Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2013 0:01:53 GMT -5
Fenris carver
Name: Fenris Carver Alias: Born Théodore Clavière, though he has long since dropped that name in favor of something more fitting and, in his opinion, universal. Others call him Fen or Fenny - though the latter is used mostly mockingly. Age: 214 Occupation: Coven Leader Member Group: Creature Playby: Aaron Tveit |
For most, being born nobility is, generally speaking, a good thing. History proclaims you semi-divine and gold, jewels, and respect are meant to be yours. Born in France during the first summer of the turn of the nineteenth century, Théodore Clavière would not agree. With the end of the (first) French Revolution still fresh in everyone's mind, things for the nobles of the country were looking pretty bleak. Earlier on in the revolution - sometime around 1795, the Clavière family had felt to a farming village in the old countryside of France, placing their heads at a higher value than their titles. Two of the Clavière children, Louis and Toinette, had gotten to experience the pleasures of money for the very first years of their life, but by the time the rest of the children had come around, the fortune had been spent on keeping their head down and food in their bellies as the whole family began to work to stay ahead. Théodore was the last born to the brood, the fifth and final child and yet another mouth to feed.
I suppose you're wondering why that's all in the third person. Well, it just didn't seem right to tell the story as if it were my own. Technically, of course, it is but... I've been given more than one life to lead and my childhood? Well that isn't what's important. It was hard, and I'm still bitter about it; why wouldn't I be when I was sixth in line to the French throne? I was written out of my chance in the history books, and I will be enraged over it until the day I die but... even that's a story for later on.
I want to tell you the story of how my life began. My real life, not the one where I was picking hay from my hair and helping to gut pigs for supper. I want to tell you what happened after my father taught me to read and to right and to be nobility despite how the people of my country had taken away that right. I want to tell you the story of how I moved to Paris, how I made a name and a home for myself, and then how by some unholy stroke of luck, I found myself here in New Orleans two hundred years later with the small shattered remains of what was once a strong coven and the memories of two dead lovers at the forefront of my mind.
My story isn't a sad one, not really. Of course, it has its ups and downs, as anyone with two hundred and fourteen years behind them can be expected to have. It starts at the age of seventeen when I had earned enough money to fund a trip to Paris, begging on street corners with a contempt for the cavalry and a thirst for success. Upon arrival, I changed my name to Jehan Carver - generic at best and perfect for starting anew. I started working for a publisher.
When I first started, it didn't really matter what I was publishing, honestly, even if it was just propaganda. A paycheck was a paycheck, and by the time I'd turned nineteen I'd taken over as foreman of the company after the old man who had the place before me had... oh what's a polite way to say this? Kicked the bucket. I had risen from the bottom of the food chain to the top of it; I had a flat, my own place, and a girl I'd fallen head over heels in love with.
God, did I love that girl. Her name was Eloise - she was a learned girl, a sweet gentlewoman from good breeding. She was everything I ought to have had in my life and more. Her father wasn't pleased with my courting her, and who could blame him? A boy from a family he'd never even heard of trying to wed his only daughter? Despite my power in my company, there was hesitance and I understood that. But Eloise? she loved every moment of my affections and each one of my letters. She lusted for me and she loved me in the same way I lusted for and loved her. We were sublime together.
We were engaged to be wed - a decision her father had decided to begrudgingly allow upon the realization that she was carrying my child - when everything changed for me. The wedding was only days away, six or seven at the most, if I recall correctly, when I was attacked. I had gone to a local pub with a few of my workers to celebrate a new contract with a rather important political group and had, as men those days were wont to do, stumbled out in a drunken stupor just a bit too late at night. I was nearly home when I felt firm hands on my shoulders, steadying me on my feet, and sharp teeth were digging into my neck.
That was the night I first tasted blood. Not human blood, mind you, but vampire blood. That was the night that I became what I am, physically, today - a killer, a hunter, but no less a man than I was then. I find it's often imperative to remind people of that before I get any further in my story than I already have. I'll likely say it a few more times before the night is through, at any rate... just to be sure you understand.
Anyway, Hugues had taken me. He was a vampire, as I said, a strong man with wiry facial hair and a look of mischief perpetually glued to his features. He had been older when he was turned, maybe in his forties, and the grey hairs atop his head never changed or faded. He'd taken me out of love, he said, even if I didn't believe it. I was a mess; angst quickly became my life as he tried to cajole me into drinking and completing my transformation. I was stronger than he anticipated, I think, because it took nearly three weeks and near starvation to break me. I'm still rather proud of that accomplishment, though I've since learned to love what I became by his hand.
I was introduced to the coven that Hugues led - a large and accepting family of other vampires, some from places in the world I had barely known existed. They were all beautiful and all gentle towards me; more civilized than the legends and tales of vampires had ever made our kind out to be. It was with them I found a new home, though my fiancee and unborn child never once left my mind.
I couldn't ever allow them to see me again, and I planted things to ensure she thought that I had died, not that I had abandoned her. When the law enforcement came to her door to tell her, I watched her crumble from afar. I followed Eloise closely for the remainder of her life. I watched our child be born in the early hours of the morning, braving the burn of the sun on my skin to witness it. He was a boy, named after me... or the me she had known, at least. Little Jehan grew strong, and he married, and he had children - three boys. That was the start of my cataloguing my family line. I still do it... I still step in from time to time when they make bad decisions... even though none of them know I exist, I, at the very least, try to ensure that they don't make stupid decisions. It's not always easy, either, considering the fact that the generations have produced a good number of idiots from my bloodline.
But back to the story. Over the years, the coven outgrew Paris. Or maybe Paris outgrew the coven. Either way, we shipped off to the new world. The united states had a lot more to offer us, and we settled where we could feasibly survive. The years gave me opportunities to hone my skills as a vampire. I became a diligent hunter, learning the art of picking prey, of taking them down, and of covering my tracks. I was good at what I did. My actions were never what caused trouble for the ones that I loved.
Unfortunately, not all of my family was as careful as I was. We did well for many years with only a few isolated and rather tragic incidents, but we got too comfortable. In 2011 a group of hunters stormed our covenhouse, taking down all of those who stayed to fight for what was ours, and many of those who decided to run. Four of us escaped - myself included. I lost sisters, brothers, and the man who had, over the centuries, become like a father to me that day.
I'm not a forgiving person. The loss of my family enraged me beyond belief and I lashed out. For every man and woman stolen from my life, I stole another. For the next two years I tracked the hunters who had slaughtered my family like cattle and I killed them without remorse. Sometimes I killed their families, too, more out of pity than out of necessity. No one deserved to suffer through what I had and live to think of it each and every day. The blood tasted sweeter when I knew vengeance was mine. I think I developed a taste for it, honestly... sometimes I wish I had left a few to pick out later on. If that makes me selfish or cruel, then so be it. I'm only a man - I have every right to be selfish if I chose.
The remaining four of us moved to New Orleans. The irony of that isn't lost on me. I've seen that blasted Anne Rice movie more than once. New Orleans was convenient, though, and it reminded me of home. I wasn't about to argue with the logic that something familiar could do me good. It was in New Orleans that I met Darren. Darren, the stupid man with a stupid head on his shoulders.
As luck would have it, I later turned Darren to save his stupid life. Have I mentioned that I found him incredibly stupid? He was ridiculously headstrong with skewed morals and a blinded view of the world - not to mention a ton of red in his ledger. I'm not sure where or when I decided to make him my project, but somewhere along the line, I had promised to fix him and to make him whole again. Little did I know that, love him as I did, he'd bring along the one thing capable of breaking me.
Isaac was... never meant to be a vampire. But when we found him months after he'd renounced all ties to his father, I took him. He had been wrecked - absolutely and positively ready to die and something in me broke. Years of controlling my blood lust and I cracked, all because something in his eyes asked me to. He ran towards me and I took him in my arms and sank my fangs into his throat. If I had come to love the taste of vengeance, I loved the taste of him even more. Isaac, in his dying moments, revered me like I had longed to be revered my whole life, and yet... when I dropped him, heart stopping as he lay on the ground, I could do nothing but cry. How had I fallen to that point? How had I let a meal break me by doing nothing more than tearing into its throat like it had wanted me to?
His father turned him as I cried. I don't think Darren ever really forgave me for that. I loved him still, but our relationship fell apart for a while... and that was when things with Isaac really started.
Isaac was everything I loved about humanity. He was strong, and smart, fascinated with history and the old French that I still love to speak. He was fluent, and for a while, that was the only way we spoke. He said all other tongues hurt his ears and I believed him. He'd been broken since he'd taken the blood, and I had watched him slip into illness that I didn't know existed. I watched him fade, and it killed me. It was seeing him ache that drew me back to Darren, when the other man would take me. It was selfishness and foolishness that let me break Isaac's heart - it was easier that way, at least for me, and so I did it. I abandoned the dying boy for the man who had created him and for a while? I didn't feel bad about it. I let myself be blinded by the prospect of, one day, finding a mate in Darren - of having some by my side forever because Isaac couldn't be. Thinking back, I don't believe I even realized how awful that was. I do now.
It's because of me that both of them are dead.
I knew Isaac had done it. I never said anything, and I held nothing against him. I knew Darren to be pigheaded and volatile, and I could do nothing but ache and believe that Isaac had done it for the good of both of us. I never did approach him about it, though maybe I should have, because as soon as I had found the gall to do so, he was gone. I was left with a letter and nothing else. Once again it was me, and my three original covenmates. Nothing else. I could have found him, I know, but it seemed counterproductive. He had asked not to be sought after... I owed him as much.
I received another letter from him a few months after. It's still sitting, unopened in my nightstand drawer. I know what it means: he's gone. I've been building up the will to read it, and I think I've just about got the nerve...
I suppose you're wondering why that's all in the third person. Well, it just didn't seem right to tell the story as if it were my own. Technically, of course, it is but... I've been given more than one life to lead and my childhood? Well that isn't what's important. It was hard, and I'm still bitter about it; why wouldn't I be when I was sixth in line to the French throne? I was written out of my chance in the history books, and I will be enraged over it until the day I die but... even that's a story for later on.
I want to tell you the story of how my life began. My real life, not the one where I was picking hay from my hair and helping to gut pigs for supper. I want to tell you what happened after my father taught me to read and to right and to be nobility despite how the people of my country had taken away that right. I want to tell you the story of how I moved to Paris, how I made a name and a home for myself, and then how by some unholy stroke of luck, I found myself here in New Orleans two hundred years later with the small shattered remains of what was once a strong coven and the memories of two dead lovers at the forefront of my mind.
My story isn't a sad one, not really. Of course, it has its ups and downs, as anyone with two hundred and fourteen years behind them can be expected to have. It starts at the age of seventeen when I had earned enough money to fund a trip to Paris, begging on street corners with a contempt for the cavalry and a thirst for success. Upon arrival, I changed my name to Jehan Carver - generic at best and perfect for starting anew. I started working for a publisher.
When I first started, it didn't really matter what I was publishing, honestly, even if it was just propaganda. A paycheck was a paycheck, and by the time I'd turned nineteen I'd taken over as foreman of the company after the old man who had the place before me had... oh what's a polite way to say this? Kicked the bucket. I had risen from the bottom of the food chain to the top of it; I had a flat, my own place, and a girl I'd fallen head over heels in love with.
God, did I love that girl. Her name was Eloise - she was a learned girl, a sweet gentlewoman from good breeding. She was everything I ought to have had in my life and more. Her father wasn't pleased with my courting her, and who could blame him? A boy from a family he'd never even heard of trying to wed his only daughter? Despite my power in my company, there was hesitance and I understood that. But Eloise? she loved every moment of my affections and each one of my letters. She lusted for me and she loved me in the same way I lusted for and loved her. We were sublime together.
We were engaged to be wed - a decision her father had decided to begrudgingly allow upon the realization that she was carrying my child - when everything changed for me. The wedding was only days away, six or seven at the most, if I recall correctly, when I was attacked. I had gone to a local pub with a few of my workers to celebrate a new contract with a rather important political group and had, as men those days were wont to do, stumbled out in a drunken stupor just a bit too late at night. I was nearly home when I felt firm hands on my shoulders, steadying me on my feet, and sharp teeth were digging into my neck.
That was the night I first tasted blood. Not human blood, mind you, but vampire blood. That was the night that I became what I am, physically, today - a killer, a hunter, but no less a man than I was then. I find it's often imperative to remind people of that before I get any further in my story than I already have. I'll likely say it a few more times before the night is through, at any rate... just to be sure you understand.
Anyway, Hugues had taken me. He was a vampire, as I said, a strong man with wiry facial hair and a look of mischief perpetually glued to his features. He had been older when he was turned, maybe in his forties, and the grey hairs atop his head never changed or faded. He'd taken me out of love, he said, even if I didn't believe it. I was a mess; angst quickly became my life as he tried to cajole me into drinking and completing my transformation. I was stronger than he anticipated, I think, because it took nearly three weeks and near starvation to break me. I'm still rather proud of that accomplishment, though I've since learned to love what I became by his hand.
I was introduced to the coven that Hugues led - a large and accepting family of other vampires, some from places in the world I had barely known existed. They were all beautiful and all gentle towards me; more civilized than the legends and tales of vampires had ever made our kind out to be. It was with them I found a new home, though my fiancee and unborn child never once left my mind.
I couldn't ever allow them to see me again, and I planted things to ensure she thought that I had died, not that I had abandoned her. When the law enforcement came to her door to tell her, I watched her crumble from afar. I followed Eloise closely for the remainder of her life. I watched our child be born in the early hours of the morning, braving the burn of the sun on my skin to witness it. He was a boy, named after me... or the me she had known, at least. Little Jehan grew strong, and he married, and he had children - three boys. That was the start of my cataloguing my family line. I still do it... I still step in from time to time when they make bad decisions... even though none of them know I exist, I, at the very least, try to ensure that they don't make stupid decisions. It's not always easy, either, considering the fact that the generations have produced a good number of idiots from my bloodline.
But back to the story. Over the years, the coven outgrew Paris. Or maybe Paris outgrew the coven. Either way, we shipped off to the new world. The united states had a lot more to offer us, and we settled where we could feasibly survive. The years gave me opportunities to hone my skills as a vampire. I became a diligent hunter, learning the art of picking prey, of taking them down, and of covering my tracks. I was good at what I did. My actions were never what caused trouble for the ones that I loved.
Unfortunately, not all of my family was as careful as I was. We did well for many years with only a few isolated and rather tragic incidents, but we got too comfortable. In 2011 a group of hunters stormed our covenhouse, taking down all of those who stayed to fight for what was ours, and many of those who decided to run. Four of us escaped - myself included. I lost sisters, brothers, and the man who had, over the centuries, become like a father to me that day.
I'm not a forgiving person. The loss of my family enraged me beyond belief and I lashed out. For every man and woman stolen from my life, I stole another. For the next two years I tracked the hunters who had slaughtered my family like cattle and I killed them without remorse. Sometimes I killed their families, too, more out of pity than out of necessity. No one deserved to suffer through what I had and live to think of it each and every day. The blood tasted sweeter when I knew vengeance was mine. I think I developed a taste for it, honestly... sometimes I wish I had left a few to pick out later on. If that makes me selfish or cruel, then so be it. I'm only a man - I have every right to be selfish if I chose.
The remaining four of us moved to New Orleans. The irony of that isn't lost on me. I've seen that blasted Anne Rice movie more than once. New Orleans was convenient, though, and it reminded me of home. I wasn't about to argue with the logic that something familiar could do me good. It was in New Orleans that I met Darren. Darren, the stupid man with a stupid head on his shoulders.
As luck would have it, I later turned Darren to save his stupid life. Have I mentioned that I found him incredibly stupid? He was ridiculously headstrong with skewed morals and a blinded view of the world - not to mention a ton of red in his ledger. I'm not sure where or when I decided to make him my project, but somewhere along the line, I had promised to fix him and to make him whole again. Little did I know that, love him as I did, he'd bring along the one thing capable of breaking me.
Isaac was... never meant to be a vampire. But when we found him months after he'd renounced all ties to his father, I took him. He had been wrecked - absolutely and positively ready to die and something in me broke. Years of controlling my blood lust and I cracked, all because something in his eyes asked me to. He ran towards me and I took him in my arms and sank my fangs into his throat. If I had come to love the taste of vengeance, I loved the taste of him even more. Isaac, in his dying moments, revered me like I had longed to be revered my whole life, and yet... when I dropped him, heart stopping as he lay on the ground, I could do nothing but cry. How had I fallen to that point? How had I let a meal break me by doing nothing more than tearing into its throat like it had wanted me to?
His father turned him as I cried. I don't think Darren ever really forgave me for that. I loved him still, but our relationship fell apart for a while... and that was when things with Isaac really started.
Isaac was everything I loved about humanity. He was strong, and smart, fascinated with history and the old French that I still love to speak. He was fluent, and for a while, that was the only way we spoke. He said all other tongues hurt his ears and I believed him. He'd been broken since he'd taken the blood, and I had watched him slip into illness that I didn't know existed. I watched him fade, and it killed me. It was seeing him ache that drew me back to Darren, when the other man would take me. It was selfishness and foolishness that let me break Isaac's heart - it was easier that way, at least for me, and so I did it. I abandoned the dying boy for the man who had created him and for a while? I didn't feel bad about it. I let myself be blinded by the prospect of, one day, finding a mate in Darren - of having some by my side forever because Isaac couldn't be. Thinking back, I don't believe I even realized how awful that was. I do now.
It's because of me that both of them are dead.
I knew Isaac had done it. I never said anything, and I held nothing against him. I knew Darren to be pigheaded and volatile, and I could do nothing but ache and believe that Isaac had done it for the good of both of us. I never did approach him about it, though maybe I should have, because as soon as I had found the gall to do so, he was gone. I was left with a letter and nothing else. Once again it was me, and my three original covenmates. Nothing else. I could have found him, I know, but it seemed counterproductive. He had asked not to be sought after... I owed him as much.
I received another letter from him a few months after. It's still sitting, unopened in my nightstand drawer. I know what it means: he's gone. I've been building up the will to read it, and I think I've just about got the nerve...