Cinaéd "Cinna" Azurewing

"It happened a lot," Cinna says, fiddling with the brim of his favorite hat. "Not every day, but at least once a week. On other days, he'd be apologetic and sweet to us. Give us fake promises that it'd never happen again. It made it difficult for us to leave because I guess we all really wanted to believe him. Honey-moon phases, the psychologists call it." He twists and bends the black hat's enduring edges, studying each crease as if they're fascinating. His face was serious, all humor gone from his normally flippant features. It caused him to look older, more mature - an odd look for him. "Often he'd come home already drunk... I remember the stench was overwhelming. When he did drink at home, of course, no one would every try to stop him. If they did, they'd just be volunteering for his wrath." He pauses here, his heterochromis eyes flashing towards the sky. He places his hat back on. He pulls it down, casting a shadow over his boyish features. He doesn't cover his eyes like he normally does, though. His right eye is icy-blue and nearly glows in the dark. His dark crimson left eye, however, is easily hidden in the dark. Almost as if it wished to hide amongst the shadows.

"My eye wasn't always this color," he says, changing his subject. Hesitantly he points to his left eye. "It used to be blue, just like the other. One day when I was young,"-he pauses, casting his eyes to the heavens as if the exact age would fall from the sky -"30 or 40 at the time." His eyes return to the earth. "My father hit me... harder than normal." He pulls back his feathery raven-black hair to reveal a long pink scar that ran across his eyebrow. "I don't remember too much. Just a bright flash of light then darkness for two days. After that my mother took me to a medic while my father was away. Presumably my father had hidden me in the basement because he didn't want anyone to find out. But I couldn't see out of my left eye. I assumed it was just clotted with blood. In the waiting room a girl cleaned my newfound scars up. She gasped when she saw that despite cleaning the iris of my eye had turned red. The color of my blood. It wasn't for a couple of months that sight returned to that eye, but the color, for no medical explanation, never changed back. And at this point, I don't think it ever will." He shrugs, eyes cast to the floor.

"But when I was 58 or so... that's when my life changed forever. For better or worse. He came home... drunk as usual. He took my sister - who was 31 at the time - and propped her against the wall and began groping her. He'd done this before, of course. But usually my mother and I would sit idly by while it happened. We'd just wait until after to comfort her and stop the bleeding. It was the same thing when it happened to my mother. But this day... was different." - a slight amount of emotion creeps into his voice as he remembers the day clearly. Every moment, every scene came flooding back to him.- "My mother snapped. She grabbed my father's shirt and pulled him away from my sister. This, of course, didn't settle well with him. Furious he took a bottle and smashed it over my mother's skull. It was a hard enough impact that it cracked her head open. We took her to a medic, but it was too late. She'd lost too much blood and they were unable to heal her. She died the next morning." He pauses again, examining the ground carefully.

When he continues, the emotion is gone. "Three weeks later, after promising it would never happen again at my mother's funeral at least 50 times... he was at it again. He came home, hit me once or twice, and then grabbed my sister again. He groped her and got ready to rape her. My mother dead, it was my turn to snap. An impulsive rage filled me. I took a knife off the counter and shoved it into my father's back. It only managed to puncture one lung shallowly, but it was enough to get him to turn around. He dropped my sister and looked at me, fury far surpassing mine. His fists were clenched. He was going to do to me what he'd done to my mother. So... as he leaned in to take a blow, I jumped below him and stabbed the knife into his heart. Or what I thought was the heart. I think it might have been the artery just above it. You'd never think so much blood could come from one body..."

Cinna bites his lip. "He died within minutes. But that wasn't the worst part. When he collapsed and I met my sister's eyes was the worse. They were wide with fear... paralyzed. She knew what I had done. Then she ran away. Just left. I did too. I ignored my father's freshly laid corpse." He pauses for a moment, looking to his left. He didn't seem to look at any object in particular, just looking for excuses not to make eye contact. "We were taken to the orphanage. There I met and had a long-lived relationship with Andrasteia. Met Zhain there, too. Andra had become the predominant motherly figure in Zhain's life and I suppose in a way I began to become a fatherly figure. And he'd play with my little sister, Elisande, a lot. The two got along great. But then my sister and I were adopted by an elven couple that were nice enough. They were young, only around 100 though and not truly ready for children. After a year or two they had children of their own and Elis and I were pushed off to the side. So I moved out of there as soon as possible."

"I took my sister, too, of course." he continues after a slight pause. "Until she went M.I.A. about 6 years ago, during the Burning Crusade. All that was found of her was a heart shaped pendant that was given to her by Zhain." He finally turns to make eye contact, but he's quick to look away. "After three years of constant searching, I started hanging out with Zhain a lot more to mourn the suspected death of my sister. We spent most of our time together drunk or high with sleazy women, but it didn't last all that long. Ran out of money quick. Though Zhain was the first to stop. Not because he was out of money, but because he realized what he was doing to himself. I didn't care though. Then for years... until now I'd just sleep with random girls. But now that's beginning to loose its interest. I suppose now I'm a bit more interested in something long term. Someone to share my miserable life with, I guess."