Profile

Player name: Scy
Characters played: Michael Brennan, Iollan Chives & Caleb Caustello.
Character Name: Lucas Itumeleng
Age: 42 (1971)
How long They've Been in the Deck: On and off since 1997, permanently staying since 2004.
Suit/Rank: 10 of Diamonds
History: Lucas was born a diplomat's son while his father was stationed in America, though his family relocated around the world 8 times before he turned 18, staying in each city for two to three years. He'd been a maladjusted, introverted and unhappy child, unable to form lasting bonds with neighbours and classmates due to being constantly on the move. He might have picked up an array of languages he could argue with his parents in, but because of his dyslexia which he never spoke about, his academic performance steadily deteriorated until he finished high school. After years of mounting discontent with educational institutions, he decided that he wasn't going to try again for university entrance.

Instead he signed on with the army and spent a few years on tour. For all the fantasising about staying in one place that he had had, he knew that he wasn't ready for it just yet - he wasn't sure he'd ever be ready for it after spending his life as an attachment to a transient political chesspiece, moving from one part of the board to another.

He was discharged after three years because of a moderate injury to his right leg and spent the better part of the year recovering. He couldn't do anything overly strenuous anymore in case it aggravated the injury, but he tested the waters by volunteering with an international aid agency.

A young Lucas first met the woman who was going to be his wife in 1994 when they ended up working together in Rwanda after the genocide. Claire was from the one place in the world he's never heard of - the Deck - and though they had bonded quickly in a high-stress, highly dangerous environment, their relationship endured and remained steady beyond what they used to refer jokingly to as their Rwandan honeymoon.

They spent two years maintaining a long-distance relationship before their paths crossed again in South Africa. They stayed together for a year and got engaged before Claire brought Lucas to the Deck for the first time to meet her family. He'd been oblivious at the time to how apprehensive the Diamonds were about their daughter's Outsider fiance - probably too busy staring wide-eyed at the new world that had opened up before him - but despite her family's reservations about Lucas, they got married two years later in 1999.

For the next five years, Lucas drifted in and out of the Deck and was appropriately given the task of procuring various Outside supplies and rare items that the Diamonds requested. He was committed to his work with the aid agency and he'd become increasingly aware of the in-laws' hostility towards him. As a result, he spent very little time in the Castle where they had resided and had minimal exposure to Suit politics.

Regardless, Claire had urged him to challenge his way up the ranks so that her family might be more accepting of him. He challenged every year and skipped from 3 to 5 in 2000, so towards the end of 2004 just before their daughter was born, he was a much more respectable 9 of Diamonds (even though at the time he still knew next to nothing about the Deck, its history or its culture).

Having no desire to give his daughter the kind of childhood he had had, he finally stayed put in the Deck. Claire's family was keen to appropriate the girl and 'teach her their ways', so it was actually through Stella that Lucas began to learn bits and pieces about the Deck.

No longer able to continue his previous work, which involved a lot of travelling in and out of the Deck, Lucas took up a new position at the Outposts. It was much more relaxed compared to his time in the military, but it was still familiar enough (and far away from the Castle) that he felt comfortable with his new job.

2007 was the year Lucas would challenge to 10. 2007 was the year Stella would start pre-school. 2007 was the year Claire was pronounced dead after being rushed to the hospital for ingesting half a bottle of pills. He didn't know how vehemently she had fought to make their marriage come to fruition. He didn't know how much pressure she was under to make both her families happy. He didn't know how bitter she had felt to have him intrude in her life and in her family and in her homeland. He didn't know anything. She never said anything.

And even after everything - or perhaps it was precisely because things had turned out this way - Stella was deemed too young to attend her mother's funeral, and he wasn't even invited.

He doesn't really remember in great detail what happened in the first few years after Claire's death. There had been the routine of waking up in the morning, making Stella breakfast, taking her to school, going to work, picking her up from school, going back to work, making dinner after work and then fighting his dyslexia to read a bedtime story to Stella (Claire had always done it) before he would collapse in exhaustion half an hour later. Day in, day out, he was too tired raising their baby girl alone to really come to terms with Claire's suicide and grieve for her. Even on the nights Stella asked about her mother and cried herself to sleep on his chest, he used up all the energy he had putting on a brave front, reassuring her that everything would work out fine even though he was quite certain nothing ever would be.

But then one day he woke up, and his pillow was dry because he had no more tears to shed. His body didn't feel as sluggish as it used to and he could greet Stella in the morning with a kiss on the temple and a gentle hug. He remembered what it was like to have a big smile on his face, and something in his chest fluttered when he saw Stella laugh at him. He could get through the day without expecting to see Claire's head poke in between the door and the doorframe, and it wasn't unsettling when he heard her laughter in between the tinkling of the wind chimes.

He can't explain it, because it's not as if death is something people can just 'get over' - it's not as if he's 'let go' of Claire and 'moved on' with his life, because she was always there with him and he could still ask her for guidance when he didn't know what to do with their daughter - but at some point before he turned 40, things changed and he was able to breathe again without feeling that dull pain in his chest.

If you'd asked him five years ago whether he'd ever love again, he might have just managed to force himself to laugh and say that no, he's not sure he could. He certainly would have not thought it possible with the Queen, of all people - and one whose family has been around for even longer than Claire's and probably wouldn't even acknowledge his existence.

But he has come to like her over the past couple of years - and so does Stella, which in the end mattered more than who he liked - and if it hadn't been for the untimely interference of the Arcana, he might have even gotten the opportunity to tell her. He has his reservations - any 'Outsider' widowed single father would have their reservations - but he's hoping, now that things have more or less begun to settle down, that maybe, despite the odds, Rachel would give him a chance.

Personality:
He's not what you expect of a typical Diamond, or even a Ten. He's somewhat easier to read because he's not as hard around the edges. Having spent all that time in the Outposts, away from the Castle and all the politicking that is involved when living in the hornets' nest, he's much more earnest, and much less cautious or guarded around strangers and friends alike.

Which isn't to say that he's an open book, or that he doesn't know how to play the political games - he is his father's son, after all, and he's picked up a few things on his travels around the world - but he just doesn't see the need for it. It's inevitable that he become involved in it sooner or later, especially as a Ten, but it will take him a while to get used to life in and around the Castle should he ever decide to leave the Outposts.

One of the things he was made rather acutely aware of when he married was his status as an Outsider. It's not something that he dwells on, nor does it bother him overly much, but he does often feel like he doesn't really know the Deck. He's challenged, but challenges still feel foreign. Antiquated practices feel strange. A part of him continues to feel like he doesn't (and might never) completely fit in.

So maybe it isn't so strange that there's a restlessness about him, a certain level of wanderlust that's been forcefully curbed for the sake of his daughter Stella. It's clear that he's not made for sitting at a desk looking through stacks of papers for hours and hours on end (though the dyslexia may have something to do with that too), and sometimes he can be impatient. Often he'll opt for doing something rather than sitting and waiting, and that can have the potential to make some situations worse.

Thankfully he hasn't made many big messes in his time and hopefully it will stay that way.

He seems to have become more settled, more composed and more reserved after Claire's death. In a way, her death had made him more stereotypically Diamond-like. And though having to raise a motherless daughter alone had affected the grieving process at the time, he's now coping quite well on his own. There'd been a couple of years in the beginning where he devoted most of his time to Stella, but recently he's been spending more time with colleagues and friends who have been very supportive.

In short, he might not have been born a Diamond and he might not fit the stereotype to a T, but he's got a daughter who feels at home here and really, there wasn't much more he could realistically ask for.
Appearance: While he does make an effort to show up in the Castle looking neat, it's not practical to look immaculate when he's working at his normal post. He doesn't look too distinctive from the next tallish bloke with short, dark brown hair - he makes an impression when he talks, rather than with how he looks.
Character PB Eric Bana
Writing sample: here
How did you hear about us? From an LJ SWSer who has since left the game x)