Buya Darshavin
| Buya Darshavin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| boo'-yah dar-shave'-in | |
| Created by | Joe Tarver |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Gaidin |
| Affiliation | The Grey Tower |
| Nationality | Tar Valoner |
| Attributes | |
| Weapon Skills |
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| Masteries | |
Buya Darshavin is a Tar Valoner Gaidin of the Grey Tower.
Description
Looking at him, one would assume Buya's ancestry is Tairen, perhaps, or Altaran. He's not sure himself. He stands just on the tall side of average, but with a thin, wiry build. His hair is a dark brown, almost black, and kept short on the sides and back, but longer on the top, giving his head an even more elongated look than it would otherwise have. Deep brown eyes are set under a large forehead and bushy, but well-tended eyebrows. A scar runs over his left eye, faint enough that it's only noticeable in the right light. Straight teeth are set in a somewhat feminine jaw. An often scraggly goatee completes the semi-deranged look.
His wardrobe tends to involve long leather boots, doeskin breeches, a tunic, often with flared sleeves, and a leather jerkin he's almost never seen with out. Rumor has it he even sleeps with the armor on. Unless he is in a formal environment that doesn't allow for weapons, his rapier and dagger, both basket-hilted, are slung at his left hip in separate loop sheathes. Even when he's wearing the fancloak, it's difficult to take him initially as a Warder. He smiles more easily than his peers, and there's something of a mad glint in his eye most of the time.
He's well aware of his reputation as somewhat unstable, and does nothing to put it to rest. He spends as much time as possible teaching in the Yards, and tends to be effective at it, despite his strange teaching method, which often involves outright lies or doing one thing while saying another to keep his students paying attention and thinking about what he or she is learning.
Biography
The streets of Tar Valon were about as safe as any city in the world. Some might think that made them simpler to live on than elsewhere, but Buya doubted that was true. They'd certainly never seemed simple growing up. Surrounded by Ogier-crafted stonework, others may have thought the permanent residents of the city would be wealthy and happy, despite the shadow of the White Tower stretching long over the city. Wealth he had never possessed, but happiness he'd known in abundance.
From the beginning, his parents knew he was a little odd. He smiled a little too often, laughed a bit too loud. They said his early love of music was because his mother had worked the bar at a tavern throughout most of his timb in the womb, and he was lulled each night by the songs of the gleeman or troupe and the cheer of the crowd. Perhaps that had fueled his love of ales and spirits as well.
His father worked as an assistant to a cooper and his mother was a barmaid. Neither lived terribly glamorous lives, and their son didn't seemed destined for anything more. They were simple folk. As a boy, Buya spent his time playing in the relatively safe streets with the other children. As he aged, he was apprenticed to a leatherworker, but lacked the necessary patience and attention to detail to make it far in the trade. He apprenticed for a while with a scribe, but couldn't write his letters legibly enough. Three apprenticeships later, his parents had essentially given up on him. The owner of the tavern his mother worked at brought him on for a while cleaning the kitchen and helping with the lifting, that kind of thing, but it was hardly the kind of thing he hoped to be doing the rest of his life.
It was cleaning the bar one night after most of the patrons had left that he started talking to an odd man who'd spent much of his evening in the corner with an ale. The man claimed to be a merchant's guard, though he was unlike any Buya had ever seen. He didn't have the cudgel or halberd or longsword associated with the trade, but instead carried a very thin blade and a dagger hung loose at his waist. Any buffoon could swing a cudgel, he explained, but it took skill and precision to defeat a man without him realizing you were even a threat.
With words to his parents and the merchant the man worked for, Buya was taken on as an apprentice once again, this time to a swordsman. A few days later, having spent all the money he had on a similar sword, he left with the caravan. A month after that, the goods they guarded safe again in a warehouse in Fal Mora, the swordsman told his apprentice that his preferred line of work was as a duelist. He hired himself out to people who felt slighted, so that he might duel in their place. He was good at it, and thought Buya could be too if he applied himself. Over the course of a few years, he came to learn much about his master, but often times his lessons went slowly. He found himself distracted, paying only half a mind when his instructor drilled, focused instead on the world around them. He'd never left Tar Valon until this journey had started, and having grown up in what was considered the most beautiful city in the world, he hadn't expected that things elsewhere could be so magnificent as they were. He was fascinated with everything.
All the while, his mentor continued to get frustrated but let him be, knowing he would come around in time. His skills improved, slowly but surely, and his knowledge of the forms and footwork took shape. When he'd progressed enough, his instructor explained to him that the style they used was in some ways more dangerous than others. With a thrust of the thin sword, you could bleed a man to death without him realizing it until it was too late to do anything. Death by the sword was the fate of the duelist, and it was rarely pleasant.
It was in Hama Valon, a new city and very akin to home in a way that seemed strange to him, that his master met his end. The duel was fierce, both fighters were quite skilled, and neither walked away. Buya carried his master to the Grey Tower, hoping to find Healing for the man as before the last of his lifeblood slipped away. He didn't make it. With nowhere to go, he was offered a place in the Warder Yards, training with other forms of combat.
The life of the Drin'far'ji was difficult for him, as his mind often wandered off to places it shouldn't have been. He made it though, and by the time he joined the ranks of the Ji'alantin, he was learning to focus under the hard eyes of the Gaidin. He continued to practice, continued to serve, and began teaching some of the younger students. It was not long after he'd attained the rank of Gaidin that one of his pupils nearly died in a duel. This time, the Healing came before it was too late. Still, many say the event affected him mentally, caused him to snap a little inside. His teaching methods have gotten more devious, but his students learn well. He hadn't been quite right when he'd arrived, though, and some whispered that he was quite wrong by now. It was his personality that kept him from attracting a bondmate, likely, but he didn't mind. More time to pass on the necessary skills and lessons to those who would find bondmates in the future.
Career History
- Drin
- Ji'val
- Gaidin
