Kovač, Ilija

Face Claim: Slaine Troyard // Aldnoah Zero

APPEARANCE

Ilija has very light blonde hair which is usually kept fairly smooth and frames itself around his face in a medium length. He is fairly pale as well, and the best word to describe his structure would be scrawny at best. He is 5'5" and weighs next to nothing soaking wet. He seems pretty dainty and small, which goes well with his gentle features. He always wears lighter colored clothes. He likes fuzzy sweaters and dad jackets. He wears a small golden cross on a golden chain, though it is almost always underneath his shirts. He is almost always sporting a bruise somewhere, as people like to pick on him and bully him. He has a large scar down the center of his chest from a childhood accident.

PERSONALITY

Ilija might as well literally be an angel with how he behaves. He is the sweetest, kindest, most gentle boy that there is. He will always listen to everyone's problems and try to offer helpful advice if he has any. He is very reliable and dependable and people often rely on him, if not a little too much. Because of this, he is easily taken advantage of. He is very naive and often doesn't know any better. He trusts people too easily, though he is very shy and quiet. He is always very eager to please, and feels the most regret if he breaks a promise or let's someone down. He is quite distant, but quite close to his sister. He is not sure whether or not he can really trust her after she abandoned him, but now that he sort of understands why, he is willing to try again.

HISTORY

Ilija was the second born child of the Kovač family. He has an older sister and loving parents. They were a poor farming family somewhere in the Siberian province. Their parents worked fairly hard to supply for their children, and both of them learned to work on the farm very early in life. While there were only a few years separating them, it felt nearly as if they were twins. His sister, Adrijana, helped raise him while his mother did her chores. She would keep a very close eye on him and make sure that he was fed and swaddled correctly and burped regularly, and that he always had clean diapers on.

As they grew a bit older, Adrijana started helping out with little chores, and would have Ilija help in little ways that would hopefully keep him out of danger. When Ilija was just 4 years old, Adrijana being 7, they had the task of milking the cow that morning. Ilija was to hold the bucket, and Adri was meant to do the milking. Now, their two cows were usually very calm and mild tempered, and usually had no problem with the children doing this task with their mother present, but this was the first time that they would be doing it on their own. They were both fairly nervous, but Adri was confident that they would be able to do it without a problem. She was wrong.

Things were going well at first, but something spooked the cow about halfway through, and while Adri tried to calm the cow down, it thrashed about and kicked Ilija right in the sternum, hard enough to crack it and dislocate a few of his ribs. He was very lucky that it did not stop his heart or pierce his lungs, but it would cause breathing problems for the rest of his life.

Adrijana didn't leave his side the whole time he was in the hospital, or during his recovery at home, despite the fact that her parents wanted to send her off to school. Once he was recovered enough, it was obvious that the boy would get ill quite easily, and that he could no longer work on the farm. One year, when he was nearing 10 years old, he got pneumonia. He was the sickest that he had ever been, and they feared the worst. His parents began to make arrangements, just in case. His sister never gave up hope, but it did not look like he was going to recover. He stayed sick for months, playing ding-dong-ditch on Death's door.

Then he took a turn for the worse. They packed him up and took him to the hospital, where they were sure that they would have to say goodbye, leaving Adrijana at home to tend to the farm while they took turns tending to Ilija in the city. The hospital stay seemed to be just what he needed, as he soon started getting better, stronger, healthier. When he finally returned home, there was grim news that he was just devastated by. His parents had not expected him to make a recovery, so they never bothered to tell him that Adrijana had run away and disappeared. They hadn't seen her in a month.

He stayed on, helping where he could around the house, but he wasn't allowed to help out around the farm. For the longest time, he cursed his sister. He hated her for leaving them like that. It only took them one more year to start losing the farm. The crops began to get sick and die, the cows got too old to do anything with and had to be sold off for meat, and they began to sell off their things little by little until there was barely anything left.

Ilija felt that it was all his fault due to the high hospital bills and the lack of help around the farm. He felt so guilty and terrible about everything.

The next year, days before the farm was to be closed on and taken by the banks, Ilija went out to the barn to check on his parents, only to find that his father had shot his mother with a shotgun, and then hung himself from the rafters. The boy broke down. Everything was gone. He had nothing left to live for. His was sick, worthless, and undereducated from having to be homeschooled his whole life. He shakily got up the courage to go over and grab the shotgun, putting the end of it in his mouth. And that was when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Death. It was there. Telling him that it wasn't his time, and that he would see his sister again. He just had to have some faith. Not knowing what else to do or where else to go, Ilija agreed to go with him, and was brought to the Academy. It was here that he met his sister, finding out that she had been going to the school for the last three years. She had thought he was dead with what her parents told her, and found no reason to stay behind anymore. He is still working on forgiving her for leaving, but he does hope that they will be close again.