Alaskan Homesteader

Human (insofar as we know)

Nick Wechsler

Stocky, on the shorter side

Sapphire blue

Dark brown

The most important thing to note about Arod is how little his children remember about what he looks like. Cynric remembers him a little better than Faina, but even his memory is hazy and blurred as he was only 5 the last time he saw him. They remember that they are supposed to take after their father more precisely because Ellie is the spitting image of their mother, and they both inherited his dark hair and blue eyes. Faina likes to say that Cynric would look just like him, but neither of them know if that's really true... and they could walk past him on the street and not recognize him at all.

No photos of him exist within either of their files... but unbeknownst to them, Ilene managed to find an old newspaper clipping of an engagement announcement under Adelaide's maiden name, and once they meet up, it'll be the first time the kids can remember seeing their parents together.

Next to nothing is known about Arod or his family. There is little to be found about the Parker family at all prior to their arrival to the homestead in Alaska, which lies northeast between Snow Haven and Fairbanks. Arod and Adelaide both worked hard, it appears, to erase whatever life they had before the two of them got together, and bury their pasts.

What is clear is that Arod was older than his wife by about 8 or 9 years, that they married quickly, and they were in mutual agreement about their isolated life on the homestead where their three children were born. Everything they did, they did as a team. And what little their children do remember, it was a happy, peaceful, blissful marriage and life... until Arod vanished without a trace.

The sheriff's department found their snowmobile halfway to town, overturned and with no supplies, and with a heavy snowfall that meant all tracks were covered. No one could tell whether he had been on his way to town or on his way home when he went missing. He was eventually declared Missing, Presumed Dead, and that they would either find his body during the Thaw, or never.

All three kids privately believes different things. Cynric believes him dead. Faina believes that while he might be dead now, he walked away from that snowmobile alive and essentially ran away from their family. Ilene suspects he might still be alive. None of them ever voice these thoughts out loud to one another.

Despite searching quite extensively, no extended family or relatives could be found on either Arod or Adelaide's sides when the social workers tried to locate next of kin, but that isn't clear whether that was because there really were none - that parents had died and neither of them had siblings or other relatives - or whether that was due to how well the pair of them covered up their pasts.

However, it is known that Arod is not originally from Alaska and had only moved there permanently shortly before he married Adelaide. That was partially the reason the Sheriff's department ruled him probably deceased; they believe he got lost after the wreck and succumbed to the elements after being unfamiliar with the environment after only a few short years of living this far north.