Name
Alexander is fine.
Gender
Male. And yes, I'm quite sure.
Age
Twenty four.
Species
I can not be anything else but human.
Occupation
The Tarot Card Reader of Cirque du Noire.
Appearance
Blonde, hay, straw, whatever you wish to call it, I have yellow hair. The sun really does change it quite a bit. In the summer, it grows more platinum. While during the winter, it grows more golden. Sometimes, it may grow pale enough to look unnaturally white. But I assure you, it's just a really light yellow.
I don't take care of my appearances or my body in general. So my hair is always a bit of a bird's nest. I might have bags under my eyes, but that's only because I don't keep the healthiest of habits. My eyes are naturally an unnatural purple colour. Perhaps it's related to my powers, perhaps not.
The cold doesn't really bother me, but I might throw a winter coat on if it gets too chilly. For the most part, I simply wear a dark navy coloured knitted scarf, pair of dark slacks, and a loose white cotton shirt with long sleeves that reach my palms and an always unbuttoned collar.
If not, I'm most likely walking around half-naked. Not that I have anything to show off. Far too skinny for that.
I don't look like some exotic fortune telling gypsy, because I am not one. If customers don't want their fortunes, too bad. I have other customers... Just in the future.
I do admit that I do wear some jewelry to at least attempt to create an image of a mystic. Some silver bangles and rings. A couple mismatched earrings on each ear. Just bits of shiny things that I've collected over the years.
Picture
[ x ]
[[Lol... I'll draw something later..]]
Personality
Sober, I'm a rather bland sort of character. I don't enjoy being around large groups of people, but I can tolerate them. I am extremely introverted and yet at the same time, extremely extroverted. My powers focus on the world beyond me, and yet I do not like people. I can know so much of a single person without even speaking with them, but I usually would not like to meet anyone in general.
I am quite reserved, especially to strangers, choosing my friends carefully.
But with a bit of alcohol to poison me with, I change. For the better? For the worse? I can not say.
I smile far more happily. I talk more loosely. I lie far too easily. I tease and touch others as though they were my close friends even if we have no even met.
I am quite a social creature that enjoys the company of others.
Though, there is quite a bit of a downside. I can not do a true or complete reading for anyone while intoxicated. Then again, most people can't tell if I'm telling a true one or not.
While I am passive when sober, with a bit of a drink in me, I'm a loud and boisterous person.
Sometimes I have to wonder if alcohol is the potion that would change me from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde...
Abilities
I use and read Tarot cards to tell me of the future and the past. If I really chose to, I could use other mediums such as bones or the stars. Cards are just more convenient to carry around and are easier to read. Though, they are rather restrictive on what they'll reveal.
My deck is somewhat.. rigged. Each card has been modified so I know which cards I'm pulling out for 'reads'. Some are lighter, some are imbalanced. It makes a lot easier to lie to customers, which I've very good at. I keep this one in my left sleeve.
What also helps me when I'm doing fake readings is my innate ability to sense people's wishes or dreams.
However, I do keep a true deck stashed away in my other sleeve. Also carry around a few... animal bones tucked away here and there for more accurate or specific readings.
I rarely do true readings because... well, because no one likes the truth.
Though, with the right motivation, I'll go out and change anyone's fate.
Long, long ago, I was taught a bit of fencing. Mainly for sport, but it does come handy for fighting at times. Because of the rather unorthodox teacher I had, I can use an uneven stick almost as well as when I use a perfectly balanced rapier. Though, of course, a stick doesn't do much without a blade in fencing.
In my years of studying, I've come across basic alchemical skills with chemicals, but my talents were still with observation and interpretation.
Weaknesses
...For the most part, fate is not so kind to reveal all its secrets to me, thus why I lie so often when doing readings. Being intoxicated for most of the week doesn't help either. Actually, being drunk so often, I can't do much of anything except maybe lying.
I'm only human. As much as I may love you, hold you dear to my heart, I'll drop you as soon as my life is in danger. I'd either run far, far away as quickly as I can, or simply offer you up to give me even more time or the advantage. I am a coward at heart, so it's rare I'll ever stay and fight. Unless I'm drunk, of course.
I also do not like it when people touch or even see the mark of the Marquis on the back of my neck. My hair has grown enough to cover my neck, but it stills bothers me whenever people touch me, thus the thick scarf around my neck even when the weather may be quite humid.
Ah, and if I must eat, I'd much rather not eat meat. A carcass, a corpse. Dissected, slaughtered. I don't mind. But butchered, cooked, and served for consumption, I can not stand. It only slightly bothers me to see it cooked or watch someone eat it, but I do my best to avoid it entirely for myself.
My best explanation for this abhorrence would be my experience with tasting of actual human flesh. And that would be the end of this story.
Backstory
I come from a family of old money and name. Though, poverty would soon obscure its entire existence.
I am the fifth child, the third son of my family. Seeing as my parent's fortune would be passed to my eldest brother and my sister's dowries, any inheritance I would gain would be insignificant. However, I was never really concerned with money.
Money was always a sign of power and affluence, but I never felt an attachment for coins and bills. Instead, my love was for the celestial heavens. I was naturally gifted with my ability to read the seemingly random events, the complex patterns of nature. The stars were the first of many 'tools' I used for divination.
My skills in divination and strange attunement to nature led me to the path of an alchemist. I studied at home. All the books and scrolls I discovered expanded my knowledge and skills. The more I read and gained more power, my philosophy and ideals began to change. The word "inevitably" became some what of a mantra to me. My younger brother would slip while playing by the bridge. He would fall and drown. That is what I discovered one day, and I did nothing. There was nothing I could have done, and yet I felt no despair but only tranquil peace within me. If he was going to die, I would cherish and love him while I still had him, I decided.
I could have prevented him from playing on any bridge, but then only the story of Sleeping Beauty would play in my mind. No matter what. It is inevitable. Fate has decided, and Death can never be stalled.
Soon I ran out of texts in my home. Every scrap of reading in my hometown was already consumed by me. I knew there were more out beyond the city gates, so I decided to venture from my home and enroll in a prestigious academy, highly prized for any scholar. I announced of my decision to my family one dinner and promised to marry my fiancée once I returned. Everyone had agreed it was a fine idea. I thought it would be in my best interested to tell her family of my plans, and so also revealed my plans of education to them as well. It was my family who had set up the marriage between my betrothed and I, so I did my best to appease everyone by simply agreeing. After all, her family was one of the nouveau riche. She had money, which I lacked. While I had prestige, which she lacked.
Her family, wanting to please me, paid for the tuition and even the travels expense for me. They sent the money all to my father... Ah, had I known of this, I may have been a bit more wary.
When I was just a small boy and had little control over my 'sight', I had told my father of a vision of mind. That one day the family would crumble and disappear forever in the folds of history. At first he scoffed at me. When I had confessed to him my other accidental readings, he grew angry and told me never to lie again. Throughout the year, my predictions came true again and again. He finally listened to my words. He unfortunately listened to my words.
Perhaps my philosophy of 'inevitability' came from the fruitless attempts by my father to preserve the family. He became paranoid and desperate. I began to grow more distant from him as I grew older and supposedly wiser. It was my personal choice from then on to never read the fates of my family. After my brother's death and the results of my father, I decided to keep my fortunes to myself or simply lie with half-truths.
My father was desperate enough to marry me off to a nouveau riche family. A class he specifically despises because they were the reason why power was shifting from nobility to simply money. I suppose he didn't receive as much money as he wanted from the marriage, which led to his final act of using me.
He simply sold me.
On the day I was to leave for the academy, I entered the carriage that would take me far away from home. I had already said my good-byes to my family, and so took comfort knowing I could read the entire journey with out any other guests aboard as well. I was so immersed in a wonderful ornithology book, that I was hardly bothered at how quickly the ride was. Had I looked outside my windows or even looked up from the pages, I may have noticed that I was not at the academy at all, but instead in front of a mansion.
With my eyes still busy reading, I followed the servant who led me inside. At the sound of my name, I finally looked up. It was the Marquis who had called me.
I had simply always known him as the Marquis. I've met earls, dukes, and barons who have managed to buy into the noble families. However, he was the only man I know of who has managed to buy the status and title of marquis.
It is not an incorrect stereotype that the nouveau riche enjoyed flaunting their newly acquired wealth. Purchasing the son of a nobleman would have made quite a point to the world, if his title already did not.
Tea for two was set out, and he invited me to sit with him. We had a bit of small talk before he dropped 'the bad news' on me. He simply said he had bought me from my father. I only smiled tensely, nodded my head, and plainly replied that it would explain quite a bit.
Inevitability. I can not avoid the present or the past or future. That is what I believed in. If I was to become a possession to the Marquis, then it was already decided.
I was rather calm about the whole ordeal, which rather surprised him. I later on discovered why. I wasn't the only one.
There was a little over half a dozen of us. For the most part, they were in separate rooms, confined for the entire day. I was given a rather special privilege of being able to walk around the entire mansion and do as I pleased so long as I attended all meals with the Marquis and follow him to his bed to retire.
I never had been with anyone. I never felt much of a desire to do so. The most I've done before was a simple and some-what scandalous kiss on my fiancée's cheek.
It wasn't disgusting, but it wasn't pleasurable. I didn't resist, and actually attempted to participate at times.
To say the least, I may have discovered that I am truly asexual. Though, I did apparently become 'skillful' with my body. I'm not for sure how useful this knowledge is, even to this day, especially when I simply lie even more every time I utilize this skill.
With my freedom, even restricted, I escaped the first time easily. It was a mind-numbing experience being locked up inside for months. Even when the Marquis gifted me as many books as I wanted. To me, it wasn't enough. The only people I were allowed to even see were him, his man-servant, and another servant. Everytime I looked out the windows, the woods would call for me.
So I simply slipped out, one night, and ran. The Marquis had dressed me in rich clothing that would obviously imply nobility, so when I entered the first building I could find, everyone eyed me with the intent to rob me. Ah, how wonderful. I entered a tavern for the poor.
But it was here I discovered that Alexandre Pierre de Calonne D'avesne, the third son, fifth child of Jacques de Calonne D'avesne and Marguerite Jeanne le Lieur had passed away recently, before the collapse of the entire family. Apparently, my father had invested in many companies, however most, if not all, had bankrupt, leaving him with nothing. Also, apparently, Alexandre Pierre died in a carriage accident one day while he was heading towards some prestigious academy.
I don't know how, but someone must have managed to pick pocked from me, and well, whatever it was must have had the Marquis' emblem. Because someone yelled out that I had stolen from the Marquis, and thus I became surrounded and quickly brought forth to the Marquis himself.
A thief was hung the very next day. A black bag covered his head as he walked up the gallows.
It was the servant that was in charge of me.
While he was given death, I received a burn on the back of my neck. It was the emblem of the Marquis, a large fleur de lis enclosed in a diamond. I was forbidden to hide this mark, so my collars were flat and my hair short.
Inevitability. The word rang in my mind as I was confined in a single room.
The Marquis was not pleased at all. He thought he could trust me, but I suppose not. From that point on, he did his very best to break me. I can not say I am particularly proud of anything I've done. The next few months or years, I can not tell, would be the high lights of the things I am especially not proud of.
I think my mind broke. I'm not sure.
I think I went insane. I'm not certain.
I think I died. I'm not positive.
I'm not really sure how I escape the second time around. I'm not really sure if I did. Perhaps this is all a figment of my imagination. I do have a rather creative one. Whatever happens happened... Or something...
Perhaps I'm dreaming. Perhaps I'm dead. Perhaps I'm still in that damned room. Or perhaps I'm truly free...
The second time around, I was smarter. I kept off the roads and wandered the woods aimlessly with only the stars to give me a vague sense of direction. I wore a scarf and also a high collared cape, all to hide the mark on the back of my neck.
Music and laughter caught my attention. How long ago was it since I heard such carefree sounds?
I drifted towards such joy and happiness. It was a circus. Ah, when was the last time I was at a circus? I thought to myself as I went closer.
As I approached the entrance, I read the circus' name. Cirque du Noire. Circus of Night.
What a beautiful name, I thought to myself as I entered a beautiful world.
I had sold the clothes I wore when I escaped and bought an entirely new outfit as quickly as I could so I could disguise myself somewhat and have a bit of coin left. I paid for my admission and sat down on the upper-most bench. People agitated me. They still do, but I've grown accustomed to them. I could feel and sense all their needs and wants as I sat there. It was suffocating and unbearable.
Somehow, I regretted leaving the Marquis. I regret ever thinking such things because then the show began.
I believe I fell in love with Mademoiselle Silencieux.
Even when the gruesome animals were revealed, my face didn't not change. I have seen and done worse to humans. I was able to note who they all truly were because I could see their wishes. I have never been able to feel a beast's dreams, only humans.
If anything, I smiled a bit too happily. We are so called beautiful, and yet we all should look as the terrible things caged below.
I think I drank a bit before and after I took my seat, which may explain my next actions. When the show ended, I remained in my seat and waited for the entire audience to depart before I decided to walk down the bleachers.
The Mademoiselle had a very distinctive wish. One filled with dark intents with its own brand of justice. I followed it to her tent.
My mind must have been broken. My sanity must have left along with my humanity.
I wanted to join the Mademoiselle and her circus. I wanted to join her crusade with revealing how cruel and terrible humans are. I'm pretty sure I was drunk. I shocked her a bit when I had told her I knew her intentions when I wasn't already a part of her crew.
But that tidbit of information showed her my powers enough, and so I was allowed to join as the fortune teller of the circus.
I finally introduced myself when the Mademoiselle had asked for my name. Alexander, I replied. I dropped the fancy extraneous parts of my name. I left behind my family and even heritage as I changed from Alexandre Pierre de Calonne D'avesne to simply Alexander.
I do not regret joining Cirque du Noire. I still do not pity the beastly things transformed into acceptable beings.
I believe I'm actually content with my life for once. I still believe I might be dead or dreaming.
Let's go find out together, as the merry-go-round tents and stars continue to spin.
Facts
So what if I drink a little and get drunk through out the day? It does not make me an alcoholic. I drink because I enjoy to, not because I'm addicted.
I may also forget to eat or sleep. I'm not very intune with my own body.
Sometimes I am able to withstand much pain or be completely numb. I don't believe this is natural.
Rarely do I admit my feelings, especially when they concern about the Mademoiselle or about my status of dreaming or sleeping.
My name is not Alexandre Pierre de Calonne D'avesne. It is simply Alexander.
Some may remember an Alexandre Pierre with blonde hair and purple eyes, but I am not him.
He died long ago in an accident.
Sample
Quote:
His arm fell from Madame's shoulder. He pushed gently against her so that there was now a gap between them. He stumbled a bit walking backwards, but with a grand flourish of his arms, he announced to his audience of one. "Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you," He attempt a hand sleight, but the Madame could obviously see as a hand twirled in the air, when his fingers passed his wrist, he pulled out a rather conspicuous card from his sleeve. "The fool!" He revealed the card to Madame.
Unfortunately or perhaps by divination, he had pulled out number XV instead of the 0. Instead of the wandering idiot, the devil leered smugly.
Alexander had actually altered each of the cards to differentiate between them when making fake fortunes, doing his best to avoid the Death card with his more precarious customers, as the name simply carried connotations not usually related to the card itself. The fool was one of the lightest of the cards in his deck, so the devil card could only sit heavily in his hand.
Feeling the oddness with the familiar card, he quickly flipped it over to see it himself, before facing it back towards the Madame. "The Devil!" He corrected himself before continuing with his most likely phoney fortune. "While you forsee the end with the Reaper, I see empowering freedom! The cards tell me that it is fine to drink, for to live properly, you mustn't deny yourself of the simple pleasures of life."
He paused for a moment as the card's other meaning came to his mind. The cards could be warning Alexander instead of the Madame that he was indulging a bit too much every night with his drinking. He made a face at nothing in particular as he tucked the card back into his sleeve, surprised that both were still hanging on, even if one was only a few threads away from falling to a large new cuff for his wrist.
Alexander returned to the Madame's side after his short and odd episode, muttering something about hardly being a fortune teller in the first place when a simple tent quickly came into view.
It wasn't the most luxurious, but perhaps the most colourful one in the small forest of peaked tents. Alexander had used whatever fabric he could find to patch up holes, and having a rather pathetic means of living, his tent was an extremely cheap one, always tearing and ripping. Though, of course, he never does consider simply taking better care of it.
P.S. If you just read all of this, you are a winner. Have a cookie.