Post by Bharune on Mar 20, 2011 22:14:01 GMT -5
Name: Lucien Sibrel Serbanescu
Nicknames/Alias: None
FF: FFXIII
Age: 18
Height/build: 5’4, 115lbs
DoB: Sometime in November
Weapon: Doesn’t specialize with any weapon, but typically carries some sort of firearm and melee blade. Or whatever he can find laying around.
Level: 45
Strength: 135
Physical: 15
Magical: 90
Agility: 30
Special Skill(s): (WIP)
Magic:
Animate Death: Lucien possesses the ability to animate a creature or substance that was once living, but isn’t any longer. This ability includes the corpses of humans, animals, monsters, ect, and also substances like dead wood (only if it isn’t treated with finish/polish) and vegetation. The maximum Lucien can command is 600lbs worth of weight for a total of 5 minutes, and every 50lbs less Lucien gains another 5 minutes to his duration. (So 550lbs – 10m, 300lbs – 35m, 50lbs – 60m).
Meld/Weave Sinew: This allows Lucien to change the physical properties of a creature or substance animated by him, sculpting it into a new form or even combining several. It applies to the same materials as Animate Death, and adheres to the same restrictions in weight and duration.
Infect: Using the same energy transference technique as Animate Death on a living creature, Lucien can invade a portion of a person’s body equal to a square foot with his own energy, causing suffering but doing no actual physical damage. These abilities work upon touch only.
Soothe/Enhance: Infect technique that soothes physical discomfort or increases physical sensitivity, but doesn’t actually heal damage.
Control Limb: Infect technique that allows Lucien to control a limb of an infected person, however the ability is negated by an opposing will so the target would have to be willing or unconscious. Because of that, Lucien hasn’t found much use for this.[/ul]
Summon: None
Appearance: When unconscious, ‘frail’ is typically the first adjective that comes to an observer’s mind. The structure of his body is thin-boned – a gift from their mother – and he was gifted with neither height nor any sort of broadness. Delicate, even, he appears weak and unthreatening.
When awake, however, these things are much more difficult to notice, more than made up for by the air he commands. Never flinching or shrinking back, Lucien moves with boldness; fearless and unintimidated regardless of circumstance. His crimson eyes hold a sharp, intelligent gaze that seem to perceive so much, and his faint smirks leaves one uncertain of his intentions or capabilities. Lucien’s complexion is light, and his hair a blood-colored flow just past his shoulder blades.
Personality: Most commonly described as having the personality of a snake, Lucien doesn’t bother to hide his deceptive, manipulative nature. The necessity of duty and self-preservation can draw out a merciless killer in Lucien that possesses a limitless cruelty, and he often has very destructive inclinations. But Lucien can also be extremely charismatic and playful, and others are often attracted by his wit and ambiguous diction. And for such a delicate individual, his confidence and dignity seem unmatched, though he almost perpetually moves and speaks with an alluring seductiveness that leaves him with a bit of a questionable reputation.
History: Blue.
My first memories are of the color blue, which so often swathed the withering form of my mother. I remember how her blue rippled like water, how it shimmered in the glow of sunlight. She must’ve loved blue, for I recall sky blue china and rich, azure curtains, and in those days the blue touched everything. Or perhaps the hues of my memories were altered by my association of her with that cool, fluid color.
The blues faded along with her, becoming dusty and dulled from her neglect. Even at that age, I understood that she had lost something, something that was not blue but red, something fiery and consuming that caused her spirit to die even though her body still breathed. And when I saw the unusual, blood-like flair of my own hair, I knew without knowing that I had inherited what she’d lost.
But I didn’t mourn the brokenness of my mother or the invisibility of my father, for I yet had a family; my brother, Beniamen, born along with me. Physically stronger than I and of a more serious demeanor, people always told him it was his duty to protect me, and he assumed that role with such a conviction that I barely noticed the lack of parental guidance. We took care of each other and I strove to be equally as useful, but even then I knew that Beniamen had seen something I had not, something that made him protective and wary of people. I didn’t ask what that something was but I understood that he had knowledge I didn’t possess, and I rarely questioned his precautions however extreme.
So we took care of ourselves, earning a meager allowance helping others around the neighborhood that nevertheless paid our meals. Most would consider this a difficult way for children to live, but Ben and I knew nothing else, so we were contented because of two simple, crucial blessings – we never went hungry and we were never alone. But when our mother’s shell finally followed the path of her soul, we were reminded that in a real society, children were not allowed to possess autonomy.
Encouraged by our successful existence thus far, we decided to run. We left our home with its few belongings, discarding our gutter of a city I now cannot even name, and traveled further than two eight-year-olds should’ve been able to manage. We sought shelter in various slums, and when we found one to our liking, we stayed.
We were bright children and Beniamen was especially athletic, so we rarely had trouble finding small tasks to help out with. Everything from cleaning to tending grass to purchasing groceries for the infirm kept us funded, and we were even able to pull off some elaborate scams for additional income. I could tell that Beniamen often lamented our state of living and wondered whether we had made the right choice, but I never had doubts. I was happy with him and didn’t mind the work, and even now those few years encompass my better memories. I loved those childhood nights spent with Beniamen, lying awake and discussing all that we pondered, all that we felt. Sometimes we would discuss where we came from, and sometimes where we would go next, and even when we disagreed or bickered we understood that we had nothing if not each other.
We had three years of that life, three years of having no roots or constants save each other, three years of moving locations whenever we gained too much of a reputation or felt less secure. We never starved even in times of scarcity, and the combination of Ben’s athleticism and my wit allowed us to accomplish things we never would’ve achieved alone. To me, we were meant to be a whole, one creature split into two complementary forms, so instead of envying Ben’s strengths I felt proud of them as if they were my own, and I wanted to inspire a likewise feeling in my brother despite his overprotective tendencies.
It only took once of being wrong, of misjudging a person, of ignoring gut instinct in favor of sound reasoning. For us, it happened during a routine cleaning assignment not unlike dozens of others we regularly conducted to earn cash; except this time our client had deduced that we had no family and decided there was more to gain than a freshly-dusted attic. When the men came, I begged for Ben to get away, knowing that if he escaped he could get me out of wherever they took me. He didn’t want to separate, but I knew I couldn’t climb and run as fast as he, and that I would slow him down. I stalled the men as long as possible while Beniamen scaled the roof and got a head start, and even when they managed to subdue me I wasn’t afraid – I knew he would come back for me, and my brother was quicker than any man I had ever met.
What I didn’t understand then was that the creatures who took me weren’t men, but devils.
I awoke deeply underground, caged like many others. A week later my brother joined me there, his rescue attempt unraveled by enemies he couldn’t hope to overcome. Another captive told us that we’d all died and wound up in some hellish afterlife, and for a long time I believed this to be true. Even together, even with all we’d already come through, we struggled to contend with the suffering inflicted there. I have no desire to recall that time unnecessarily, so the details can remain in our collective memory.
Something close to a year after our arrival, we became familiar enough with layout and routine to attempt an escape. Wounding several devils in the process, we made our way up, sneaking and fighting and crawling through ducts and hidden spaces. Desperate, we fought with everything inside of us, fueled by a fire we didn’t know we possessed. We were so close, so close to freedom, when I buckled.
Injured and exhausted, my strength left me and I crumbled, my spirit cracking at the realization that the devils would drag me back. Beniamen, so close, abandoned the endeavor and came back to me, preferring the thought of death or further enslavement to leaving me alone there. We were brutally punished, and I was forced to scar Beniamen’s face as a perpetual remainder of our mistake. Marred now, he was sentenced to pit-fighting for the entertainment of patrons, only alive because killing one of us would undoubtedly cause the death of the other. Weighed down by the knowledge that my weakness caused this, I changed my focus from escape to becoming as strong as I could, in any way that I could. Tacitly, I understood that this exact shift in perspective occurred in Beniamen as well, and neither of us contested our fate again.
Instead of struggling against our bonds, we accepted them and grew the best that we could. Ben became powerful and renown in the pits and I used my skills to acquire books and instruction, sharpening a mind that I gradually realized was brighter than most. We made the most of our predicament, our home, and after several more years we acquired more and more freedom, until we had the liberty to rejoin the world above.
But that world was wrong for us. The sunlight and the grass were wrong, the bright buildings and cheerful people were all wrong. Those people weren’t the devils we knew, and we found interacting with them difficult and confusing. There was no place for us to exist there, no job to accommodate our skills and no social experience to understand how to be any other kind of entity.
So we went back, but instead of slaves we were masters. Beniamen thrived in the ring, this time able to keep all that he earned, and he honed his skills and taught others. I managed the care of product, both the beasts that ravaged the arena and the nymphs subjected to the whims of patrons. There we made as much profit as we ever could’ve wanted, with no real idea of what to do with it.
And we existed in that manner until the apocalypse wracked Cocoon, causing the city above to crumble down. We were safe beneath the ground, but when the dust settled it was clear there was no longer a local market to support the business we took part of. When we emerged this time, we found the chaos and damage much more to our understanding, and interacted with grief-stricken refugees fair more easily than the chipper denizens from before. Still, I did not feel like I was one of them, and restlessness afflicted me the longer we remained in the company of so many unfamiliar humans. It didn’t take Ben and I long to decide to travel to Pulse, where the world was so huge that surely we would find some place to be ours.
(Rest is WIP)
