John Smithson

Description

A young man learning to live again after darkness tried to claim him, John carries the lightness of youth alongside the weight of trauma he refuses to let define him. Once a loyal guard marked by magical violation and forced betrayal, he has emerged from that crucible with his capacity for joy and connection somehow still intact. John Smithson represents the resilience of those caught in the political machinations of greater powers—a companion of Lord Caelum whose loyalty was weaponized against him when Lady Ruben's charm turned him into an instrument of his own lord's torment. The words forced from his lips in that dark moment—a bitter confession of rejected feelings toward Thalara—haunt him still, though the young guard was quick to offer apologies once freed, making clear those poisoned words were never truly his own. Yet the trauma hasn't frozen him in fear; instead, he seems to have chosen healing through living, through embracing the simple, unguarded pleasures of youth that darker forces sought to strip away. At Daria's birthday gathering, John shows himself as genuinely friendly and earnest—a man who lacks the formal training to swim but possesses enough good humor to laugh rather than panic when thrown into the pool. His enthusiastic interest in Kieran the bartender and his willingness to ask Vixia for counsel on matters of the heart reveal someone actively reconstructing his capacity for connection after violation. He moves through the party with the easy sociability of someone who understands he cannot undo what was done to him, but he can choose what he becomes next.