Rising Dragons

Rufus and Reid

Character Ramble - So, in avoiding my homework and knowing you guys won't get an update for another fifteen days, I pushed myself to write this instead. I may or may not get around to writing a spy AU with these characters (as in Sky and Rya and everyone)... and I was looking at that but then this happened instead and, well. Here you go.

Rufus is- He's-

Look. I don't know how I'm meant to begin this. He's dead – he fought, he died. (God, he died). His name is not mentioned, his thoughts unheard, his emotions unnoticed. But here's the thing – he lived. (God, he lived). He's a single dot point, a character made to fill up space, and he goes unnoticed because he wasn't important enough to appear. He was a name in a world where the attention is on the big stars, the main players, the powerful ones, the leaders. It's focussing on the underdogs and ignoring those below them. We focus on the underdogs who have a chance – we ignore the other ones, those who aren't powerful enough to even be a sidenote.

Let's try this again, okay?

What was Rufus? He was human. That's an easy question – who was he? Well, that's a harder question. How do you describe a person? How do you shape their personality, their fluctuating identity? How do you create backstories and paint a person with words? So, who was he? I don't know, but let's find out.

Rufus was a child. He died at fifteen – he lived fifteen years. He never reached adulthood, was never given the chance. The call went out and he answered because there's agreeing and believing and then there's doing something about it.

The bare facts– Rufus was a dragon rider and, when the call went out, he answered with so many others.

The bare facts – Rufus lived, Rufus died. He will remain a child forever.

He dies like this: skin pale, face paler, blood splatter all over him, fear sketched into his face behind a snarl of defiance. He dies like this: green eyes dimming, blonde hair turning red, spears broken and lost amongst the many other battles taking place. He dies a soldier; he dies a warrior; he dies a fucking child.

He was average height, average skills, average everything. He was average. He had spears on his back, blonde hair that only ever looked light in the sun, green eyes that only looked interesting when fire reflected in them, pale skin that never grew tan.

Pale skin that grew red beneath the sun. Hair that often become light because the sun bleached it. Eyes that often seemed dark. He didn't stand out – but he didn't need to. You want to know why? He was happy. He was content. He was living and he loved it.

I'm... going to give you a tale now, alright? We're going to see where it goes, where it leads us.

Rufus was born into a family of four, which had become a family of nine by the time he left. He was born to farmers – a man who'd inherited the farm and a woman who left the city to live with her love. They don't live alone though – the man's brother is there as well, with his own wife. They, too, are farmers. The farmers and their helpers are all close – so when I say Rufus was born into a family of four it's more like he's born into a family of twenty.

Rufus growing up? He's happy. They aren't rich, but they aren't poor. Rufus grows up waking the dawn of a new day, a rooster's crow echoing in his ears. He grows slowly, height growing steadily centimetre by centimetre, but never shooting up suddenly. Freckles constantly litter his face, and his skin burns beneath the sun almost every day. He nicks his hands trying to shear sheep, and scratches himself on the wire of fencing. He grows up laughing, smile on his face, hands reaching out to help. He grows up learning to help. He grows up laughing. He grows up loving; he grows up loved.