach me all she had learned in school, but she had also taught me, or tried to teach me, what folks did when they were rich, which just seemed like a load of crap to me. Still, I was trying to teach Devin to read, but I wanted that life for him that I had wanted for my mother.

It came sooner than I would have thought.

One day while we were out, bandits invaded our makeshift home. When Devin and I came back from picking roots and berries to eat, we saw them. I didn't quite know what to do, but our things, as little as they were, were inside, and I wasn't leaving unless I got them first. So we waited, and somehow Devin managed to keep quiet. We were still there waiting when a second group of men came toward the cave. These weren't bandits though...not with the kind of clothes they had. We watched as they came swarming the cave. In the battle, the bandits were killed. Before I could make any sense of what was going on, it was over, and Devin was clinging to me while crying his eyes out. That drew the attention of the men, who surrounded us before I could drag him away.

And so I lifted my chin and faced them while they tried to make heads and tails of two kids hanging around the bandits cave. I answered his questions begrudgingly, only doing so because I figured I had to. It turned out that the bandits had stolen from his family, and the townsmen had tracked them here. Pretty soon it came out who we were and why we were here. They said that we had to go with them. I argued for a long while, but finally we were placed, myself somewhat forcefully due to my struggles, on horseback with two of the men. One I saw then was hardly any older than myself, and he took Devin on his saddle, while the man who had asked the questions took me. To make a long story short, when we got back to Whiterun, the man volunteered to take us to his house.

We got pampered that night, more so than I could remember since my mother had been alive to rock me on her lap. I had become somewhat cynical in the years, and figured that they would turn us out as quickly as they could...but they surprised me. The man’s family had the boy that was four years older than me, and a girl three years younger. Devin and I were treated with kindness, and he fell in love with the family. For a year I put them through hell. I stole from people in the area and purposely got caught to get them in trouble, freely came and went any time I wanted, with no thought of telling them, ran away a few times with Devin, defied them at every turn, and talked back as much as I could. I suppose I was testing them. Even through that, they decided to keep us. The first time Devin called the wife 'mom', I tried to tell him that our mom was dead. No matter what I said and how much I fought, they patiently worked with me.

It took me a long time to figure out they weren't going to dump us off somewhere, and that they actually cared about us. When I realized they actually cared, my resistance finally started to crack. It was only then that I actually began to really find out about the family I that had taken us in. They were wealthy, kind, and wonderful...the picture family. Just like Devin, I fell in love with them. It was only then that they really adopted us, and I was more than happy to take their name and drop my fathers.

And that was when life really began for us. Devin and I both got placed into school. Despite finding it hard to adjust from running around in the wilds to sitting in a classroom, I found that I really enjoyed school. Our two adopted siblings went as well, and there my world was opened up to me. Despite what I learned, I never really forgot what my best friend had taught me, and still found that I was more at home in the wilderness. Life was...amazing after that. I leapt at the opportunities to learn everything that I had been denied growing up, and under the care of my new parents, I was able to be like a new colt testing his legs.

The adopted brother and sister I got became like real siblings to me, and the father one that I've never had. It took longer for me to fully accept the wife as my mother, as I was clinging to the memory of my blood mother. Finally I realized that I had room for both, and she's now the mother that my own would have loved to be. Slowly they reformed me somewhat. I'm still a master at controlling my emotions, and I still have the sarcastic attitude, but I also have a love for people once again, though it's taken years for that to happen. My family means everything to me now, my younger sister really is the center of our lives. Everything she does we're four steps ahead to make sure nothing happens to upset her, even if she is a sassy thing that tells us to let her experience life with us. She argued that everything we can do, she could to, and so she was given a bow and would go out with us to hunt. It surprised me when she out shot my younger brother, though of course she couldn't do the same for my older brother and myself.

I learned everything I could possibly need to survive, since I had a thirst to learn. I was even taken to Solitude to learn magics, as well as taken to the College of the Bards to learn how to play the Lute and Drums. Really, we were given every opportunity to learn, and we all took advantage of that. Everything I could do, I did do. A part of me never wanted to touch a forge, but I learned the trade of a blacksmith as well, and pride myself in doing it right, unlike my own father. Everything I can do to show him up, I do, and to this day I haven't ever drank mead. Some day I'm sure I will, but for now, I'm content to never touch the stuff.

And then the rebellion happened. When it did, my older brother, having trained to become a soldier, went to join the Imperial army and battle the Stormcloaks. I didn't give a damn about the war really, and was content to stay home in Whiterun and help my father with his merchant business. That was, until we got a letter about how he had died in battle. My world was shaken upside down again. With my older brother gone, I took on the responsibility to join the army. Despite my mothers arguing that I shouldn't do it and she would rather me stay home and stay alive, I left for Solitude to join the army.

While I joined as a normal grunt soldier, it took me only two years to rise in the ranks until I was in the intelligence gathering team. I must say, it's a good life really. I'm a soldier when the need arises and I go into battle, but mostly I'm a scout for the army, gathering information and deciding important decisions on where to attack, where Stormcloak camps are, and shipments that we can attack. Sometimes I'm even sent into the heart of Stormcloak country to spy on the forces. I've been told that I have the charisma for it, and I must say that I have one quality of my fathers. I can seem to charm people, for whatever reason. In my spying, I've gotten all the way into Winterhold and spied on the forces there at one point, and I never wear the normal Imperial equipment. I had never cared about the army before my older brothers death. Now I've sworn to make Ulfric Stormcloak pay for the death of my brother. Despite that, I'm somewhat of a rogue in the army, coming and going as I want, and only really staying when I have orders to do so. Even now, I'm most comfortable in the wilderness, though I go back to see my family as much as possible. My brother, eighteen now, still has a ways to go to really grow up, but he's on his way...he really is on his way, and makes me proud.

We've come a long way from the lost children we were before, haven't we?

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ALIAS . Taiya

AGE . 18

YEARS ROLEPLAYING . 4 1/2

HOW YOU FOUND US . I twas here before? :3

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