Gibrant kills for money because he knows it is what he is good at doing - better than most men could be. He knows how to kill with a sharpened axe, with well polished knives, with a rope. He knows how to snap a man's neck with his bare hands, the kind of instinctive knowledge that comes only from having done something many times before.
He knows how to kill quickly, and silently. He doesn't do it with any particular bloodlust or frenzy or need, the way some men - the really dangerous ones - do. He doesn't do it with revulsion, disgust. In fact, he doesn't do it with any particular feeling at all. There's always a curious disconnect between him and his target, a certain absence of emotion so that, in snapping that neck or slicing that throat, it feels no different than it would to slice open a sack of good, fresh grain - the slightest twinge of pity at the loss, and then nothing.
This makes him a very efficient - and expensive - killer indeed.
Gibrant only kills for money because, while he never feels very much at all for those whose lives he is ending he does, in fact, still have the ability to feel. He doesn't like the looks people give him when he kills, or when he enters a tavern or shop where his reputation precedes him: disgust, nervousness, anger, a certain fear-tinged awe. The witnesses are, of course, the worst. He still remembers the look a certain girl gave him: she was maybe fourteen, pretty though very small, and it was her father's throat Gibrant had been very entusiastically paid to slice open. He had done so, not bothering to pause at the man's desperate, furious begging, offers of bribes and pleas, no. But afterwards, when she'd stumbled in....the girl hadn't screamed. She hadn't cried or cursed or gone into hysterics or any of that. Instead she had stood there, backed up into a wall, shaking. Shaking and staring at him with a look of pure horror, a haunting look, a look that made it perfectly clear that in her eyes he was a monster, totally inhuman, despicable. It was all he could do, in that moment, to leave, and quickly.
No, he didn't like it, the way people that knew who he was looked at him. Neither fear from good men nor admiration from despicable ones was desireable. He didn't like being seen as something apart, something instead of someone, a force of nature rather than simply a man who was good at what he had been trained to do.
He didn't want to be a monster. In doing it for money - only ever for money - he drew a line. He was not a monster but a mercenary, a professional. If someone attacked him, even viciously, sneakily in an alley or pub, he would only disable them, knock them out, perhaps break a few bones. But never the killing blow, no.
It haunted him, the idea that one day, if he wasn't very, very careful, he'd stop feeling anything at all, stop being a man entirely and become the thing so many people already thought him to be.
Showing posts with label characters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label characters. Show all posts
Character List for Collab Project: Lydia LeBlanc
ok, so working again with a friend on a collaborative writing/comic project. fantasy setting. going to go on a bit about some characters here. Not super great quality writing, since its notes, and references to tvtropes...
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Main Protagonists
Lydia LeBlanc
Rogue, thief mostly though she does pick up the odd skill. Youngest of the main protagonist team. Her childhood was...not outright abusive, but very much neglect from her addict prostitute mother. Functionally illiterate, lacking in a lot of 'book' knowledge, and not particularly interested in remedying that. Something of a savant at pickpocketing and stealing in general, and a kleptomaniac in the clinical sense. Functions with a very high degree of impunity. Anarchist at heart, a strong lack of respect for authority. Vulgar and blunt in her speech, takes a perverse pleasure in being deliberately rude to most people. Does have a certain knack for reading people though, in that she can usually instinctively figure out the exact right buttons to push to really piss people off. Acts with a certain recklessness, rarely thinks ahead.
Within the story, she is a kind of foil to another character (Lily Kerrington) in that throughout she functions under a certain Karma Houdini trope - regularly does morally questionable things and acts quite terribly towards a number of people, but things always seem to work out well for her nonetheless. If she gets arrested, she somehow gets out without a problem, having picked up a useful new skill from a cellmate even, while HE had quite the horrible experience with... that kind of thing. She has a lot more resentment towards...well off people, people with a comfortable upbringing, happy families, than she realizes or would be willing to admit. Really resents the 'high horse' type, people who would judge her for her stealing...this is actually a lot of the underlying reason for why she torments Kerrington so in the story. Dislikes most clerics/monks/church affiliated types in fact. Not really a sociopath, and does mature somewhat over the course of the story, but at the beginning at least could be mistaken as such. Rather cynical in her outlook. Can be loyal though, in her own way...for example, again with Kerrington, while she enjoys bullying and tormenting him, not keen on others, OUTSIDERS, doing the same, at least not after they've all traveled for a while together.
Lack of romantic relationships or attachments of any sort during the main plot/story...she does do quite a bit of growing up over the course of things...but she does start of with a certain aversion to sex (which she equates with love/romance, doesn't really separate the two in her mind initially) due to...well, MUCH too much exposure to such things as a kid, since her mother made no effort at all to hide her profession (more of a medievalish, pre-victorian setting for the story as a whole anyway, so kids got shielded from a lot less than they do these days, but her case way an extreme even from that perspective) and also a few of her ma's creepier clients' innuendo towards her (again, no actual serious ABUSE in her childhood, but a lot of little borderline/inappropriate things...)
Later on in the story, there is a kind of main plot/sub-plot intersection, in that they are searching for certain magical relics, and one of which is a collar of Loki, one of the God-level Espers of the world...kind of, possesses you through it, if he accepts your plea to use his power at all, not fun at all for wearer though useful if you NEED the power/assistance...there is a time limit for the collar, though, three days and you must give up the power or get killed by it. She doesn't take it off, one of her reckless impulses, and...it doesn't kill her, surprisingly, because she apparently amuses Loki, but...after that there is a very odd kind of thing where at random times she'll get a bit of powerful assistance and at other random times, powerfully screwed with...a kind of perpetual russian roulette with a divine entity that's decided that you are his new toy...
Being a rogue, as you might suspect, her strengths are sneakiness, speed, dexterity. Physically, well...Jamal has been known to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder without a problem, nothing she could do about it. Ha.
Also very curious and inquisitive, sometimes annoyingly/dangerously so. Fortunately, she DOES have quick reflexes.
And for plot purposes, she has very good luck, much moreso than you'd realistically expect. Again, this is to counterbalance Kerrington's terrible luck and general woobie/buttmonkey status.
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Main Protagonists
Lydia LeBlanc
Rogue, thief mostly though she does pick up the odd skill. Youngest of the main protagonist team. Her childhood was...not outright abusive, but very much neglect from her addict prostitute mother. Functionally illiterate, lacking in a lot of 'book' knowledge, and not particularly interested in remedying that. Something of a savant at pickpocketing and stealing in general, and a kleptomaniac in the clinical sense. Functions with a very high degree of impunity. Anarchist at heart, a strong lack of respect for authority. Vulgar and blunt in her speech, takes a perverse pleasure in being deliberately rude to most people. Does have a certain knack for reading people though, in that she can usually instinctively figure out the exact right buttons to push to really piss people off. Acts with a certain recklessness, rarely thinks ahead.
Within the story, she is a kind of foil to another character (Lily Kerrington) in that throughout she functions under a certain Karma Houdini trope - regularly does morally questionable things and acts quite terribly towards a number of people, but things always seem to work out well for her nonetheless. If she gets arrested, she somehow gets out without a problem, having picked up a useful new skill from a cellmate even, while HE had quite the horrible experience with... that kind of thing. She has a lot more resentment towards...well off people, people with a comfortable upbringing, happy families, than she realizes or would be willing to admit. Really resents the 'high horse' type, people who would judge her for her stealing...this is actually a lot of the underlying reason for why she torments Kerrington so in the story. Dislikes most clerics/monks/church affiliated types in fact. Not really a sociopath, and does mature somewhat over the course of the story, but at the beginning at least could be mistaken as such. Rather cynical in her outlook. Can be loyal though, in her own way...for example, again with Kerrington, while she enjoys bullying and tormenting him, not keen on others, OUTSIDERS, doing the same, at least not after they've all traveled for a while together.
Lack of romantic relationships or attachments of any sort during the main plot/story...she does do quite a bit of growing up over the course of things...but she does start of with a certain aversion to sex (which she equates with love/romance, doesn't really separate the two in her mind initially) due to...well, MUCH too much exposure to such things as a kid, since her mother made no effort at all to hide her profession (more of a medievalish, pre-victorian setting for the story as a whole anyway, so kids got shielded from a lot less than they do these days, but her case way an extreme even from that perspective) and also a few of her ma's creepier clients' innuendo towards her (again, no actual serious ABUSE in her childhood, but a lot of little borderline/inappropriate things...)
Later on in the story, there is a kind of main plot/sub-plot intersection, in that they are searching for certain magical relics, and one of which is a collar of Loki, one of the God-level Espers of the world...kind of, possesses you through it, if he accepts your plea to use his power at all, not fun at all for wearer though useful if you NEED the power/assistance...there is a time limit for the collar, though, three days and you must give up the power or get killed by it. She doesn't take it off, one of her reckless impulses, and...it doesn't kill her, surprisingly, because she apparently amuses Loki, but...after that there is a very odd kind of thing where at random times she'll get a bit of powerful assistance and at other random times, powerfully screwed with...a kind of perpetual russian roulette with a divine entity that's decided that you are his new toy...
Being a rogue, as you might suspect, her strengths are sneakiness, speed, dexterity. Physically, well...Jamal has been known to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder without a problem, nothing she could do about it. Ha.
Also very curious and inquisitive, sometimes annoyingly/dangerously so. Fortunately, she DOES have quick reflexes.
And for plot purposes, she has very good luck, much moreso than you'd realistically expect. Again, this is to counterbalance Kerrington's terrible luck and general woobie/buttmonkey status.
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