Welcome back! I'm glad you decided to join me today, because I've been itching to get this character made, and brought to life on the page.
But while this character's history is quite interesting it is VERY important that I warn you; Some of you may find some parts of his history to be disturbing, as it does involve some quite violent domestic abuse.
I do not condone such things, and I do not intend it to be something interesting or even entertaining, but it is important to the character's background, and so must be included. Please forgive me if you are sensitive to such things, and feel free to skip this whole page or just those sections.
Wizards hold a rather special place in my heart. But not just wizards, but any character who is able to creatively bend or break the rules, who understands something so deeply, and puts so much effort in to be what they are. So this character Davin Quickly will probably incorporate a lot of the traits of some of the characters I love best from this field.
First let me list just a few of my favorites. Then I'll use the combo technique to flesh him out.
Gandalf, Albus Dumbledore, Edward Elric, Harry Dresden, Merlin, and Oz the Great and Powerful (both versions, but the original slightly better than the stoner version.)
But when taking the two characters I want to join together I think I'm going to list a couple of more realistic geniuses, because in this world magic has more in common with science than supernatural. The first one is going to be Will Hunting. I think it's important for a character to have a troubled past, and to hold their talent in less regard than others. Will found his mathematical talent fulfilling, and enjoyed putting it to use, but never understood why there was all the fuss, and just wanted to have a normal life, and normal relationships, but his history got in the way. I think that Davin will harbor some rather dire associations with his unusual ability.
The second genius I'll be using is Carl Sagan who viewed the Cosmos with a sense of wonder and awe that bordered on religious reverence. He understood astrophysics, and he was inspired by it, and wanted to share that feeling with others, to the point where he wrote books and had a whole TV show where he educated, not by giving facts and figures, but by demonstrating the beauty and depth of the subjects, and communicating the incredible sense of wonder that he so obviously felt.
So with that, I think I have enough to start creating the history of this young man.
Davin's parents didn't have the best relationship, but his mother Mabel Quickley thought that the best way to bring them together was to have his baby. This didn't have quite the intended effect however. When he found out she was pregnant Kenton Arrington had nearly decided to beat her again. But some rational part of his brain, spurred no doubt by his sense of self preservation gave reason to pause. She would survive the beating as she always had before, but perhaps the child wouldn't. And there were two reasons this might be important to him. First, the kid was his. Not in a loving caring parental way, oh no. But in a possessive way, like keeping a car you don't like or care about because you can't bear the concept of losing something that's yours, and to spite someone because you don't like them, not matter how much they offer.
Second, he had his retirement to think about. After all, he couldn't work forever, and he didn't have a pension. When he got older the kid would be good for a couple bucks here and there.
When Davin was born Mabel was so happy she asked Kent if they could finally get married. He responded by breaking her leg.
Davin's life would be marked by violence of this sort for nearly all his life. When he discovered in Kindergarten that he could do magic, he didn't tell anyone, least of all Kent. But his father knew he was hiding something, and beat him, as always, on the body where no one would see the marks. None of the teachers ever asked why Davin always wore long sleeves in class, even in the warmest weather.
Then in the second grade came the day that would change the course of his life forever. The Wizard came to his class as a special guest.
It was common in those days for members of the community to come into the class and give a presentation. They'd already had the policeman, the fireman, a preacher, a couple of business owners, a lawyer, a former astronaut who was raised in their town, and had retired there, and several others.
But the Wizard had actually showed them how to do magic. The task was to draw the heat energy from a glass of room temperature water, to make it cold. It required very little in the way of concentration, and nobody was expected to succeed in lowering the temperature by more than a few degrees. But for Davin the little thermometer simply continued to drop and drop until the water froze so suddenly that the glass it was in shattered as it expanded.
A short time later Davin was sitting in the teachers lounge with his teacher and the Wizard. His mother had been called, and was on her way. The teacher and the Wizard were looking excited, but Davin was crying. They tried to console him explaining how the university had a special scholarship and tutors to help teach children who were found to have the mental potential to become Wizards. The Wizard was very interested as he had never seen any child below 5th grade who could do more than cool the water slightly by a few degrees.
But Davin was more worried how his father would react. He never seemed to take things like this as good news. Every time Davin brought home a pet, or a note from the teacher, or anything like that, things would be bad for him. And the kids would tease, and he would have to fight them again.
But in this case, nothing happened. Kent acted positively happy about it. He encouraged Davin and in fact tried to call the Wizard using the number they had for him, but it was too late at that time. Davin was in shock. He had never known his father to act like this for anything.
But Kent had the impression that wizards could turn lead into gold, and water into wine, and coal into diamonds. So the beatings on Davin stopped.
But they soon resumed on his mother. Davin had no idea of course, and enjoyed a brief period in his life where things were almost happy.
He had to fight the other kids who saw his using magic as a sign of weakness, something nerdy and geeky. He had started fighting back but mostly that just made the other kids laugh. Kent was disgusted, but also a little worried about losing his precious magical meal ticket, so he began to teach Davin how to fight. Not boxing, not martial arts, but backroom, back alley fighting, the kind people use to fight for their lives. And dirty fighting.
Davin didn't want to learn this stuff, but Kent would goad him and push him till he lost his temper, and tried to hit him. But at that young age, seven or eight, he couldn't hurt the older man. But continuously trying made him got him used to throwing punches.
When the kids tried to fight him he knocked some of the teeth out of the leader. He was suspended for a week, and he threw up in the bathroom for twenty minutes, crying. But when Kent saw him he just just nodded in satisfaction.
Occasionally the boys would try again, but the more they tried the more Davin resisted. But the more he hated himself.
Meanwhile, though his tutors were concerned about his injuries, they were delighted at his ability to learn the concepts of magic so quickly and readily, and the more they taught him the quicker he absorbed it, often arriving at obscure conclusions on his own faster than they could explain how to arrive at those conclusions the long way, doing the math. He also had to learn chemisty, biology and physics in order to understand the forces that he would need to control. He took longer to grasp those concepts, often struggling with things like Newton's Laws, or Thermodynamics or Acid-Base reactions and why they happened or Atomic Structure, but once he began to understand those concepts, he saw how they fitted as pieces in the puzzle, and how the forces could be manipulated.
But it was when he wrote the assigned papers that his tutors began to appreciate his level of understanding, as well as his ability to communicate his understanding, using complicated, and obscure simile and metaphor, that were nonetheless accurate. The papers began to circulate, and before long he was offered a fellowship to a prestigious university, and a job working as a Teaching Assistant to help him pay for room and board.
And this was when his was fifteen, though the offer was to become available once he had finished High School.
But then it happened.
He was walking into his parents room to ask his mother something, while she was changing her shirt. She quickly tried to hide it, but he saw the numerous bruises, and bruises on top of bruises, and places where it looked like ribs were out of place, as though they had been broken, and never healed properly before being broken again.
And something broke. He had always been shy, unassuming, friendly, and mostly peaceful, only defending himself against the other boys who tried to beat him. But now he felt anger rising up like nothing he had ever felt before, and he wanted to attack his father.
And he tried. He'd grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and went after Kent who was watching football in his favorite easy chair. Kent saw him coming though and handily stopped his son's attack, making him feel helpless and ashamed. But he tried again. But over and over Kent stopped him. Finally without thinking Davin reached for the magic. Without consciously realizing what he was doing or how he had sent a lightning bolt, a fairly mild one, but strong enough, lancing into the baseball bat which his father had wrested from him in the fight.
It knocked him down, and stopped his heart.
Horrified at what he had done, Davin started CPR while his mother called 911. When the paramedics arrived they told them that he must have touched the bat to some bare wires on the lamp which had been busted in the fight. They were able to revive Kent, who had to stay in the hospital for a few days, but was otherwise, fine, though wary of his son from that day forward. Not so much respectful as cautious. But he never laid a hand on Mabel again.
But the damage had been done. Davin had now grown fearful of his prodigious abilities, and swore never to use them, instead depending on his wizardly teachings, which were strictly controlled by him, and by his own concentration.
The rest of high school passed with little incident, and when he left for college in his beat up little Honda his mother waved him off tearfully, while his father just stared with cold, calculating eyes as he sat on the porch.
His time in college was much like his time at high school after the incident. He was contented to be introverted, and had only a few friends, none of them very close. He had grown afraid to be around people, who, except for this mother, had never treated him very well.
He was well liked by the classes that he help Professor Hildebrand with, often silently correcting mistakes in formulae on the overhead projector while the professor wasn't looking.
Then one day Professor Hildebrand took a short leave of absence in the middle of the school year, leaving the course to Davin for the duration of his leave. When someone called to get assistance from the Professor one day, it was Davin who answered the phone.
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And there you go. For me, this was both one of the easiest, and yet most difficult things I think I've ever written. I'm not a big fan of domestic violence, even fictional, but it happens. And people arrive from the swamps of that viciousness, and find that they have become stronger, or weaker from the experience. I think Davin will turn out to be stronger for it, but will still struggle with it as well.
Okay, I feel a bit drained after writing that one. I was hoping to start on another one tonight, so I would be ahead for tomorrow, but I don't think that's going to happen now. This just took so much out of me emotionally. I'll be curious to see if it garners any responses.
So on that note, comments and suggestions are welcomed, let me know if it's good, or if it's gone too far.
And thanks for reading!
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