[attr="class","ilbgdtraits"]

Lyra K. Ashford

[attr="class","dropfrumbodytxt"][break]
PERSONALITY Growing up, Lyra was known as that shy kid who kept to himself, and not much has changed since then. In his mid twenties he started to make more of an effort to socialize, but he's so terrible at it. If he doesn't know someone it's considerably worse, but even with friends he tends to trip over his words more often than not. The only time anyone really breaks the shyness is when they get him talking about woodworking, a subject he is more than happy to wax poetic about.[break][break]
Speaking of woodworking, Lyra sees himself as more of an artist than a craftsman. Oh, you want plain kitchen table? Best find someone else. If what he made was totally up to him, Lyra would be making wood sculptures all day long. As it stands, he can't help but put intricate designs and flair into the work he does, causing his crafts to take longer than it does other woodworkers.[break][break]
Romantically he isn't really interested in anyone, at all, and never has been. He just doesn't know what to do with people. It's a shame his awkward shyness has often lead people to believe he likes them, and then things become even more awkward.[break][break]
When he's alone he has a tendency to sing, albeit poorly, and practically has an in love look on his face when he's working. He spaces out a lot when he's not working, often not noticing the world around him unless someone calls his attention to something or it involves some form of really beautiful woodwork. This has been known to put him in dangerous situations.[break][break]
Lyra is sensitive to criticism, and any remarks of himself tend to eat away at him for weeks. Dislike of his work may be one of the only ways to make him angry, at least enough to rant (usually about their inability to see art and craftsmanship), the other being negative remarks about his mother. Otherwise he's a pushover, and will avoid arguments at all costs. He hates the sight of blood, getting lightheaded when he sees it. Seeing severely bleeding wounds can make him pass out.[break][break]
Sometimes he's a little bit of an airhead, like forgetting that it will be a while before the new settlements have power, or forgetting to pack clothes until the last moment.[break][break]
The best gift for him would be a block of some new kind of wood, even if only a small one. He will make something really amazing out of that!
[break][break]

HISTORY Lyra was born to moderately wealthy parents. His father, Hector Ashford, was a surgeon, while his mother, Annabel Ashford, was a well-known sci-fi and fantasy novelist, both making six figures a year (his mother's income was admittedly more varied as it depended entirely on book sales and royalties). He was a late child, his parents had waited until they were in their late thirties to try and conceive, and after his birth their attempts at a second child ended in failure.[break][break]
He never had friends growing up, even when he'd be on friendly terms with someone he would eventually end up wanting to spend more time by himself than with them. Many of his classmates made fun of him, but he was fortunately very good at missing their comments due to being zoned out.[break][break]
In a sense, Lyra was a bit of a disappointment to his parents. Not only had they been expecting a girl (the sonogram reading was wrong), but growing up Lyra didn't really take after either of them. He was terrible at sciences and had a weak stomach when it came to blood, and his taste in art was more of the visual variety than the written. In school his best subjects were gym, math, and art, being downright awful at everything else, up until high school when he enrolled in elective woodworking classes.[break][break]
Much to his parent's consternation, Lyra found the work so rewarding that he eventually scrapped his plans to go to college for math, their planned route for him. For a few years in his late teens and early twenties they cut him off from access to their money, a punishment in their eyes, and he found himself having to fend for himself.[break][break]
Fortunately his woodworking teacher had seen his passion for the craft and knew several professionals in the area that he was able to set Lyra up with an apprenticeship. It took four years of hard work, but eventually his teacher pronounced him a journeyman and recommended him to another shop in the area, The Hive, that specialized in wood sculptures and functional pieces that were practically art in their own right. The owner hired him and his work was a perfect fit, even if he was still fairly awkward around his co-workers. [break][break]
It was around this time that his parents admitted that perhaps he was better inclined to this than he would have been in a stuffy office somewhere adding things up on a computer, although their relationship was still somewhat strained.[break][break]
He was thirty when his mother passed away. She experienced a series of strokes that her body couldn't take, and Lyra didn't take the news well. He left The Hive and returned to live with his dad, who didn't actually need his help. But losing someone was something Lyra wasn't well equipped to deal with, and the return to home was more for his benefit. It was nearly a year before he started working with wood again in his father's garage, much to his father's relief.[break][break]
Not that it really mattered and they both knew it. The evacuation to P.E. wasn't really a surprise, the earth had been going to hell in a hand basket for a while and you can't build spaceships that can cross between galaxies without everyone finding out.[break][break]
Lyra and his father packed up the few things they each thought it was necessary to bring and headed to the evacuation point closest to hem. Lyra wasn't sure how it happened, but somehow they got separated and he hasn't seen his father since.
[break][break]

DISTINGUISHING MARKS Lyra has an artistic butterfly line-art tattoo on his left shoulder blade, a steel blue color in the center that gradiates out to a black at the edges. There is also a tattoo of the number 13 on the bottom of his right foot, in black ink that is wearing away. He has scars all over his hands from accidental contact with hand saws, screws, nails, drills, and utility knife blades. He'd yet to actually cut anything off, at least.[break][break]

ITEMS[break]
2 small[break]

1. A set of three small chisels and an 8oz stubby hammer.
2. A box of 8p common nails with five small squares of sandpaper tucked in the top.

[break]
One dark blue t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, a pair of boxer briefs with birds all over them, a pair of black socks, and a pair of regular boots. One light grey shirt, a pair of khaki carpenter pants, a pair of light green boxer briefs, a pair of white socks, and a pair of steel toe boots.[break][break]
5 large[break]

1. A large tool cabinet, containing: sixteen wood chisels of varying sizes, three hammers, an electric jigsaw with four sets of new blades, a sawzall with a pack of eight replacement wood blades and two wood/metal blades, three tape measures, seven hand saws, a router and several router bits, a cordless standard drill, a cordless impact drill, two extra batteries and a battery charger, a hand drill, an assortment of drill bits and screw-driving bits, a direct drive skill saw with five replacement blades, a combination square, a speed square, a framing square, a try square, a sliding t-bevel square, three awls, five planers of varying sizes, a set of ten phillip and flat head screwdrivers of varying sizes, two wooden mallets, six locking c-clamps, two spring clamps, four screw clamps, a variety of pens, carpenters' pencils and soap stones, two chalk line and reels, a ratchet set, a pair of needlenose pliers, three rolls of tie wire, six unopened pairs of safety glasses, an adjustable wrench, a cat's paw, a 24-inch level, a utility knife and two packs of 100 replacement blades, a flat bar, aviation snips, an extension cord, a GFCI three-way power splitter, a good amount of sandpaper, and several bottles of wood glue.
2. A large crate filled with thirty buckets of varying sizes of nails, screws, and bolts, ten 24-count boxes of wood glue, twenty large chalk line refill bottles with blue chalk, a box containing a hundred carpenters' pencils, and thirty boxes of sandpaper.
3. A duffle bag with several changes of clothing: various t-shirts and pairs of jeans, two button-up shirts, boxers, socks, a pair of sneakers, and a second pair of steel toe boots. None of the items have been folded or packed in any decent manner.
4. A table saw with a box of replacement blades and parts.
5. A box that contains copies of all of his mom's books (31), four of her notebooks that had plot ideas and writing snippets and scraps, and a photo album of his family.