Rylan van Herpen

Rylan van Herpen is a major character in Single-Handed Alchemy. He is a doctor-in-training, a small-time alchemy practitioner, and one of Flynn Rainridge's closest friends.
==Appearance==
Rylan has short caramel-blond hair and green eyes, and owns a pair of glasses. He wears a maroon jacket over a brown shirt, jeans and sturdy brown boots.
==Personality==
Rylan is fairly manipulative and focuses on sweet-talking others to get the best outcomes from them. Because of this, he is typically either well-liked for his politeness, or seen as sly and deceptive.
Rylan has a tendency to use overly sophisticated language, which often makes others confused around him. He typically resorts to this when annoyed, in an attempt to make him seem superior to the person who annoyed him. His friends are used to this, and will often counter it by using equally sophisticated language.
==Story==
Rylan has lived in Khemidale all of his life, and found it difficult to stick to one particular interest as a child. In secondary school, he became friends with Flynn Rainridge, and became fascinated by his damaged arm. On a few occasions, Rylan even helped to replace Flynn's bandages, which made him decide that the medical world was his calling.
When the two were fourteen years old, Flynn confirmed his interest in alchemy to his friends. Rylan didn't believe Flynn at first, though after coming around to his house more he began to see the truth, and started to borrow Flynn's alchemy books to research it for himself. Although he never got into alchemy like Flynn did, Rylan continued studying and became rather knowledgable in alchemy himself, and would sometimes assist Flynn when he couldn't find a solution in his alchemy work.
At the age of twenty-one, Flynn went out travelling to decipher a particularly strange alchemy book. Rylan kept giving Flynn regular phone calls on his travels, to give him daily updates and help him solve a few alchemy-related problems.
==Relationships==
===Flynn Rainridge===
Rylan and Flynn are very close friends, sharing interests in science and at least some knowledge in alchemy. The two often dig at each other for various reasons, with Rylan usually making fun of Flynn being socially distant while Flynn jokes about Rylan being a weasel. Neither is offended by this, emphasising how close they are.
===Penelope Goldsworthy===
Rylan and Penelope are rather close friends, often spending time together after Penelope gets fed up of her job. Penelope has repeatedly tried to convince Rylan to come around to her shop, though he has yet to do so, being content with the condition of his current technology.
===Aleah Monet===
Rylan is close with Aleah, though unlike his other friends, she comes off as unaware of his manipulative tendencies.
==Trivia==
*Rylan was named after Iris van Herpen, a Dutch fashion designer. All of Flynn's friends are named after artists.
*Rylan is farsighted, hence his glasses. He only wears the glasses when he is reading or trying to concentrate, as he doesn't think that they suit him well.
*Rylan puts a lot more effort into his footwear than his friends. Despite this, however, he is very bad at tying shoelaces.
*Rylan owns a first-aid kit, though how he obtained it is unknown. On one phone call, Flynn (jokingly) calls his first-aid kit a “stolen box of things that alchemy can't do”, implying that the kit was taken without permission.
*Rylan keeps a lot of things that he had as a child. Among his possessions are a box of crayons, a couple of plastic chess pieces and a compass. He evidently has more in this collection, though he is cut off by Flynn before he can mention anything else.
*Rylan likes playing board games, and has a tendency to play them against himself.
*Rylan owned a fish tank three times in his life, and each time the fish died because he didn't care for them enough.
Category:Characters
Category:Males