fantastic, then i'll take my leave! [rainier/"oz"]

[Rainier N. "Oz" Schiffer]

grey skies & light fading ,,



"Life was supposed to be a film, was supposed to be a thriller
Was supposed to end in fire
But life turns out it's nothing but a dream
And that I'll miss it when it's gone
I want the story to go on and on but it can't go on... Where's my unhappy ending gone?"

THE OOC SECTION
---

CHARACTER NAME

Rainier Nehemiah Schiffer. (Also Oz.)

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

"You're a forward one, aren't you? To the point. I like that."
[ Character Face Claim: Fai D. Fluorite - Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle ]
Standing at an unusual six feet and one inch, the man has about zero width to compensate for the vast height. He is roughly as thick around as a pole; he appears to have no physical strength whatsoever, but his appearance belies his swiftness and preciseness. His eyes are an ice blue, his hair a pale blond like the winter sun of his home country. His skin is very fair. Strangely enough, his joints seem to be less "joints" than arcs and curlicues; his figure is 'noodly', if you will.

Typically, the young man is clad in an unassuming shirt and trousers, covered by a traveling cloak. His favorite cloak is a wine red in hue, but he also carries a tan cloak and a white cloak edged in blue for emergencies. Upon his form he traditionally hides around six to eight small knives, depending on the day; one down each of his long sleeves, one at the small of his back, two in his boots, and one at his hip - and, if he is feeling especially vulnerable, two in the inside pockets of any of his cloaks. At all times he carries a canvas sack, which he guards ferociously; in this bag he keeps many things he deems important, as he is a traveler by nature and lives on the road with no real home in which to keep his possessions.

CHARACTER PERSONALITY

"I'm afraid putting myself into words is an impossibility, at least for the moment."
Rainier Nehemiah Schiffer is a very, very strange character. His mood swings are vast, and he may change from being standoffish and cold to chatty and upbeat within the span of a few minutes. He is excitable and friendly, but when he is working he is difficult to approach. Rainier drinks very, very often and thus is very seldom negatively impacted by any small amount of alcohol; however, around six glasses he tends to become even more giggly than normal, and perhaps a little clingy.

If one is somehow able to truly befriend him, penetrate past the mask that is his working persona - and also, the outgoing facade he tends to put on in an effort to avoid personal contact (as a traveler, forming personal connections is very detrimental and painful, therefore he takes every available opportunity to avoid that outcome) - they will find a man who is painfully loyal and will lay his life on the line, no questions asked, if the situation calls. He thinks very lowly of his own value and thus, when presented with a cause he deems worth fighting for, he will stop at nothing to defend that cause, even at the cost of his life (or worse).

CHARACTER HISTORY

"This you will never speak of to another soul, so long as you draw breath."
As a boy, Schiffer was raised in a country far north of Landis, well beyond the northern reaches of Ivalice, a place in which the snow never melts. With only a sister, his elder by five years, and distant parents, he did not have many friends; rather than socialize, he followed Ellen just about everywhere, much like a small dog. He excelled in academics, but never had any personal motivation to succeed. His time was often spent caring for the family's chocobo, and as such he gained a very special connection to the species of avian labor animal.

At age nine, both of his parents died, taken by a sudden freeze that had struck while they had been away on a caravan, peddling furs to the Archadians to the far south. A mountain pass had frozen over, catching the entire collection of traders in its grip; eighteen men and women passed away, leaving ten children parentless.

Ellen took it upon herself to raise these children, though she was not yet into adulthood herself. Three of her friends assisted her in the endeavor, though none of the adults in his small village were able to spare their time to assist in more but material needs.

Forced together with his peers in such an unwanted away, Rainier developed a sort of "alternate personality", in a sense, though it was more of a learned disguise than a self-supporting delusion. By pretending to be upbeat and social, those children his age largely left him alone; they did not pester him as they had when he had been quiet and contained.

That is not to say he wasn't a naturally excitable and friendly child; he was, but he found many of the other children to be distasteful.

Then came a day, at age eleven, when a large regiment of troops came into the small town. The residents had been trying their best, but they had not been able to meet the recent levies set forth by the nation's crown prince - thus, the soldiers had come to seize anything they deemed to be of value.

They took the orphaned children, and pressed them into service as servants of the royal family. For three years Rainier toiled, and his great mask of friendliness earned him a rather high standing with the younger prince he served. From this young man, Ellen's age, Rainier learned his court manner, and began to understand the workings of politics. At the end of his three years, at age fourteen, he was permitted to go home, having worked off his share of the debt his village had incurred.

He returned home not holding any of the villagers accountable; he knew the loss of his parents and those other traders had largely been the reason as to why the town had not made the levies. He settled down again with his sister, the first of the children to return.

Three nights later, a stranger entered the village.

Herself being age nineteen, Ellen was easily led astray by this fantastical visitor, a man of russet hair and possessing of - strangely enough - equally russet wings. His emerald eyes and serpent's tongue seduced her, and so she was tainted...

...and slain the next morning.

Rainier flew into a righteous outrage at the death of his sister; the stranger, a sorcerer who left only his callsign - Seven - to the stricken young man, nearly killed him then and there. Restraining himself, he instead cursed the boy's eye.

Seven had left, leaving Rainier unable to pursue him. Filled with unspeakable rage, the young man left his own village that night, traveling south in search of any word of the fiend. In order to support himself, he took up the career of "the trade of information"; he was a very skilled informant, often able to masquerade as a visiting official from a distant land to earn some hard-fought details. His customers paid well, and he used these funds to keep himself alive.

Rainier fell to the vice of drinking - and this he did much, finding that the dulling properties of the alcohol were much preferred to remembering any fragment of his past.

Of course, none of this would ever be heard directly from the man's mouth.

A patron of a rowdy inn in Old Archades, he awakens one day to a shift in the air. Something felt very, very different...

---

headlamps making patterns on the wall ,,

THE IC SECTION
---

"Hello there. You've just arrived in the Distorted World. Why don't you tell me your name, and the first thought going through your head right now?"

"The... Excuse me, would you repeat that? I think I might have misunderstood. Did you say the Distorted World?" Oz tilts his head to the side. "Whatever might you mean by that? Ah, if you'll pardon me. You may call me Oz, if that suits your fancy. It may, it may not. Who can know? It might not even be a name I respond to. Perhaps it's the name of some unfortunate sod who ended up here in pieces. It's all part of the mystery, no?"

"That's certainly interesting... forgive me if I don't know what to say to that. So tell me, where are you from?"

Oz laughs. "No need to beg forgiveness. I'm afraid I can be quite impossible to grasp on my best of days. It's somewhat of a flaw of mine, you understand. As for myself? I hail from the far northern stretches of Ivalice, further north than even the Republic of Landis. I would be much surprised if you know the land of which I speak; Ralive is a bit of a journey indeed."

"Can't say I've ever heard of it. Well, tell me about yourself. What do you do? What are some of your likes and dislikes?"

"I thought so!" Oz smirks in triumph. "What an interesting question. You ought to be commended~" It's hard to tell whether he's joking. "Things I enjoy? It oughtn't be hard to name three, I suppose. I quite like strawberries and cream, rainy days, and a good, strong vodka. What I don't fancy? Sleazes, shifty figures, and," Oz spits on the ground, "magician-folk, gods blast them."

"Ah, that's amazing! And not only do we have some things in common, you're quite the looker, too, aren't you?"

He raises an eyebrow. "I suppose we do indeed. Why, thank you for the compliment! You're such a mild-mannered girl, I can't help but enjoy your company."

"There's no need to be shy. They always say, if you've got it, flaunt it, right? Anyway, enough about that. Who are you allied with?"

Oz smirks again. "I quite like these idioms, miss. I must ask - of where do you hail, to pick up such colorful speech? Ah, pardons. I believe by your reckoning I would be called a... how do you say... Vault Hunter? How strange."

"I'm sure you have your reasons... Oh, on another note, how tall are you?"

"Perhaps I ought to take you on as an apprentice. You seem like just the young lass to keep around on my marvellous adventures! My height? What a strange question! Six feet and one inch by Imperial standard, my girl. And if it is necessary for data collection, I also weigh in at one hundred and ten pounds, at a solid twenty-three years, eight weeks, and two days. Oh, and I'm ambidextrous."

"Drat! Just four inches too tall. Although... hmm, would you mind if I asked you on a date? Don't worry, I'll buy."

"Four inches too tall? To what do you refer? Not possibly your own height; you can't be more than five and a half lengths! If you'll excuse the candor, that is." He flashes a smile. "I appreciate the offer, but I'll have to decline. I'm afraid you're a dash too young for me." [Pan; doesn't care a whit on gender.]

"Finding a venue might be a bit difficult, anyway, since I have no idea where we are... tell me where this is, again?"

"Hmm. Well. I could have sworn I awoke in Archades, but now I'm not sure if that's the case. I presume this is some sort of desert, an assumption I base on the amount of sand currently filling my boots. A tad dusty, don't you think?" [ LANAYRU DESERT ]

"Ah, how could I forget? I'd love to vacation here someday, when it's not so foggy... It's scenic, you know?"

"Foggy? I'm afraid you must be mistaken; it's brighter out here than as if the snow-glare shone right in your eyes! It's positively scorching, as well. I tend not to agree. A little too hot for someone of my breed; it takes a different sort of hardy to survive out here."

"Well, thank you for the lovely conversation! I'm afraid I'll have to be leaving you, though, since I'm going to explode in about three seconds anyway. Buh-bye now!"

"You're quite welcome!" His expression darkens, and he turns as the young woman spontaneously combusts, again spitting to his left. "Accursed wretches, the lot of them."

---

uptown it's dead now but ,,

THE ROLEPLAYER SECTION
---

ROLEPLAYER NAME

Luvi/Light ♥

ROLEPLAYER AGE

Sixteen!

EXPERIENCE

Seven years, dahling.

PASSWORD

Curaja!... ha, funny joke. As if Oz would ever, ever learn witchcraft.

---

out here no one seems to care at all ,,

THE RP SAMPLE SECTION
---

RP SAMPLE

He would admit, the taciturn behavior of the woman threw him off a little at first... however, the point at which she began to actively engage in a conversation with him threw him off even more, the scientist blinking once as she described the city in which they were located - this Archades - in a nutshell.

"Militarized?" he parroted, not as a question but more the sound of cogs turning in his head. Puzzle pieces of terms found places in his mind. Emperor - empire - an expansionist mindset. A strengthened military most likely to improve its grasp over surrounding lands.

And, as she had said, the technology level to be seen in their transportation was not true of their weapons - medieval? That was a term he did not recognize. The scientist's head cocked to one side, posed to question its definition, before the woman offered an alternate description. An interesting term, that.

"You remind me of people who claim to be engineers or, perhaps, a form of scientist." Brown eyes glinted through tinted glasses, darker than the shade of the glasses themselves; grey eyes, then?

"I was about to say the same," Hope admitted, smiling. "Yes, it's an accurate statement to call me a scientist. Yourself? You seem to deduce more than the average person."

The challenge hidden in her statement was understandable. We're both skirting around the edges of the truth. Perhaps we have more in common than I expected.

However, he didn't rise to the bait, only nodding at her introduction. "And you, Florinda -"

"Uniform is not registered in my databases as a Federation uniform though the design is similar to some. Equipment analysis suggests scientific origin, further observation is currently only speculation."

The emotionless readout caught the young man off-guard, and he caught himself staring at the girl that had appeared next to Florinda - the android? It had to be; the youthful female visage was crowned by bright blue hologram displays, even as its - her - expression twisted into a frown. It - she - bowed to him, issuing an apology, before turning to address Florinda.

The silver-haired man was not sure what to say, and so he simply said nothing, only gazing in wonderment at the artificial life-form. 'I wonder...'

[Rikku]

Denied due to excessive English. I mean, who says 'Whit' anymore? Seriously.

Accepted