Description
Name: Teralo Winsler
Nickname: Teralo does not have a nickname per se. However his twin is very likely to call him any manner of names and so are several other people. One of his few friends calls him Tera, but thats just between the two of them
Age: 17
Hair: A very light blonde, from a distance it looks like a lighter version of the typical Winsler Hair. However ha few spots on his head have lost their pigment and so the light blond hair is made even lighter by natural white highlights.
Eyes: Unlike his brother's emerald green eyes, Teralo's eyes are a simple light brown. However this is considerably made up for by a fair amount of gold hidden beneath the brown. This gives his eyes a very atypical golden hue. A pair of rectangular spectacles rests on the bridge of Teralo's nose the vast majority of the time. He does not have terrible eyesight, but the spectacles are necessary to read easily, an activity that Teralo partakes in often.
Skin tone: Teralo's skin tone is...well lacking. Teralo has never been able to achieve the tan of his brothers or honestly of any hardworking man. He is pale, not sickly so and by no means unattractively, but still, the color leaves something to be desired.
Height: 5'8"
Build: Teralo slim and actually a little underweight. He is once again lacking in physical strength and while he does have a lean layer of muscle, it is mostly undeveloped.
Other aspects of your general appearance: Teralo surprisingly spends a lot of time on his hair. Though it looks a bit unkempt it's because he cuts it himself. While not outrageously so, his hair is fairly long which has led to more then a fair share of bullying by Jaime and his friends. His hands are smooth from lack of much use and his skin surprisingly soft. He is handsome in his own right, but he is not a warrior, he is not stunningly attractive like his brother and actually that's how Teralo likes it.
Personality
Likes: Teralo is known to be an avid reader of many books and a student of several fields of study. Though he rarely shows this, Teralo is a born natural at both military strategy and almost more importantly, political intrigue. One of his favorite activities is stargazing and solitary contemplation. He has filled up several notebooks with drawings and notes of observations made around him and of his studies.
Dislikes: To an extent it's fair to say that Teralo detests his twin brother Jaime to an extent but he hates fighting much more. Though trained in the use of the sword, he's frankly pretty useless with a sword as he does not have the stamina or muscle mass to survive for long in a battle. He does not like needless bloodshed or violence and has spoken out against his brother and father on these matters.
Fears: The one thing that Teralo fears the most is open warfare among the houses and his house marching to war against House Damain.
Skills/Talents: Teralo is more then an exceptional scholar and he far surpasses almost any sworn man to house Winsler in terms of military strategy. He also has a fair hand in political intrigue. Among other interests Teralo is a fair tinkerer and student of numerous skills including engineering, history, sciences, and one day wishes to become an inventor.
Weaknesses: As mentioned Teralo is fairly weak physically. He is simply not a fighter and his skills with the sword are so pathetic that a simple hedge knight could probably best him in combat.
General Personality: Teralo is a quiet, contemplative soul. He spends most of his time reading rather then socializing and has become a bit of a recluse. Despite this there are a few souls who can coax more then a few meager words out of him. Though he is normally very much in command of his emotions and words, it is possible to anger him, though he usually apologizes for yelling later. Teralo has been chided for being perhaps a bit too kind to common people and though the peasants look up to him, he is a bit of a disgrace among the noble community, this being only part of the reason.
History
Teralo has always been a thin, physical lacking individual. Frankly he was the exact opposite of his brother. This caused him to slip into the shadows of his brother's brilliance, the slightly ignored but not forgotten disgrace of a twin. In his early years he looked up to his father and twin brother and tried to emulate him but as the years went on his failures to be a good knight and warrior became more and more evident, Teralo fell from this future. He gave up and by doing so disgraced his family. He left the path of the sword and took up the quill and inkwell.
The death of his mother at the hands of a Damain assassin was difficult for Teralo to handle, even more so then his brother. Unlike Jaime, who had been in father's high standards and gaze, Teralo had very much been his mother's child and her death seemed to kill something in Teralo. He became depressed for about a year and would sometimes retreat into the Eyrie library for days on end, not even coming out to eat. He drowned his sorrows in books and study, a method that seemed to fill the hole in his chest had been left by his mother. Through his studies Teralo learned many things and to a certain extent became heavily influenced by ideas he read about. The hate that the Winsler Family has for the house Domain seemed to not be attached to the boy and more then once Teralo openly disobeyed and even fought his father on many occasions, not all of these being about house Domain. He became a bit of a disgrace to his father, if he could have gotten any lower in his father's eyes. Still he committed himself to his studies and is probably right now the most learned person in all of the Eyrie. This is also the probable reason why Teraso's father has not sent him away or rid of him in some other way.
One of the almost essential pillars to Teralo's life is a relationship he has with a young child, Emaya Harte. Emaya is a small child of 11 and probably the only person who Teralo truly cares for. Emaya's mother works in the kitchen as a servant and her father was a knight sworn to House Winsler. Sir Harte was slain trying to protect the Lady Winsler on the night of her death when Emaya was but a new born. Teralo did not discover her until five years later when she had gotten lost in an area of the castle she was not familiar with. Teralo had spent these last years all but locked in his room or the library in the Eyrie. It was by chance that the child found her way to the library when Teralo was reading in the room. It was this chance meeting that sparked a close relationship between the child and the young teen.
Since that meeting, it became a common appearance to find the young Emaya clinging around Teralo, it was looked down upon by many of the nobles but allowed as her presence seemed to reawaken a spark in Teralo. He labored to teach the young girl how to read and write and even took to schooling her to the best of his ability. Over the years, the friendship between Emaya and Teralo grew until the two spent a majority of their time together, Emaya becoming a sort of assistant to Teralo in his studies and work. The two were known to stay up late into the night studying together or simply reading together.
It was one of these nights a little over a year ago when something happened. The time was close to midnight and both Emaya and Teralo had been in the library reading. It was in the middle of summer and the night was hot, the windows had been thrown open to allow a cool breeze to circulate through the room. Teralo was lost in the bookshelves looking for a particular book volume on theories of dragons when Emaya's scream pierced the air. Teralo vaulted around the bookshelves to see an assassin climbing through the windows. There had been assassination attempts on his family's life but it was well known that assassins did not leave witnesses, which meant that Emaya was now a target. The assassin charged at the little girl a knife flowing into his hand. Teralo rushed in put an arm around the girl to pull her away from the assassin's swing but he was not fast enough. Though he pulled her away enough to stop the blade from killing her, the very tip of the knife entered Emaya's head and ripped downwards to leave a long gash running through the girl's left eye. Emaya screamed in pain as part of her eyesight went red and finally black before she succumbed to the pain unconscious. The wound was bleeding and her blood was leaking onto the floor, Teralo feared the worst and he tackled the assassin to the ground. A brief struggle ensured that ended with the assassin lying on the ground, a knife sprouting from his heart. Teralo rushed to Emaya and despite his relative weakness, the adrenaline rush allowed him to pick her up carefully into her arms and run through half the castle until waking the house doctor from his sleep.
Emaya would live, but the event would take the sight in her left eye, a fresh scar is still visible today, marred down her face. Teralo's father threw a feast for his son, thinking that finally his son would 'come to his senses' and learn to be a knight and hate House Damain. His father was equally shamed when Teralo never showed up for his own feast, deciding to instead stay beside Emaya as she recovered in her bed. He blames himself personally for this and though Emaya tells him not to and still has her same old sweet disposition, he still fears for her.
Emaya:
