Seth

Biography: Born to a priest and a gravedigger in an isolated town at the mouth of a cursed valley, Seth grew up reasonably carefree and quite confident that he’d follow in one of his parents’ footsteps. Unfortunately for him, a war broke out and the god who protected his village was killed, as was his whole family. With nothing but guilt left at home and nothing else to lose, Seth left Stoneolive and joined the company of a nearby god, becoming a foot soldier in a war he didn’t really understand. It never got more comprehensible as long as Seth fought, but it did get worse and worse, until Seth couldn’t take it any longer and embarked on a quest to end it once and for all, a quest that ended up taking a little longer than he thought it would.

Notes:


 * Seth didn’t know how to hold a sword when he joined the Crab Company. He learned as quickly as he could, but two weeks in was his first battle, and that was a better teacher than his trainers
 * In all his time in the Crab Company, Seth never asked who they were fighting against or why. He didn’t think it was that important
 * The only personal possession Seth had in the army was his collection of lucky stones. Just before each battle, he’d pick one up that felt right to him and add it to the others
 * Seth was extremely wary around spiders, having never met one before leaving home and having always been told that they were dangerous and untrustworthy. It wasn’t until he’d been in the Crab Company for a year and a company spider disobeyed orders to save his life that he changed his mind
 * After every terrible loss of life from his family’s deaths to disastrous battles, Seth thought he couldn’t be hurt anymore than he had been. He was wrong every time
 * Seth decided in the army that his friendships were more important than romantic relationships, so he tried to avoid having the latter by just never admitting how he felt about people he had feelings for
 * Seth never found out who exactly had attacked Stoneolive or why
 * Not wanting to talk about his family, Seth made up a different background for himself to tell people in the Crab Company. Aaron and Amy were the only ones he told the truth to
 * Seth had no aspirations to be promoted or put in a command position. He thought that if he were the one making decisions, he’d get people killed
 * Seth dreaded the peace summit at Thunder’s Falls, because he didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t be a soldier anymore

Quotes:


 * “Do you think we’re going to die?”
 * “If we know we’re going to die and we know we’re not going to win, how is it anything but giving up?”
 * “You’re buzzing. More than usual.”
 * “Time doesn’t work the way you think it does.”
 * “I knew…we knew this would…sorry, Aaron. I think I…love you too…”
 * “I’m nobody important.”
 * “I haven’t had sex in the entire history of civilization.”
 * “It’s hard. Watching things and not being able to change them.”
 * “You shouldn’t be able to use the Web to change the world from within the Web.”
 * “Sometimes the world just remembers things.”
 * “Going back in time takes a lot of time and I can’t really afford to sit here for five hundred years.”
 * “Bringing you to an orgy means good friendship, got it.”
 * “I…I can feel that.”

Trivia:


 * Seth left Stoneolive with just the clothes he was wearing, and until the end of the war never kept a spare set, just replacing his when it wore out and his friends’ became available
 * Seth was almost turned away from the Crab Company when they found out he was literate, because the recruiter thought he should do something else with his life
 * Like most boys in Stoneolive, Seth’s first sexual experience was with his father, who fucked him on his ninth birthday on the ritual altar in the town square as part of a ceremony to welcome him formally as a member of the community
 * Seth’s biggest fear was being alone; his favourite thing about the Crab Company was that he literally never was
 * Seth had a habit of choking on his food, especially olive pits
 * Almost whenever he felt like he couldn’t bear to care about anything, Seth would see something totally new to him and be struck by the beauty of the world
 * Seth had fairly frequent sex with his fellow soldiers during the war, though it was slightly less frequent than most other members of his unit, and never with the same person twice in a row
 * Seth used to have frequent dreams that he was a cat
 * Once during a battle, Seth was hit with magic and briefly sent to another battlefield where fire was raining down from the sky and people were using weapons he didn’t recognize. Aaron sent him back, but then claimed not to remember it later
 * When the Crab Company rested near a city, Seth, like many soldiers, sometimes hired prostitutes on his leave. Unbeknownst to him, he fathered two children this way
 * Most infantry in the Crab Company slept outdoors in warm climates. Seth had trouble sleeping if the moon was near full, and often lay awake staring at the sky all night

Modern AU: Modern Seth was a high school student who didn’t really know what to do with his life but was thinking of joining the army when he graduated because he had a sense it would lead to something meaningful. He played football but didn’t like it much, and liked literature a lot but wasn’t very good at it. During the rampage of Nathaniel Harkness in the early sixties, Seth was at the library with his best friend Aaron when a bomb went off, and his body was never recovered, despite witnesses being sure he hadn’t been in the part of the building that collapsed. Prior to going missing, Seth was also a collector of vinyl records and was learning to play bass guitar in the vain hope of convincing Aaron and Amy to start a band with him someday, and volunteered a lot of his time as an assistant coach at the local YMCA.