#the adopted (and only surviving) child of legatus charon mercar in ventus.

[rangerdoubt]

a second rook has hit the auden.

god help me

[soleminisanction]

Pawn Promotion - Tacitus Mercar Elf Rogue Shadow Dragon, Trans Male, he/him

There's no place for infants on the battlefield. Legatus Charon Mercar knew that without a doubt, and it didn't matter to him that the child in question came with pointed ears. When no Dalish could be found among the survivors and the human wetnurses refused to suckle an elven babe, he brought the infant home to his wife, who was seven months pregnant with their second child. Or rather, now, their third.

For the first twelve years of their lives, the family regarded their newest additions as sisters, even as their human neighbors perceived the elven foundling to be more like a toy -- that is, a servant Charon had brought home to give his little princess someone to practice bossing around. That status quo only changed around their thirteenth year, when Tacitus Mercar figured out that he was actually a boy and started the process of living that way, taking on his new name at the suggestion of his adopted father.

Charon also used this opportunity to begin giving Tacitus an at-home version of the same military education his older brother had received. Only enslaved elves serve in the Tevinter army, with any free comrades looking to join out of desperation being forced to sell themselves into the ranks, so official training was out of the question; still, Charon hoped the guidance and instruction of home tutors would help temper the boy's simmering anger. It had seemed to bubble within him at all times since he first began to realize how and why he was treated differently from the rest of his family, and justified though it may be, it would cost him his life if he didn't learn to control it.

Depending on who you ask when, the training either came in handy or backfired around the time Tacitus was 18, right about to come of age. See, his sister Vesta had turned out to be mage, which got her bumped up to the Lataen class and attracted a small host of would-be suitors from the ranks of Charon's subordinates, who saw her as an easy ticket up the social ladder. When she returned on a break from her studies at the Minrathous Circle and word got out that she'd found a girl she wanted to marry while she was there, those would-be suitors got mad.

With a bit of nepotism, they arranged for Charon and his eldest son, Marcus, to be called away for a weeks-long stint of border patrol, giving several dozen of Vesta's jilted suitors the opportunity to invade the Mercar estate in Ventus and refuse to leave, trapping Tacitus, his mother, and his sister inside.

For weeks, the would-be suitors kept the family locked in their own home, trying to pressure either Vesta into agreeing to marry one of them, or her mother into making the arrangement against her will. Tacitus, meanwhile, alternated between being ignored completely or being used as a verbal punching bag whenever the frustrated invaders needed someone to bully.

Eventually, when they feared Charon and Marcus were soon to return with reinforcements, the would-be suitors made the desperate move of ganging up on Tacitus in the courtyard, goading him into a fight he had no hope of winning while making Vesta watch, trying to pressure her into making a deal to save him. It backfired spectacularly. By the time his father and brother arrived, Tacitus had slaughtered four of the invaders in a fury so intense it sent the rest running in fear even as the terror himself collapsed from his wounds.

The incident nearly killed him, in more ways than one. While Tas ultimately survived his injuries, the men he'd killed had been either military officers or their sons, and the Imperium courts would have no mercy to grant a ""proven elven savage."" The only way the Mercars could help their adopted child was to smuggle him into Minrathous, where friends of the family could help him disappear into the city streets.

Unable to return to Ventus, Tacitus built a new life for himself in Minrathous, keeping to the shadows and out of sight, though his sense of right and wrong wouldn't let him stand by when he saw someone with a problem he could help with. That inherent desire to see the world made into a better, more just place eventually brought him into the fold of a nascent rebellion group called the Shadow Dragons...