Education: Veterinary College
Ever since he was a child, Arthur was overwhelmed by an immense love for all living things. How and why exactly this happened is unknown. Maybe it originated from the fact that his parents never allowed him to have any, even the smallest and the most odourless pet. This love was leading Arthur by the hand throughout his life and has finally led him all the way to becoming a veterinarian.
The rose-coloured glasses shattered rather quickly – this profession turned out to be quite different from what it had seemed when he was a child. At least somehow our hero hadn’t thought about horse enemas and cow births before, about the blood and pain that all vets have been immersed in since their first training days. But in spite of this, Thur decided to stick with it so that he could be able to help our little fur brothers.
During one of his toughest exam preparations, Thur suffered from a lack of exercise and action in his life. That all changed when a one of his buddies invited him to a LARP party – to run through the woods, to swing swords. The rest of his college years went very differently for him.
Job: Veterinarian
At work in the big city, fewer and fewer freshly hatched calves passed through Arthur’s hands than in his studies. The city was having more and more cases like an overeating hamster or a depressed parrot.
He didn’t start thinking less about his profession, though – help is help. And if they come to him for help, he will do everything in his power to bring the animal back to normal. What can we say, the small private clinic, where he has settled in, appreciates him as an employee.
● Hobbies: LARPer, dog groomer
At this point, not quite morally mature people might start giggling at how incongruous our hero’s interests seem. But if you think so, take a step back and look at Arthur from some distance, then the bigger picture emerges. And now it’s clear that anything else would be even silly to expect.
The fact is that after about five hundred dogs had been examined and cared for, a new passion began to take root in Arthur. Seeing his patients happy was the highest reward for our personal Dr Dolittle, but it is hard to see them happy if they are all covered in tatters and tangles.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a mad desire to see them clean and neat as well. That’s how dog grooming – the art of haircuts for pets – came into Arthur’s life.
Not without the support of his superiors, Thur decided to ask the owners of his most shaggy clients for permission to «chop them up a bit». «Literally snip just the very tips,» he said to the delight of not the most mature of readers and not the most mature of his clients. There were more castration jokes after that phrase than we all would have liked, but that smile was Arthur’s pass to a new hobby.
After a while, people started asking the handy vet for this extra service themselves. After that, their friends, friends of friends and eventually some strangers in general started coming.
The owner of the clinic, being a clever man, was quick to make sure that such a talent would also bring in an extra penny. He gave Thur a small storage room to use, helped with the initial materials and even added a small poster at the entrance announcing the new service.
However, it cannot be said that dog grooming has become a second job for Arthur. For now, it is still a hobby: he has complete creative freedom, no schedule and no plans to follow, no check-ups and inspections from his bosses. He does it for himself and for his furry friends, who, after such a beauty salon, come out looking happy and smiling.
● Outstanding personal qualities:
Kindness: Do you know people who, instead of crushing a spider with whatever is at hand, gently take it outside and let it go in peace? If not, meet Arthur again. Given that touching the creature, which has eight paws, with his own hands is beyond him, our hero chooses the path of love anyway and rushes off to find a glass and a piece of paper to help the spider with the move.
Empathy: Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is a tricky skill, but Arthur manages it. It’s what nearly destroyed his career in medicine. Thur gave his first injection in tears – he himself had experienced the fear and pain of his patient.
He almost fainted, and after the whole study group leaned him up against the nearest wall and gave him some water to drink, he seriously wanted to go and quit his studies right away.
Arthur is sympathetic to all animate objects. All inanimate objects he animates and then shows sympathy for them as well.
Whereas for most people on this planet it might just be an old spoon, for Thur it will be good old Bon-Bon – practically a childhood friend whom he purposely took away from his parents’ home as soon as he started living on his own.
Thanks to this he has a large family – in addition to his wife and son, there’s also the diva, called Prima Donna, a wayward washing machine, and his faithful four-wheeled friend called Jürgen.
Calmness: It’s not an easy task to get Thur to lose his temper. He is a big man, and given his size, no one has ever tried to make him do so. So Arthur’s nervous system is practically brand new, undisturbed by the people around him.
Conflict-free: Arthur has a big problem with confrontation. He avoids conflict at all costs. Our hero is not the type to bang his fist on the table and bark for everyone to calm down and shut up.
In emotionally heated situations, it is usually the wife dealing with the problems, while Arthur stands silently behind her back, instilling his (or at least trying hard) the most serious face expression.
When conflict situations arise with his wife, however, there is no escape for him. So he tries to keep his wife happy, content and well-fed. Not only because of that, of course, but also because he loves her to pieces in a puppy-dog way.
Fun: Arthur also likes to laugh a lot, and he does it very infectiously. So not only does he make his own jokes and laughs at them, he also drags everyone around him along with him into this maelstrom of incessant hilarity.
Some people seriously avoid spending too much time with him simply because their jaw and stomach muscles ache in the morning after a session of hysterical laughter. But there are far more people who, on the contrary, want to spend their time this way, so Arthur is a welcome guest at any gathering of even distant acquaintances.
About Agatha
● Appearance:
Eyes: Black, narrow
Hair: Black, stiff; shoulder blades length
Leather: Olive
Height: 152 cm
Body build: Slim
The contrast in appearance between Agatha and her husband was a usual subject of jokes by friends, acquaintances, and other random people. The already frail-looking girl looked even smaller and more defenceless against the backdrop of Mount Arthur.
With her looks, she would have been nothing but endearing, were it not for the heavy, cold stare of her black eyes, as black as the night itself. That gaze could not only stop a hand from reaching to pinch Agatha’s cheek, it could twist it, and the brute would find himself twisted and broken on the cold floor.
● Clothing