Name of PC: Cassian Montelise Byrne
Name of iNPC: Everest Callahan
School of iNPC: Koldovstoretz
Year: First

Physical Description: Everest stands just a bit taller than others his age, even if his lanky frame seems to slip into the shadows much more easily than it takes up space. His dirty blonde locks are perpetually windswept, although his mother does her best to keep it in a manageable hairstyle. Everest's eyes (blue, like the clearest of ice) always seem to be watching something no one else can see. He favors darker shades in his clothing — charcoal, navy, faded black — both because they're easier to disappear into and because they're easier to clean. The majority of his closet consists of secondhand pieces worn thin at the elbows or slightly too long in the sleeves. Outside of his school robes, it’s easy to tell his wardrobe is stitched together from what could be found or passed down: repaired trousers, well-worn jumpers, and jackets with new buttons sewn on by his mother’s careful hands. All in all, Everest prefers to remain as plain and unobtrusive as possible.

Mental Description: Everest Callahan is the sort of person who moves through the world like he’s listening to something just out of reach. He's quiet but not shy, observant but not detached, cordial but not warm. He has the calm gravity of someone who learned early on how to take care of himself and never really stopped. As the son of a single mother who did her best with what she had, Everest grew up understanding that some questions don’t have easy answers and that people don’t always stay. It made him overly independent, the kind of person who never asks for help even when he’s breaking, who would rather burn out silently than risk becoming a burden to someone else.

He does not volunteer his thoughts easily and his trust is hard-earned. Everest prefers to spend the majority of his time in solitude, although he is friendly enough when approached. He doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention, but his stillness has a magnetic quality. He has a dry sense of humor, a sharp mind, and a willingness to go to great lengths to protect those that he deems worthy of his attention and care. He observes before acting, feels before speaking, and holds his emotions close to the chest. The shock of discovering his magical heritage only caused him to withdraw further into his inner world. Nevertheless, Everest is hardworking and persistent, if nothing else, and is determined to excel — even if his definition of excellence might not be the same as the rest of the world's.

Biography: Everest was born of a tryst between a Muggle student and a wizard aristocrat who was hiding his identity for reasons known only to himself. His father disappeared right after his birth, spiriting away a twin sister with his mother and Everest being none the wiser. Heartbroken, his mother moved them back to Australia, her home country, to lick her wounds in the safety of her own childhood home. There, Everest spend the first few years of his life, but his mother soon became restless once more and set off on her newest adventure: a new life in the frigid reaches of Russia, in a town named Nizhny Novgorod. Everest adjusted with a strange resilience, and the mother-son duo leaned on each other right up until the moment Everest received his acceptance letter to Koldovstoretz.

First Instance of Magic: It was in Nizhny Novgorod, in their narrow, drafty apartment above a small bakery, that Everest’s first burst of magic occurred. He had been upset, even though he couldn’t remember why exactly. Perhaps it had been a forgotten word in Russian, which he still struggled to shape in his mouth, a bad dream, or the sudden sharp grief that sometimes came from nowhere.

The room had flickered, just for a second. The window had cracked from the inside, though the cold outside had not penetrated. The lights had fizzled and come back stronger. His mother chalked it up to faulty wiring. Everest wasn’t so sure. He felt the electricity of it in his fingertips for days after, like static clinging to something deeper. Although he eventually dismissed it as nothing but a fluke accident, the moment would stay with him, right up until the moment he received his acceptance letter to a strange institute named Koldovstoretz.