Post by Ze Flying Wraithetti Monstress on Apr 24, 2010 15:12:00 GMT -5
Name:
Anastasio D'artagnan
Age:
Two hundred sixty-five
Race:
Elf
Appearance:
Anastasio, despite being an elf, isn’t similar to the rest of his race. His parents were from the far south-eastern land of Roma, where the warm climate and lack of food made elves much darker and slighter than their northern counterparts. Anastasio is just around six feet tall, small for an Alagaësian elf but still tall for a human, with a thin frame covered by a light layer of muscle, making his arms and legs reminiscent of whipcords. Ana was never the type for physical combat, and actually has no training in it, nor does he have any need for lifting large objects. His slender build gives him the agility he needs to move silently and disappear quickly, both for his audience’s pleasure and for evasion.
Anastasio’s skin, despite his lack of love for the sun, remains a dark copper shade, complimenting his straight pitch-black hair, which grows down to his upper back and is usually kept loose around his shoulders. His face has prominent bone structure, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw line and chin that is usually clean-shaven. Anastasio has thin lips, a proud nose, and a barely noticeable cleft in his chin. His face might be called elegantly handsome by many if his eyes weren’t so odd. Framed by thick black eyebrows, they are a deep, rich golden, and usually hold a charming, mischievous look to them. Anastasio does not hide his exotic features or his elf ears, instead tucking his hair behind them to show his entire face off, as people tend to be more interested in elves.
Anastasio usually dresses in darker shades of various colours, and his clothing is finely tailored, almost what a man of high status would wear. He is always very careful to wear clothes that are simple in design and function, not the massive flowing robes and gold-trimmed fancy overcoats that most of the wealthy wear, but that are also attractive and well-kept so that he doesn’t look like a common peasant, either. He doesn’t look rich enough to make the poor cower in his presence, but doesn’t look poor enough to make the rich turn up their noses at him, either. The dark shades exude an air of mystery, as well as helpful for disguising Anastasio should he have the need to disappear. One more oddity about Anastasio is his shadow- it creeps about and stalks Ana's victims instead of following his movements. This shadow is actually a bodiless spirit that Anastasio refers to simply as the Revenant.
Personality:
Anastasio D’artagnan is a very difficult man to get to know. Even when with his own sect, the Friends of Red Anya, and Islanzadí, few people are able to truly see who he is. This isn’t because he isn’t social- Anastasio is a conversationalist, if on the quiet side, and won’t turn down anyone who comes up to talk to him. However, though he talks, and does give the occasional tidbit about his personal life, years and years of conning everyone from the richest nobleman to the poorest and most deranged beggar has made him a master of hiding his true feelings. Anastasio is an entertainer, and mostly focuses on the other person, not himself. He gets the other person to calm down around him with his calm demeanour and charismatic attitude, which almost always opens them up.
Ana is very seductive, but not in a sexual sense. Though attractive, he doesn’t use just his looks to get to know people. Everything from the way he speaks to the smoothness of his walk exudes a charming air, as well as his openness and lack of shyness or hostility. He is suave, smooth-talking, and eager to perform for the individual. This is only increased by his growling Galician accent, which he has somehow never managed to lose. Despite his charm, Ana is a very controlling and manipulative man, with an almost Machiavellian view of life. He is a glutton for power and wealth, and will stop at very little to get them.
However, he isn’t all bad. Though he enjoys the concept of having followers and power, he does have a need to serve someone even higher than himself. He is an extremely loyal individual, capable of regicide, soul-selling, and cheating for the person or idea he upholds. This is shown in the vendetta he held and carried out for his sister’s sake, as well as his unwavering faith to the Friends of Red Anya, an underground sorcery sect he has been a part of since before the Fall of the Riders. He will not do anything that isn’t justified- or at least, not justified to him. Though he doesn’t regret killing King Evandar, he does understand Islanzadí’s grief, and doesn’t resist serving her. He even enjoys upholding such a powerful woman, and is not afraid to show his allegiance for her.
History:
Not all of the elves migrated to Alagaësia all those hundreds of years ago. Some, the Romany elves, headed for warmer areas, resulting in notable darker skin tones and slighter builds than their northern counterparts. However, when Roma was blighted by war, many elves sought safety to the west. They settled in several countries along the western coast, mostly notably Gallia, a wealthy country where elves were unheard of. There, they changed their names, reinvented themselves, and made livings mainly with the help of their magic, such as street performing, fortune telling, and other gimmicks that the wealthy were eager to get their hands on. This was where Cyprian D’artagnan and Nadia Devereux, two Romany performers, met each other. Cyprian was a fortune teller and Nadia a dancer, and they met on the Galician streets one night. Over the following years, they became mates, and decided to have a child.
However, Nadia was blessed with the miracle of not one, but two children. Any elf woman getting pregnant was a rarity, but twins were nearly unheard of. Nadia managed to survive the arduous process of such a heavy pregnancy, and the results were the unfortunately named Anastasio and Anastasia D’artagnan. The twins were born into poverty- despite how entertaining they were, most of Gallia didn’t think of the overly attractive dark-haired magicians as actual people, and so very few Romany achieved any sort of status. However, the two of them were also dearly loved by their parents, and they lived a generally happy life in Gallia throughout their early childhoods.
However, when the two of them were nearly fifty, Gallia was stricken with a series of food shortages and droughts brought on by bad weather. The citizens, looking for a scapegoat that had angered the gods, turned on the Romany. Some tried to stay and make a living despite the sudden increased hostility. Others, like Cyprian and Nadia, decided it was time to move again. They gathered what little coin they had, their children, and headed north to Alagaësia- the cheapest and closest place they could get to. Since this was about a hundred years before Galbatorix took over, and the Riders were maintaining the peace of the land, the family was welcomed with open arms, and offered a place to live in Tallinn, a now-forgotten city located in modern-day Surda. There, Cyprian and Nadia managed to get jobs at a mill.
However, a mere ten years later, a plague struck Tallinn. Citizens went mad and were stricken with mass hysteria, causing them to turn on their own friends and families, believing them to be monsters, and kill them. The disease struck so hard and so fast that the Riders were unable to study it to find a cure, or even a treatment. All they could do was put magical barriers around Tallinn to keep the citizens and the disease from escaping. The force field was in place for a quarter of a year, during which Anastasio and Anastasia’s parents were also infected. Ana and his sister mostly hid in their basement throughout those three months. However, neither of them was infected. Despite being in direct contact with their parents and many other citizens of Tallinn, both of them went untouched by the plague, which left the Riders scratching their heads when the barriers were finally brought down and they came in for inspection. The disease had run its course, but it had killed everyone except for the elf twins.
Assuming that they were some kind of chosen ones, the Riders took them to Ilirea, present-day Urû’baen, for magical schooling. Tallinn, its villagers, and its memory were razed to the ground in case the disease still lingered. In Ilirea, like many other children, Ana and Anya lived in small dormitories and were taught history as well as the ancient language. However, while there, the two of them started noticing things. Swirls of white mist loomed around them, their shadows didn’t copy their movements exactly, and there was always the eerie feeling of being watched. Eventually, about ten years into their schooling, the visions became so prominent that they approached one of the Elders about it. He was only mildly surprised, and directed them to another, smaller dormitory in the school.
Ana and Anya began to learn about sorcery. They were inducted into a smaller sect of magicians and Riders that studied this particular school of the arcane, which was also one of the smallest. Normally, they’d never be inducted so young, but the spirits had taken an interest in them. The moving shadows and white wisps they’d seen were, in fact, several spirits who’d taken to following the two of them around. The reason they’d survived Tallinn’s plague was because of the spirits’ intervention. Ana and Anya were taught to communicate with them on a basic level as well as how to summon them. Eventually, they proved to be quite skilled- skilled enough for Anastasia to get a dragon to hatch for her when she and Ana were around ninety years of age, a male grey named Suha’il. However, though Anastasio preferred to practice his sorcery. Despite his mandatory schooling, he had very little money on hand, and would probably be living in a slum if not for the dormitories. He was eager to gain wealth.
However, this dream was cut short when Anastasia unexpectedly died when Anastasio was a hundred and twenty. King Evandar of Du Weldenvarden was fond of visiting the Riders, but Anastasia was just as fond of mocking the pale perfection of Alagaësia’s elves, and Evandar did not escape her jeering. Eventually, growing tired of her vicious prodding, he challenged her to a magicless duel, which she accepted to. They battled arduously for no less than two hours. Suddenly, Evandar used magic to weaken and indirectly bring down a nearby column that crushed Anastasia. She wasn’t killed instantly, but she was knocked into a sleep so deep and unyielding that her dragon, Suha’il, broke down into a panicked hysteria. In the rain of fireballs and falling rubble that followed, Evandar and the spectators barely managed to escape.
Once Suha’il was caught and taken back to the citadel to be calmed down, the rubble was picked apart to locate Anastasia’s body. However, nothing was found. No burnt corpse, no gory remains, nothing at all. When the Riders tried to scry her, they saw only darkness. Since Suha’il kept switching from deep depression to maniacal terror, it could only be assumed that she was dead. A formal funeral was held days later, the cause of death being decided on as ‘structural instability’. Truthfully, no one had seen Evandar cheat, and Anastasio had only witnessed it thanks to the spirits reacting in the presence of magic. He was shattered by her death. She had been born with him, survived a plague with him, and they’d spent well over a century together. Anastasio desired revenge.
It was difficult. Naturally, the king of the elves would have some impressive security going, and Anastasio knew little about lying and barricading his mind. He started to practice. He’d always been the charismatic sort, but he’d never had any need to lie or to hide his true intentions. And so, Anastasio started to hang around the cream of society. His first attempts were massive failures, it being obvious that he wasn’t from the wealthiest of stock and was just trying to impress those who were. However, with time and with practice, his skill increased. He could get the cruellest ice queen to ease up around him, be considered a brilliant conversationalist just for listening to someone’s problems, and became very adept at reading people. He also worked on his own mental skills, not so much on barriers and probes but instead mainly making up various personal histories for himself and projecting their false images clearly in his mind to fool others. Eventually, after about twenty years of practice, he considered himself good enough to bypass even the elves’ harsh mental guards, especially with the Revenant beside him.
After Anastasia’s death, the spirits didn’t frequent Anastasio quite as often. But one continued to stick beside him so much that it literally became his shadow. Anastasio has never given any spirit a proper name, since they have no given shape or form, but he has taken to calling this one the Revenant, one who returns after death for a purpose. The Revenant was and still is fond of giving Anastasio a helping hand, and it was more than happy to assist him in his plotted assassination of Evandar. The Revenant accompanied Anastasio when he entered King Evandar’s Ilirean palace and offered to serve him. He spun up a tale about having recently emigrated from Gallia, and was eager to learn about the elves in Alagaësia. Evandar noted Anastasio’s similarities both in name and appearance to the Rider he’d killed a mere two decades ago, but Anastasio convinced the king with projected memories of Gallia.
However, Evandar wasn’t easily trusting, and so he didn’t give Anastasio a particularly high position in his court. Besides, in this time of peace, he had little need for a sorcerer, and so he mostly had Anastasio doing research in his many libraries. However, Anastasio was able to track Evandar’s schedule even from this low ranking. Evandar would spend about half the year in Ilirea, with occasional visits around Alagaësia, and the other half in Du Weldenvarden. He was constantly accompanied by his consort Islanzadí and a retinue of guards that would make an entire Urgal tribe flee for their mummies.
However, Ana never really got the chance to make a plan. Soon after he joined Evandar’s court, a young Rider named Galbatorix started stirring up trouble. He was far from the first Rider to be unsatisfied with his lot in life, but the amount of followers he gained and the speed he did it with caused terror and havoc among the elves. They began to fall back to Du Weldenvarden, assuming the Riders would take care of the chaos, and Anastasio followed to keep close tabs on Evandar. But within a matter of months, it grew blaringly obvious that the Riders were unable to exterminate the threat, and so Evandar began amassing his army. Anastasio joined as a spellcaster, and they marched on Ilirea. However, once in the city, Anastasio broke off from the main body and cut around it so that he could reach the front, and hid in a building where he could watch the battle without being seen.
It was massive and bloody, and ended up being suicide for both sides. Those Riders loyal to Galbatorix that didn’t live long enough to become part of the Forsworn as well as non-Rider followers were all killed. However, the elves, too, all fell in this particular battle- except for Evandar. Injured but victorious, he held Galbatorix’s battle standard aloft while Anastasio snuck through the mounds of bodies with a knife. He went undetected thanks to the Revenant, and he snatched Evandar by the hair and clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent him from doing magic. Then, he slit Evandar’s throat. After letting himself be filled with self-satisfaction, Anastasio headed back home to the Ilirean citadel.
Unbeknownst to Anastasio until much later, Islanzadí had been watching the battle by scrying it, and had witnessed her husband’s murder. Overcome with rage, she herself vowed to make him pay. However, she couldn’t get her claws into him for some time. Anastasio had completed his mission, but that didn’t mean his life was over. He still had the sorcery division of the Riders’ school, and there were people he cared about within it, and he also feared for the survival of their studies. Anastasio had not been blind to outside events while plotting Evandar’s regicide, and Galbatorix’s mass murdering deeply troubled him. He managed to reach the citadel, the last stronghold of the Riders, and locate the fleeing members of the sorcery division. He joined them, and they escaped to the south. They almost fled Alagaësia itself, only stopping at the southern archipelago beside modern-day Surda. Islanzadí was unable to reach Anastasio after that, as the Riders died soon after, Galbatorix took over, and the elves fled to Du Weldenvarden.
Anastasio and the surviving members of his group took on the name of Friends of Red Anya, in Anastasia’s memory. They set up a variety of hideouts along the five islands of the archipelago, and that was where Anastasio spent the next fifty years of his life. Though the Riders were gone, many of the magicians had survived, and they continued their studies untouched by outside influence for many years. And though Anastasio was greatly fond of pursuing sorcery, something nagged at him. He didn’t want to spend his entire life underground, hiding from the outside world. He craved people, and living.
As it turned out, he wasn’t the only Red Anyan to feel that way. Curiosity made them poke their heads out of their hideouts, and Ana was one of the first scouts to explore the new Alagaësia. The Friends of Red Anya had regularly scryed the Empire for the first few years of their exodus, but after seeing only carnage and death again and again, and a blank space where Du Weldenvarden was supposed to be, they’d abandoned the practice. However, they spent the next few years actively exploring Alagaësia in person. The dwarves and elves had been forgotten, the Riders were nonexistent, and magic was rare, above other things. Galbatorix reportedly left his palace once in a blue moon, and most of the actual governing was left to incompetent rich fools. Therefore, it was quite safe for the Friends of Red Anya to set themselves up in the Empire as well as to gain recruits for their tiny sect.
Several locations were set up, and Ana, always the travelling sort, frequented all of them. However, he also wanted to make a place for himself in society. Anastasio had no money, no status, and didn’t exist in the eyes of the world. He wanted to change this, but at the same time was aware that getting too much power too fast would gain unnecessary attention. Besides this, Galbatorix and a good deal of his Forsworn were at full power, and the Red Anyans were in constant danger of being weeded out. And so, Anastasio spent a good part of the next forty years as his sect’s guard dog. His lying and silver tongue came in handy once again as he started an operation of his own- conning.
In several cities across the Empire and Surda, Anastasio set up tiny back street shops, emporiums, any place for people to get their fortunes read, or their destinies changed. Though these places look like normal abandoned buildings, he creates the illusion of an attractive magic shop whenever inviting people in. Anyone posing a threat to the Friends of Red Anya and their location was alerted to Anastasio, and he would approach them and make them fall in love with his smooth-talking confidence and air of mystery, enough to at least make them pay his shop a visit. Anastasio would then trick his victims into making deals with him. He read their past and their present, and then looked into their futures and offered to change it. However, the deals he made would backfire, leaving their reputations decimated, their money gone, or, in severe cases, their souls given to the spirits. Anastasio did this until his chance arrived.
Four years from the present day, the first dragon to hatch in well over a hundred years, Saphira, came to the world’s attention. Galbatorix started losing control soon afterwards. All of his Forsworn were dead and buried, the Varden force became bloated and made their presence obvious by moving to Surda, and the Empire lost the Urgals. Anastasio plotted his move. However, he didn’t want mere wealth. He wanted power, as well. He became a performance man- his magic was displayed to the public, and he wowed hundreds with his powers. The Empire was too busy fighting the Varden and dealing with the infection to notice the increasing prominence of the ‘Shadow Man’, but someone else wasn’t.
Anastasio did away with an elf spy by making her ‘get close to her deceased loved ones’- by burying her alive. However, she managed to escape through the use of magic, and ran all the way back home to report this ‘elf of malicious intents’. The physical description brought back Islanzadí’s memories of her husband’s murderer, and she spent months hell-bent on finding Anastasio. Eventually, she did, and her minions captured him late one night after one of his performances. He was knocked out and taken back to Du Weldenvarden, where Islanzadí personally scanned his mind. He was, indeed, the man who had murdered her husband. But before she called for his execution, she found something else- the Friends of Red Anya, the very reason that she had been able to find him in the first place.
She gleaned the reason for Evandar’s death as well as Anastasio’s unshakeable loyalty, and thought of a better use for him- as her servant for life. Besides recanting for the regicide he’d committed, she liked what he did with those who opposed his sect so much that she requested he do it for her. Islanzadí was cautious of her allies as well as her enemies, and doubted the Varden would hold the elves’ needs above their own. She proposed a deal- he would take out her enemies while she was safe in Du Weldenvarden, and whenever she left, he would serve her as a seneschal and bodyguard. The only other option was death, so Anastasio accepted. Though irritated at these unforeseen consequences, he found he respected the queen’s passion, and so didn’t take his new post with a grim unwillingness. Instead, he considered it a window of opportunity. Anastasio has since served Islanzadí as well as the Red Anyans.
