Draiden, Gale Knight

Draiden is a snarky Knight with a gutter-rat's sense of humor and a dislike for the golden honeyed words required in any of the major Courts of the land. He's quick to sneer subtly at his "comrades" who bought their way into the Gale Knights, but honestly enjoys the company of those who prove themselves worthy of the title of Gale Knight. He can talk "pretty" if he wants - using proper grammar and pronunciation - but will often lapse back into gutter-speak when he's not actively concentrating... or when he wants to anger some Knight or nobleman.

Gale Knights might not be known for being Knights Errant, but Draiden prefers that over being bound to some lord or other. He'll work side by side with others without a problem, but he balks at leading and digs his heels in deep and hares off the minute someone tries to lead him around.

At five and a half feet tall, Draiden is average for his people. His hair isn't naturally sky blue -- none of the Gale Knights can actually boast of the 'pure' lineage required for sky blue hair -- but rather permanently dyed through a combination of magic and herbal dyes. His lapis lazuli eyes are real, though, and are what brought him to the attention of Kistari, the Lady of the Gale.

He wears his wavy hair long and unbound, in silent defiance of the other Gale Knights who keep their hair cropped short, and when being casual has a tendency to wear clothes a size or two too big for him, in any color, as long as it's not blue. When he absolutely has to present himself as a Gale Knight, he'll wear a sky blue shirt and pants, tucked into charcoal colored boots, both shirt and pants edged with the Gale Knight motif repeated over and over again.

Draiden's armor is light - consisting of just chain mail and leather armor - because he refuses to carry the heavy plate mail around with him while he's traveling by himself. His chain mail - as well as his plate mail - is washed in magic, giving it a pale blue sheen that's visible only when viewed from the corner of the eye. His sword is good, Damascus steel - a gift from Lady Kistari at his Knighting ceremony - though is sheathed within a rather plain, unadorned sheath that matches the rest of his ensemble.

Besides his sword, Draiden carries with him a longbow and a quiver of arrows, and has multiple throwing knives secreted about his armor. Due to his heritage as a street-rat, Draiden is better at throwing things accurately than most Gale Knights, a thing many people tend to forget about him. In return, through, he's never been much above competent at the lance.

A gutter rat by birth, Draiden grew up on the streets, making his living however he could. Even among the gutter rats, he was known as a wild child, given to tweaking the nose of the law whenever he could, in any manner he could. It was during one such adventure that he finally met his match.

For while the local constabulary had trouble keeping their hands on him, the party of knights that had come into town certainly did not have that difficulty. And when he was introduced to their leader, Lady Kistari, she immediately declared him a page, to be trained into knighthood with time.

It was, she would later admit, an act motivated only partially by the discovery of Gale lineage strong enough to make his eyes lapis lazuli and his under-aura pulse a pure, strong blue with the promise of powers to come. Normally, even that would not have been enough - and wouldn't have been enough, had the person he faced not been Lady Kistari, but sympathy won him a path where tradition would have banned him.

So Draiden was admitted into the knights. His first years were rocky - he was the only "lesser born" page in the group, though he was perhaps the one with the most future potential in terms of power. There was much he needed to learn, and much he rebelled against learning, but eventually his instructors got through to him, and the wild boy of the streets became a powerful, well trained young man fiercely loyal to the Lady of the Gale.