Name
Kevin Waterford

Position
Herald Trainee

Age
26

Physical Description
5'8" Auburn shoulder-length hair, amber eyes, medium build.

Personality/Attitude
Uncomfortable in large groups, can be surprisingly witty and warm one on one or one on two. Widely read and knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, but not inclined to volunteer information unless asked directly. Comes across as reserved. but is more just uncertain of how to relate to people, and afraid that they don't like him for him, but because somehow he's MAKING them like him.

Brief History
Kevin is the fifth son of Lord Waterford, a noble in a little holding in the northwest of Valdemar (between the Pelagir Hills and the Forest of Sorrows). A large, energetic family who love their son very much, they've never quite been sure what to do with him. It's not that they don't care for him, but they don't understand him. The older he got, the more he withdrew, being uncertain how to deal with that much energy and a tendency on the part of his father and his siblings to attack life in general like a starving man approaches a roast rabbit and a keg of cider. He didn't enjoy hunting. He wasn't interested in casual dalliances with the serving women. He wasn't high enough up the line of inheritance to have any particular role in the holding, even had he been particularly suited to accounts and figuring and what he fondly thinks of as being the lead dog in the pack.

His first love was books. His second was music. His third was horses. His family, in his opinion, comes about seventh, somewhere behind cooking, hawking, and archery. (He considers archery and hawking to be forms of the hunt that require a higher level of skill and luck, making them more of a challenge than just going out and running wild animals into a pen or a trap or off a cliff. In reality, he's probably drawn to distance hunting because he 'feels' it less when the animal dies if he isn't right there under his boots, but that's never occurred to him.) He doesn't know what to do with them either, and spends most of his time in a state of affectionate bafflement, wondering if he was perhaps switched in the cradle somehow to end up with a family so completely unlike him.

What time wasn't spent curled up in the library in the Holding was usually spent riding or hawking. Once, he thought it would be fun to dress up as a servant and spend a day in the kitchen. His father didn't feel the same and hided him for his trouble. The day that started out as a game turned out to give him a whole new respect for the invisible keepers of his home - and the servants and hired help at the Holding loved him after that and went out of their way to teach him the sorts of things sons aren't usually taught - mending, cooking, how to get stains out of virtually anything, how to be invisible.

In the past few years, he's been plagued with nightmares, and having more and more difficulty sleeping at night. He has turned to poppy juice and other sedative brews to force sleep on him when he feels he must get some rest or go mad, but he's edgy and nervous about taking them, for he knows they can be addictive. More and more he is withdrawing from human contact because being around people sets him on edge for some reason (*G*) and he is slowly becoming convinced that he is going mad. He is terrified to let his family see him weak, for fear they will send him away, or worse, lock him up somewhere that he can't be any trouble.

Kevin has fairly acute claustrophobia. As a very small child, before his mother died but while she was ill, he was exploring and accidentally ended up in a corridor between the walls behind her solar. Uncertain how to get out, he spent a day and a half trapped there before a servant heard him crying and got help to figure out how he'd gotten in there. He is absolutely terrified of small places, and being locked up anywhere without windows, particularly anywhere in stone walls.

Goals
He thinks he'd make a good teacher or maybe Librarian, since he - in his own words - had not a clue what made a good fifth son. He thinks it might be nice to write a piece of music or a story or history that he would be remembered for.

Gifts
Empathy (strong), bardic (weak), (just enough Mindspeech to talk to his companion)

Companion/Bondbird
Seileach (Companion - haven't met her yet... *vbeg*)

Your name
Betty Punkert

Your Email/YahooID
bpunkert
HeraldKevin@gmail.com

Author's Comments
Yes, Kevin was chosen quite a bit later than Heralds usually are. Yes, he has a female Companion. No, he's not shay'a'chern - that we'll deal with in time (shameless character development fodder). His mother died when he was young after a long and painful consumptive disease that her Healers couldn't do anything about, so he's at a bit of a loss in dealing with strong female authority figures, and has a chip on his shoulder about Healers in general, although he is civil, he doesn't trust them since they couldn't help her.

About the Author
I've got about four years experience in PBEM fiction (Star Fleet and Pern worlds), and while I've never tried to write in Velgarth, it might be a nice change. I'm working my way back through the books after a hiatus of about ten years since I read them all last. This looks like a fairly active collection of people, and most of the posts I read look like they're well written.