Post by Ilya Masalkar on Aug 1, 2021 1:19:32 GMT
Name: Ilya Masalkar
Age: 63
Nationality: Malkieri
Place of Birth: Malkier
Place of Residence: Caralain, The Black Tower
Affiliation: The Black Tower, Water Legion
Rank/Title: Captain-General of the Water Legion, Asha’man
One Power Strength: 9
Air: 8 | Earth: 8 | Fire: 9 | Spirit: 10 | Water: 10
Date they were raised to Novice/Soldier: 69 FA
Date they were raised to Accepted/Dedicated: 74 FA
Date they were raised to Aes Sedai/Asha'man: 79 FA
Date they were raised to Lieutenant: 85 FA
Date they were raised to Captain: 90 FA
Date they were raised to Captain-General: 110 FA
Talents: None
Weave Affinities: None
Weapon Skills:
Martial: 4 | Hand-Held: 4| Stave: 6 | Thrown: 0 | Ranged: 5 | Mounted: 8
Height: 6’1”
Weight: average
Build/Complexion: Strong, lean, lightly tanned skin
Eye/Hair Color: Black hair, dark brown eyes
Face Claim: Charles Melton
Distinguishing Features:
Calm and patient are how one would describe Ilya—at least at first. There is a certain degree of truth to it. He is difficult to anger (though those who do manage it find that they seriously regret it). He rarely seems hurried or frantic, even in the midst of a battle. Those who know him better, however, can recognize the strained lines of his jaw and brow when he is worried. It’s less that he is unflappable and more that he is good at hiding his concern.
Anxiety does not plague him as much as it once did, though, and Ilya has learned to laugh at much more than he used to. One might see the hadori and expect a grim, stern warrior. While he can be solemn at times, Ilya is rarely ever stern. Friendly, easy-going, and good-humoured, he often has a smile ready. He is gentle at heart, and the sword he wears at his hip is mostly for show. (The real weapon is the staff he often carries, which he is reluctant to use albeit far from unskilled with it.) Ilya is a bit eccentric, too, which somewhat ruins the image of a calm, composed Captain-General. It can be hard to take him too seriously when he’s attempting to create a ball pit by filling a ditch full of glowing orbs.
He is also known for his humility. For much of his life, Ilya has struggled with self-esteem. It has crippled him in many ways, from making him believe he has no chance of improving to souring his relations with women. Much of his young adulthood was spent fighting the after effects of a childhood where he was taught that all he could do was fail. He has a streak of rebelliousness and mistrust for those in power, and that has set him on the right path at times. It has also brought him into conflict with those who sought to help him.
CW: implied abuse
Malkier was Ilya’s first home, and in some ways it would always be. His father’s ancestors were Tai’shar Malkier, those who had survived after Malkier’s fall in the Third Age and been scattered across the land. His great-great-grandfather and his great-grandfather both returned to fight when the Golden Crane flew for Tarmon Gai’don. They survived that, too, and helped rebuild the broken nation of Malkier.
Of course, that was old history by the time Ilya was born. His father had been a child when the Seanchan invasion was successfully beaten back, and he had few stories to tell of that time. His mother was Shienaran, though she had lost most of her ties to Shienar by the time she was wed; Ilya would guess that was why she stayed by her husband’s side despite his faults.
And Master Masalkar had many faults. He had not always been so harsh, if cold and reserved, but he became especially hard after the Blight stirred to life. Many of those close to him were lost in the initial attacks, unexpected as they were. His violent temper could flare without warning. No matter how hard he tried to please his father, it seemed impossible not to provoke him somehow. Especially when Ilya had always been a gentle, quiet boy, easily startled and more interested in caring for the farm and horses than in swordplay or sparring. Their small town lay between the Seven Towers and Herot’s Crossing, and noblemen sometimes rode through in search of recruits. His father would have joined them had it not been for an old injury, and he was increasingly irritated by his son’s apparent unwillingness to ride into battle.
But, Ilya thought--if he did ride north, who would care for the farm? He had no siblings, and his father and mother couldn’t handle all the work alone. He did not want to leave his mother alone with his father, either. Duty bound him to a home that scorned him. That scorn deepened when Ilya directed his attention as far away from battle as possible, and even began to ask the town’s wise woman about her work. Even other men in the town who did not approve of how Masalkar treated his son, though very few knew the full extent of it, thought him strange. He could never be her apprentice, but she did indulge him somewhat. And when his skills proved useful--for treating those who returned from the Blight, or those who were otherwise wounded--the complaints died down. All Ilya wanted was to be useful. To help others in his own way.
However, his father refused to grant him the hadori or the sword. Ilya did not believe he truly deserved either: he knew he was no warrior. Nonetheless, the shame of it still lingered. Year after year he was denied, and year after year his shame grew when other boys of the village became men. He still tried to learn the sword. He had no love of it, though, and his clumsiness never truly abated. That, too, earned him shame, and rightfully so. The fact was that he was afraid. Afraid to fail, and afraid of what he might become if he allowed himself to pick up a sword as his father had once.
To make matters worse, odd bouts of weakness and fever struck him seemingly at random, becoming especially frequent after he turned seventeen. They were rarely severe, but enough to disrupt his work. He could hardly be relied on to protect the town from the Blight if one never knew whether illness would take him, could he? He was hardly fit for farmwork as it was.
If anyone thought his father’s decision was unfair, Ilya never heard of it.
After turning eighteen, those periodic illnesses finally caught up to him in a much more dramatic way.
At first, his mother thought nothing of the dog that had bitten her. Her limp worried Ilya, but she assured him that she had been through worse. Then her condition began to decline. The wise woman’s herbs seemed to do nothing for her. Ilya was distraught. His mother had always been gentle, like him, and had loved him far more dearly than his father ever could. He took to caring for her personally when the wise woman declared her beyond saving.
Miraculously, she recovered. The wound in her leg healed rapidly, leaving hardly more than a scar. The wise woman was baffled. A week later, Ilya came down with a terrible fever.
He barely survived it, and the week or so he spent bedridden would remain fuzzy in his mind beyond the certainty that he had come very close to death. Once he was well enough to walk, the wise woman came to him and told him that he must leave for the Seven Towers. There, he was to seek out an Aes Sedai or an Asha’man.
So I am dying, Ilya remembered thinking. This was the confirmation for a belief he already held. His spontaneous bouts of illness, his weakness--it had to have been caused by some disease the wise woman neither knew of nor could cure, and his only hope was to find a channeler who could Heal him. He cut his hair short the morning he left home: there was no point in leaving it long. A woman would not carry the daori of a dead man, and it was clear to him he would never receive the hadori.
Ilya didn’t manage to track down any channelers in the city, despite his best efforts. Instead, it was a man in a black coat with a Dragon pinned to the collar that found him in the common room of the inn he was staying at one evening.
What the man told him shocked him to his core.
They called him a wilder. A man who had learned to channel on his own.
If the word was meant disparagingly, Ilya paid no notice. He felt foolish enough already. Not everyone cared about a wilder’s reputation, anyway, and he was glad of the friends he did find. His first year was particularly difficult as they worked out the intricacies of his block; for whatever reason, he could only channel if he saw that someone needed Healing. And while he was alright at that—not good, exactly, but he did well enough—it made learning to do anything else with the Power impossible. Even Delving was beyond him.
Finally, a friend of his managed to get around it with a nasty prank involving a lot of red dye. (Ilya never entirely forgave him for it.) Johar, an Ebou Dari, was a wilder like him. In retaliation, Ilya found a way to break Johar’s block: he challenged the other man to a duel and then did the only thing he could think of, which apparently was to kiss him.
Their blocks gone, things began to improve. He advanced quickly in his studies, side-by-side with Johar. They both had a strong potential in the power, though at first Ilya did not know what that meant, and were raised to Dedicated almost simultaneously.
Hardly a year after he was raised, however, the world plunged into chaos. The M’Hael declared war against the White Tower. He understood being suspicious of the Aes Sedai, but an open war? It was clearly insane. Still, what was one Dedicated to do? No one would listen to him.
Unfortunately for Ilya, his strength in the Power pushed him to the front. Often it was for Healing, but they made him do other things, too. He did not like what he had to do. This war was wrong. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want this.
He didn’t want this.
As the tides of war turned against them, Ilya finally summoned up a fleck of courage, as he saw it. He joined the uprising against Rahlin along with Johar and many others. And many others that he captured or slew in the fight to end the madman’s rule.
Asha’man against Asha’man, Asha’man against Aes Sedai—it should never have come to this. Never. But it had. It had, and what they did should have been done long ago.
It was after Rahlin’s removal and punishment that one of his mentors approached him. This was the same Asha’man who had found him years ago, a Malkieri Asha’man—and he arrived carrying two things: a sword and a braided leather hadori.
Ilya never grew out his hair, but he wore the hadori. The hadori his father had denied him—no, not his father. The man who had granted him it had always been more of a father than the man who should’ve been. He wore the sword at his hip, sometimes, even though he could not use it. It was a symbol, and it distracted attackers from the real weapon—his staff.
On the day he was raised to Asha’man of the Water Legion, he remembered how he had protested that he was not a fighter. Captain Aki smiled and told him that not every battle was fought with weapons.
Ilya found himself stationed in different lands, as he was needed. His affinity for Water—and thereby Cloud Dancing—brought him to the Sea Folk, which he did not enjoy. His skill in Healing brought him home to Malkier, always his home, even if he pledged allegiance to the Black Tower now. He even visited Tar Valon, not as an invader but as a guest. Ilya could not shake the discomfort he felt there, yet it only made him sad. Had not the greatest feats of the Age of Legends been done with men and women working together? Saidin and saidar were two halves of a whole, and their users should have been the same.
When he was in the Tower, he was called upon to teach—which he did so gladly. He didn’t expect the way some soldiers and Dedicated would come to look at him with respect and trust. Others began to seek his advice, even if he felt woefully unequipped to give it.
Ilya never quite shook off his imposter syndrome. Not even when he was named Lieutenant under the southern Captain, and later—surprisingly—Captain in the north. He took the role gladly. The irony of what he did now—protecting the Borderlands and commanding men—compared with what he’d tried to avoid as a boy was not lost on him, even if the Water Legion didn’t necessarily fight at the forefront. Their work was just as important, though, and Ilya had long come to appreciate that.
A true shock came to him when he was abruptly summoned back to the Tower.
He was to be named Captain-General of the Water Legion and sit upon the War Council. Ilya wondered often if there had been some mistake. If, perhaps, there wasn’t someone else they wanted. But it became increasingly clear that the someone was him—with his experience in Healing and Cloud Dancing, and his patient, level-headed nature, he was a logical candidate. Ilya could admit that much.
At the age of sixty-three, most of his family in Malkier were dead, and he was likely to outlive the ones who remained. He had no choice but to draw his attention from his old home to his new—though in his heart of hearts, Ilya knew that if Malkier ever cried out in need again, he would be there.
TIMELINE
Books read: all, including New Spring
Age: 63
Nationality: Malkieri
Place of Birth: Malkier
Place of Residence: Caralain, The Black Tower
Affiliation: The Black Tower, Water Legion
Rank/Title: Captain-General of the Water Legion, Asha’man
One Power Strength: 9
Air: 8 | Earth: 8 | Fire: 9 | Spirit: 10 | Water: 10
Date they were raised to Novice/Soldier: 69 FA
Date they were raised to Accepted/Dedicated: 74 FA
Date they were raised to Aes Sedai/Asha'man: 79 FA
Date they were raised to Lieutenant: 85 FA
Date they were raised to Captain: 90 FA
Date they were raised to Captain-General: 110 FA
Talents: None
Weave Affinities: None
Weapon Skills:
Martial: 4 | Hand-Held: 4| Stave: 6 | Thrown: 0 | Ranged: 5 | Mounted: 8
Height: 6’1”
Weight: average
Build/Complexion: Strong, lean, lightly tanned skin
Eye/Hair Color: Black hair, dark brown eyes
Face Claim: Charles Melton
Distinguishing Features:
- Like any Malkieri man, Ilya always wears the hadori. It was not granted to him by his biological father but by a senior Asha’man who was also from Malkier.
- Ilya’s hair is always cut short, however, perhaps because he does not see himself as properly Malkieri. If asked, though, he’ll just tell you that he finds short hair more convenient.
- He has a lean, strong build. Though his focus has always been on Healing, he still spars and tries to keep himself in good condition.
- He sometimes wears a sword at his hip, but he can count on one hand the number of times he has used it. His preferred weapon is a long wooden staff he takes with him whenever he leaves the Tower.
PERSONALITY
Calm and patient are how one would describe Ilya—at least at first. There is a certain degree of truth to it. He is difficult to anger (though those who do manage it find that they seriously regret it). He rarely seems hurried or frantic, even in the midst of a battle. Those who know him better, however, can recognize the strained lines of his jaw and brow when he is worried. It’s less that he is unflappable and more that he is good at hiding his concern.
Anxiety does not plague him as much as it once did, though, and Ilya has learned to laugh at much more than he used to. One might see the hadori and expect a grim, stern warrior. While he can be solemn at times, Ilya is rarely ever stern. Friendly, easy-going, and good-humoured, he often has a smile ready. He is gentle at heart, and the sword he wears at his hip is mostly for show. (The real weapon is the staff he often carries, which he is reluctant to use albeit far from unskilled with it.) Ilya is a bit eccentric, too, which somewhat ruins the image of a calm, composed Captain-General. It can be hard to take him too seriously when he’s attempting to create a ball pit by filling a ditch full of glowing orbs.
He is also known for his humility. For much of his life, Ilya has struggled with self-esteem. It has crippled him in many ways, from making him believe he has no chance of improving to souring his relations with women. Much of his young adulthood was spent fighting the after effects of a childhood where he was taught that all he could do was fail. He has a streak of rebelliousness and mistrust for those in power, and that has set him on the right path at times. It has also brought him into conflict with those who sought to help him.
HISTORY
CW: implied abuse
Malkier was Ilya’s first home, and in some ways it would always be. His father’s ancestors were Tai’shar Malkier, those who had survived after Malkier’s fall in the Third Age and been scattered across the land. His great-great-grandfather and his great-grandfather both returned to fight when the Golden Crane flew for Tarmon Gai’don. They survived that, too, and helped rebuild the broken nation of Malkier.
Of course, that was old history by the time Ilya was born. His father had been a child when the Seanchan invasion was successfully beaten back, and he had few stories to tell of that time. His mother was Shienaran, though she had lost most of her ties to Shienar by the time she was wed; Ilya would guess that was why she stayed by her husband’s side despite his faults.
And Master Masalkar had many faults. He had not always been so harsh, if cold and reserved, but he became especially hard after the Blight stirred to life. Many of those close to him were lost in the initial attacks, unexpected as they were. His violent temper could flare without warning. No matter how hard he tried to please his father, it seemed impossible not to provoke him somehow. Especially when Ilya had always been a gentle, quiet boy, easily startled and more interested in caring for the farm and horses than in swordplay or sparring. Their small town lay between the Seven Towers and Herot’s Crossing, and noblemen sometimes rode through in search of recruits. His father would have joined them had it not been for an old injury, and he was increasingly irritated by his son’s apparent unwillingness to ride into battle.
But, Ilya thought--if he did ride north, who would care for the farm? He had no siblings, and his father and mother couldn’t handle all the work alone. He did not want to leave his mother alone with his father, either. Duty bound him to a home that scorned him. That scorn deepened when Ilya directed his attention as far away from battle as possible, and even began to ask the town’s wise woman about her work. Even other men in the town who did not approve of how Masalkar treated his son, though very few knew the full extent of it, thought him strange. He could never be her apprentice, but she did indulge him somewhat. And when his skills proved useful--for treating those who returned from the Blight, or those who were otherwise wounded--the complaints died down. All Ilya wanted was to be useful. To help others in his own way.
However, his father refused to grant him the hadori or the sword. Ilya did not believe he truly deserved either: he knew he was no warrior. Nonetheless, the shame of it still lingered. Year after year he was denied, and year after year his shame grew when other boys of the village became men. He still tried to learn the sword. He had no love of it, though, and his clumsiness never truly abated. That, too, earned him shame, and rightfully so. The fact was that he was afraid. Afraid to fail, and afraid of what he might become if he allowed himself to pick up a sword as his father had once.
To make matters worse, odd bouts of weakness and fever struck him seemingly at random, becoming especially frequent after he turned seventeen. They were rarely severe, but enough to disrupt his work. He could hardly be relied on to protect the town from the Blight if one never knew whether illness would take him, could he? He was hardly fit for farmwork as it was.
If anyone thought his father’s decision was unfair, Ilya never heard of it.
After turning eighteen, those periodic illnesses finally caught up to him in a much more dramatic way.
At first, his mother thought nothing of the dog that had bitten her. Her limp worried Ilya, but she assured him that she had been through worse. Then her condition began to decline. The wise woman’s herbs seemed to do nothing for her. Ilya was distraught. His mother had always been gentle, like him, and had loved him far more dearly than his father ever could. He took to caring for her personally when the wise woman declared her beyond saving.
Miraculously, she recovered. The wound in her leg healed rapidly, leaving hardly more than a scar. The wise woman was baffled. A week later, Ilya came down with a terrible fever.
He barely survived it, and the week or so he spent bedridden would remain fuzzy in his mind beyond the certainty that he had come very close to death. Once he was well enough to walk, the wise woman came to him and told him that he must leave for the Seven Towers. There, he was to seek out an Aes Sedai or an Asha’man.
So I am dying, Ilya remembered thinking. This was the confirmation for a belief he already held. His spontaneous bouts of illness, his weakness--it had to have been caused by some disease the wise woman neither knew of nor could cure, and his only hope was to find a channeler who could Heal him. He cut his hair short the morning he left home: there was no point in leaving it long. A woman would not carry the daori of a dead man, and it was clear to him he would never receive the hadori.
Ilya didn’t manage to track down any channelers in the city, despite his best efforts. Instead, it was a man in a black coat with a Dragon pinned to the collar that found him in the common room of the inn he was staying at one evening.
What the man told him shocked him to his core.
They called him a wilder. A man who had learned to channel on his own.
If the word was meant disparagingly, Ilya paid no notice. He felt foolish enough already. Not everyone cared about a wilder’s reputation, anyway, and he was glad of the friends he did find. His first year was particularly difficult as they worked out the intricacies of his block; for whatever reason, he could only channel if he saw that someone needed Healing. And while he was alright at that—not good, exactly, but he did well enough—it made learning to do anything else with the Power impossible. Even Delving was beyond him.
Finally, a friend of his managed to get around it with a nasty prank involving a lot of red dye. (Ilya never entirely forgave him for it.) Johar, an Ebou Dari, was a wilder like him. In retaliation, Ilya found a way to break Johar’s block: he challenged the other man to a duel and then did the only thing he could think of, which apparently was to kiss him.
Their blocks gone, things began to improve. He advanced quickly in his studies, side-by-side with Johar. They both had a strong potential in the power, though at first Ilya did not know what that meant, and were raised to Dedicated almost simultaneously.
Hardly a year after he was raised, however, the world plunged into chaos. The M’Hael declared war against the White Tower. He understood being suspicious of the Aes Sedai, but an open war? It was clearly insane. Still, what was one Dedicated to do? No one would listen to him.
Unfortunately for Ilya, his strength in the Power pushed him to the front. Often it was for Healing, but they made him do other things, too. He did not like what he had to do. This war was wrong. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want this.
He didn’t want this.
As the tides of war turned against them, Ilya finally summoned up a fleck of courage, as he saw it. He joined the uprising against Rahlin along with Johar and many others. And many others that he captured or slew in the fight to end the madman’s rule.
Asha’man against Asha’man, Asha’man against Aes Sedai—it should never have come to this. Never. But it had. It had, and what they did should have been done long ago.
It was after Rahlin’s removal and punishment that one of his mentors approached him. This was the same Asha’man who had found him years ago, a Malkieri Asha’man—and he arrived carrying two things: a sword and a braided leather hadori.
Ilya never grew out his hair, but he wore the hadori. The hadori his father had denied him—no, not his father. The man who had granted him it had always been more of a father than the man who should’ve been. He wore the sword at his hip, sometimes, even though he could not use it. It was a symbol, and it distracted attackers from the real weapon—his staff.
On the day he was raised to Asha’man of the Water Legion, he remembered how he had protested that he was not a fighter. Captain Aki smiled and told him that not every battle was fought with weapons.
Ilya found himself stationed in different lands, as he was needed. His affinity for Water—and thereby Cloud Dancing—brought him to the Sea Folk, which he did not enjoy. His skill in Healing brought him home to Malkier, always his home, even if he pledged allegiance to the Black Tower now. He even visited Tar Valon, not as an invader but as a guest. Ilya could not shake the discomfort he felt there, yet it only made him sad. Had not the greatest feats of the Age of Legends been done with men and women working together? Saidin and saidar were two halves of a whole, and their users should have been the same.
When he was in the Tower, he was called upon to teach—which he did so gladly. He didn’t expect the way some soldiers and Dedicated would come to look at him with respect and trust. Others began to seek his advice, even if he felt woefully unequipped to give it.
Ilya never quite shook off his imposter syndrome. Not even when he was named Lieutenant under the southern Captain, and later—surprisingly—Captain in the north. He took the role gladly. The irony of what he did now—protecting the Borderlands and commanding men—compared with what he’d tried to avoid as a boy was not lost on him, even if the Water Legion didn’t necessarily fight at the forefront. Their work was just as important, though, and Ilya had long come to appreciate that.
A true shock came to him when he was abruptly summoned back to the Tower.
He was to be named Captain-General of the Water Legion and sit upon the War Council. Ilya wondered often if there had been some mistake. If, perhaps, there wasn’t someone else they wanted. But it became increasingly clear that the someone was him—with his experience in Healing and Cloud Dancing, and his patient, level-headed nature, he was a logical candidate. Ilya could admit that much.
At the age of sixty-three, most of his family in Malkier were dead, and he was likely to outlive the ones who remained. He had no choice but to draw his attention from his old home to his new—though in his heart of hearts, Ilya knew that if Malkier ever cried out in need again, he would be there.
TIMELINE
- Spring 50 FA: Born in a small town in Malkier, north of the Seven Towers.
- Spring 68 FA: Ilya’s mother miraculously recovers from an infection that the town’s wise woman claimed she could not treat. Ilya falls seriously ill a week later, and the wise woman cannot determine what ails him at first. When he recovers, she sends him to the Seven Towers to find an Aes Sedai or Asha’man stationed there.
- Summer 68 FA: Ilya is brought to the Black Tower and begins training as a soldier.
- Winter 74 FA: Ilya is raised to the rank of Dedicated.
- 78 FA: Ilya participates in the uprising against Rahlin. In recognition of his achievements, a Malkieri Asha’man--and a Captain of the Water Legion--grants Ilya the sword and hadori his father refused to give him.
- Spring 79 FA: Ilya is raised to full Asha’man and joins the Water Legion, where his skill in Healing is put to full use.
- Autumn 85 FA: Ilya is raised to the rank of Lieutenant in the south.
- Spring 90 FA: Ilya is raised to the rank of Captain in the north.
- Winter 110 FA: Ilya is named Captain-General of the Water Legion.
Books read: all, including New Spring
