Evander Winsome

Evander takes turns imagining that he's an adrenaline-junkie explorer and adventurer and pretending he's some world-weary old dog, but the truth is that he's just bored. He grew up poor and struggling, and now that he's neither, he doesn't really know what to do with himself. When the gil runs out, he'll be back to digging through dusty ruins and trapped tombs or shady deals and back alleys, but until that point comes, he's been telling himself this is the life he and his brother always wanted. He's not convinced.

Hooks

To hear Evander tell it, he’s lived a charmed life, if not always an easy one. Left to be raised by his brother after his father’s untimely death, Evander grew up a Limsan wharf rat. Sure, he had to steal on occasion, but mostly he got by begging or, when he got a little older, running the occasional short-term con. By sheer luck and happenstance, he found himself adopted by the closest thing he had to a family friend and he was whisked away to a life in Ishgard. He did his best there, but old habits die hard and after scrounging together a few hard earned gil of his own, he fled the miserable weather for something warmer and dryer.Get a few drinks in him, or just catch him feeling honest, and a few details come into focus, while others start feeling fuzzy. Turns out, he probably did a lot more stealing than he lets on, but lots of orphans do what they have to in order to survive. Especially orphans in gangs. You know, gang orphans. Totally normal. That family friend? She didn’t even go with him to Ishgard, just sent him on his way. He didn’t leave so much as he got tossed out on his ass, leaving a thoroughly burned bridge behind him. He spends a lot of money for someone who “scrounged together a few hard earned gil”. The timeline doesn’t add up.If those drinks keep coming (and he’s always willing to buy, so you can be sure they will), it can be hard to get him to shut up. His brother’s dead. His brother’s girlfriend, who booked his passage out of Limsa Lominsa? She’s dead too. Her family hates him and probably (definitely) wants him dead. He’s been trying to just lay low, but that’s so, so boring. And it’s so hard to be a well behaved, productive, sober, law-abiding citizen when you’re bored.

Most of the time, I'm a pretty boring, regular person. I'm happily married with two cats and a leopard gecko. When I'm not doing this, I'm usually playing or running a TTRPG, playing another video game, or making the odd terrarium.Between work, sleep and other hobbies, I can be kind of hard to catch in game. Also, I'm admittedly not great at reaching out to start stuff, but I'm usually pretty receptive. Feel free to reach out on tumblr (which is linked at the top of this carrd) or say hi in game (whether I've got an RP tag up or not!). I love walk-up RP, but am also happy to plot stuff out, arrange things, or just talk about characters. In game, I'm usually pretty breezy and conversational so that everyone has a chance to read and respond, but I tend to be a lot more detailed in other forms of RP. I Hope you don't mind some internal monologue!I'd like for Evander to get to know all kinds of people and develop lots of different relationships, from close friendships and drinking buddies to heated rivalries and frustrating frienemies. I'm not opposed to romantic relationships, but I'm not looking for them either; Evander's already got a few that are surprisingly healthy. Whatever the relationship, I want it to grow organically, rather than just springing up over night. I love putting characters into a jar and shaking them up and seeing what happens IC. OOC, I love making friends and am not interested in anything beyond that.

“You’re a good kid, Evander.”The hat rested on the boy’s head, lopsided and almost comically oversized, despite the untamed mop of chestnut hair that sat beneath it. Evander’s eyes peered out from under the brim, noting how Koriah’s eyes narrowed and the corner of her lip quirked into something that didn’t quite show amusement and didn’t quite show frustration as she adjusted the hat this way and that, never quite finding a satisfying position. He fixated on her hands for a moment, particularly on the way their pale complexion contrasted with the worn gyuki leather of the hat as she plucked it from his head.Her hands had, for some reason, always drawn his attention. Like the rest of her, they were pale and lithe and moved with a carefree and confident purpose that stood out from everything around them. Watching her turn the hat over in her hands, they suddenly reminded him more of gulls awkwardly tugging at a discarded baguette than the lilies he had clumsily compared them to a few days ago. He could still feel the sting of embarrassment at his brother’s laughter—even good-natured as it always was—and the gentle graciousness with which she acknowledged the compliment without drawing attention to it.She sighed and produced a simple black handkerchief. Evander smiled at her as she kneeled in front of him and was struck by the fact that even when he felt eye-to-eye with her, she still somehow seemed to tower over him. She folded the handkerchief several times before looping it around his head head and knotting it in the back. This time, when she put the hat on his head, the band fit perfectly, even if the hat itself still seemed outsized in comparison to the boy’s frame.“Evander, Lysander and I—” Koriah started and stopped, her words suddenly clutched from her throat and hanging in the air like the prey of a shrike dangling from a thorn. “You’re a good kid. We love you, and we’re proud of you. And—”“This ship’s gotta go, lady!”The Roegadyn voice booming behind Evander was as unfamiliar to him as the plaintive, pleading look he suddenly saw painted across Koriah’s face. Her wordless petition solicited a gruff harrumph from the man before he plodded off, but even without seeing him or hearing a response, Evander could tell it had worked by the way relief took hold on Koriah’s features. Something about the way her expression shifted reminded Evander of the split second after you pull a thorn from your finger, the brief painless moment between feeling the ache of something that’s stuck where it shouldn’t be and the ache of nothing being where it was just a moment earlier.“Hey, Koriah, you got Lysander a new hat, right? I told him—he told me that I could have this one if you ever got him one, so—” Evander filled the air between them with words because he didn’t know what else to do. They’d talked about this moment many times over the past few weeks—about how they had to time everything just right to get on the boat, and how he’d be by himself until he got to Ishgard, but they’d be on their way behind him as soon as they could, about how the hand-drawn map Koriah had given him would lead him to her house, and about how happy her dad would be to have a kid around again—but none of the talking had prepared him for how it would feel, about how none of this felt like when Lysander or Koriah had to leave town for a few days, leaving their absence obvious but their return as assured as the sun rising and setting every day.He filled the air between them with words because he didn’t know what else to do, and he didn’t like the stinging sandbag feeling of tears welling up inside him, but more than that, he hated the sight of them taking shape at the corners of Koriah’s eyes. “Just… you got him a hat, right? You've—You gotta get him a hat, Koriah.”She smiled, and something about her smile reminded him of the way his brother had once tried to explain why rich kids get expensive presents from the Starlight Saint every year and poor kids get barely anything, even if the poor kids had been really good all year. “I’ll get him a hat, Evander. I promise.”He returned the smile anyway, because he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know how not to.In the distance, a shot rang out like a peal of thunder, quickly echoed by another. Koriah flinched with each report, but her smile wavered only slightly, again at the corner, and Evander only noticed because he’d committed her smile to memory. “You have the map, right? And you remember who to ask for? My father or my aunt? Not my brother?”He nodded in response to each of her questions.“You’re a good kid, Evander. We love you. We’re proud of you And—” More shots, less distant now, split her words. “We’ll see you soon, I promise!” She smiled again and it was as beautiful and close to home as it had always been, but he could tell there was something hiding in it. It was almost the smile she gave his brother when she complimented his cooking, but not quite.She pulled him in close and hugged him so tight that, for a moment, he was reminded of the time he saw a whiskey barrel fall off a ship, its staves cracking and splintering and spilling its contents all over the docks. “Now go, Evander. Go!”She pulled away, turned him around and sent him off with a gentle shove. He tore off toward the ship that awaited him, his feet thudding against the gangplank, each step echoed by another shot in another salvo. As soon as he was safely aboard, he threw himself against the handrail to wave her off, but Koriah was already gone.“Hey!” he shouted at her absence, hoping his young voice could carry through the alleys at least as well as the gunfire, but no clever parting words came to him. He could only pick one of her promises to try and hold her to as the boat launched from Limsa Lominsa. “Remember, you said you’d get him a hat! You gotta get him a hat!”