(no subject)
[ Player Name ] :Lel
Personal LJ ] : leloipa
[ Age ] :27
[ Timezone ] :EST
[ Other Characters ] :Danny Fenton
[ Character's Name ] : Will Stanton
[ Character's Age ] : simultaneously 12 and as old as the hills and older even then that
[ Series ] Dark is Rising Sequence
[ Canon Point ] After Silver on the Tree
[ History ] :
Will grew up in a small village called Hunterscoombe in rural Buckinghamshire England, the youngest child of a very large family. He was an ordinary child, even if he was thoughtful and acted rather old for his age. On the eve of his eleventh birthday he went to sleep wishing for snow. He awoke into a time several centuries before his own, in the days when all of his village was nothing more than a clearing in a great forest. Feeling almost as if he was in a dream, Will followed a trail through his forest. After a few dangerous encounters Will found his way to a set of Great Doors standing alone on a hillside. They opened at his touch.
Will walked into a great stone hall lined with tapestries. There, he found two people waiting for him. Merriman Lyon, once called Merlin, and a birdlike old woman known only as the Lady. The two of them proceeded to tell Will of his heritage, now that he had awoken. They told Will that he was the last of the Old Ones, the first to be born in over 500 years. And that with his wakening the time for the last battle was drawing near. That he had a gift, one that the very law of the universe demanded that he serve and one that he could not refuse. That he was bound by his very nature to fight against the Dark.
At first Will was certain that they must be mistaken. But after Merriman guided him through the steps of speaking into another Old One's mind and starting fires with his mind Will reluctantly accepted his heritage as an Old One.
But this first meeting was not over yet. Merriman told Will that his first quest was to reunite the six signs of the Light and gave him the name Signseeker. The first sign Will had already been given, but now Merriman recited a prophecy about them.
"When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back
Three from the Circle, Three from the Track
Wood, Bronze, Iron, Water, Fire, Stone.
Five shall return and one go alone."
Iron for the birthday, Bronze carried long,
Wood from the Burning, Stone out of Song;
Fire from the candle-ring, Water from the thaw;
Six signs the circle and the grail gone before."
But before Will could ask any more questions they were attacked by the Dark. They could not enter the Great Hall, but they called out to Will in different voices, trying to persuade him to open the door. When they used his mother's voice Will nearly gave in. But before he could approach the door his hand brushed against the Iron Sign on his belt which burned in warning, branding a perfect symbol into his forearm. It is a circle, quartered by a cross. The Lady healed him, and then drove the Dark away. But not without sacrificing all of her strength. With the way out freed, Merriman brought Will back to his own time. A few days later Will successfully retrieved the second sign from a man known only as the Walker. Soon afterward Will came to the village manor caroling with his family. To his surprise Merriman was there, posing as a butler. The two traveled to a Christmas Party in Victorian England. There, Will was brought to the Book of Gramarye. This single book contained all of the accumulated knowledge of the Old Ones. In a single moment of suspended time Will received his training and came into his full power as an Old One. Two other important things happened at that party. Will met a man named Hawkins and he received the Sign of Wood. Hawkins was Merriman's liegeman and adopted son from the twelfth century. He brought forward in time for that night only to break the spell guarding the Book of Gramarye. But Will also witnessed the beginning of Hawkin's fall from the light. Furious that Merriman had risked his life to bring Will his education and jealous of the Old One's immortality Hawkins took the first step on his fall to the Dark. He would become the Walker that Will had met in his own time. Watching, Merriman told Will what would happen and that this was the greatest mistake their kind could make. For Merriman had placed more trust in Hawkins then the man had the strength to take. And with that, the two returned to Will's time.
Over the next few days Will continued to collect the signs even as the weather became colder and colder, bringing down more snow than Buckinghamshire had ever seen before. The Sign of Stone Will found inside the wall of the local church. A few days after Christmas Will discovered that the cold was a part of the Dark's power. To break the chill and save the lives of his neighbors Will helped Merriman seize the candles of Winter from the Dark. Placed in the candle-ring of the Old Ones, the candles warmed and created a flower of fire with the Sign of Fire in the center. The Sign of Water came to Will resting in the hands of a Viking King on his funeral ship, unburied in the flood that followed the warming weather. With all six signs reunited, Will called forth Herne the Hunter and the Wild Hunt to chase the Dark to the edges of the Earth. And that was the end of Will's first quest.
His second quest came in the summer, when Will traveled to Trewessick in Cornwall. There, seemingly by coincidence, he assisted Merriman and three human children to recover a stolen Grail and a lost manuscript. And yes, it was the Holy Grail. Together, the two artifacts allowed Will and Merriman to decipher a coded prophecy in Ogam on the side of the Grail.
"On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the light shall have the harp of gold.
By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.
When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.
Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod."
From this, Will knew that his next task would be in Wales. But he didn't know to what efforts the Light would go to send him there. Only a few months later he became desperately ill with hepatitis. So ill, that he quite possibly could have died if not for his immortality. He lived, but at the cost of all his memories of his life as an Old One. He was left with only a few scraps of verse, instincts he couldn't understand, and the desperate knowledge that he had lost something more important than his own life.
His family sent him to a sheep farm in Wales to recuperate, and he spent a few days slowly wandering the hills searching for what he had lost. On a hillside he meets a white-haired and golden-eyed boy named Bran and remembers everything. Together the two boys would embark on a quest to find a golden harp and wake the seven sleepers. And by the end of the adventure Bran's heritage as the son of Arthur would be revealed and Will would acknowledge his own duty to serve as the Merlin to Bran's Arthur.
A year later Will returns to Wales for his last and greatest quest. Along with Bran and the three children from Trewessick they would find the last great object of the Light and fight the Dark in one last battle. They win and the Dark are cast out beyond time. But with the vcitory comes sadness. The great work of the old Ones has ended and they all board white ships to sail to the castle behind the north wind for their rest. All save two. Bran is given the choice to come live with his father, Arthur, but he chooses to forget and live in the mortal world. And it is Will's last task to remain in the mortal world as the last watchman for his kind. As the Old ones leave everyone except WiIl forgets everything.
[ Personality ] :
On the surface Will is an entirely normal eleven-year-old boy from the English countryside. He is quiet, polite and cheerful, with a wry sense of humor. There is a solid sense of practicality and capability about him. A lot of the time he appears almost aggressively ordinary and unremarkable. Will’s expression stays solemn a lot of the time, but he has a rare smile that lights up his face. He has an keen interest in things like folklore and ceremonies. Will enjoys learning about languages as well, although he likes the logic and formal structure of Latin best. Will also loves all the socializing and craziness that comes from being the youngest in a very large family. He loves the moments when all of his eight older siblings are home and making noise.
But at the same time there is something oddly old about Will. As if he were ancient and young all at the same time. There are times when he simply knows things. When to act and what to say. Odd thoughts about events that happened long before he was born. Things about plants and animals and stars and people. At times he acts much more like an adult than a child. He has a habit of making puzzling and cryptic comments about different topics. For example, one such comment about the nature of religion caused a confused priest to wonder whether Will should be exorcised or ordained.
All of these oddities are caused by the fact that Will has another, much deeper, side to his character. In truth, Will belongs to a group of metaphysical beings who call themselves Old Ones. He was the last to be born and the one with the closest ties to humanity still. Although the Light is good and noble, it is not kind. It can be very cold and pragmatic. And it can be cruel, especially to it's own kind. Old Ones are concerned with the great battle against the Dark, fighting so that humans can have the chance to make their own choices. But Old Ones themselves do not have a choice about their own destiny. Once they come into their power they are bound to serve the interests of the Light. If they are required to sacrifice a few individuals for the greater good, they will do it. For Old Ones, duty comes first. Always.
For Will, who still has ties to his human family and human emotions, the demands of being an Old One can be hard. He still feels empathy for the humans he protects, and regrets the need for sacrifices. But at the same time, the part of him that is an Old One limits his ability to to empathize with human emotions like grief. In a later book, when a friend was upset over the death of his dog, Will was only able to offer him the wisdom of an Old One. At the time Will knew that it was the wrong thing to say. That the cold pragmatism of his kind was not what his friend wanted or needed to hear. But he was unable to be human enough to be what his friend needed. Another time, Will’s mentor told him that there were parts of his abilities as an Old One he could not understand because he still thought too much like a human.
When acting as an Old One Will is calm, serene and authoritative. Old Ones tend to be utterly unflappable and rather cold and pragmatic. They are not human, even though they may appear like ordinary people. Yet there is a sense of companionship among them. Old Ones only truly feel complete when they are in a gathering of their own kind. But because their duty to the Light will always come first, they spend most of their time alone among humans.
Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
Will is calm and practical and capable of all kinds of interesting magical abilities. He is one of the most powerful creatures in his world, and he possesses all the knowledge that his kind have gained over 3000 years of walking the world, But he is limited by the rigid laws of his kind. He cannot touch or alter the minds of humans. At all. He also cannot kill with his abilities. Much of his magical knowledge will become useless due to no longer being in his world. He is also very young, and occasionally prone to making poor decisions because of that.
[ Other Important Facts ] :
Will has access to a wide variety of spells and knowledge, including the ability to sense darkness and speak mind to mind.
Sample ] :
From Discedo
Will shivers slightly as he slips out the door, shoving his hands deep in his coat. It was cold, here. Not quite as cold as Mid-Winter had been this time last year. But cold enough. Especially with so many without proper winter gear. But no snow. For a moment Will lo ngs wistfully for a proper thick blanket of snow to appear here in this place. The sort of snow that transformed the world and made everything look fresh and new. It seems to him that such a thing would make even this lost city much improved.
But no sense thinking about that now. He had a task for today. Will had heard that someone had seen something similar to mistletoe in the forest. These humans of the modern world, so many of them thought it no more than a silly game. But Will knew the virtue of the plant, learned with so many others from the Book of Gramarye. It made for an excellent defense against illness and creatures of the Dark when pinned above entranceways. He rather thought that that might be useful.
Lost in thought, Will trudges through the streets. How many more of the Nine Trees of Virtue could he find here, he wonders. About to turn the corner towards the forest, the old One glances up sharply at the approach of a small pack of Wolves. Their presence brimming with darkness and hunger to one of the Light. But no threat, not to one of his kind. He stretches out one hand, fingers spread stiffly, and speaks a word of the Old Speech. He waits as the wolves freeze, caught outside of time, and hurries down the road. Will pauses near the end of the road and stretches out one hand again in a gesture of release as he speaks again in the Old Speech.
“Be free. And forget.” He watches solemnly as the creatures shake their heads in confusion and make their way away from him.
“A shame,” he murmurs. “Even in another world some creatures are so easily drawn to the Dark. But it is their nature, I suppose. The milgwn, the wolves, and the rooks. Just as my own nature is of the Light.”
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