Shias Averyn

Full Name: Shias Velandil Averyn
Age: 60 (About the equivalent of 20, in human years)
Occupation: Tailor, worked for the Scryers in Outland, currently working under the banner of the Sun's Wrath in Northrend.
Languages: Thalassian, Orcish, some Common
Relatives: Jaithys Averyn (brother, now deceased)
= Physical Description =
Shias carries himself with an awkward hesitance, though his movements seem to suggest an intended elegance. He is of average height with a slender, almost effeminate build, his eyes the typical fel green of his kin and his long hair a golden blonde. 
His clothing is often well-tailored yet worn, and reminiscient in style of the old Silvermoon nobility. At his neck is a heart-shaped pendant inlaid with a single red jewel: a bleeding heart, one might say. Enchanted swords seem to be his weapon of choice--perhaps only because he cannot manage to carry anything bigger.
Soft-spoken and often stuttering, Shias can be painfully awkward--but there is, beneath his discomfort, a glowing warmth to his demeanor. 
= Personality = 
Timid and taciturn, Shias is not the most sociable of sin'dorei. He generally keeps to himself, though when he does find himself in conversation, he is usually polite and holds intrinsically to tradition. Bowing upon introduction and hardly ever failing to kiss the knuckles of ladies, Shias is a product of the old nobility in his mannerisms.
Shias' mind is shaped largely by guilt. Often called a coward, Shias takes a great deal of care to disprove this belief all he can--however, he often fails miserably. To prove himself, Shias has undertaken dangerous tasks, including working for the Scryers in Netherstorm as well as more recently joining the Sun's Wrath expedition to Northrend.
= History =
== The Sunwell Guardians ==
Shias is the second son of Vyn'thas and Sarinae Averyn, both members of a group of Silvermoon nobles known as the Sunwell Guardians. These Guardians were entrusted with the duty of overseeing, protecting, and studying the Sunwell, and thusly held a good deal of political sway. However, Guardianship was not passed based only upon bloodlines--only those with inherent talent and ability were granted the title.
The Averyns had, for centuries, held a rich tradition of becoming Guardians. The first son of Vyn'thas and Sarinae, Jaithys Averyn, showed a great deal of promise in carrying on the tradition. Jaithys demonstrated a sharp intelligence and natural affinity for politics, taking after his father.
Shias, however, showed very little promise. He did not excell in arcanistry as was expected of him, and the youngest Averyn was often seen as a disappointment by the Guardians as a whole.
== A Scowl-Ridden Childhood ==
Growing up in the shadow of his gifted brother Jaithys, Shias developed a nasty temper and disinclination to cooperate. Despite the efforts of his family, he was a persistant embarassment to the Guardians in the face of the rest of the Quel'danas nobles. He misbehaved at every opportunity, including grand balls thrown by his parents--when his father attempted to have him dance with the daughters of other nobles, Shias would often leave the girls in tears. 
As he grew into pre-adulthood, however, his misbehavior waned, and the boy simply grew to have a festering bitterness towards the nobility. This culminated the day that his elder brother Jaithys was sworn in as a Guardian: Shias tried to run away. Instead, however, he stumbled upon a young peasant boy who had snuck into the Grove. Furious, Shias resorted to throwing a rock at the boy, striking him across the head and nearly killing him. Jaithys found the pair just in time to thwart Shias' escape.
In the last years of his childhood, Shias found himself caught up in a relationship with another noble boy named Demitrius Sunsong. However, when Demitrius, too, was sworn in as a Guardian, Shias found that the boy rarely had time for him, only fueling his bitterness.
Shias continued to disappoint his family, failing as an arcanist and a son. However, it was his brother Jaithys who would ultimately never forgive him.
== To Run Is To Survive ==
Through all of Shias' young life, he took everything for granted, and repaid it all with bitterness and spite. The elven way, he had been taught, was perpetual, eternal as the sun above. He had never considered that the Guardians--his family, his bloodline--would ever be forced to act upon the duty they swore themselves to. Shias had never, not once, considered that the Sunwell and all that shaped his world would be torn away from him.
When the Scourge marched upon the mainland of Quel'thalas and moved to cross to the Isle, the Guardians took to their duty as though they had expected it all their lives. Shias watched his mother and father, with all the other Guardians, raise the great arcane constructs around the Sunwell. Frightened and confused, Shias could do little but follow his family to their posts at the Grove, watching smoke drift into the sky from the mainland and hearing the drone of the Scourge marching closer and closer.
And when the Scourge army finally reached the Grove, the ghouls scampering forward in shrieking eagerness and the foul abominations charging behind them, Shias could do nothing but shrink back in terror. As the Guardians fell, one by one, around him, Shias turned away from them, fleeing out of the Grove.
Near Magister's Terrace, sick and blind with fear, Shias caught the attention of an abomination, which chased him to the shoreline. Cowering and cornered, Shias thought himself finished when Jaithys drove the creature back. Jaithys attempted to return to his post at the Grove, but found the way cut off by a group of Scourge. With no other choice, Jaithys took his panic-stricken brother and fled.
== The Coward and the Scapegoat ==
In the aftermath of the Scourge attack, Shias and Jaithys regrouped with the small number of quel'dorei that remained. Nearly all the Guardians had been slain--those that remained had barely escaped with their lives. Vyn'thas and Sarinae, Shias and Jaithys soon learned, had fallen. In the months following the attack, as the loss of the Sunwell began to take its toll on the elves, the Guardians came under a great deal of criticism for their failure in carrying out their duty, despite how futile defense of the Sunwell had been in the face of the Scourge.
One of the surviving Guardians, Callidus Dawnheart, devised a way to sway the criticism to one individual instead of the Guardians as a whole. Playing upon the idea of remaining true to tradition and quel'dorei law even in the wake of such tragedy and ruin, Callidus accused Jaithys Averyn of abandoning his post and fleeing the Grove. Jaithys, according to Callidus, had failed in his duty as a Guardian. 
On charges of treason and cowardice, Jaithys Averyn was stripped of his title and all assets tied to his status as nobility. Shias, though his brother had only fled to save him, was left free of charge, for he had never been a Guardian.
== The Wretched, Jaithys Averyn ==
During the reconstruction of Silvermoon, Shias and Jaithys managed to find a small house in which to stay. While Shias, overcome with guilt at his own cowardice that had caused his brother's downfall, attempted to earn money with small jobs around Quel'thalas, his brother sealed himself into his room. Jaithys often refused to speak with Shias for weeks at a time, despite the younger brother's attempts at reconciliation.
While Shias struggled with his mana addiction, his difficulty paled in comparison to that of his brother, and Shias knew it. Once, he managed to sneak into Jaithys' room and found copious amounts of notes and substances there--Jaithys was experimenting with ways to cure the addiction.
Ultimately, it was to no avail--one night, nearly a year after the Sunwell had fallen, Shias came home to find Jaithys collapsed upon the floor, slipping slowly into madness. 
Jaithys was Wretched, and it was all Shias' fault.
== A Dangerous Secret ==
Grim with determination to save his brother, Shias kept Jaithys locked inside the house for years, despite the insistence that all Wretched be put to death by most of Quel'thalas. 
Shias was overcome with guilt. He brought his brother mana crystals and whatever other substances he could get his hands on, and when that proved to be not enough to keep his brother on the verge of lucidity, he would allow Jaithys to draw mana directly from his own body. 
Penniless and cripplingly shamed, Shias struggled to keep himself and his brother alive. Most of the surviving nobility had begun to consider the Averyn bloodline dead, and many often forgot about the talentless younger child of Vyn'thas and Sarinae.
It might've been true, in fact--they might've died, lost to poverty and the curse left by the Sunwell, if not for the interference of a grinning young man by the name of Larinath...
Category:Horde
Category:Blood_Elf
Category:Mage