Cytril Atiya

* Headshot
* App (1.2)

## Personality

Due to the particular circumstances that shaped his adolescence, Cytril feels alienated from most people he meets. In part this alienation stems from a persistent feeling of unworthiness that plagues him, as Cytril is aware much of his success in life is not a result of his own perseverance, but rather due to fate and luck. He possesses a great deal of respect towards others as a result, believing most people have gotten where they are in life through hard work. On the other hand, he finds it foolish to not accept the generosity of others and finds an excess of humility to be infuriating.

Much of the truth of Cytril’s personality is kept carefully to the sidelines in his life in order to align with the rigid traditions he was raised with. As a result he wears reservation and accommodation very well, even when it is in direct conflict with his own desires and beliefs. This accommodating nature does not mean his beliefs are weak in themselves, in fact he is generally a person of very strong opinions, even if he does not express them or if he acts in a way that is contrary to them. He simply finds arguing to be a futile endeavor that wastes time, and he generally lacks the certainty of his opinions too much to put his money where his mouth is.

Rather, Cytril lives his life as a closed pot perpetually stuck on a simmer. When he is moody, despite how kind his actions and words attempt to be, his repressed anger permeates and clings to everything like a poison. His body language is far worse at hiding his feelings than his voice.

Sometimes when he cooks for someone he makes the food particularly spicy just to feel something when it makes them cry.

## Biography

Cytril stumbled upon his calling when he was fourteen. He found it in a storage shed, its cheeks sunken, holding its chest with a harsh and pale grip.

His calling’s name was Kaustabh Rao.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

Every single person deserves a proper mourning. This philosophy was ingrained in each resident from the day they were born in Sonsari, Ordene, the message saturated into religious prayers and mantras, and represented in government by a local sector known as the Department of Mourning.

The purpose of mourning was to sever any lingering attachment to the mortal plane that the soul still possessed upon death, and to provide closure to its former life. This was achieved in the three steps of a proper mourning: the first step being the grieving of the body, the second step being the reconciliation of the memory, and the third step being the celebration of the legacy. If any of the three steps were neglected or forgotten, it was said that a soul would stay tied to the mortal plane and remain in unrest.

Most souls, upon a peaceful death, cremation, and funeral service, had their ties severed and ascended without issue. However, there were circumstances where a soul experienced more turmoil and more diligent mourning was required. Of these circumstances, the most notable occurrence that put a soul into unrest was a solitary death. When a person died without the comfort of companionship, regret and isolation formed a particularly strong tether to the mortal plane. This tether bound the soul not only to its former life, but also to another person of its choosing. Tradition stated that the individual who came across the body of a deceased person was the one chosen by them, and that this person inherited the responsibility of properly mourning their death.

Kaustabh chose Cytril.

By evening, Cytril watched the first flames scorch Kaustabh’s white cotton collar. Kaustabh’s old clothing was bundled neatly in Cytril’s lap, removed when he had washed the body hours before. The mantras Cytril recited echoed back to him like a sermon’s chorus in the chamber, looping again and again while he studied the frozen face until it disintegrated into flame.

His company was kept on either side by cremators who knelt in silent sympathy.

A token of Kaustabh sat close to Cytril’s heart, a necklace of red prayer beads the man had been wearing when he died. Ten days after the cremation, Cytril started sorting through his house and belongings, looking for glimpses of the man whose salvation rested on his shoulders. The legal manners of the estate would be dealt with by the Department of Mourning once Kaustabh’s attachment was severed and his physical possessions had no usage to the spirit save that of their memory.

The man was an artist, that much was obvious to anyone who entered his house. He dabbled in several mediums-- paint, sculpture, photography-- all in different projects scattered around the estate. Cytril suspected Kaustabh had been at work on one of his projects when he died, collecting materials from his storage shed when he was struck by a health complication and had no one around to notice.

Each day Cytril returned to the house and tried to construct an image of Kaustabh.

He imagined a hardworking creative soul lost to the world before he could be noticed. He combed through the closet and imagined how the different clothing looked on the man when he wore it, how he groomed his beard and presented himself. He imagined him at work at his art, cooking in his kitchen, and navigating the forgotten space of the dining room. The house became sadder the longer Cytril spent time with it. There were few places to sit, the few chairs seated with sculptures and boxes, and the kitchen cupboards were minimal, too sparse in their contents to ever host any guests.

He must have been lonely.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

To be chosen in itself was one of the highest honors. A calling presented an opportunity of redemption and healing for both the community that failed the deceased, and the deceased themself. Therefore to be called on to accomplish this was indicative of great virtue, as it was believed that a soul only tethered themselves to those possessing great empathy and a spiritual gift. To be chosen at a young age was to be recognized as a person of exceptional potential. Sonsari went to great lengths to cultivate these rare and extraordinary young talents when they arose. For that, Cytril could thank Kaustabh. From the time of his calling, Cytril found himself set on a paved path of provided opportunities and support.

At sixteen, while his peers trudged through the final stretch of their primary school education, Cytril took an early mission year abroad to Concordia as part of his mourning. I cannot celebrate the artist without understanding his craft, Cytril wrote to the Department of Mourning in his request, but in Concordia there are great exhibits and museums through which we can find salvation together. The department approved the request and covered the expenses.

Another part of his support was a woman named Lavanya, a prodigy of mourning who made her name as an active fisher in the industry. Lavanya found her calling at the age of just ten, when she was chosen by a traveler who died unexpectedly in his passing through town. There were no belongings or possessions on him to properly cue into his identity, nor a name for the face that she found. He was a genuine stranger to everyone in town.

Lavanya mourned him for over a decade, only able to finally remember and celebrate the man as an adult, with a memory fished from the sea to know him by.

While Cytril’s circumstances were far less ambiguous and his person less enigmatic, he, like Lavanya, still came into the issue of not knowing how to properly reconcile and celebrate the man he mourned. Even as Cytril reached adulthood, Kaustabh’s soul remained at unrest. Every attempt at a eulogy that Cytril made was scrapped and discarded, and a selection of the man’s art sat gathering dust in a storage shed for a promised gallery exhibit that had yet to come.

Kaustabh Rao made a mistake choosing him.

Cytril could never say that, of course. The temple and mourning department were keen on reminding him that every calling happened for a reason. No mourning was impossible, and it was his duty to see it through to the end and accomplish it through whatever means necessary.

In all those endeavors, the temple and mourning department were there to support him. By extension, Lavanya supported him too. When Cytril asked for her help in training to become a fisher, she accepted.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

Cytril started his training young, and finished young, on the road to completing his certification before he was twenty thanks to Lavanya. She told him with any luck, he might have his mourning wrapped up before it reached its six year anniversary.

Cytril was less optimistic, at which Lavanya agreed and suggested seven instead.

In any case, whether it be six years or seven, the finish line was in the distance, Lavanya promised. After Cytril established himself with a crew, Sonsari’s mourning department could have a private contract drafted and submitted to Cytril with the appropriate funds as soon as he was ready.

Too bad finding a crew was easier said than done-- or so Lavanya goaded him until Cytril’s certification was official, when she extended her congratulations with a letter with a personal recommendation and invitation for Cytril to join her current captain and crew.

She really wanted to try to make it six years, she said.

Which was just about the moment Cytril started panicking.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

He hadn’t told Lavanya something important throughout all of his time with her. He might have tried, if he hadn’t feared the outcome-- if he hadn’t feared receiving the same scolding or dismissal from her as he received from the overseers of his mourning in his brief attempts in talking with them.

Every person deserves a proper mourning, so the philosophy of Sonsari went. With it came a second one: Do not speak ill of the dead. Every person has done wrong in their life, and what is done is done and can only be forgotten and forgiven.

The delay in the completion Cytril’s mourning was self-inflicted.

Each day Cytril had returned to the house and tried to construct an image of Kaustabh.

He was fourteen, attempting to rationalize a human’s worth from pottery and polyethylene as a haunting image of death loomed above him. The empty house gnawed at him as he considered each possession, one by one, piecing them together like a puzzle wherever the pieces would fit.

Cytril spun his own impressions of the man. An unappreciated artist. A man desperate to make a connection. A creative soul determined to make a mark on the world. A talented and remarkable person, who only lacked the proper opportunity for connection to truly be someone remarkable.

A lonely person.

Every so often a weight in his chest brought him to prayer, kneeling and repeating the same mantras as many times as it took for the feeling to subside.

It was one of these times he discovered it- a piece of ground that put an uncomfortable dent in his knees when he knelt on it. Underneath him, hidden beneath a rug on the ground, was a trapdoor that led under the house and into a hidden basement.

It was there that Cytril discovered the true legacy of Kaustabh.

And it wasn’t one worth celebrating.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

From that point, Cytril burned anything beautiful the man had created, extinguishing any redemption that might come from it. He only kept around that which unsettled him, the wandering handprints on canvas and cropped figures, faceless or with their heads out of frame while their bodys coiled amongst tapestries and sheets. He kept it for a future exhibit where the art might be able to speak for itself.

After all, Cytril’s hands were tied on the matter. He couldn’t slander the man but he wouldn’t project false praise onto him either.

All he could do was mourn.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

Which brought Cytril to his panic.

He needed a crew. An acceptance into any crew but Lavanya’s meant he would have a reason to refuse her, and a way to prolong his mourning for just a bit longer. If it was Lavanya’s crew, they would be too accommodating, too connected to Sonsari’s beliefs system and supportive of his purpose.

If he worked with anyone else, Kaustabh’s death could remain the unfinished project he intended it to be.

Of course, finding a captain willing to take on a new fisher, let alone an inexperienced one, was no simple task. He received rejection after rejection from every respectable captain he could find.

Which left… the unrespectable ones.

Cor’s invitation came to him like a lifeboat to a sinking vessel. Cytril didn’t need to consider the offer, he could only say yes.

## Trivia

* His mother is alive. Super not dead. In fact all of his family is alive, including a younger sister.
* Cytril owns two personal journals, one a list of accomplishments titled ‘A List of Accomplishments’ and the second a book of failures, titled 'A List of Greater Accomplishments'. A note dictates “In the event of my death, I will find no greater peace than the acknowledgements of the total extent of my humanity.”
* A lot of stipends and public funds/resources available for those 'chosen' means Cytril has had a comfortable education and support he may not have otherwise had available to him. (All of this is in contingency to his obedience on following proper mourning… or perceived obedience and compliance, at least)
* The town offers funding for expenses of tasks such as the memory retrieval, on the stipulation that a mourner must be directly involved.
* Part of proper mourning involves wearing a token of the departed until their ascension. Cytril wears Kaustabh’s prayer beads beneath his vest and shirt.