#evren

(Also heads up this is 3k words long. Sorry except I'm actually not. If you read all the way through to the end you get bragging rights AND rights to my heart. Anyway proceed)

Name: Evren

Age: ??? (~31 physically)

Hair color: Pastel blue

Eye color: Blue

Element: Dragon

Within the ATS world are immortal, eldritch beings known as the Relics, who are literal personifications of special magic items scattered throughout the world. For the very few of you who have done a Deep Dive into the ATS lore you'll probably remember me mentioning the Contractor, who literally rewove fate at Ilari's request. The Contractor is actually one of these Relics, the Relic of Time, to be specific! She oversees all timelines and is the head of a special organization dedicated to keeping timelines in check.

One of the departments under her management specifically deals with corrupted timelines—ones that are unsalvageable, that have decayed too much either due to human influence or outside forces. These timelines are then deleted to preserve the state of all other timelines. They are very dangerous to deal with and require specific expertise. Evren is one of the people employed to erase broken timelines, and is one of the Contractor's best agents!

Handling these corrupted timelines is very delicate work, and Evren is very thorough and skilled when it comes to cleaning them up. His tasks vary depending on how the timeline starts to break down—sometimes he's required to kill those responsible for the decay, or get involved with a literal world-ending war. A lot of places he sees have already lost all of humanity, and are completely devoid of human life. In almost all cases, due to reality unraveling itself and warping the timeline beyond repair, the worlds he visits are transformed into bizarre liminal spaces and forgotten dreams. (Yes he basically just gets to explore the Backrooms for his job. They have a grip on me okay listen)

Evren is quick and efficient in his work. He’s gained quite a reputation among his coworkers and even has a bit of a fanclub among the younger recruits 🤧 When it comes to his job he’s very professional and leaves no room for error, making him a model employee. If the Contractor wants something done regarding a timeline, she usually calls on Evren to handle it. Being one of her top agents, he usually gets sent out on the more dangerous missions, and depending on the time warp of the particular timeline, he could be gone for weeks, months, even years sealing up all the corruption. Honestly seeing him at the HQ is very rare, because more often than not he’ll be out in the field dealing with something absolutely crazy. People who spot him around the workplace count themselves very lucky to see him lol

Evren and the Contractor have a very…interesting relationship, due to Evren’s past. Evren was one of the unlucky few to survive a timeline collapse, leaving him stranded in a world only destined to end itself. Normally he’d be put out of his misery and erased along with the timeline, but the stars aligned and the Contractor happened to come along to witness his timeline’s deconstruction. In a very out of character moment for her, she took pity on him and decided to recruit him to her cause, rescuing him from being erased from existence. Whether or not this was a calculated choice remains to be seen, but most people suspect that she looked into the future and saw how valuable of an asset he’d become. The Contractor is quite fond of him and does not hesitate to brag about his talents, which doesn’t really help with keeping his profile low among his peers lmao. Despite her very…eccentric personality, she respects him highly and trusts him to a massive degree. In return, Evren holds her in very high regard and sees her as a mentor figure, due to her taking him under her wing and teaching him everything he knows about how time itself functions. Nobody is really sure but they speculate that the Contractor’s interest in him slowly transformed over time, as he became more of a protege, friend and comrade in arms rather than just a tool for her to use. As for Evren, he’s grateful to her for saving his life, and sort of feels indebted to her for helping train him and give him a place to belong. And even though his job is dangerous he really does enjoy it and knows how important it is to the overall health of the flow of time, so he takes great pride in what he does!

Due to Evren constantly being out on missions and hopping from timeline to timeline of (usually) empty worlds, he’s definitely lacking in the social department :”) He’s not used to being around people and tends to self isolate when he does happen to be home back at HQ. Having grown up under the Contractor’s tutelage, he sort of acts as a balm to her manic behavior and is considered her complete opposite. When he does speak with people he’s very over-polite, sophisticated and formal, and because of his limited interactions with others he’s, uh. A bit naive and gullible. He’s generally got a pretty serious and stoic personality, but at his core he’s still very kind, loyal and compassionate! He can be a little too honest at times, but this comes from a place of social ignorance rather than actual malicious intent. He’s also quite intelligent, which is one of the main reasons why he’s so successful in his career.

Regarding his age, even he isn’t sure of exactly how old he is. He’s got a lot of trauma revolving around his own timeline’s collapse, and due to his job he never really has a solid grasp of how much time has passed around him. All he knows is that he’s been working with the Contractor for a long time. Is he actually in his 30s? Is he over a thousand years old at this point, being kept frozen in time due to the Contractor’s time magic? Who knows!! (Well, she does, but he’s never asked, and she probably wouldn’t tell him anyway lmao)

Things start to shift when Evren returns from a pretty rough mission, and even the Contractor can see the effect his job has had on him. Despite his protests she orders him to take official time off, because he NEVER uses his vacation even when he’s sick. She deadass hits him with a “I know you love your job but you’re working too much so I hereby banish you from coming back to work until you REST”. (Because despite how she appears she does care about her employees, very much! She understands that their work with timelines is very delicate and they need to be in tip top shape mentally and physically to handle all that.) Before Evren can think of a loophole and find some way to work within HQ despite being banned from his usual timeline cleanup tasks, the Contractor tosses him into one of the “main” timelines and tells him he’s not allowed to come back for 8 months. Needless to say he’s a little outraged LMAO he’s like what am I going to do for 8 months? And she’s like¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Figure it out buddy!! Go relax, make some friends, enjoy your vacation. And STOP thinking about work. We can handle things here we have been for thousands of years before you came along. R E S T.

So Evren ends up in a quaint little seaside town with a relatively small population and a perfect environment to get some R&R. As he’s being guided around by the locals, he accidentally runs into the town’s beloved mail courier, Aegis, and in a hilarious meet cute completely fucks up Aegis’ mail route. It’s a bad first impression and Aegis is just as passionate about his job as Evren if not more, so naturally he’s furious and doesn’t hesitate to announce his immediate dislike of Evren. Whoops.

The locals are quick to assure him that it’s fine, Aegis is just Like That and you get used to his behavior eventually. The locals point him in the direction of the town’s guild, Lazulily, and tell him that if he plans to stay a while he should probably find lodging with them, and possibly also a mission request license so he can do freelance work if he gets bored. After settling in, Evren kinda has a panic attack because what is going on, he feels like he’s been thrown to the wolves, just yesterday he was doing timeline cleanup as usual and now he’s expected to what? Talk to people? Join a guild? Not do his job?? This is hell on earth for a workaholic lmao

It gets easier, though, because the guild is lovely, and the townsfolk are so nice, and even though he keeps running into Aegis who clearly has it out for him and has encouraged him to pack up his things and leave more than once, he starts to think hey you know what this isn’t so terrible. And of course, the more he interacts with Aegis, the more curious he gets about him. Especially since the town loves him—he’s got a winning personality when he’s not glaring at Evren out of the corner of his eye. This all comes to a head when Evren, equipped with a shiny new mission request license, decides to take on a request at the behest of a woman who lives out by the cape. According to the locals, she’s a bit of a recluse, but not by choice—due to her weak stature and tendency to fall sick easily, she rarely comes into town at all. Upon arrival, Evren sees that Aegis is already there and that the woman is actually Aegis’ closest friend, a very wealthy girl with a personality way too big for her ailing body. Upon seeing Evren it’s love at first sight for her lmao and meanwhile Aegis is like dude what the fuck. I cannot escape this guy he’s EVERYWHERE

After Evren assists her with her request (catching a bunch of pirates trying to sneak onto her estate and rob her blind), Aegis begrudgingly admits that Evren handled the task masterfully, and that his handle on his dragon magic has earned him Aegis’ respect. After this, things definitely become way less tense between them, especially when Evren starts to help out the townsfolk with things too. It isn’t long before Evren is considered one of them, and that’s enough for Aegis to finally lower his hackles a little and forgive Evren for their awful first encounter <3

Their relationship is strained once again when Evren stumbles upon Aegis going for a flight—which would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact Aegis manifested four wings instead of his usual two. Sky elementals are usually equipped with only two wings, and it’s VERY rare that one can manifest four of them with their magic. Elementals with unique abilities like this are sought after by researchers, magic enthusiasts, and other eccentrics that usually turn the whole thing into a media circus, hence why Aegis has gone out of his way to hide his extra pair of wings when he’s flying around town delivering mail (not that he doesn’t trust the town to keep it a secret for him, but rumors do spread quickly…) Evren assures him that no he isn’t going to use this as blackmail material, why would he even do that, he has no motive. Instead he shyly questions Aegis what it’s like to fly and why he enjoys it so much. Aegis is then like. Dude don’t you also have wings? Most dragon elementals do. And Evren’s like yes but in my case it’s a bit more…complicated…

Evren manifests his own wings and Aegis immediately sees the issue—there’s an obvious tear in one of them, making flying difficult. Magic manifestation is a direct reflection of the user’s mental and physical state, so clearly there’s a deep mark left on Evren that never fully healed, which is why one of his wings is scarred. And Evren is too afraid to try and fly, having crashed and burned more than once. Aegis, meanwhile, loves flying deep down to the depths of his very soul and considers it a core part of who he is. Seeing Evren unable to partake in that freedom with his magic is a HUGE issue and it needs to be fixed NAOW. So, despite Evren’s many protests, Aegis takes his hand and leads him into the clouds on an impromptu flight test :D

After a lot of encouragement and soul sharing from Aegis, Evren manages to overcome his fear and actually enjoy the freedom that comes with flight, and on top of that. He starts to think wow we’ve come a long way haven’t we. Aegis is actually kind of…..wonderful? And amazing? And inspiring oh wait a second hold on uh-oh— (Haha get hit with the feels beam IDIOT!!)

Unfortunately before he can really figure out his feelings, the Contractor shows up out of nowhere and tells him he needs to come back to HQ immediately. At this point it’s only been a little under 7 months since Evren went on vacation, and he’s shocked at having to cut his time there short. But the Contractor says it’s an emergency—a corrupted timeline got way too out of hand and is now infecting lots of other timelines and it’s a giant mess. They need all hands on deck and she needs all her top agents working around the clock to fix it before it’s too late to reverse. She needs him, now more than ever. And who is he to say no to that?

Part of him is reluctant to leave, obviously, as he’s grown very close with Aegis and the rest of the townsfolk—he considers them all a very important part of his life now, despite only knowing them for half a year. All of this being dropped on him feels like the illusion of true “happiness” has been shattered, like suddenly it’s time for him to wake up and return to the real world. And to think he was dreading leaving his job a mere six months ago…time can change a lot of things, including people, huh :”) He should know by now not to underestimate time in general. Especially considering. You know. Gestures vaguely to every single aspect of his life

Anyway Evren’s like okay I’ll come with you, of course I’ll help you—but can I at least bid farewell to everyone first? And the Contractor shakes her head. Time is precious, every single second is, we can’t waste it, we need to go now. RIGHT now. And he’s like r-right now? This very moment? I can’t even leave a note or anything—

And she grabs his shoulders and looks straight at him and says Evren. Putting aside all the legal bullshit about you signing a contract with us and your obligations to the job or whatever. There is so much at stake right now and not only are the friends you made here in danger but this entire timeline is in danger. Multiple timelines are in danger. Headquarters are in danger. We need to go now. And he looks back at her and he’s like. What the fuck am I doing. Immediately he switches back into work mode, professional mode, and forces himself to put all his feelings aside because there’s no point in saying goodbye to the friends he made if there won’t be any friends he made left. So without another moment to waste he takes the Contractor’s hand and vanishes with her into that infinite space between seconds to go save one, two, a million worlds.

And leaves the entire town, Lazulily, and Aegis without any knowledge of his whereabouts or why he suddenly disappeared without a trace. :)

After this, the story picks up from Aegis’ POV, so you’ll have to head over to his character intro to find out more!

Extra tidbits about his personality and powers:

- As mentioned previously he’s a dragon elemental! And as shown in his character sheet he mainly focuses on hand to hand combat using his dragon claws, a manifestation of his magic at his fingertips!

- Another aspect of his dragon magic allows him to have a better sense of what’s going on around him—heightened smell, sight, hearing, etc. This extends to other people as well; he can generally sense what people are feeling, attributing to his good sense of intuition 🙂‍↕️

- Evren usually uses he/him pronouns when referring to himself but he’s perfectly fine with being referred to as they/them by other people. Sometimes it helps out on missions to be seen as a bit more androgynous lol

- He’s got a nasty habit of overworking himself, so generally he needs someone around to pull the brakes and tell him when to stop. Looks at the Contractor sending him on a several month long vacation and nods

- He’s also got quite a self-sacrificial streak. Being raised in an environment where generally the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, he learned to value other lives and timelines over his own. He’s very selfless and loyal, willing to risk and sacrifice anything to protect what’s important to him.

- Quiet as a ghost around HQ and when he’s out in the field. He’s got a tendency to sneak up on people without meaning to. 

- An excellent problem solver and very good at adapting on the spot! He’s quickly able to switch tracks and work on any necessary contingency plans.

- Sometimes when he needs space he’ll wander into an abandoned timeline and find a nice place to just sit and breathe. Think dreamcore vibes for the places he ends up lol

- Has zero experience with romance whatsoever. He’s a bit dense and clueless when coworkers try to flirt with him. In the rare case that he DOES catch on he gets very flustered and tries to hide himself 🤭

- Earnest to a fault!! You’d be hard pressed to find somebody more compassionate and dedicated to his job than Evren. He also isn’t afraid to give out compliments to people, and he does so very energetically which tends to make people on the receiving end quite embarrassed hehe

- Yes he’s a little awkward to talk to at first but god he grows on you. Look at what he did to Aegis. Nobody is safe