Merle

Personality Overview

Merle doesn't question the work he gets into. To him, a good pay is a good day, if he is fed, then he is happy. No matter the dangers of his freelancer work. However, with his previous experience of cursing women into birds, excitement rushes through him the moment his work relates to birds. It satisfies him to witness a human transform into a bird, especially a swan. By the time he finishes one job, another client appears. He never is the type to search for clients, it bores him. Instead, he sends his flock of crows out for another willing customer.

Merle is bold and practical, although a mischief at heart. Driven to succeed, Merle's impatiently competitive mindset leads him to become unstructured and impulsive. Nonetheless, he carries through his plans with his perspective thinking. In an unhealthy state, Merle becomes exploitative and opportunistic to avoid humiliation and preserve the illusion of superiority. His mischievous tendency becomes prominent as he seeks to betray and sabotage people. At his lowest point, he can sabotage people's happiness instead.

Childhood

Merle only remembers his childhood vividly, sneaking through the tight alleys with the increasingly black smoke clouding the air. Merle was the youngest of the three brothers, yet had the least time with his parents, who spent their days mining coal. The debt collector would knock on the door once a week, only for the brothers to answer the door. Somehow, they knew the man dressed in black more than they knew their parents. At the age of five, Merle learnt that money is a necessity. He knew nothing of education, which only the wealthy could obtain. He was taught to be thankful that he had a place to call his home.

In a hushed tone, his parents ask the three boys to lock the door and stay inside. However, his brothers grew adventurous and would sneak out through the window. Influenced by the older brothers, he would follow behind them with a giggle. Whether his brothers would pickpocket for coins or steal handkerchiefs, Merle followed suit. One day, before his brothers could stop him, Merle held out the coin collection to his parents, unaware of his wrongdoings. Expecting applause, he was only greeted by horror as his parents rejected the collection before them. At night, Merle cried to himself, but his brothers comforted him and said he made them proud. That was enough for him, he thought.

Adulthood

At the age of fifteen, Merle was the last brother in the family to depart from his home. He was conflicted between choosing the streets, who saw him as nothing, or his parents, who saw him as everything. That mindset changed when he realised he would never receive the attention he wanted and he left without a goodbye, much like his parents when they left for work. Things in the city changed since he was a kid. Magic was returning to the streets to distract the working class from the lack of pennies in their pockets. That was his belief, anyway. That was until he heard a whisper about black magic. Then things got exciting.

The whispers thrilled him, how people spoke of black magic as if it were almighty. He could be the whispers of terror and admiration. Merle traced the rumours to an individual in a hood and nagged them to teach him their ways. The hooded individual, annoyed, only taught him one spell, the ability to summon crows, but that was enough for Merle. He found regular freelance work, at first. Requests to send packages, find letters, fetch clothes that blew away. Then he found another hooded individual. They taught him two spells. Merle’s work amount increased and so did his reputation. While his brothers worked in the same factory as their parents, Merle left the city with a songful whistle and his trusty birds.

Amid his travels, a particular spell caught his attention, the ability to turn humans into birds. Merle loved knowing he caused such a drastic transformation in a single being. He almost struggled not to laugh when the birds tried to chirp to their friends. He has cursed people into all sorts of birds, aligning with his work, of course. But one bird remains untouched from his curse list, a swan; the signature royal bird. And one of his little feathered friends told him about a new client relating to swans.