OOC post: some canon observations Teja's 'gothyness'

• Pale, dark-eyed, with long black hair, always serious, doesn't say much
• Never seen not wearing armour
• Makes his own armour and is very skilled at metalwork
• Lives in the overgrown ruins of the 'Gardens of Sallustius' when in Rome
• Plays the harp and sings, but never for an audience
• Is an atheist - believes neither in the Christian god nor in any flavour of a heathen pantheon
• Is a mighty fighter, but doesn't really believe that there's a chance for what he fights for
• Has precognitive dreams of terrible doom that always come true
• If anybody does anything 'against Teja's advice' it will go horribly wrong
• His parents died when he was young, due to treachery
• He is motivated by revenge and doesn't believe in love and happiness
• He was abducted as a youth together with a few other young nobles and spent a few months as a slave on a Greek island, in the possession of a cruel merchant for whom he had to use his skills in working metal; he fell in love with a young girl named Myrtia who was that merchants ward, tried to run away with her and his co-captive comrades when Myrtia's guardian wanted to marry her to the pirate who had captured the young Goths, and accidentally killed her while escaping because he didn't recognise her in the dark, wearing the pirate's armour. After this, he completely, utterly and forever lost all belief in the world, humanity, God, hope or love. He never talks about this, though.
• His only two emotional attachments are with his comrades-in-arms. One is Totila, the beautiful sunny blond hero king that was his friend in his youth and who goes far out of his way, after a temporary victory over the Romans and Byzanthians, to recapture Teja's heart that had been lost to him over the necessities of fighting. It's Totila, on the night before his last battle, to whom he finally tells the terribly tragic story that has so completely crippled his soul. And then there's Adalgoth, a young peasant boy who turns out to be of noble descent and who becomes  cup- and arms bearer to the king, first Totila, then Teja. He is terribly young and beautiful, and the only person beside Totila that Teja opens up to at all; Teja teaches him to play the harp and sing. He welcomes Adalgoth to his ruined garden and is easier around him than around anybody else, including Totila. He finally dies in Adalgoth's arms, being kissed on the lips by the youth. -- Yes, of course, we're dealing with the ideals of romantic friendship popular at the time, all that hugging and snogging and talk of love and high-strung emotional stuff were acceptable back then, and as a whole, the book is rather innocent of sex -- still, these passages read terribly slashy for modern eyes.
• Interestingly enough, Teja's traumatic captivity on a Greek island had no bearing on the plot. Three characters are introduced in that part, and they're all three dead when it's over - Lykos, Dresos and Myrtia. It's just something that shaped Teja's outlook on life, not part of the story otherwise. Only Teja's cousin Aligern turns up again later.
• Teja's hatred of Lykos - who captured him, kept him instead of turning him in to his superiors, then sold him to the merchant Dresos, and finally tries to marry the girl Teja is in love with - is still a bit inordinately hot and personal; at least to a modern reader who is used to a stricter sense of narrative causality. Same the way that Dresos treats him preferentially. His canon's creator can't have realised that, but for my present-day reader's expectation, it sounds as if they'd both abused him sexually. That would make a dark and twisted sort of sense - and justify fully how dark and twisted he becomes over that episode.
• Teja seems to prefer a type as unlike him as possible - Myrtia, Totila and Adalgoth are all described as golden and sweet and sunny and cheerful. Adalgoth especially walks on the scene during the most dramatic part of the siege of Rome, fanboying both Totila and Teja with utter shameless abandon. He worships them - and Teja so totally has no resistance against that, it's really funny. Even though the author most likely didn't find it funny at all.
  

OOC post: Some choice morsels from Teja's canon

( His first appearance in his canon: )

( Most dramatic entrance to a polictical assembly ever: )

( Totila, Teja and Adalgoth in Teja's ruined garden )

( Bad news at a feast - and once more Teja is the messenger, but now with added Adalgoth )

( The terribly sad tale of Teja's early trauma )