A burly looking man, one whose mass seems to have diminished with over the years. With the body of a friesian, he should be more filled out but sleepless nights and anxiety keep him from ever regaining the body he once had when younger. Deep, chocolate eyes have hidden scars while his body has visible ones.

Through the combination of both, it is easy to see in both that he has a long story.

A midnight black coat is no longer as menacing as before. Age is catching up and has caused grey to appear on his face and beginning at his fetlocks, going so far as to even appear on the small feathering there.

His mane is unruly and tangled (unkept, for he could care less), adorned with trinkets from companions long gone. Meanwhile, his tail is trimmed short to keep it from getting caught on anything (something that was not done by himself, at the suggestion of someone meant to be a gentle guardian). Grey hair can be seen in both areas.

Once an intimidating and hardened man, he is now simply a worn and weary fellow. He carries the scars of his sins only over the front of his body and will forever. None, however, are as notable as two that run parallel under his left eye.

A long life filled to the brim with one tragedy after another has taken its toll. From the very start, he had always been a boy of gentle disposition.

However, he has the capability of being something more. Something more than just a simple man who tends to stick to himself and bumble about as if he does not understand how one interacts with another being.

Equal parts man and brute, the past few years have tamed the beast that he once was.

She has tamed the animal, and shown him how to live.

Plagued with post-traumatic stress disorder, he is but a man that tries to avoid as many scenarios that might expose him to the triggers that no longer have as strong a hold on him as they once did.

He can now look at snow-white skin, lip at peeking freckles, bear the crunch of a leaf or even a stick beneath his hoof.

Blood, however, is still an issue.

For much of his life he was but a mere loner, and while time and distance separate him from who he was then, he is still reserved and hesitant to approach others. He understands better now what it is like to co-exist with another, and yet he still remains as unintrusive as possible.

Selfless (for he believes himself unworthy of much) he willingly bares his heart for those that he loves. Although, it takes time to become such a thing. Once one is, however, he readily protects and shelters.

Through the darkest storms, the harshest of winters, he will be a constant structure that takes blow after blow. A structure that is capable of withstanding much, its weapons have been left unused for many years.

Now, however... things might be different.

There was once a small boy, without a mother or father. He looked like his father, though, that much his grandmother knew, and she looked down at him with such unwavering love but the crow's feet around her eyes were deep, and her body was weathered.

She had lived her life—she would make sure he could live his before she was gone.

When the time came, however, when her body grew colder, the little boy could do nothing but feel the heat of her draining into the cold cave floor. He cowered in fear as the moonlight lit up the world outside the cave. Burrowing his small body closer to hers, he tries to will it all away.

To will himself away.

That was not to be his fate, however, for a voice -deep, but no less caring- draws close, and skin touches his protruding bones and stretched skin. He was jolted from his lethargic state but cannot think of moving from the safety given by his grandmother's body.

'It's alright, come on, little one.' The deeper voice rumbles near his small ears. Unable to put up much of a fight, he is powerless and gives into the gentle nudges, rising on thin legs that wobble. He is soon lead gently into the warm touch of another figure, one whose voice is like the tinkling of chimes. A smile is directed at him from above.

'Hello, darling. Let's get you somewhere safe.'

He feels warm for the first time in what feels like months. The small boy is lead away from the cave, and it is then he becomes part of a new family.

His new family - his new everything.

He found gentle guidance in the presence of his adoptive father, David. Found warm kisses in the company of his adoptive mother, Anna. And then he found a blooming heart in the friendship forming with his adoptive sister, Tawala.

But, it seems his heart grew too big.

His heart fought against his mind, and the consequences of his heart's victory were anything but good. When adulthood came, all that he knew and cared for turned to ruin.

'Monster' she had called him, snarling and scratching before he had even stepped a foot near her. 'Get away from me' she had growled before swiping at him one last time and leaving a lasting cut under his left eye.

They haven't seen each other since, and Tawala will never know of the monster he really became.

Calyndar knew nothing of monsters though; he never knew that, very soon, he would become on.

Another man, however, -named Satanael- knew though. That man found the young man and saw an opportunity. His words were honey-sweet in their taste and sticky in how they stuck inside of the young man's mind.

Soon enough, everything the older man said became right—became the truth.

A dark wood soon became the fortress in which mentor and apprentice lived. It is there -while listening to the sugary sweet words of a black stallion with glowing yellow eyes- a young man become an infamous figure.

No matter the pain inflicted upon his person for incidents that Satanael manipulated into looking like mistakes, the young man remained.

There was nowhere else to go, after all.

Years passed, and Calyndar had become what Satanael said he could; reached a potential that Satanael said he had helped the man realize and hone into a sharp blade. It was another beginning. One that the young man hoped had a better end.

All it took for this perfectly crafted world to unravel, though, was a glimpse of white.

Her appearance was unexpected. A canvas of light broken into pieces by the trunks of trees, their meeting was less than ideal. He had fresh blood on him, while she didn't have a single blemish on her skin.

She seemed like an idol one should worship, and safe from the savage that he had become, for he never dared to take a step closer to her from where she stood past the treeline of the woods.

That had been that, and he had foolishly assumed that would be it, but she appeared again. Closer now, and asking for the brute to expose himself.

'Come out,' she had gently called, and he had been powerless to resist her.

Perfect, despite being tangled in her own web of troubles that kept her tethered down to another she didn't love, she had stood there and stared at him, a man who wore scars and bloodstains like a gentle coat.

Calyndar doesn't know if she was ever scared of him—never got the chance to ask, really. Perhaps, it was for the best.

However, Karishia had never been scared of much. That had been one of the many things he had loved about her—that fearlessness. Foolish fearlessness.

A forbidden romance. That is what it had been. Between a man and woman who both craved the other so much that each night they parted it felt as if teeth of the hounds he ran beside drove into his heart each time. With each secret meeting, each gentle word, the head of the beast turned more towards the guiding light that was her.

She became his anchor in the roaring sea, his saving grace, his lifeline. He confided in her, and she in him. They wanted despite the world around them telling them they couldn't have. Then, finally, despite his self-preservation telling him it was unwise, he found himself willing to betray the man who had been everything to him, once.

The plan had been simple. Easy. Satanael did not give up those he called his so easily, though. Calyndar's escape was not without consequence. Sweeping her out from beneath him, Calyndar's once mentor kidnapped the one who sought to take him away—at the behest of her domineering lover who had known of Kirishia's nightly escapades.

By some unworldly will or grace, Calyndar managed to get Kirishia out. To mark the occasion, a new scar rested below the one he had received from Tawala years prior.

Their newfound freedom had been grand, but years of abuse and manipulation was not so easily left behind. It was all so new, so unfamiliar that Calyndar soon began to miss the place he had called home for so long. He knew that place, beneath an iron-clad grip with chains around each leg, was not home, but after years of knowing only one thing, it wasn't easy to give it up.

The doubts and guilt for his past deeds began to creep in, too. Karishia did her best, soothed his worries as much as she could, but what eats away at a man is not so easily beaten when the man is weak, such as he.

Killer, murderer, betrayer—he soon began to believe he could never provide for the one he loved as he wished.

Depressive thoughts grew stronger, so much so that they would pull away at his mind entirely. As a result, while Karishia and he had been walking, they soon became separated. It was hours before he even realized that she was no longer in front of him.

Alone for the first time in years. For some, when they are on their own for extended periods of time, their minds begin to betray them. It begins playing against them and digging into dark corners. In the beginning, he was capable of managing it, but then the flashbacks began to get worse, leaving him immobile and in fear, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon, he feared he wouldn't last much longer.

It was beyond terrifying but, luckily, he met the crows. Two blackbirds whose names he never learned, and who never learned his in return. Their companionship was slow to come to fruition, but it was useless to fight the bond that slowly formed between him and the pair. They kept the flashbacks away, pecking him when symptoms of an episode began to show. As time passed, Calyndar slowly grew better, although he would never be able to fully overcome what ailed him. The crows remained with him, leaving when certain the man would be well. They always returned, though, discarding trinkets into his mane as symbols of their affection with each return.

However, one day came when the pair never returned; the birds never came to the spot they'd said they would meet their chosen companion at. What happened to the pair, he does not know, but he holds no anger towards them. How could he, when they helped him and loved him so strongly?

He left after waiting a week, the trinkets in his mane swaying with his hair as he disappeared.

No place was different from the other. Not until he stumbled into the Celestial Passage, that is. Alone and adrift, he found a brief purpose here, for in the Passage is where he met a woman named Edda.

Blind, with white skin that he didn't dare to look at once, he helped her find her way through the trees of the Passage and to the land that lay beyond it.

She was a kind woman, someone he knew nothing about and someone who knew that the man that escorted her had the blood of many on his hands. Despite having only just met her, he was quick to become protective of the small woman. However, when the time came, he did nothing more than see her off, even if the worry he felt for her in the back of his mind ate away at him.

Then, with the wolves eating away and an old simmering flare of ire coming to life, he made a decision. Into the den of his demons he went, fighting the flashing memories as he marched to the shrine of Hemanta in a daze.

He knew he could not overcome things on his own, so he sought to find help. Blessed with a task, he soon found and came to tame the little fox that soon became Flynn. The fiery coated canine became his anchor, like Karishia and the crows before him. It would be different this time, however, for Calyndar was determined to keep Flynn safe and help himself get better no matter what.

He continued to try and get better with Flynn at his side, caught off guard one day when confronted by the searing white of Edda. Speaking of a dream that showed her her own lost companion, she had decided she was off to search. She was determined and unwilling to waver. He understood, knowing just how it felt to lose such a bond.

Still carrying that worry for her, he followed.

Acting as her unofficial guard, he did not sway in his task of looking over her as she blindly led the way, following a trail of visions that only she was privy to.

These vision led the trio to a place he never came to know the name of. A beach hidden beneath the fog, with blackened sand and waves wishing to engulf the world, Edda had run ahead. Despite Calyndar's mind screaming for some respite, he followed the woman's lead until Edda had Grim with her once more.

And so the woman finally saw the face of the beast that accompanied her. Saw him, just as Kirishia once had, and didn't fear.

Didn't fear and actually called for him as an episode fought to pierce his mind. It was the first time Edda saw just how weak he truly was; saw something he never wanted anyone to see.

No matter the shame he felt, he was still tethered to the small woman. She was all he knew in this new place, and when the day came that he finally strayed too far, Flynn paid the price.

Another with a coat stretched out thin, as if wearing another's skin that was a size too small, harmed the small fox in a way Calyndar had never seen before. Ripping and shredded the once pristine red coat, staining it darker with blood, Calyndar had had no other option but to flee with Flynn hanging from his mouth.

The wolves of his own creation laughed the entire time in his mind. Laughed as he sought out Edda, Flynn whimpering. Laughed as the world beneath his feet cracked beneath him and darkness ate away at them.

From the depths of the sea he emerged, Flynn safely held close before man and fox received help. Where Edda was, where he was, he did not know. He only knew he was somewhere new.

Somewhere he did not want to be.

Without Edda there to act as his anchor in the raging storm (for that is what she had slowly come to be—that and more) he was left to navigate a world on his own once more. And so, on the land of Sovereign, he did his best to pilot his way through this place.

Did his best to overcome the lingering beasts that inhabited his mind, and to care for Flynn as the fox still recovered from the recent harm placed upon him.

However, the ache that rested just behind his heart, that worry for the small woman that had come to mean more than he had realized, persisted and trailed after him the entire time.

It tracked and followed, through the snow that laid in the northern mountains of the island, all the way to the port he found himself back in once true darkness fell upon the land.

It chased and watched, even as fox and man fell victim to the dark depths once more.

No matter each swift bite, he was never prepared. Thankfully, the world was still willing to be kind to a man such as him. It saw fit to allow him to still have Flynn at his side as he fell upon the dreary shore's of Edana.

It saw fit to reunite him with her.

No matter the pain, the terrors, the uncertainties, he found himself grateful to fall into her lovely grace; to be within her presence once more.

She came to tame him, to cradle his heart and hold all that he was. She was his shepherd, the one he followed diligently and gave all that he could to. Owning nothing more than blood and scars, composed of a mind worth little—he gave it all to her.

It is in this place, one which he did not know was doomed like the others, that he found hope.

Hope in the form of a small child and mother; in his son and beloved. Eirlys was everything and more—Edda was everything and more.

It was too good to last, though. His family was too good to last.

All came to ruin once more, and what glimmer of happiness he had gleaned was left destroyed as he screamed himself hoarse at the sight of their precious child being ripped away; at Edda being ripped away.

Leaving behind nothing but a man that is all alone.

Before this fiery-colored little fox, there had been the two crows. Since this little red splash of paint, however, there has been no other. No other that was there to keep the memories away, or to keep the wolves at bay.

Where Flynn has gone, Calyndar does not know. But, oh, how he wishes he did—

How Calyndar fears he won't be able to pull himself out of the darkness that nips at his heels.

Spread throughout Calyndar's mane are several trinkets. All gifted to him by a pair of crows that used to keep him company and return to his side after days of being away.

They are precious baubles, each one important, but the most noticeable ones are the bolt that rest, knotted, in his forelock. And the red ribbon that is tied into his mane.