Caerin

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C A E R I N
loner, wanderer, scarred
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Mate: none
(homosexual demi-homoromantic)

Caerin rarely reverts to his native tongue unless his conversational partner speaks nothing but Coatl, and for that matter he rarely says anything at all, usually only uttering the transient phrases in traditional draconian needed for reporting his work for the day before he retreats into his den, the form of which is studiously researched but still sloppily put together. His personality is generally quite calm and controlled, unless undue attention is brought to his appearance; some of this can be read as a facade that eventually became part of him, constructed after years on end of preconceptions based on his appearance. In general, he's bad at forging social bonds, but he seems especially easily distraught or upset when it comes to other Coatls. This is not of his own volition; indeed, it is what traps him, what cages him, keeps him as its thrall. He is still struggling to cast off an innate animosity towards his own kind, one shaped in the wild, jumping flames of his youth, one that has forever branded him as the property of its passion. He won't actively harm the feelings of other Coatls just for being Coatls, but at the same time he feels a distance that he hates himself for, and it pulls at him even as he tries to cast it away.

He actually is quite compassionate, if not exactly empathetic, but this side of him is rarely seen as he clings onto a very structured notion of duty and subordinance within the clan. He really, seriously does not know what to do with gestures of friendship, although he understands and will engage in the seemingly innate Coatl gifting behavior.

He is not actually too good at people things—or, in this case, draconic things—and gets easily flustered by platonic and romantic advances alike, although it actually isn't too visible externally unless he's already deigned to speak to you for extended periods of time. He doesn't 100% know how to extend gratitude, but will do his best in most cases.

Ironically, he is less susceptible to disease than much of the clan, and is able to tolerate cold temperatures moreso than warm ones despite his species. (The latter part may be a bit of a fabrication on his part, since he is after all a Coatl, and he is attracted to the heat despite his frequent identity crises. His ice element does ease some of a natural aversion to cold, and because he is a Dork it may simply be that he prefers the company that'll be out in cold weather, though he is equally able to survive in the heat.)

His sense of humor is dry and rarely exhibited, since he makes an effort to exude either an air of polite deference or firm discipline depending on the situation and rarely steps outside of the role that has been carved for him. If he jokes it is a sign that you have earned his trust - and not merely the trust that you will not betray him in combat.

He loves his cat and her name is Alina.

BACKSTORY
In his genesis, he remembers a fading warmth, elusive, curls of smoke drifting from an ardor that inevitably dissipated—with it went shreds of himself, and he followed them ceaselessly, out of the ice's domain. He will forever feel allegiance to his parents, he thinks, but he is not of their clan.

Outside of it, though, there is less solace. He is ostracized, condemned, for his plumage. Black razes him and lays him bare; those of his kind regard him with an anxious trepidation, a hatchling doomed from its youth, and still he ventures onwards. Eventually they have a reason to divest his being of meaning beyond the color; eventually the words seep, like smoke, into a once bright and caring demeanor. There is a certain sickliness diffusing throughout him, even when physically he remains unscathed, because his role to play is always going to be the omen of illness, a deepening laceration in lands that are not the plague's, something to be feared. He is upset only for some time - eventually he learns that it is better, maybe, to stay quiet altogether, to suppress the exhaustion that wells up within him every time he is reduced to his plumage. Despite it all, he is still gentle. He does not wish to foist the needless suffering he has sustained on others, and the selfish part of him does not want the disgusted gaze of other species on him as he clicks, desperately, to communicate, to verify that the dullness is his, but it is not him.

The opportunity comes and he buries his mother tongue. The whispers of other Coatls still resonate uncomfortably, as if they were themselves claws instead of melodies, and he has become jaded, cold as the ice he was imbued with in the nest. He rarely answers them with anything more than necessary anymore, because he knows his answers will only confirm their suspicions, vindicate them in assuming that he is in excruciating pain. It doesn't matter that it isn't physiological. He has been made into an outsider, and so he lingers on the fringes, determined to cling onto the last fragment of hope. He ignores the fact that it is, simultaneously, a shard of glass, with just as much capacity to wound him.

He feels more comfortable in his own skin, now that he can speak to others; now that he can be seen merely for his ability to work and not for his plumage, for the mark of the dying. He was never able to defy the expectations of those shrouded in effulgence, and it has irrevocably changed him, but now he feels he can carve out his own life. He feels there is hope.

He finds it again in the clan, a sanctuary, a reprieve. Where once he was a wanderer, bearing his nightmares on his own shoulders despite the insistence of his insomnia (who can sleep when the sorrow of the others implies every day is their last?), he can finally rest. He stays with them in flame, no matter the hole the fire bores into his chest; he stays with them in water, the tranquility, the caress of the waves shifting and alleviating a deep unrest inside him.

Caerin still cannot find it within himself to speak to others as he once did, and so his demeanor still seems cordial but icy, finding order within the rules and staying there. He is a defender, still, a seeker. There is still an inner hollowness, because he knows allies, and he would die for them gladly, but he does not know friends. He thinks still that he pushes them unconsciously away, and he is, usually, right - his experiences do not allow for friends, for anything but that which is forged in battle.

This is true in all but a select few cases.