Demetrius

While his story starts when he is five, he's introduced to the main story when he's eighteen.

Male

The Jay, Witching Boy, Soother, Dem, Demmy

Main character

Loads of small cuts and bruises scattered all over his body from life in the Edochon. Birthmark on his upper left arm, just a basic blob. Series of teeth marks and one nasty set of parallel scratches down his back on the right side, where he fended off a small bobcat and cemented his place in the food chain (yes, he killed and ate it.) Very rough hands and feet; thick-skinned, literally.

Skinny; wider chest than hips/waist. Long-legged and lean sort of musculature.

Light olive (look up average greek male)

White

Chocolate brown

Whatever facial hair an eighteen-year-old boy normally has

Long hair, curly, untamed

Black

About five foot eight

130 pounds-ish

Demetrius doesn't have a job. He's used often as a spy, interrogator, and general politician's lackey, but all he really wants to do is go live in the middle of nowhere with his friends.

Blue jays.

He doesn't use weapons! Hates them, even, unless they're natural like claws or teeth. Demetrius hates the hollowness of mind that comes with using a weapon in anything besides hunting, where he mostly used traps. He also hates the flood of pain that comes from the mind of whoever was in the fight, afterwards. And all the associated grief or disappointment or sickening triumph.

While it's not really a possession, Demetrius is genuinely proud of his flock of jays. Later, his favorite thing is probably the necklace he takes from the messenger who died in the gorge, because with it he was able to liberate the Ksaedian palace.

He will eat just about anything, but his favorite things are berries. Berry-picking season was the only season he didn't have to help his father with foresting, and later, it meant spring was in full swing and he could get some meat back on his bones.

He loves sandy-colored things. They remind him of Rusto, and later the beaches that Arietta shows him, and the quietness that comes with the waves drowning out any emotions he might be sensing.

He spends a lot of time soothing and listening to animals, as well as his friends. Hobbies include calming startled prey, being a therapist for friends (which, ironically, is how he learns to socialize with people again), and easing the pain of wounded people. He's very good at all of that.

Demetrius believes in a world where no child grows up afraid, isn't made to work for any chance at education or happiness (because he proved 'not advanced enough' to make it to the school like other boys of his village did), and where people can live comfortably no matter where they are, so they don't have to abandon a child to be able to move to another town. Basically, extremely left socialism.

Demetrius doesn't... get religion. Rusto was atheist, and never bothered explaining religion to him, and he made himself forget everything his parents taught him. He knows of gods, but he almost thinks of them more as great creatures than actual deities.

For the first five years of his life, Demetrius was raised as a forester's son, assisting him with the horses who pulled back the quality Edochon trees his father felled. Then, after failing an advanced intelligence test (which sealed his fate, as everyone thought/hoped that his 'knowledge' (emotional intelligence) was a product of his being smart and not a witching boy) he was abandoned by his family. He spent the next two years in the orphanage, where the oldest boy and assistant Rusto took him as a sort of personal charge, becoming like an older brother and best friend to the very heartbroken young Demetrius.
Then Rusto died of the Fading Kiss, and Demetrius, sick with the nonlethal child's version of the disease, ran away into the forest to live on his own, becoming a wilderman. For the next eleven years, he had next to no human contact, instinctively using his magic and what resources he had learned from his father and Rusto to build his hideouts, create the flock, and survive.

Very basic. He knows survival, and magic, and what sickness can do to a little boy's life. He knows next to nothing of math, literacy, science (besides psychology, although that's instinctual rather than learned), history, religion, or politics.

He doesn't know. It's never a matter of importance- he looks older than he is, which is around eighteen when the story starts.

He has no pets, but animals like him and will often attach themselves to him for a while. The closest he has to pets are the flock of jays he uses to cover and protect his territory, although they're more work animals than pets. At various times throughout the story, he's friends with a fox, several dogs, Mirra's cat (yes, she actually has a cat), a pod of dolphins, a whale and her calf, many horses, including a wild mare who sticks with him through an entire mountain range, and many more.

this tab is super new for me and is 100% not fleshed out at all for any of my characters

oh god.

rescuer to friends to crush to best friends with Arietta Fiore

ally to friends to potential rival with Sylnestra Galanis

instant friends with Aliyah

prisoner to enemy with Richard Thompson(?)

Ally to friends to loss with Tolano Ittrani

Friend to enemy to nemesis with Jane Howenhall

CHANGE THE LETTER. DEMETRIUS CAN'T READ. NEITHER CAN RUSTO. MAYBE ELLES JUST CONNECTS THE DOTS AFTER A FEW DAYS.
ALSO DON'T HAVE DEM'S FAMILY LEAVE WHILE HE'S IN THE FOREST. MAKE HIM MORE INVOLVED IN THE WORK, THEN HAVE HIS FATHER DROP HIM OFF AT THE ORPHANAGE. SADDER THAT WAY. ALSO MORE REALISTIC AND LESS ASSHOLE. THEY PUT OFF TELLING HIM BECAUSE THEY'RE BAD LIKE THAT THOUGH.
Figure out if the village dies of Fading Kiss? It probably does, besides the kids obvs- so it becomes a ghost town. Maybe Tolano runs through it one day? People can think the town is cursed. And how does that affect Demetrius?
Solange should come back into the story one day- maybe as Tolano's girl back in Sunset's End?
DEMETRIUS IS NOT GOOD WITH PEOPLE AND WILL ACT ALMOST LIKE AN ANIMAL IN LARGE GROUPS HE CAN'T ESCAPE FROM. Stays towards the edges, quiet, doesn't want to draw or pay attention, easily overwhelmed. In serious need of therapy, poor bud, but that's why he likes Arietta- she doesn't need much from him, and is almost animalistic in her own drive.