Xidayn
Human - Big Brother, Brawler, Protector
Backstory
There was a time when Xidayn didn’t have a name, just a boy who would raise his fists to his troubles and leave bruises behind him. Born in the gutter slums of Kor'Amyr, he never knew his mother, and the man who claimed to be his father had more love for drink than his flesh and blood. He grew up learning that pain meant attention, that strength meant survival, and that nothing in the world is free. By thirteen, he was already trading blows in back alley pits, where coin was tossed at boys too young to bleed and too stubborn to fall.
He drifted from city to port, hand to mouth, bruised knuckles dragging behind him like chains. He fought... he fought for so long, because it was the only thing the world seemed to value in him. For a time, he ran with a gang that called themselves the Iron Hounds. A collection of cutthroats and dock rats who took in strays like him, sharpened their edges, and threw them at the world. He remembers the night he left, a boy no older than nine took a blade to the belly over a scrap of bread. Xidayn held him as he lay there dying. He walked away from the Iron Hounds that night, and never looked back.
He wandered, he drank, he fought for coin when desperate. He spent nights sleeping under ship hulls or behind taverns, staring at the stars like they were just pinpricks in a canvas too wide for him to reach.
Then came the night in the port of Kor'Sidar.
He was starving, tired, and ready to pick a fight with the wrong crew... except they didn’t fight back. Arden, towering and half drunk, had just stepped off the Emberwake when Xidayn swung at him. The punch landed, and Arden laughed it off. What followed wasn’t a brawl, it was a test. One Xidayn didn’t realize he was taking. Galli sang about it later, “The boy who punched the captain and found himself a home.”
He was offered a spot on the crew. No questions, no judgment. Just a place to sleep, a share of food, and hands to work with.
And for the first time in his life, Xidayn hesitated... because he wanted to believe it was real, he wanted to believe he had found a place that would truly accept him. And that notion scared him more than any knife or blade.
But he said yes, and since that night, he’s never left the Emberwake.
Life on the Emberwake
He doesn’t talk about the past much. The crew knows not to ask too hard or push him, but they see how he lights up around the younger ones. How he watches over Lorelai like a hawk, trains Grahm in footwork and confidence, makes jokes to pull Rogier out of his shell. They see how he leans into Pickles’ cooking like it’s from the heavens itself, how he holds Galli’s songs in quiet contemplation and awe. They’ve watched him take hits meant for others without blinking.
He still fights, but he fights with a purpose now, for his friends... his family.
And when he stands on the deck, the sea wind in his hair, shoulder to shoulder with Arden or leaning against the mast telling stories to Celu or Grahm, there is peace in his eyes.
The ghosts from his past still follow him, but they don’t haunt him alone anymore.
He once believed he was born to be used, discarded, forgotten... to be left for dead in a place that wouldn't even think to ask his name.
But the Emberwake made him believe in something else, that some homes you don’t find... some homes find you.
"Some nights, I still wake up ready to run. But then I hear someone laugh... or Galli singing, or Lorelai’s footsteps. And I remember... I don’t have to anymore." - To Kuoni after a nightmare
"There was a time I didn’t care if I woke up the next day. But, now I carry this fear with me, not of dying, but of being the last one left. Of burying them. Of watching the only people who ever made me feel like a man instead of a weapon… disappear. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that. I’d rather fall with them, side by side, than survive this life alone again." - To Ryona after a particularly brutal raid
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