Faeren

FAEREN (pronounced: Fair-in)
Race: Silene
Eye color: Dark brown
Hair color: Chestnut
Distinctions: In his transformed state, moss and small plants appear on his skin, clothing, and in his hair, and his eyes become green

Orphaned at an early age, Faeren was fostered by Kaiit‘s family and later by Faldevon, who saw Faeren’s potential and raised him alongside his own son, Luke. A quick learner with a quiet, compassionate nature, Faeren adapted quickly to the life of discipline that nobility required of him, and grew to become a capable soldier and knight in Silon’s Royal Guard. But one fateful battle would cost him everything, and change forever the course of his destiny.

~Story~
As a young knight, Faeren stumbled upon the Forest of Illusions and awakened her shriveled heart from its long, murderous sorrow.  The Mistress of the Forest begged him to stay, to play in her branches and sleep in her shade and sing her songs, but he could not. He had a duty to king and country, and a life elsewhere. Years later, he fell in battle against the rebel warlord Morgan and awoke to find himself in the Forest of Illusions, scarred but alive. She had taken him from death, given to him of her life and made him one of her own. She guards him continually like a jealous lover, sheltering him from the world that destroyed him–a world in which he can no longer dwell. He is one with the Forest in life, in slumber, in the turn of the seasons. There he will always remain, loved and protected and nourished, but alone. The Forest’s gift to him is a curse. All that he strived for and cherished in life is denied him, all past connections severed, but the wants and desires of being mortal linger on. There are no weapons within the Forest, no kings and servants, only peace and solitude. His companions are the trees and illusions made and unmade by his consent. They can neither free nor comfort him in a place no other living creature dares to visit. The Forest is his salvation, his home, and his eternal prison.

But after dwelling for many silent years as her beloved secret, one day he is awakened by the sense of a threatening power brewing beyond the Forest’s borders. It is an enemy both new and familiar, the one who had taken Faeren’s life and who now seeks to turn the dreadful power of the Forest into a weapon against his people. Even though that former life is lost to Faeren, and the kingdom for which he had sacrificed everything merely a memory, his devotion to his former home transcends all boundaries, natural and unnatural, and he pleads with the Forest to release him. She refuses his request, fearing that she will lose her child once again to the cruelty of men.

But her refusal was not the final word. Aided by the providential appearance of the mysterious and benevolent Healer, a man with the gift of forest-speak who learned of Faeren’s existence at the same time as his enemy, Faeren finds a way of escape and the perilous chance at a new destiny. Though he cannot live for long outside his Forest, the Healer’s ability to channel the essence of nature allows Faeren to slip his bonds of dependence long enough to seek his old adversary. His grieving Forest follows him in the form of an ethereal white creature, hoping to bring him home, but he cannot heed her call, cannot return with her until Morgan is recaptured or destroyed, though it may cost him his life once more, and forever.