Post by Bái Yan Láng on Aug 25, 2021 10:42:54 GMT -8
Bount
Basic Info
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Name: Josh Evans
Alias: Bai (Bái Yan Láng)
Chronological Age: 20
Biological Age: 20
Heritage: Gemischt
Physical Info
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Hair: Bai's dark hair stays fluffy even in the humidity of Hong Kong. Worn in a lazy tousled style, Bai only pays attention to his hair when it starts to get into his reddish-brown eyes, at which point he unceremoniously chops it all off.
Build: Back home Bai remembers being irritatingly little, but he grew from a skinny kid into a broad-shouldered teen several inches taller than the average Hong Kong denizen. He's still trim, athletic rather than brawny, with a compact sturdiness to his presence. Bai has a pointed chin and tawny skin long since passed from sunburned to perpetually tan. A crooked nose speaks to a familiarity with violence, even if Bai didn't spend half the time sporting skinned knuckles and the bruises that arise from a rough and tumble lifestyle. He carries himself with languid confidence, fully aware of his physicality and projecting a fearlessness that never quite got beneath the skin. Heavy-lidded eyes hide Bai's watchful nature and he rarely finds himself sitting still.
Clothing: Bai dresses in a hodgepodge mix of intentionally Western-styled clothing as if flaunting his foreign status. He is most comfortable in a loose graphic-tee or his prized collection of Henley shirts, dark scuffed jeans, and a pair of Nike. His trademark is a faded Dragons rugby jacket that he takes with him everywhere.
Extras: As a mark of his membership in the Dragon's Gate Crasher's gang, Bai carries the tattoo of a dragon curving from his left clavicle his neck. An old scar splits his right eyebrow, which has been pierced multiple times with only one hoop remaining.
Spiritual Info
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Doll Name: Hiraeth
Doll Body: Hiraeth resides in the scars lining Bai's back. Relatively content to remain there so long as Bai is following the doll's doctrine, he none the less makes his opinions known through sensations in the old scar tissue.
When taking shape in the material world, Hiraeth is unassuming, a good few inches taller than Bai with bland dark features and an easy wiry strength. There is something unsettling to his eyes, though, a calculatingly cool composure, and lips that smile insouciantly as readily as they pull back in a snarl. He wears his sleeves pushed back to reveal a mass of dark ink crawling up both well-muscled arms. From afar, his eyes appear brown, but upon closer inspection, they are the dark suffocating blue of the sea at midnight.
The sole tenet Hiraeth respects is survival of the fittest. Those who have power rule and those who lack it exist to be used. He cannot stand to be disrespected or looked down upon and he reacts to any threat with ruthless violence. Hiraeth expects the same from Bai and doesn't understand Bai's desire to maintain social ties or to protect the vulnerable and the weak. To Hiraeth, Bai is a child unwilling to exert his own strength over others -- like a stray dog, Bai snaps and snarls, and yet wags his tail when offered a treat. His potential is wasted because he still sees other individuals as people rather than prey.
Hiraeth eggs Bai on, encouraging or enforcing greater feats of violence and retaliation, in the hopes that Bai will admit how the world actually works. However, Hiraeth can never allow Bai to become stronger than he himself is. It is Hiraeth who protects Bai and permits him to live this trivial life. In that sense, Hiraeth believes he holds ownership over all of Bai's companions -- he tolerates them because they can be used to sharpen Bai, and while their weakness is disgusting he doesn't really mind the thought of followers.
Historical Info
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The Past:
Josh doesn’t think much about the past. There’s not a lot of good memories to choose from, though even at his most maudlin he’ll admit that his dad tried his best. As a single father with a spotty criminal record, his best wasn’t great, but Josh learned early there’s no such thing as guarantees.
He spent his toddler years at the wharf, planted in a bait tote and sucking down mints that the crew slipped him throughout the day. A single memory holds strong, polished to a sheen from all the times Josh used to pull it up; he’s standing on the docks next to the old men flicking their fishing rods, feet planted so the salty air won’t topple him. His dad’s right there beside him, holding out a length of rope and walking Josh through the steps to a clove hitch knot. The water swells and Josh stumbles but his dad catches him and pulls him close. There’s laughter and the scratchy feel of his dad’s beard.
Josh learned a lot from his dad. How to tie lines. Why rugby was the best sport in the world. Never let another man get away with insulting your family. That last bit bled into a lesson on how the world was only out to screw you – but looking back, Josh can’t say he was surprised when his dad ended up in jail for beating a guy’s head in for insinuating mom had run off with someone else.
He hopped foster homes for a while. Mostly Josh thinks about that period as the time he still thought his dad would get out of jail versus when he’d realized no one was going to come to save him. Some of the placements were all right, there was an old lady who didn’t care what he did so long as he went to Sunday church, and a family where the mom taught him about plants and shit until their new baby arrived. Most of them were crap for one reason or another.
It didn’t take Josh long to figure out he was on his own. He became a master at sneaking out from locked rooms, tuning out long-winded rants, and swiping food or cigarettes without getting caught. There were plenty of other kids like him, running in the streets like hooligans, each with their own pitiful story. No one wanted to be a victim, though, so they built themselves up and swaggered around, playing at a strength no one had at home.
Eighteen was a long way away but Josh was thinking about running for real when everything went to shit. His latest “family” included three other screaming foster kids, a guy who was more than happy to beat on people, and a wife who couldn’t look up from her beer bottles. Josh didn’t spend much time at the apartment, choosing instead to roam the streets.
He’d gotten used to the occasional ghost – ignoring them unless there was something particularly macabre about their death and thus interesting. Josh figured he was a little crazy. It wouldn’t be surprising. He really wasn’t expecting to add monsters to his list of hallucinations.
A Hollow popped up and tried to eat him which was a new sort of adrenaline rush, made all the better because Josh somehow materialized a freaking gun out of blue stuff and shot the thing point-blank. That part was cool. The Quincy showing up to tell him about his long-lost calling and shit was less so.
Josh wanted to tell them to shove off, out of principle, but a free ticket away was too enticing. He never really dropped that feeling of rebellion. Quincy weren’t the first to tell Josh he had a problem with respect and they wouldn’t be the last. He wasn’t some starry-eyed kid that would turn all goo-goo-eyed over a place to stay and some cult-like ‘found family’ shit.
The supernatural power stuff was pretty great. Josh didn’t mind learning that stuff, he didn’t even mind the whole ‘your new mission in life is to kill Hollows’ because whatever, there was something fun about throwing himself into a fight and winning. The rest of it, though, was crap and he expressed that opinion vocally.
He’d been scooped up by some group who were part of the Vaughn Clan and he was supposed to feel grateful because apparently, every other shitty Quincy family would have had a bigger stick up their ass about Josh’s mixed bloodline or whatever. Josh didn’t do grateful. When the group that brought him in figured that out, they tossed him to an older Quincy from a nearby group, someone who was supposedly firm enough to get through to Josh.
Josh was kind of proud, actually. His attempts to get the new guy to give up on him weren’t as successful. Which was why Josh made the biggest mistake of his life and went haring off after a Hollow one night on patrol. He wanted to prove how tough he was, that he didn’t need these stupid lessons or this crappy cosmic cult shit, and he wanted to piss his minder off enough to see what the guy would do when he was really angry.
He failed half of that equation but the other was a rousing success. His teacher showed up in time to save Josh from the Hollow that was way out of his class, but not before the thing had sunk its teeth into Josh’s shoulder. His teacher got real serious and tried to hustle Josh back home but Josh knew a lie when he saw one and he wasn’t surprised when the guy tried to off him on the way back. Hurt maybe, but not surprised.
Apparently, it was a cardinal sin to let a Hollow bite you or something. Josh didn’t get that point until after he’d nearly died in the stairwell of a Days Department store and woken up with the world’s creepiest roommate taking up residence in his body. Meeting Hiraeth was an experience Josh would not like to repeat – though the doll did get him away from the Quincy on his trail, and out of the country. The shit ton of sneering wasn’t called for, but Josh appreciated not letting those losers murder him.
Hiraeth got them to Hong Kong, which was a big enough city no one would notice a few missing people here or there. That was probably Hiraeth’s logic, Josh isn’t about to ask because it didn’t go down so well, and hindsight is 20/20. Needless to say, the triads weren’t impressed by wanton violence in their districts. (It messes with tourism which puts a damper on the flow of cash.)
They sent some people after him. Josh killed them. Or, rather, Hiraeth killed them in more and more creative ways. If Josh was held at gunpoint and made to admit something good about Hiraeth it’d be that that bastard was freaking impossible to kill.
After some cat and mouse games, the local triads decided the publicity (and the drop in numbers) wasn’t worth it. They came to an agreement of sorts; Josh kept his violence out of the public eye, didn’t touch their people, and they’d look the other way about his presence. Hiraeth was pleased by the recognition of his power and Josh was just damn glad no one was losing their head only a few feet away from him.
One of the triad went a step further and offered Josh a few jobs. He’d built up a reputation as a feral monster, so it wasn’t that hard to terrify people into submission. The triad was all about making money and bloody murder wasn’t good for business. Josh got to intimidate people and a crappy apartment above a noodle place out of the deal and the local boss got to say Josh was on his payroll.
Hiraeth could only be satisfied by fear-induced respect for so long, though, and the occasional slip-up occurred more frequently than Josh would have liked. It was an uneasy truce. And a tense and unpleasant way to live. Caught between the triad and his own doll, Josh grit his teeth and focused on surviving.
Then one day the boss told him about this punk setting up shop in the same neighborhood. It wasn’t the first time Josh had been set loose on another supernatural mortal, but the occasions weren’t common. He was excited. Those were always the best fights.
Josh lost. No, Hiraeth lost. To this skinny little guy who after winning wouldn’t even finish the fight but instead explained to Josh how he wanted to protect the mortal world from foreign powers. Josh laughed it off. Xiao Bolin didn’t.
Hiraeth wasn’t pleased. They’d never lost a fight before. Never had to live with the indignity of weakness. He swore to destroy Xiao, which conveniently meant the doll didn’t protest when Josh decided hanging around this guy was a better proposition than working for the triad.
The boss wasn’t pleased to be told Josh had joined up with Xiao Bolin rather than kill him. There was a bit of animosity there, Josh tuned most of it out, another adult pissed that he didn’t understand respect. Though when the guy called him an ungrateful wretch he had to smile. It was a fitting moniker, and a lot better than being known as a monster, so Josh stole the phrase and started calling himself Bai.
Things cooled off when Xiao sent the triads video evidence of all the supernatural crap going on in their backyards. No one was singing kumbaya but invisible monsters were definitely bad for business – and the fact that Bai had a lot fewer episodes of murder while Xiao was holding his leash was a side benefit.
Hiraeth wasn’t any happier. Challenging Xiao constantly didn’t make the doll any less ravenous or pissed off – but he was willing to play along, for now, and bide his time until he could overpower and eat Xiao. Bai would call that an obsession if he wanted to get punched in the mouth.
For Bai, life took a distinctive turn for the better. He worked at Xiao’s side and slowly came to trust that Xiao could stop him from killing innocent people and that maybe, just maybe, Xiao’s dream of mortals protecting themselves was possible.
He enjoyed playing at being the wolf Xiao finally collared. There was a hell of a lot more freedom working with Xiao than Bai had ever had. When he got bored of scaring common criminals, he hunted down the real monsters in Hong Kong, the type of humans who deserved to meet Hiraeth. And when he returned to wherever their headquarters was next, Bai spent his time scaring the shit out of the newbies and teaching them how to survive in this world.
Snapshot:
Josh leaned against the concrete wall; one foot propped up for balance. He stared out the square opening of what would eventually become a window when this building finished construction, watching the clouds thickening on the horizon. It was crazy how you could see storms coming in if you were up high enough. The benefits of being on an island.
Studiously ignoring the crunch and occasional wet crackle going on in the adjoining room, Josh ran through his meager options for dinner tonight. It was insensitive timing, maybe, but his stomach hadn’t stopped growling and that morning bowl of curry fishballs wouldn’t cut it.
As if reading his mind, Hiraeth appeared, strolling through the doorway casual as could be.
Josh caught the wallet the doll lobbed at him before groaning. “You couldn’t manage to keep the blood away from his cash?” He thumbed through the front page, blood smearing across the picture of a man holding a child up above his head, plastic doing little to protect the photograph when it was drenched like this.
“I don’t see you making money, boy.”
Scowling, Josh looked up from the meager haul, only to grimace at Hiraeth licking away the blood that had trickled down his wrist. That was still gross no matter how many times Josh witnessed it.
“Yeah, ‘cuz it’s not like you’d get bored half an hour into a job and eat my coworkers. I’m sure no one would care. This is my emotional support monster, sorry! It’s a certifiable disability, so you’re legally obligated to pay me –” The blow to his face cut off the rest of Josh’s sentence, which normally wouldn’t have stopped him, but Hiraeth followed that up with an arm pressed against Josh’s throat.
Foot dropping, he scrabbled for purchase as Hiraeth leaned closer. “I’d watch your mouth if I was you. It’s thanks to me that you’re even alive, boy. If I hadn’t shown up, you’d still be mewling after those Quincy begging for another handout.”
The ironic thing about Hiraeth was that the doll got all pissy when you said something wrong, but he didn’t like silent concessions either. He eased up on Josh’s throat like he was really expecting an apology or something.
“Just, playing devil’s advocate here, but consider – if you hadn’t shown up, I’d still have my powers, so…”
Hiraeth snarled, shoving hard before he stepped back and let Josh fall to his knees.
It probably wasn’t the right time to bring up that this was exactly why they had to always find some creepy empty rundown place for Hiraeth to feed. The guy couldn’t keep his temper if it was sealed inside a fireproof safe and dropped in the Marianas trench.
“You think I don’t know about how you feel when I take another soul? Huh? I know everything. If you hate it so much, why don’t you try and stop me? It’s because you’re weak, boy.”
Josh leveraged himself up to his knees. Great, now he had concrete dust all over his jacket. He rubbed at his throat and glowered. “Who the fuck’s fault is that?”
Rather than kick him, which Josh half expected, Hiraeth smirked. The doll knelt down in front of him.
“Does that make you angry? You should embrace it, boy. Hold on to that feeling. I’m here to make sure you don’t end up dead, but I won’t have a weakling for a host. So man up!”
Josh rolled his eyes, rather than twitch, as the doll yelled the last bit. Hiraeth was really awful at pep talks. Like, 0/0 do not recommend bad.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, old man.”
The doll dragged him to his feet, making a show out of brushing the white dust from his jacket, and clapped Josh on the shoulder. “I won’t step in if you get into trouble again. So you better handle yourself with care and figure out what you’re doing tonight.”
With that cheerful send-off, Hiraeth tipped forward like a demented slinky, slipping under the flesh of Josh’s shoulder and settling into place.
Josh kicked at the wall, swearing a few times just because he could, and then eventually bent to pick up the wallet again. Not everything was bloodied, just a good chunk of the useable stuff – credit cards didn’t mean shit now that they were so easily traced. Whatever he needed food first. After that, he could figure out where he was going to hole up for the night.
There was some kind of noodle place a few blocks back, Josh remembered the smell when he’d passed it. He’d developed a taste for cart noodles, and an appreciation for their dirt-cheap pricing.