#anders malthier

[ruinationrp-blog]

CORPORAL ANDERS “WARDOG” MALTHIER · 27 · TANK GUNNER · SHADOWED COMMANDO · TAKEN

"I’m afraid of the rain, because I sometimes see me dead in it.”

ORIGIN:

Haworth, England

TRAITS:

+ Decorous, Compassionate, Dogged

- Penitent, Insecure, Repressed

BIOGRAPHY:

THERE IS A WAR OUTSIDE, COME SEE THE BULLETS FLY.

Anders Evelyn Malthier was born to an Earl and a Countess at the dawn of a cool autumn. Predestined to become the family’s reigning patriarch upon his father’s passing, his birth and his tireless grooming were both long-awaited tasks. It was the reason Etta Geld had wed Alek Malthier (a loveless union born of self-sacrifice), and it was a reason to believe that a diminishing line of great nobility would continue to prosper. The afternoon his mother dropped a handful of agrimony and buttercups to the white, polished stone of the Abbey’s garden path, she was rushed promptly to her bedchambers with great fanfare. The labour was long and perilous, but in the end, the Malthier line was born a son. His mother, however, did not survive. Her thighs slick with blood, and her pale hair damp with sweat, she died in a fit of eclampsia with her son cooing in her arms.

Growing up on the estate with tutors and servants was isolating, even with two older sisters that fawned over him. It was the pressure put on Anders to mingle with other great families of prestige that was decidedly paralyzing. It didn’t help that his father was a harsh man, bred of the same expectations, who never smiled and could not bring himself to spare his son fond words or affections. He was, however, very involved in his son’s social affairs, taking great pains to ensure that the last living heir of the Malthier family was well-received by English society. Because of this constant charade, Anders cultivated a resentment for his father even at a very tender age.

In the midst of all of the pageantry and the etiquette, his studies were what made his life bearable. In the Abbey’s well-manicured gardens, and in the cramped, musty corners of the family library, Anders was taught of the great wars won by his ancestors, of the accomplishments of decorated men whose blood lived on in his veins. His tutor, Ira Crawley, a crooked old man with a wisp of white hair, offered some reprieve from the suffocating expectations that loomed over him. As strict and intelligent as he was, he was also kind and nurturing. Anders soaked it up as much as he could.

Over time, Alek began to blame his son for his wife’s death, accusing him of sapping the Malthier line of its heirs. Though Alek sought another wife himself amongst the tight-knit circle of pampered duchesses and countesses, his proposals were always turned down in lieu of a better suitor with brighter prospects. It was no secret that Worthing Abbey was quickly running out of money after a string of Lord Malthier’s bad investments. So, Anders carried the weight of his family’s survival on his shoulders, and did his best not to buckle under the pressure. He escaped into his studies, and found that a great love of literature and history lived within him. He even began to draft stories of his own, but this was kept intensely private; his father had made it known he believed the art of prose should remain a craft of the fairer sex. 

As Anders grew into a young man, his prospects began to grow. Though he’d never been able to overcome his intense and pensive nature, age was kind to his appearance. Mis-matched eyes weren’t so troubling when accompanied with a mane of blonde hair, and a strong, square jaw. It was also his involvement with the British Army that poised him as a more eligible suitor, and though his father’s name carried him up the ranks with velocity, he seemed to do well in the stiff constraints of military life on his own. It seemed no less suffocating than his life at the Abbey.

Unfortunately, his meteoric rise on the radar of high society (along with the positive attention he had earned from his father) was halted when John Fairley, his father’s new valet, and his family moved into the neighbouring village of Hathorn. He had brought along his wife Ivy, and, to Anders’ looming detriment, their son Vincent (a young and enthusiastic motorist). At first, their lingering glances were enough, but it didn’t take long before innocent driving lessons evolved into secret trysts, and eventually, a dangerous love affair. Their plot to run away together was spoiled when Anders’ father caught them in a room at the Hathorn Inn, coiled in one another’s arms.

Not only had he killed his mother, but his perversion would end the Malthier family’s future and reputation forever.

The valet was promptly dismissed, and he and his family were asked to leave without even a recommendation of character. The following day, Anders’ arranged marriage was finalized to Mary O’Ahaern, the eldest daughter of an Irish Duke — a woman five years older than him whom he had met only once. Anders found her to be soft and willowy and kind, and thought her raven-black hair and pale, green eyes remarkable. Though he had nothing ill to say of her, he was unable to reciprocate her intimate touches, her soft, wanting gazes. His heart and his dreams had been torn away from him, and what was left had turned bitter on his tongue.

The eve before they were to be wed, Britain declared war on Germany.

DO YOU HEAR THE BATTLE CRY?

Alek Malthier did his best to ensure his only male heir was given a safe, and comfortable assignment. He pulled his threadbare strings, and shared cigars and brandy with the right men to ensure that Anders didn’t end up with the conscripts, and the low-born company men. But war proved a great equalizer among the classes, especially during a drought of young men, and Anders welcomed the fray like it was his only way out of his oppressive obligations at home. A way out of life, in general. Even though death and blood awaited him on the sodden fields of battle, that somehow seemed less complex than the webs of intrigue he’d escaped at the Abbey.

There was a symphony to be found in the hail of gunfire for Anders, the bleak plight of war in the face of such opposition calling to his romantic heart. He followed it into enemy territory with a grim determination. He had been beaten into subservience for so long, and now, he was feeling the tingle of waking limbs. Though he didn’t write letters home, he was constantly with a pen and paper, transcribing the horrific things he saw, indulging in the panic and fear that lived within him, and roared in the eyes of his fellow soldiers. He chased that feeling all the way to France where he and his platoon were separated by a mortar’s beastly blast. He awoke hours later to the sent of burning flesh and the sweet sting of shrapnel telling him he had survived. 

For two days, he languished in those wood, skirting the shadows, hiding from the thrum of approaching tanks and sweeping phalanxes of enemy troops; their marching seemed quicker and more earnest than the beating of his own heart. At the end of his second day, he faced the very real possibility that he would die there with a festering bullet so deep in his shoulder the stench of it turned his stomach inside out. Lifting his gun any higher than his waist had become a chore. It was decidedly terrible luck that his meandering through the thicketed countryside landed him in sight of a skirmish on a winding country road. He found himself behind a troop of German soldiers surrounding a scorched peasant’s house, and taunting whoever resided within. It was clear to Anders that he could either go out fighting, and take some krauts with him, or he could drag himself back into the safe bounds of the woodlands and die like a wounded dog. 

So, he took cover behind a stack of dry-rotted fence posts, and launched his last Mills bomb at them. The single, desperate (or stupid, depending who you talk to) act instigated a four hour long stand-off between him, three American soldiers sequestered inside the house, and 18 staunch and bloodthirsty Nazis. Somehow, they survived.

Despite his youth and up-bringing, this feat got him attention, and landed him in the Shadowed Commandos — under the pretense that he was simply filling in the empty seat of a deceased tank gunner. He’s determined to prove himself, or die trying.

FACECLAIM: Dominic Sherwood