Post by Riordan Silverlance on Jun 13, 2013 20:45:29 GMT -7
RIORDAN SILVERLANCE
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◊ FULL NAME: Riordan Silverlance
◊ CODENAME: Rio
◊ GENDER: Male
◊ RACE: Half-Elf
◊ AGE: 21
◊ APPEARANCE: It just takes a glance to know that Riordan is definitely not human. His complexion is an ashen color, more gray than white. His face is punctuated by intense eyes that are predominantly yellow in color (though the yellow sometimes seems to be murky). The faint lines that slash across his upper cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose betray his royal elven heritage, though only to the few who know what such marks mean. To most people, Riordan bluffs that they are from a snapped guitar string when he was younger.
The half-elf hovers just below six-feet tall and if he could, Riordan would wish himself taller. His hair is the same chestnut shade as his mother's and, though she'd prefer him to cut it, he wears his hair at least shoulder-length, which comes in handy for hiding his peaked elven ears. His nose is pointed with flared nostrils, giving his face an almost rodent-like look. Lean is what his physique can generally be described as, though every now and then he can tend to get a little doughy from making and consuming large quantities of homemade pasta. His arms bear a few scars from times he was careless with his tonfa.
◊ ATTIRE: Rio favors comfort rather than style. Jeans or sweats are his usual fare for trousers. He prefers t-shirts and hoodies with a splash of tank tops if the weather is a bit warmer. If he can't go barefoot, he wears flip-flops and can only be forced into closed-toe shoes in formal situations or if the weather demands it. He does possess slacks, a dress shirt, dress shoes, and a tie that his mother still has to help him with if it's needed, but Rio hasn't really found himself needing to dress up much in his life. He has a pair of identifying dog tags his mother gave him when he became an official field agent. Rio always wears them either around his neck or looped on his wrist just because he likes them and feels comforted whenever he holds them.
When out on missions, Rio dons a vest in which is armored with small arms protective insert (or SAPI) plates. They can easily stop several bullets, but can only be used once. Riordan is lucky enough to not have to worry about being shot that often, but on the occasion that it does occur, he has a cache of the plates hidden in his room and does what he can to find more or buy them off of scavengers. A ballistic helmet protects his head as good as possible, though a shot to the face could easily kill him. He still asks his mother to braid his hair before he goes out into the field, finding a braid much more sensible than a ponytail in such situations. All of his gear is black, including his canvas trousers and hiking boots. And of course, he wears a standard issue BPRD belt.
◊ FACE CLAIM: Rupert Friend
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◊ AFFILIATION: BPRD
◊ PROFESSION: Field Agent
◊ PERSONALITY: In a place where a numerous amount of people are larger (and louder) than life, Rio stands out for being quiet in his nature. Don't mistake his silence for complacency; the man just doesn't see a need for unneeded noise or attention brought upon himself, something he learned early on in his life as the royal bastard of King Nuada. Since his paternity is not widely publicized, he bluffs and lies to any who ask why his skin is the color it is, why his eyes are muddied yellow, or what those odd lines are on his face soley because his existence could cause problems for himself and the Bureau. Rio plays his identity close to the chest and isn't about to go around shouting that he's Nuada's bastard.
But with Maggie and Trevor, he can be himself and he need not apologize. It is a bit ironic that the children of two men who were pitted against each other for the fate of Earth's soul are the best of friends, and perhaps a bit poetic as well. Riordan cannot remember when he and the twins began their friendship; to him it is something that has always existed and is as endless as time itself. Riordan would sacrifice himself for the life of his friends or, if needed, hide a body and destroy the evidence for either Maggie or Trevor. Or both, if it comes to that.
And while Rio knows all about his human heritage, he is lacking in the knowledge of his paternal family. There has not been a chance for him to really explore the elven half of his parentage, or for him to even meet another elf. His aunt is so far away in her kingdom and Rio doubts he'll ever meet his father or be able to have any semblance of a relationship with him. Though he can easily project that he's confident and collected, on the inside he still has doubts about who he really is.
Rio still lives with his mother, not seeing much purpose in moving anywhere else on the Bureau base. He's close with his mother and appreciates the independence she has instilled in him. Even so, he's always felt as though she hasn't told him the entire story about his father and herself. Rio feels like, should he press the issue, he'd get nowhere, so he doesn't. Rio doesn't know everything about himself, and this makes his confidence a weak thing at times. Riordan wants to be confident and strong in himself, but he hasn't learned how to just yet. He does his best to take his frustrations out in the field or just by playing around on his acoustic guitar, which he isn't exceptionally good at.
◊ ABILITIES: Rio has accelerated healing. Whether it's a watered down power from his mother or something inherited from his father's side, he's not sure. A wound that would take months to heal takes weeks, and a cut that would take days to heal mends itself in a few short hours. He's by no means invincible, but accelerated healing makes injuries far less annoying.
◊ SKILLS: Trained informally in kobudo, but enough to make him skilled with his bladed tonfa. Natural cook, and generally makes dinner for his mother and himself every night when not in the field. He knows how to play the guitar, though he's by no means a Jimi Hendrix, and prefers soothing acoustic music to anything else. He's a decent shot with his Bureau side-arm and is learning tactical thinking and resource management along with survival skills.
◊ WEAKNESSES: Rio's not very confident. Though he is a grown man, he still possesses self-doubts about himself and his origins. He knows that his mother loves him and did what she had to for good reasons, but he has the feeling she keeps more from him than she would admit. That being said, his mother is the greatest influence in his life, followed closely by his Uncle Abe. Though he rarely gets to communicate with his Aunt Nuala and cousins, he reserves a tender place for them in his heart as well. And, of course, there's Maggie and Trevor, his best friends. And, of course, he suspects that he's as susceptible to mortality as anyone else in spite of his healing factor.
◊ EQUIPMENT: Riordan's weapon of choice is bladed tonfa. There are guards against his forearms to keep himself from slicing his arms off, but if he's not careful, he can still cut himself. Rio only takes the weapons from the armory if he's training or going out in the field. And, per usual, he does have the standard issue BPRD belt with a firearm and little odds and ends he prefers to have on a mission.
◊ RESIDENCE: Riordan lives with his mother in an old house on the BPRD base. It's a simple house with two cramped bedrooms, an ancient bathroom, and a combined kitchen and living area. The kitchen and living area sport a low coffee table perched between two armchairs and a sofa, all scavenged and reupholstered and refinished by his mother. Somehow, his mother also procured a stainless steel oven, stove, and refrigerator in the kitchen area. Rio and his mom spent a weekend when he was a teen refinishing the counters with some of childhood drawings, scavenged pictures, and magazine clippings to add some color to the place. The floors are wooden and in need of a good refinishing (Rio keeps thinking he'll surprise his mother by doing them the next time she's out in the field, but the opportunity hasn't yet presented itself), but threadbare green rugs and runners cover the floors in spots. A kitchen table with room enough for six sits in the middle of the living area. An ancient radio sits against one wall, rewired and refurbished by Tabby and usually flicked on to the Bureau Broadcasting Network.
The bathroom possesses the original porcelain tub, toilet, and sink, all scrubbed and bleached to blinding white. The medicine cabinet's mirror has a few cracks spiderwebbed across the bottom, but nothing too serious. Riordan jury-rigged a hose up to the roof with an old shower head, and when the hose is connected to the faucet it makes a passable shower.
Rio's room is a nice respite from the world. The walls are plastered in pictures of he and his friends and family, Bureau and otherwise. A pile of old jewel CD cases sits next to a refurbished CD player on a scuffed desk. A fishbowl that's been duct-taped on one side holds a blue beta fish named Chuck on Riordan's night stand. He still sleeps in the twin bed he's had from childhood, preferring the extra space that he has with a small bed. His acoustic guitar, if it's not with him or on his bed, perches on a stand in the corner of the room. Clothes might be strewn about if he's having a particularly busy week, but Riordan does his best to keep his space tidy.
◊ FAMILY: Frankie Guidicini (Mother), King Nuada Silverlance (Estranged father), Queen Nuala (Aunt), Abe Sapien (de facto Uncle), Princess Oona (Cousin), Prince Abrachim (Cousin), Stella Hyde-Parker (Half-sister, deceased), King Balor (Grandfather, deceased)
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◊ HISTORY: Riordan was born into a broken world with a broken family and he's never known anything else, so to him his life seems quite normal. Stories of nuclear families before Ragnarök are kind of like boring myths to Riordan. He was quite content being raised by his mother and didn't think anything of it until he was thumbing through a pre-Ragnarök Berenstain Bears book. He asked his mother why they didn't have a father in their family, and Frankie answered as honestly as she could to a boy of three: his father and her had never married and they had differing views, so they didn't live together. More information was given as Riordan grew, and he slowly began to understand the real gravity and weight of the situation.
Before Riordan could remember, he became playmates with Trevor and Maggie Bruttenholm, starting what has thus far been a life-long friendship with the twins. Something just clicks between all three of them, and Rio is happy to call the two his best friends. Maggie has always had a knack for leading the three into trouble, and Rio is usually happy to follow. The boy's childhood passed happily with his two best friends, his supportive yet stern mother, and the other members of the Bureau that became commonplace in his day-to-day activities with the Broom Institute. From a young age, Riordan knew he wanted to be a field agent for the BPRD, mostly because of the stories his mother came back with on the rare occasion that something out in the field called her away from her office. Riordan knew that one day, he would be telling the stories of how he got out of one situation or another just by the skin of his teeth.
Any questions that Rio would have about his elven heritage as he grew older were directed to his father's twin sister, Nuala, in her far away kingdom. The boy first dictated letters to his mother, and then wrote himself once he had enough skill to do so. Though his mother supports and loves him, he has never really shaken the feeling that he only knows half of himself. While letters are all well and good, Rio wishes that he could speak face-to-face with his aunt about their heritage and what it means to be an elf. At present, Riordan has not had the opportunity, but he does his best to write weekly letters to his aunt and cousins, even if they cannot be sent to Greater Elfland that frequently. Much of his letters are entrusted to his Uncle Abe.
Childhood gave way to adolescence and Riordan sprouted like a weed. At first the boy was tall and lanky with pimples peppered all over his complexion. Riordan let his hair grow out in an effort to distract people from the darker slate marks on his cheek and later found that he quite liked his long locks. In an effort to become more muscular and to fill out his frame, Riordan spent his time in the Bureau's training facility. He did build some lean muscle on his frame that didn't stick for very long, but it was during this time in the training facility that Riordan found and began playing with his first pair of tonfa. Something about the way he could move reminded him greatly of the way his mother fought when he had observed her in training exercises and, if the lore was correct, his father could move with a smooth and liquid grace as well. Riordan idolized such fighting styles and trained tirelessly to wield his tonfa with as much speed and grace as his parents were reputed to wield their own weapons.
He also spent much of his adolescence babysitting the children of the Foster Clan. Riley was a few years younger than him and the rest of the kids (with the exception of Elijah) were even younger, so Rio seemed like the perfect candidate for the job. The youth actually rather enjoyed sword fighting with spatulas against the Foster kids and being sprawled out on the floor underneath a blanket fort watching a movie. Growing up as an only child could be lonely, but this gave him a taste of what it would be like to have siblings. Babysitting was never a chore to him, though at times he invited Maggie and Trevor to come along. But then one of the kids flushed something of Maggie's down the toilet one day and the half-demoness unleashed a tirade of "F" bombs and Rio wasn't allowed to bring friends over when he babysat anymore. Regardless, Rio watched the children of the Foster Clan until Riley was old enough to take charge. He still regards all of them with utter fondness.
Rio was never a great student, but with his friends and his mother and some questions to his Uncle Abe, Rio pulled through the Broom Institute's curriculum with decent enough marks to be entered into the Bureau's field agent training program underneath John Meyers. Maggie and Trevor, being a year older, had already been accepted and had a year's head start on the half-elf's training, which inspired him to work twice as hard to catch up. His blunt wooden tonfa were traded in for bladed ones (with which Riordan minorly injured himself within thirty seconds of receiving) and the young man set out to make his dreams come true.
Three years later, and Rio is a full-fledged field agent with his best friends at his side and the entire world before him. He's not sure what the future holds for him, but that's what makes it so exciting.
