Carlyle Arevalo was born to poverty in the Outer City, the son of a Priestess and Blacksmith born several months after a difficult divorce. Living with his mother within the church she worked at, young Carlyle grew up idolizing and worshipping Dragons, revering them as the pinnacle of life and striving to one day have an opportunity to bond with one and experience firsthand the stories he was raised hearing every day.

Unfortunately, there was little chance for him to have such a life to begin with. As a teenager, supporting his now ailing mother kept him far too busy to worry about Dragons, let alone learning to ride one well enough to attend The Rising. Years of menial labor for little pay and even less recognition began to fester bitterness and disdain within Arevalo, tempered only by a woman he met during his labors, Faye Valimir.

Like Carlyle, Faye came from humble beginnings, working at her family's glassblowing shop. Faye's father would often pay him to tidy up the shop for some pocket change, and it was during these long hours near the young Valimir that the two of them grew close, and eventually began a relationship. Faye's presence soothed Carlyle's woes in a way none other could, and he reveled in every free moment he had to spend with her.

Arevalo's life entered an uneasy peace, his frustration with his standing balanced by the love of Faye Valimir. This peace would not last forever, unfortunately. Carlyle's mother eventually succumbed to her illness, wracking Carlyle with grief. Not long after this, Faye briefly went missing while out on one of her expeditions to collect scales for her art.

In a frenzy far beyond his right mind, Carlyle stormed out of Thanasis to search for Faye himself, with only a horse to carry him and a sword to defend himself with. If he had to live without his Mother and Faye, he would rather meet his end trying to save her.

Carlyle did not find Faye, but he did find somebody else that day.

Carlyle fled the city for what felt like days, but in truth was only a few hours of riding. There was not hide nor hair of his lover amidst the harsh wilds outside of Thanasis, of which he had no experience. Dusk fell far too quickly, and as soon as the sun's light faded behind the horizon, Arevalo was waylaid by beasts seeking a fresh meal. Carlyle was able to escape, but his horse was sacrificed instead, left behind to appease the hungry predators that had attacked him.

Left disoriented, with no sense of which direction to take home and no feasible way to get there, Arevalo opted to take shelter in a cave until dawn and attempt to reorientate himself after some rest. His mind was weary, his body sore, and his spirit broken. So exhausted was he, that he failed to realize the eyes upon him.

Carlyle slept restlessly, vivid dreams in his mind. He imagined a mass of black reaching out through the dim light of the moon, grasping and pulling him into an embrace with the void itself. The figure was warm, and comforting, and made him feel safe. Yet despite this overwhelming sense of security, his hair stood on end, his skin became gooseflesh and his spine shivered with fear.

When finally he awoke, he realized by the light of morning pouring into the cave mouth that he'd not been alone within it. An enormous black dragon had also chosen that cavern as its home for the night, and now it stared down at the pathetic, broken human with beaded, purple eyes.

Zeodag is a violent and aggressive dragon, even amongst his kind. Very territorial and highly irritable, Zeodag abhorred the cooperative relationship that Dragon-Kind formed with the humans of Thanasis, and spent the majority of its life instead in the wilds of Malakath, using his impressive size and immense strength to prey upon smaller, weaker dragons, feasting upon them, their riders should they have one, and their nests should he find them.

This was not out of necessity, but out of malice. Zeodag considers both those smaller than him and those who allow humans to parade them around as weak and unworthy, seeing humans as vermin that should be treated as such, despite their reverent worship. That he now stared upon a human male who had bonded with him in his sleep was the cruelest of jokes.

Zeodag had been prepared to devour the weary Carlyle the moment he entered the cave, but he felt the young man's rage, the sorrow and bitter hatred coursing through him. For the briefest of moments, Zeodag allowed himself to relate to a human, to sympathize with him. One moment of weakness was all it took for the bond to form. So powerful was the connection that had unexpectedly formed between them, that Arevalo's physical appearance changed as well, his hair and eyes changing their hue to match Zeodag's own.

But Zeodag was no mere companion to Carlyle. No, such a thing was beneath him. From that morning on, The Black Dragon exerted his will over the young Arevalo as his master, a human tool with which he could enact his own will upon the human world. This partnership was not planned, but he would make the most of it. With this boy, Zeodag saw his opportunity to 'liberate' his kind from those whom he saw as patronizing and belittling them.

Carlyle returned to Thanasis on the back of a massive Black Dragon, having bonded with a winged god at last. It was there he reunited with Faye, who'd been saved by her own newfound bondmate. With a tearful reunion and a warm embrace, it seemed the nightmare was over, two lovers saved by the Dragons, another victory for the bond between the flying deities and Thanasis.

Carlyle immediately quit his job as a laborer and instead opted to join the military. The Dragon he'd brought back with him was massive, hostile to any but Arevalo, and extremely powerful. In little time, Carlyle began making a reputation for himself as a merciless warrior, capable of completing the most difficult of assignments, so long as one didn't mind collateral damage. Nevertheless, his service to the city eventually earned him the title of Ascended, a position which he holds proudly today.

Outside of his public military life, however, things were far more complex.

Only a few months after his return to Thanasis, under the unwitting direction of Zeodag's malevolent influence, Carlyle began to build a criminal portfolio for himself. Faye required dragon scales to complete her pieces, which were always in high demand. Rather than risking allowing his lover to put herself in danger for these scales, Arevalo salaried several undesirables to pluck scales from Dragons within the city, which he would pay them a premium for. This was a dangerous job, and a highly illegal one, but whenever one of his men died at the hands of an irate dragon, he simply hired another. Being mauled by a Dragon left little in the way of a paper trail, after all.

It wasn't long before this small business blossomed into more-- Soon the suddenly quite wealthy and well-to-do Arevalo was smuggling expensive contraband in and out of the city to and from other settlements. Weapons and equipment from the military would mysteriously vanish, and sometimes Riders of lesser renown and status would simply never return from their missions.

Initially disapproving, Faye too would eventually come to share in Carlyle's unbridled ambition, and together the two of them became one of the most powerful couples in Malakath's criminal underground, all while under the guise of a respected soldier and a talented glassblower.

Unwitting pawns to Zeodag's will.

Carlyle is tall and muscular, owing to a life of hard labor and military service. He wears expensive clothes, silver jewelry, and well-crafted boots, and military equipment, but only underneath the tattered old coat of his youth in poverty, a reminder of his origins.

Originally, Arevalo had fair brown hair and vibrant hazel eyes. After bonding with the malevolent and powerful Zeodag, however, his hair and eyes have shifted to match that of his bondmate and master.

Carlyle is well-spoken, polite, charming, and humourous to most, but is entirely capable of cold-hearted callousness and viciousness appropriate of a man bonded with Zeodag. He cares genuinely for his lover, Faye, the well-being of his friends and comrades, and especially his Dragon, but his subservience to the latter can and has superseded such care in the past. When Zeodag commands it, Arevalo is willing to become every bit of a monster as his master needs him to be.