Beautiful People - Echo

Yay! Beautiful People is BACK!!!! I know it was back last month, but this is the first ordinary BP since I started blogging, so I am EXCITED ENOUGH TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS, WHICH I RARELY DO. For those unfamiliar to BP, it's a lovely character link-up hosted by Cait and Sky. If you have never joined in this fun, I highly suggest doing so. If you have, I highly suggest doing so again. I'm going to start it up with a lovely character of mine called Echo Torriven, from an as of yet un-introduced story on this blog (shh! I will introduce it later). I am afraid that Echo has another name, but it is one I have mentioned on this blog before, I believe, and it's spoilers, so, he will go by his nickname, 'Echo', for now.

What's their favorite book/movie/play/etc.?
Echo doesn't really do movies, seeing as he's a medieval guy. And... I can't really see him going to plays much either. As for his favorite book... There's a book of poems in his current country, Belestine, that he used to read to his wife a long time ago. Even though she's dead now, he still loves the book, especially one particular poem, the first stanza of which is this:

Forever, dear, forevermore,

Though rain and wind doth toil away,

Though fadeth rock and dust of clay,

Forever my heart and spirit soar

At memory of our golden day.

This poem has actually not been written all the way yet by moi, so pardon the fact that it's messy and incomplete. :P

Is there anything they regret doing?

Oh, yes, plenty of things unfortunately. However, most of these things would be automatic spoilers if a single one of my sneaky reader crowd was among the audience, so I shall only mention one. A long time before the beginning of the story (though, due to the odd chronological arrangement of the story, it happens during the story kind-of), Echo left his small family to help someone. He never came back from it due to certain things. While he doesn't regret what he did to help, he does regret the fact that he never got to see his family again after he left them. He was gone for so long, and due to another spoiler thing, he never saw them alive or otherwise, but knew they were dead.

If they were sick or wounded, who would take care of them?

There could be any range of people willing to take that task up. While Echo doesn't know many people well, the fact remains that he help a great deal of people, all of whom would be willing, I'm sure, to help him were he in any danger. Most likely, though, it would either be his tavern-keeper friend, Grant, or one of the two orphaned children he keeps in his care, Lania or Ariff II.

Is there an object they can't bear to part with and why?

Well, out of obligation to, Echo always keeps his knight's ring on him. It's the ring of a lesser knight of Belestine. A lesser knight is basically a knight of Belestine who is originally foreign or has no noble blood, therefore called a 'lesser' knight. However, it is only out of duty that he keeps this on him. Echo has another ring, though, too. An old, battered ring, constituting a promise he made so long before. His wedding ring. Even though his dear lady is long-departed, he still wears it, always keeping it close. (Echo is not incredibly old, but he seems like it from his looks because of all he's been through. An old-looking man with torn cloak, a missing ear, scratches of different sorts everywhere, wearing two battered rings - one far more ill-conditioned than the other - is not usually looked at twice, unless it is to remark how worn-down he looks in comparison to his almost child-like joy.)

What are five ways to win their heart (or friendship)?
Echo's heart has already been won... I doubt anybody could do it in the same way again. But it's incredibly easy to win his friendship. You don't really need to do anything more than exist. However, five ways in which a person is bound to attract his attention especially are these:
1. If the person is alone - without family or friends living.
2. If the person needs help, being helpless or sick in injured or alone or just anything that renders them unable to fend for themselves. Then you can be sure Echo will care for the person to the best of his ability.
3. If the person is depressed, in the wrong, or doubtful. Echo has a thing about helping people, and if anybody needs it physically or otherwise, he will try to become close to them so he can help them.
4. If the person is willing to help others.
5. If the person has a particular bravery or selflessness about them. Echo knows the difficulty of bravery, and he values it immensely in anyone.
Describe a typical outfit for them from top to bottom.
Echo usually wears a patched cloak, sometimes with a traveler's hat. He also wears a tunic of some kind, usually rather unassuming in appearance. He wears very long traveler's boots, usually brown in color, two rings, and a satchel over his shoulder. Other than that, it's pretty ordinary medieval attire for his rank.

What's their favorite type of weather?
Sunshine. Definitely sunshine. I'm weird, and I prefer rain, so most of my characters like it, but Echo is an exception. He likes sunny, beautiful, slightly breezy days when he can run like a child again. Actually, the day that he comes in on in the story is one of these days, and he's coming home, so the first time you see Echo, he's very happy.
What's the worst fight they've ever been in?
You remember how I said earlier that he left his family to help someone? Well, don't repeat this to any of my beta readers if they happen to ask, but he left to go fight in a war. That might not seem to mean much, but to a keen reader that pretty much just gave away about 70% of the giant plot twist they're all trying to figure out. The war between Nistria and Belestine was a long time ago, and it wasn't even really Echo's war (he did not live in Belestine at the time it began). But a friend of his had suffered from the war already, and had been called away to fight. So, Echo went to battle because of his friend, and because he believed that the war - if it wasn't cut short - could threaten his home country as well.
What names or nicknames have they been called throughout their life?
Well, he was always called by his real name when he was younger. After the war, though, his friends and family were gone, and he went out without anybody calling him anything. Echo eventually settled, only ceasing in his perpetual search for his family because of two orphaned children that needed him. Orlania and Ariff II, as they came to be called under him, were the only reason  - despite Echo's being told that his family was dead - that he stopped searching for his family at all. For eight years at the beginning of the story has Echo been in that town with those two (Lania is, at the story's start, fifteen, and Ariff II is ten). After Echo was in the town, though, before he had actually settled there, he made a friend of a local inn's man named Grant. Grant gave him the nickname 'Echo'. Echo had lost an ear in the war, and Grant would joke that because of the hole in Echo's head, anything Grant said would just echo right out and not be listened to. Thus he came to be called 'Echo', even though as a knight, he it still known by his real surname, Torriven. So, depending on who is addressing him, he is either called Echo or Sir Torriven.

What makes their heart feel alive?
Good question! The memory of his beloved ones does, as well as any occasion when he can care for people in need. But the thing that perhaps makes him feel most alive nowadays is when he can finally come home from a journey, and can run down the hill-path into the town, to where Lania and Ariff II await him, Lania with fresh bread baking, and Echo with a new story to tell them both.
That about wraps it up, I believe! What did you think of Echo? What did you think of those lovely questions from mistresses Cait and Sky? I do believe that with Beautiful People around, I shall never tire of posting things... though I may still procrastinate because that's what I do. ;)