Jutse Aldwyn is a calico and healer who was born in 514 GD.

He is trans, heterosexual, and polyamorous.

Jutse was born in the city of Hesilen in Bachi, deep within the Great Blind Desert. He is the identical twin sibling of Cleo Aldwyn. He has a sphinx father and a calico mother.

The aftermath of the Adenian-Tethish War took a toll on the global economy. As Hesilen is primarily a trading village, this meant that fewer and fewer traders came through Hesilen, so more and more of their parents' savings was consumed merely buying the bare necessities to survive. They were faced with an unthinkably horrible choice. They could sell one of their children to a passing trader,

At a very young age, Cleo was sold into slavery to a group of traders, leaving Jutse behind with his parents. Jutse's parents used the proceeds from the sale to purchase the necessary materials and equipment to train Jutse as a healer. His parents were the only healers in Hesilen. Because the city was hundreds of miles from any other settlements, they could not leave the city without a healer.

Most of the village’s economy was in hospitality, as there were little to no natural resources nearby, and no respectable business would attempt to set up shop there. Nearly every family in the village ran an inn which housed weary traders who were halfway through their trek across the desert.

The Aldwyns were the village doctors, going back for countless generations, and quite possibly to the very founding of the village. The innkeepers saw to the travelers, and we saw to the innkeepers. There were a handful of other tradespeople in the village, naturally. Cobblers, builders, chefs, carpenters, masons… As long as we had a steady inflow of goods and materials on the backs of traders, then the village could persist.

The traders got an absolutely necessary rest point, and in exchange we got what we needed to survive the harsh climate. It was a good trade.

But after the war, usage of this trade route plummeted. Our village sat upon a trade route from the southern coast to the northern coast by the Magmaen Sea, and after the war, it became more economical to simply ship goods by boat around the whole of the subcontinent rather than to send hapless people through a hostile desert on foot. While the influx of traders did not immediately hit zero, it was enough of a drop that we sorely felt their absence.

Without traders bringing us tanks of water, the village gradually disintegrated. One by one, the villagers left, joining the traders on their way out and seeking their fortunes elsewhere. But my parents refused to leave. As long as there was a single person left in that village, they would stay to ensure their health. My family had been in that village for millennia.

Hesilen was where we lived. It was our home. We had never known anything else. No one in our family had, for thousands of years.

I was born an identical twin. My sister is named Cleo. When both of us were three, my parents made a decision. Knowing how hard life in the desert would be, and how little hope there was for the future of the village, my parents asked a group of traders they knew well to take Cleo north and see that she was adopted.

When I learned of this, I was incensed.

Furious.

I was so lonely that I had resorted to making up an imaginary friend called Boulder who lived on a rock outside my village. When they told me what they had done, I resented them heavily. I could have had a twin, a best friend through the good times and bad. (Granted, I know well that other twin would disagree with this. But to you I say hush, let me dream.)

Of course, now that I have some years behind me, and I can think more rationally, I understand why they did what they did, and I do not resent them for it. It was the right decision.

When I was eleven, my father made a house call for the head of one of the oldest families in the village, apart from our own. In that house, he found the man unresponsive, with cold, hard skin. My father, with all his expertise, could not accurately determine when the man had died, only that he was certainly dead. No pulse, no breathing. My father worked tirelessly to discover a cure, to work out some combination of poultices and restoratives, some application of physical therapies, some surgical method that might reverse the hardening process.

My father named this disease “Stoneflesh” for its peculiar impact on the skin and soft tissues. The disease gradually desiccated the flesh of the afflicted and robbed it of its pliability. The end result was that the body would no longer absorb water effectively, and there was a gradual loss of mobility. The loss of mobility was for two reasons. Firstly, the muscles would gradually lose strength and induce intense pain in the afflicted when contracted. Secondly, the tendons and joints would gradually stiffen until they could no longer function, again accompanied by extreme pain.

The disease had a 100% mortality rate, and it was extremely contagious. I was forbidden from leaving the house, and my father quarantined himself. He, of course, had already contracted the illness. He managed to slow the progression of the disease by increasing his fluid intake, which was only possible because the population of the village had already dropped so drastically. My mother began to wear gloves and a mask, and she never touched patients any more, for fear that she might catch the disease and leave me an orphan.