anthypophora .XXIII.
Name: Dai.
Sex: Male.
Race: Dark elf.
Age: 93 years old.
Early Years and Magister Candidacy.
Born in the country to a lower-class household. He moved to Nuadoria city while still young, brought with his parents who were seeking a more comfortable living. His life passed fairly uneventfully, until eventually he became a magister candidate through rune selection; they were seeking a replacement for their recently deceased fire magister, and this gangly 16-year-old seemed to fit the bill. At first he wasn't remotely interested - working with a bunch of toffee-nosed, world-ignorant inbreds, sneering and looking down on him all the time? No thanks. He'd lived there for enough time to see how the palace policies and taxes had harmed his father and mother, and made things all the more difficult for those struggling to make ends meet. But eventually he came to realise that it would be a great improvement for his family if he were to accept, and so despite his morals and his apprehension about the whole affair, he went ahead with it.
Things went about as well as could be expected; though the rune still wanted him, the Palace overseers saw very little merit in him. Desperate now, he took drastic measures and made profound alterations to his behaviour and identity in order to 'fit in' with the higher classes, and this strained effort to appear overly amiable and eloquent is still apparent in conversation. Eventually he won approval, and he became the Fire Magister and worked alongside Kaden, the Ice Magister of the time. They did not get along, due mostly to Dai's pushy friendliness and Kaden's icy standoffishness.
Adulthood and Exploitation.
Dai grew up to be remarkably popular and handsome, and he had a tendency to take gross advantage of this fact. Dai had always been something of an opportunist, but nothing brought this out quite like his new job did - in every possible respect. He slept around with quite a few palace servants in his youth, and tried his luck with the other magisters more than once. He even had moderate success with some of the rather less important members of the Royal Family, who had very little concern for scandals. Flirtatiousness became a huge part of his personality - perhaps because he perceived it as also making him more likable to those around him, which became over time a greater and greater priority. He began to view all people as conquests of a sort - intellectually or sexually, he didn't much mind.
Though he sent money, he began to lose contact with his family.
The Royal Family and a Magister's Duty.
One day, while sitting out in the sunshine during a short break in his duties, a child ran up to him, having become lost without his mother. He took care of him until his mother could retrieve him, and the child snuck him a small gift before he ran away. Dai soon realised that what he had given him was a genuine ring bearing the crest of the Royal Family; the sort of thing only royalty were ever to handle, and about as far from the sort of thing a young child should be toting around on the street as one could get. Though he tried to seek the child out, he never found him.
Dai returned to the Palace and began doing his research. He traced back the family line far enough to find the break, but the circumstances on official records were ambiguous. It seemed that one day, one family suddenly ended, and another wholly new one began. Why was this not common knowledge? What had happened?
... And perhaps more importantly, what could he do with the knowledge if he found out more?
He began to suspect the Royal Family of doing something quite reprehensible, and though he sustained his duties, he kept trying to find more answers. Alas, nobody knew anything, and he found it harder and harder to keep his search secret from the overseers. Eventually, fearing for his livelihood, he broke off his hunt entirely.
Eventually Fallon was born, and it became part of his duty to take care of him. Dai got along relatively well with him when he was younger, but the more he grew, the more he became something Dai didn't like - and it seemed to him that he was the only one who saw these unpleasant, arrogant traits rising in him. Did everyone really just see him as a well-behaved child? Was that what all royal children were expected to become?
Fallon's golden boy behaviour came to irritate him, and their relationship became very uneasy on both sides, full of sarcasm and general unpleasantness. However, Fallon was still powerless to do anything about the disrespectful Magister - and in truth, Dai did his job well enough for any minor problems with the prince to be easily overlooked.
Marriage and Divorce.
Dai continued his duties - and with the rune having halted his aging, his escapades didn't slow down much either. However, when he was reaching his early 30s, he did eventually find a woman with whom he got along quite wonderfully, and they seemed like a very well-matched pair. She was an older woman, though she was still exceptionally beautiful, and she had a great wit and wisdom about her. Regardless of Dai's position in the palace, she never seemed to be intimidated by him, and he found it very comforting and refreshing.
Though Magisters were generally advised not to marry, Dai went ahead with their romance and eventually tied the knot, anyway. Hardly known for his commitment, he struggled to find a single person who found approval with the relationship.
And they were right to doubt - though he did last a surprising four years before she decided that she was sick of his behaviour, tired of his affairs and his flirting, his inability to be controlled or put her first in any situation. He was too flighty, too obsessed with his own youth, and too engrossed in his work and his palace relationships to give her the time or consideration she deserved. And for his part, he was growing weary of her temper, her inability to listen, and though he did admittedly have an affair or two, she became very paranoid and punishing every time he returned home late, seeing something underhanded in everything he said. She wanted a divorce, and he consented to it. They parted on bad terms, though he gave her a great deal of compensation in the agreement out of guilt more than anything.
Ancient History and the New Magister.
To be completed.