SELWIK, kaleb dwyn

[kaleb]

i'm gonna break this rusty cage and run

KALEB DWYN SELWIK
n/a. 25. male. gaaaaay. werewolf. neutral. sarah.

I'M MADE OF BONES OF THE BRANCHES THE BOUGHS AND THE BROW-BEATING LIGHT

To talk about Kaleb you have to talk about the Selwik family. Born and bred from the bronze age in the wind and sea-battered Orkney Islands. The northernmost point of the United Kingdom, former dismal and grey hub of destruction for the main-landers, where the vikings would horde their plunder and use as an outpost before they barreled to the western shore. The Selwik family, planted firmly as the only inhabitants of the island of Gairsay, have maintained and existed on those lands since they came as ancient Northmen and settled the island. Though they've lived contentedly and spent much time as a family among the other Orkney locals, anyone can tell you it's not safe to go to Gairsay, if you don't know the family. The Selwiks are feral, territorial, and cursed. It's well known, it's not questioned no matter what era it is. When the family were vikings they were technically berserkers, but were well known to the mainland Celts and Picts as vargr or wargs. On the evening of the full moon, if a tribe was difficult and put up a fight for the viking kings and leaders that the Selwiks were loyal to, they'd take a ship out and set themselves on the tribe before the change, destroy everything and make an easy conquest of the entire situation. Even now, in the modern era, a local might argue that somewhere deep in their blood, the other islanders have a knee-jerk recognition and fear of what used to be a brood of viking killing machines. Or it could just be the instinctive fear of a predator hiding nearby. For as long as they've been a family, the Selwiks have been werewolves. Generations of an unbroken pack. They've stayed on the island for so many years so they don't hurt the other locals on full moons. It just makes sense.

WHILE MY FEET ARE THE TRUNKS AND MY HEAD IS THE CANOPY HIGH

After what's been said, it might be easy to imagine the Selwiks as a backwoods gang of Scottish hillbilly goons. But the fact of the matter is that the Selwiks have adapted to remain secure as the ways of life have changed around the world. Kaleb's family have forced themselves to be industrious and strong. Their security hinges on affluence nowadays, what with all the satellites and google vans taking pictures of everything. The best and brightest are sent off to make things of themselves as early as possible, and given all the amenities to both conceal their secret and lead full and capable lives. Kaleb's life is chalk full of rich executive cousins, prodigy nieces and nephews, and he's never been an exception. Kaleb's appearance might suggest that he's not as bright as he is, being 6'5'and built like an ox, but Kaleb has always been at the forefront of his classes. He's sought out opportunity like a bloodhound, and has dreams of climbing the ranks in the PR field. Which is why he moved out of Orkney, and managed to get himself a job as an intern at one of the most prominent PR firms in the country. For the most part, Kaleb misses Orkney, but as anyone with siblings'll tell you, you're likely to go a bit nuts if you're left with nothing but just family around. The only thing that Kaleb really dislikes about urban living is that he can't run around the island on full moons with his family anymore. He keeps himself locked up in a reinforced apartment separate from his own and across town. All of the Selwiks have similar measures. Usually going through a supernatural construction company to reinforce the rooms and make it impossible to get out without human intellect. Usually there's pretty heavy duty restraints and chains to be installed as well. The typical excuse has always been weird sexual preferences, and it works too. But such is the life of the urban werewolf.

AND MY FINGERS EXTEND TO THE LEAVES IN THE EAVES AND THE BRIGHT BRIGHTER SHINE

There are a lot of things that are liberating for Kaleb about being away from his family. Like, as one might expect, being cut off from the world for however number of years tends to make people set in their ways, and a bit messed when looked in on by a third party. The Selwiks, hearty and isolated as they are, tend to run a bit more conservative and always have more pull over their children than one might see in a normal family. As one of the oldest and proudest werewolf clans, the Selwiks are interestedin continuing their line by any means necessary. They generally seek out other werewolf families to marry their children off to should they not find a werewolf on their own. They also have some core values that haven't really changed over the years. Kaleb's really taken to the city, in a way his parents wouldn't really be cool with exactly. At twenty five as far as they know he's never had a girlfriend, which is problem enough because the Selwiks like to see their kids starting families around his age. He tells them virtually nothing that's not work related about his life in the city, and he's cut a lot of his family out of his social networking so very few people know what he's doing, and even less are willing to talk all that much about it. It's all for one simple reason. Kaleb is gay as a stick. Homosexuality, while not morally bad to the Selwiks, is biologically bad. The family line does not stay strong if the children don't breed. Gay means no grandchildren, or at the very least no werewolf grandchildren without a lot more effort. Gay means there's more gay in the family they don't know about, and weak sham relationships. Gay cannot happen. Gay is not allowed. But gay is what Kaleb is, and as far as he knows he's never taking it to his parents. Which has turned into a bad situation for him, really bad. As soon as he knew he was different, Kaleb knew that he'd never tell his parents about his lovelife or anything else that might relate to it. He also knew that that would probably lead them to arranging something for him with another werewolf one day. It did. Playing the role of the dutiful son has always been hard, but this has made it a million times worse. How he expects to get out of it, he doesn't know.

IT'S MY SHINE

In a perfect world, Kaleb'd probably live in Glasgow or something, and everything would be readily available, and he could balance his preferences with the wants and needs of his family. But he doesn't live in a perfect world, the hell he goes through once a month is a perfect example of why. That's how Kaleb is. He bends his head and makes due, and soldiers through the muck to get what he feels he deserves. He isn't outwardly loud or brash, but he manages to get his way regardless, which gives him faith that he'll be able to get out of the marriage if he tries. He can be a bit of a weasel, but the bottom line for him is that charm is a stronger weapon than fists. Not that he can't use those too. Kaleb's ultimate goal is to achieve ultimate security and chill in his life, which is continually impeded by things that pop up in his life. But that's everyone's story. He's gonna keep soldiering on, and see how many more obstacles he can run into.

app by kel <3

rp sample

A tropical storm had swept in and rained down on Avalon like a giant water balloon dropping from the sky. It was sudden, fast, and harder than the weather forecasters had said. Of course that didn't really matter to Brigid, who was currently fulfilling grad student duties. Her supervising professor had left her with a big stack of papers from his first year class to grade some four hours ago, which placed her firmly inside. Up high in a building, tucked away in a small TA's office, Brigid was alone. She was beyond glad that she got paid for this shit because otherwise that degree just wouldn't have been worth it. She didn't hate grading papers, all it really did was strengthen her resolve to never burn out and become a teacher. Brigid Killarney wasn't the giving up sort, but if she had to dedicate her life to trying endlessly to make children understand that 'u' was not an article, but in fact a letter and therefore useless outside of an actual word, she'd probably put a bullet in her little brain. She only had another year of this business if she didn't continue to her PHD. Maybe she would, she didn't know, she was going to have to put a line out on getting some sort of sweet museum job while she was at it.

She hadn't really given much notice to the passage of time for all the hours she'd spent up there. But as a noticeably colder wind blew in through the office's open window, she finally found herself turning to the outside world again. She wasn't often cold in Avalon, it sat on top of what had been called Hawaii for Chrissakes, but she found herself regretting a lack of a sweater, with just a pair of jeans, some boots, and a t-shirt to keep her warm. Someone had left their umbrella there. Excellent. She'd return it later, after all, the offices were going to be closing fairly soon, nobody was going to be coming in after that. She looked at the remaining few papers, glad that she'd made her way through the bulk of it. She could do these at home. Granted, she wasn't a huge fan of spreading herself too thin at home, and she'd probably be distracted, but she could get through it in the dead of night once the world had finally calmed down. Resolved to leave, Brigid put the completed papers in her filing cabinet, and took the rest in a small portfolio that she could fit in her backpack. She made sure she'd locked up, grabbed the umbrella and headed out.

Brigid was hit with a blast of air from the left. "Shit." It was a hell of a lot more windy than she'd expected. The halfling opened the umbrella, sprayed from the side by a torrent of rain. She had to work to keep it on her shoulder, it hadn't appeared nearly this windy from the inside. The pavement outside ran like a thin river, roads sloshing nearby with cars traveling through campus. She groaned, and made for the bus stops to hide from the storm in a bus hut. Of course that would've happened no problem if a massive gust of wind hadn't blown by and ripped the umbrella from her hand. She cursed under her breath again, running after it in exasperation. God, she looked like an idiot. This was not cool, this was not cool at all.

[JURATE]