Rated M for, you know, ALL of the things. Most specifically, drug/alcohol use, physical and emotional violence, blood and gore, swearing, sexual themes and content. Oh, and Angst.
My characters....
Name: Darien 'Dare' Lerain
Age:24
Appearance:A slim but well built young man with lightly tanned skin, large sea-green eyes, a wild mane of reddish-brown hair he usually ties back in a braid, and sharply defined features that would be handsome, if they weren't locked in a near perpetual scowl...
History: Born the eldest and only son of King Faeryn Lerain, monarch of the small but prosperous Kingdom of Luria, Darien was raised with his position as heir always in mind. His father showed no great affection towards him, always dour and commanding. Language, letters, heraldry, court decorum, politics, and history were the subjects the crown prince was required to learn from the age of six, with strict tutors responsible for much of his upbringing. He actually excelled in his studies, possessed of a sharp mind that he honed constantly in hopes of catching a glimmer of approval.
By thirteen, his education shifted to a more martial bent, riding, swordplay, and strategy, an education in which his father took a more active, and quite harsh, part. Jansen showed less promise in more martial pursuits, being neither large nor broad, with little natural skill, though time and effort served to make him at least adequate, aided by fighting smart rather than hard, more than willing to fight dirty rather than honorably to scrape by. As he grew older, he also developed something of a rebellious streak, shirking his duties to hunt, hawk, and carouse about the city, spending gold freely at taverns and pillow houses. His father, seeking to curb such behavior, elected to send him into the military to remove him from public eye an hopefully grow his character, but fate had different plans.
When he was eighteen, a grand banquet was hosted to both celebrate his coming-of-age, and military commission. Half the nobility of the realm arrived with their households and knights, ostensibly to pay homage...but it was treason that truly drew them. As the king stood to give a speech, a crossbow bolt fired from the shadows plunged into his heart, and swords flashed and clanged throughout the tables. Within twenty minutes, eighty people, noblemen, guards, and servants alike were dead. The mystery assassin and who was fighting who in that hall is unknown, and the prince and princess were missing.
An old man dressed in black, hood drawn, had stopped the prince in a stairwell minutes before all hell broke loose, handing him a sack of gold and telling him his father was about to die, and that he and his sister would meet the same fate if they did not flee, immediately. At first, Jansen did not believe him, but the delay he took trying to question the old man was long enough for the sounds of clashing blades and dying screams to lend truth to his words. They barely made it out of the city with their lives, and by the next day, they, too, were declared dead and a trio of powerful nobles seized power over Luria, while the two made an arduous journey north to the coast, and spent the last of their coin for passage on a boat heading as north as north went.
Name:Elicent 'Elly' Lerain
Age:17
Appearance:Shorter and fairer of features, Elicent takes more after their mother, who died giving birth to her, than her brother. She has long, light red hair and soft and beatific features, accented by a multitude of freckles
History: Merely a girl, and a reminder of the loss of his wife, her father had little time for her growing up, leaving her raising to the servants and ladies-in-waiting of the court, and also to her brother, who Alicent adored as the only other person who understood what it was like to grow up with their fathers expectations.
She was a fairly cheerful and free-spirited child, content to play make-believe and dress-up, picking flowers in the gardens and play with the stray cats that abounded throughout the palace. She was a constant nuisance to the servants, going where she wasn't supposed to and asking anyone she caught up with what they were doing an why they were doing it and weather or not she could try it, the answer usually being no.
She was putting on her new gown for the banquet when Jansen burst in, told her they had to leave immediately. She didn't question it, trusting her brother implicitly and thinking it was all some game, but as they snuck out through the gardens and through the streets, she began to wonder what was happening, but was rebuffed whenever she asked him where they were going or what had happened. He didn't give her the news until they were far from the city.
While the initial shock took time to pass, while her brother occupied himself with keeping them moving an maintaining their cover, Alicent adjusted well to their life on the run, under the guise of war orphans, their fine clothing long since sold and replaced with rough wool, dirt and ash smeared on their faces to disguise their pampered upbringing relative to the teeming masses. Suddenly, noone cared if she did or said something that was 'improper' or 'unladylike', in fact, often she could be mistaken for a skinny boy and ask all the questions she liked, making friends wherever they went.
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