There was nothing remarkable about the day on which Leander was born. There was a snow storm, yes, but when was there not in the cold, far reaches of the city of Viden. In fact, there was nothing remarkable about the first few arcs of Leander’s existence. Youngest child of his parents, Leo was always the baby of the family, and was treated as such. His parents were not rich, but they were comfortable, and Leander wanted for nothing. If he asked, invariably he got. His siblings called him spoilt, but Leander would just smile sweetly and return to whatever sweet treat he had been given.
As with all human children in Viden, Leander was educated at the Academy, which was mandatory up until the age of fourteen, being educated up to secondary level alongside other freeborn children in the city. He was barely interested in his education, immediately hateful of the more favoured eídisi children in his classes… however he did display consummate skill in the sciences, particularly enjoying chemistry and biology. He wasn’t good enough for any kind of scholarship to continue studying, and his parents could not justify the fees to send someone to school for arcs on end when he could be out working and becoming a valuable cog in the workforce that made up Viden society.
Instead, Leo found himself in what he considered to be an easy job - a custodian in the Infirmary… a janitor and cleaner. He found the work mind-numbingly boring and soul-destroying, but for the first time in his life he had an income of his own. It turned out that he wasn’t the best at managing his own money… but his parents, ever willing to display their love through material supports, made sure he didn’t starve.
For the next few arcs, Leander’s life continued in the snowy, isolated city in the northern wastes. He went to work, he played hard with his friends, and tried to carve a place for himself in the world. But it wasn’t enough. He was bored. He spent each cycle watching new students walk though the doors to the Academy and register for their courses, and he wished he could be one of them. At fourteen, education hadn’t mattered to him… but around his eighteenth arc (where he had been promoted but still had the only responsibility of keeping the floors clean), he was jealous.
Leander didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t saved enough to attend the Academy. He hadn’t saved anything. Instead, his solution was a cunning - yet dicey - one. With keys to access nigh on all areas of the Infirmary, he used the twilight hours, where no one worked, to play, to learn. Sneaking into the laboratory, where medicines were created, he began to use the equipment to put into practice all of the theory he learnt in school. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he didn’t cause any explosions so he called that a win.
It wasn’t until a patient in the Infirmary died that his experimentation was put to a stop. The Immortal of Intelligence and her blue cronies had known what he was up to, of course, they knew everything. But he skated under the radar because all those seeking knowledge were given some leniency. However when he, exhausted, didn’t properly clean out his glassware after his night of experimentation, Leander was implicitly responsible for the medicine given to a patient being contaminated. To live with this... well it was almost too much for the young budding chemist. Someone had died because of him - how was he supposed to learn to live with that?
The investigation was short, like most in the city. The judgement was what took time.
Leander, more than a little unsettled by what he had done, left. In the height of the Hot Cycle, he left a short scribbled note for his parents in the dead of night and headed for the docks. He jumped on the first boat leaving the harbour - one that it turned out was bound for Rharne… which turned out to be a terrible idea as it turned out he experienced the worse seasickness for the majority of the trip. Why couldn’t he have just taken a portal to Scalvoris (he had wondered while vomiting over the side of the ship).
Arriving in Rharne with what little money he had stolen from his parents along with the pittance he had saved, Leander knew no one. At 22 arcs old, he was entirely alone. He floundered for a few days, wandering around and carefully spending his dwindling money. But he wasn’t skill-less. It took time, but he managed to find an apprenticeship for himself. It was his lost love from school that came to save him in the end. He had no qualifications, but he was a somewhat experienced chemist and a short practical exam from a Rharnian chemist was enough to secure the apprenticeship. Thus follows the most recent decade of his life… trying to forget, trying to start anew, trying to find his place in this new city.
