There was only one thing Marcelle Fylin yearned to do with the limited lifespan her heart condition left her: she sought to be of service to her tribe, who had shown her endless love and compassion despite how weak she her body had always been.
The patron deity of her land, Ticur, was incredibly fond of the vuritakag, a majestic species of feathered felines. One day, it just so happened that a vuritakag cub had been separated from its mother during an intense blizzard, and the Jol tribe had managed to retrieve it from the bottom of a deep crevice in the mountains. Marcelle ultimately volunteered to embark on the journey to bring the sacred animal back to Ticur, a task that although would most definitely end in death, provided a sense of honour and service to the young woman. After several days, she eventually collapsed, ridden with frostbite, outside the entrance to Ticur's domain, Fort Kershe. She was found by Ticur in his dragon form, who had sensed the lifeforce of the vuritakag cub and flew out to investigate. He would then grasp her and the cub in his talons and fly back to Fort Kershe, where Marcelle would make her recovery. It had been a long time since Ticur had last felt love, but he gradually fell for Marcelle during her stay there. Eventually, he would have her bear his child - but throughout her pregnancy, Marcelle's heart condition worsened, resulting in worsening episodes of weakness and pain, one after the other. Shortly after she gave birth to Dmitri, she died, with Ticur's ice-cold grip numbing her final throes of agony. With firsthand experience of how stifling loneliness could be, Ticur did not want his child to live a life of isolation with him in Fort Kershe. He spirited Dmitri back to the Jol tribe, where he was well received and taken in by a surrogate family.
However, during his fourth year of life, an army from the Vesperlands headed by Penlope Riebanrig would raid the Lurossinet while looking for five powerful mirrors, the Uikbandola distributed amongst the five native tribes by Ticur himself. The mirrors absorbed and ampilfied the suns' rays, making them a potent source of not only heat, but also energy. All five tribes would fall to Penelope's army, and though many fled into hiding and escaped the brunt of the assault, many, including Dmitri, were captured and forced into slavery.
As the slave of a well-off Vesper family, Dmitri quickly learned to display an expressionless face and obey all orders without hesitation. On the inside, however, he was suffering more than he ever imagined possible: he longed for the crisp, chilly air and wide skies of the Lurossinet, and most of all, he longed to have a greater purpose in life than to be someone's designated inferior. Over the course of fifteen years, he gained the trust of the family and became the eldest daughter's personal slave.
Then, one fateful night, Dmitri shocked everyone who knew him by running away. He had been waiting for the right opportunity for months at that point, and it had finally appeared. All he had with him was a small knife that he had stolen from the kitchens and a page from a mapbook that he had stolen from the library. Dmitri knew that if he were recaptured, he would never have a chance at freedom again, and he was fully prepared to take his own life should he be caught. He travelled on foot, avoiding major cities and moved as fast as he could from location to location. By the time he neared the Vesper-Lumen border, he was aware that a bounty had been put up for him and that there were people seeking to claim it, as he had narrowly escaped them several times. At an isolated stretch of the border where he intended to cross, Dmitri ran into a group of bounty hunters. Whether they were looking specifically for him, he did not know, but they did recognise him. Before anything could happen, though, a group of brigands from the Lumenlands swept in and started a fight with the bounty hunters. They were a group known as the Insibri, who had begun ambushing Vesper officials and guards near the border as of late. Most of the time, they were no more than petty robbers, but the situation ended up escalating into a full-on battle. Dmitri joined their side in the ensuing melee and together, they successfully put down the bounty hunters.
The Insibri ended up becoming Dmitri's new family. He was far from the Lurossinet and had nothing to his name, let alone any provisions for travel, and as far as he knew, there was nothing to go back home to. He agreed to join the Insibri and learned how to defend himself, rising through their ranks slowly but surely over the course of four years and commanding great respect. At the end of those four years, Dmitri would accidentally discover, his raniom, a powerful bonded weapon that halflings usually obtained over the course of their lives. The leader of the Insibri, a woman named Gretchen Nevtatroa, recognised the greater potential that was in Dmitri, and wanting to give him a chance at a greater life, she sent him towards Rehjolvnatys with a group of trusted allies.
Dmitri managed to gain entry to Rehjolvnatys, and it was there that he became his best self. He fell in love with the magic he was taught to wield and the plethora of books he could read. All too many years spent as a slave for the overprivileged wealthy had taught him that power was nothing without adequate knowledge, and it was with this in mind that he embraced learning. As he neared the end of his training period, was met with a plea from a strange young man who had forced his way into Rehjolvnatys, begging someone to help his friend. Dmitri felt sympathy for the young man, Allen Hevaxej, and went with him to offer his assistance. Though his attempts at healing Allen's companion were unsuccessful, he found a lifelong friend in Allen and the two promised to meet again someday when Allen finished serving his homeland. Upon his return to Rehjolvnatys, Dmitri learned that a fraction of the tribes in the Lurossinet had survived and that they were struggling to re-establish themselves again, now without the assistance of the Uikbandola. After several audiences with Igal, Dmitri managed to convince the god to allow him to temporarily return to the Lurossinet to help the wandering tribes recover. During his stay in the Lurossinet among one of the former powerhouses in the region, the Pevillufr tribe, he would become meet another son of Ticur, Maxwell, whom he would befriend and serve as a teacher to until his recent return to Rehjolvnatys. Tensions between the Lumen and Vesper were high as ever, and though Dmitri was reluctant to depart from his home once more, he knew duty came first. It was in this period of time he would cross paths with Allen again, an event that bolstered his courage to make new friends and come out of his shell of solitude and academia. He would go on to meet other dear friends such as Aidan Fasura and Eleanor Lottbrung during this time, and with many stalwart companions by his side, he continues to grow and learn about a world that is grander than he ever dared dream, hoping one day to restore his home to its former glory.