hanging over from another good time

[adeios]

NAME: Cassian Lucerne
AGE: 26
GENDER: Male. Probably. I wouldn't hedge any bets on this, though.
HISTORY: It seems strange to Cassian that fourteen years have come and gone since he lost his family and hometown to a Solinth air raid. Sometimes it still feels like yesterday, when a gust of Avatican wind whips past him and for a moment Cassian can feel the impact of the explosion on it, the sting of the cold on his face the same as the shards of glass that tore through their house that day. But then, some days it feels like far longer than a decade and a half, when Cassian shuts the door to his quarters and is struck by the realization that he can't even begin to remember what it felt like to go home to the warmth of his mother's hearth and cooking.

In fact, Cassian remembers very little of his childhood before the age of twelve. It was a quiet, meager sort of life. His mother stayed at home to take care of him, and his father was a carpenter who could work magic with his hands. He once carved Cassian a bird made of soft, light wood which was so lifelike that Cassian was certain it could fly. He was so certain that he dropped it out his bedroom window, and it fell the twelve feet or so to the pavement before it split apart. Oh, how Cassian had cried. His father had offered to make him another one, but Cassian refused because he had learned something that day. A wooden bird, no matter how lifelike, was still only a wooden bird. It needed something more to be free and take to the skies.

After that, Cassian began collecting odds and ends from around the house and began to mimic his father. He couldn't have been older than five or six then, making wings out of twine and branches and leaves. By the time he was ten, he was determined to become an engineer. He wanted to invent things to help people live their lives. He stopped working with scraps and wood and began to take an interest in metalsmithing.

Not long after that came the raid. The raid was and remains still Cassian's clearest, most vivid memory. He had saved the pieces of that wooden bird his father had made him to remind him what it was he was working towards. He kept it in a small tin under his bed and brought it out to look at from time to time, and on that day he was under his bed searching for it when he heard a strange sound he couldn't identify, almost like a kettle. Before he even had time to wonder what the noise was, it was followed by a deafening explosion and the next thing Cassian knew, the floor next to his bed was stacked high with what used to be the roof and ceiling. It took him some time to claw his way out from under it, but once he was clear he immediately began searching for his parents.

It was in the kitchen that he found them. His father was pinned against the wall by a section of roof, his mother kneeling next to his father, clutching her side. The floor around them was slick with his mother's blood, the shards of glass responsible glittering brightly in the pale midday light. There had been such quiet after the initial explosion, an eerie silence that settled over the town as the dying died and the surviving clawed their way back to life. Cassian remembered standing at the doorway as his parents looked at themselves, then each other, and came to a wordless understanding that their life together had come to its end. They shared a long, searching look with one another, as though trying to find answers for questions they had never thought to ask, before his mother broke the moment with a smile.

Oh, how she had smiled. As though she was not bleeding to death on the floor of what had moments ago been her home. As though the love of her life was not at death's door himself, organs crushed by the roof he had built with his own two hands. She let go of her wound, hands bright with blood and shaking as she brought them over her husband's own. She did not look like she was in pain. Cassian watched as his parents touched their foreheads together, both smiling, then shared a brief, breathless kiss. Then his mother shut her eyes and put her head against his father's shoulder, and he in turn wrapped his arm tightly around her.

Then they were still and did not stir again.

Cassian had never seen love like that before. He knew of love, and he had always known that his parents loved him. He'd even known his parents loved each other dearly for they told him and each other this every day. But he had never known love like that before, where even in the face of such fear and pain the two of them could smile as though nothing else in the world existed for them.

It was the most beautiful thing Cassian had witnessed in his twelve years of life, and fourteen years after the fact it would remain the most beauty the world ever showed him. Due to the circumstances of his life changing so drastically after losing his family and his home, he soon abandoned his childhood dreams of becoming an engineer, but out of the tragedy he found himself a different dream. One no war and no given set of circumstances could ever take from him again.

He wanted what his parents had in that moment for himself. He wanted a love that deep, someone to give his heart so utterly to. And then he wanted to bid farewell to his barren wasteland of a life, either by his love's hand or with them. It was something to strive for, live for, and through the bitter years that followed the bombing of his hometown, he held on to the image of his parents' last moments and made himself survive in search of something to make the struggle worthwhile.

Avatica was in ruins by the end of that particular war with Solinth. There were orphanages and relief efforts organized after the fact, but they were overburdened and understaffed. Cassian was good with his hands and tougher than he looked, hardy in Avatica's climate despite being wire-thin and small-boned. He spent the first year or so after the bombing helping the other survivors try to rebuild.

When he was thirteen, a noble his father had once done work for recognized him through his craftsmanship which took strongly after his father's signature woodwork. Calling himself a friend of the family, Leander Lucerne found it a shame for the son of such a gifted man toiling as Cassian was in the streets. He saw potential in the boy, in how much strength it took for someone to live in such ruin and thrive. It was no small feat to do construction work in Avatica's bitter cold, and he was certain that the boy's energy would be better spent defending their country.

Having no wife or children of his own, Leander brought the boy back with him to the Crystal City and raised him as a son. Being a former soldier himself, Leander dedicated the next year and a half training Cassian personally before enlisting the boy in the military at the age of fifteen.

Cassian took to the military like a possessed man. If his adoptive father thought he had thrived in the frozen streets of Avatica's outer territories, he positively flourished in the ranks of the army. The world was such a cold, empty place to him that the idea of making a living doing the one thing that made his heart pound and his senses awaken was a seductive one indeed. He arrived for drills before any of his peers and trained well into the night, long after the other cadets had gone home to their families or out to play. For Cassian, the training was play.

At sixteen, Cassian was knighted and joined the active military force. Leander told him he had never been prouder, and Cassian was thrilled beyond words at the idea of getting a real taste of battle. That night was also the one Cassian decided it was nigh on time he seduced one of his former instructors. Back then, Cassian still exercised some caution with whether or not his actions could be misconstrued as trying to unduly get ahead as he felt he didn't need to sleep with his superiors to garner favor. He just liked to.

If asked, Cassian couldn't say exactly when or to who he lost his virginity. It had been shortly before he was knighted, at some party he had finally consented to attending since he was sick of being that stiff who never did anything but work. If no one else was going to try to understand his idea of fun, he thought he might as well give everyone else's idea of fun a try if only so they couldn't say he'd never made an effort.

He remembered there being copious amounts of alcohol involved, but beyond that he didn't remember much at all. Just waking up the next morning, body bruised and sore and abraded as though he had spent the entire day sparring. The air smelled of blood and sex, and though he woke up alone he didn't feel alone. Fighting had always been his outlet for intimacy, perhaps because his idea of love was so tainted by death that it seemed breaking someone's rib was an effective way to share yourself with them. But sex, he learned, was so much better and could make him feel just as awake and alive as war.

Unfortunately, the anonymous encounter blurred the lines between pleasure and pain for Cassian further, and one seemed irremovable from the other. Love was something bred of pain, so why not sex as well?

A high pain threshold and insatiable hunger for violence helped Cassian make a name for himself his first few years as a knight, and on the field the young soldier felt unstoppable. He never tired of the endless fighting, as eager for his next assignment as he was for the last. A reality check didn't find him for another three years.

At nineteen, Cassian put himself down in the history books for a bloodbath no one saw coming. It started as a routine mission that went south, faulty intel resulting in the loss of Cassian and the entire squad he was with. The commanders back at base were ready to give them up for dead. Then, the morning after the day they lost contact, Cassian stumbled back to their camp half delirious from blood loss and grinning. There was nothing left of his left arm but a bloody mess of a stump, the flesh there charred from Cassian's attempt at cauterizing the wound so he wouldn't bleed out. The rest of him was beaten and bruised, one eye too swollen to even open. But Cassian was in good humor and asked his commanding officer if it would be okay to see a medic before he filed his mission report as though he didn't look like he had a foot in the grave.

When asked what happened, he just shook his head and said, "You should see the other guy."

That mission was the first time Cassian realized he could so very easily die out there, without ever having found something to live for. He had never been as terrified as he had been out there in the enemy camp, kneeling in the execution line as Solinth's soldiers shot his comrades one by one. He couldn't accept dying there, and a single moment he had forced himself to let go of his fear and do whatever it took to get out of there alive.

After that, Cassian began to live in a truly wanton, no holds barred sort of way.

It took him a good eight months to get back on the battlefield, because though he was right-hand-dominant, the loss of his left arm wasn't something he was able to simply bounce back from. Even though he had given up on being an engineer in favor of the life of a soldier, his penchant and skill for it remained, and for those eight months, he locked himself in the back room of Leander's estate and began to work on the mechanical arm which would, at its completion, make the setback of losing his flesh arm worth it.

From the ages of twenty to present day, Cassian returned to active service and remained steadfast as a reliable knight. His leave of absence had only made him that much more determined to prove he was no less a knight for the loss of his arm, making it a point to take the most dangerous and volatile of missions for himself. And the more comfortable he became in his position within the Avatican army, the more strange and unorthodox he became.

PERSONALITY: In one short word, Cassian is what you would call a freak. He's not quite right in the head and hasn't been for some time now. For one, the first and foremost thing about him is that he thrives on pain. He likes to take it and he likes to give it, and the main reason he's yet to give up his sword in favor of more technologically advanced weapons is because he likes to feel what he's doing. He likes to feel the way the metal bites into flesh, cleaving skin and carving bone. He likes to feel blood on him, to taste it on his lips. He needs to be in the heart of the battle, not directing it from miles away. Not firing a gun from the safety of a hidden perch. He needs to see the light go out of his opponent's eyes, though that's not out of any sadistic need but because it's something he feels should be seen. You only die once, and dying without anyone to see you gasp out your last breath is almost as terrible as dying in a ditch without a single soul to cry for you.

Death defines Cassian's life. It's always on his mind, and he lives in a way that makes it clear he doesn't ever intend to live much longer than a week from next Tuesday. He gives little thought to the future or long-term consequences of his actions, only ever ensuring the 'now' and dealing with what comes when it comes to it. He's someone who wouldn't think twice about cutting off his thumb to escape capture because who cares if he's going to need that later? He's not going to need anything if he's dead. As such, he faces life with a certain kind of desperate fearlessness, who feels as though he has nothing and yet everything to lose.

Having spent the last ten years of his life as a man of both reputation and influence, Cassian's developed quite a few eccentricities. Once he figured out that he could get away with it as long as he remained an effective soldier, it was a fairly quick downward spiral. He'll sleep with anyone who he finds even remotely interesting and will have him, and he'll flirt with the rest of them until they relent and/or surrender. It's all a game to him, something to fill the space between assignments. He remains discrete about it so that people are more likely to have a moment of indiscretion with him, but if you wandered down the streets of Avalice one day, chances are you couldn't get three feet without running into someone he's fucked.

And while it's true that most of this is simply because Cassian is a whore as some people tend to be, the underlying cause is in that Cassian's really just not that good with people. Being physical with others is the best way he knows to interact with them, be that a sparring match on the training field or a sparring match in the bedroom. He has difficulty making and maintaining connections with his fellow human beings, and there's been more than once where he's gone down on someone just so he didn't have to try to talk to them anymore. Generally speaking, the only time Cassian feels truly comfortable in a room with someone he's not fighting or fucking for an extended period of time is if that person happens to be a corpse.

Which, yes, is very creepy but no one claims Cassian's not a creepy guy. (And just so it's stated for the record, Cassian does not molest cadavers or kittens. Okay? Comfortable=/=turned on by.)

That's not to say that Cassian is unsociable, however. On the contrary, he's quite the chatterbox and likes to flit from person to person and bother them relentlessly. As long as he's engaging his companion on an entirely superficial level, he functions just fine. It's once you try talking to him about his family or his motivations or his thoughts on love and the like that he'll put a hand down your pants to shut you up.

He also loves and thrives on attention, on his own notoriety and the way others react to him. He likes to be an enigma more than a person and tends to pathologically lie to get reactions out of people. He dresses in revealing, tight clothing that no soldier in their right mind ought to be wearing. Midriff tops, skirts slit up to his hip, thigh highs, and feathered boas are common among his wardrobe, and since he discovered that a great number of people simply can't accept the idea that he's a bit off just because he's a bit off, he's started telling people that he's the way he is because he lost the twins to the war back when. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of things he likes to say just to watch the color drain out of peoples' faces.

Sadistic streak and tendency to say things that would make your grandmother faint aside, Cassian's rather laid-back and soft-spoken. It's nearly impossible to make him angry since life is such a joke to him, and his usual manner of speaking is effeminate and lilting just for the sake of making his subordinates uncomfortable and his enemies stare. To people he knows well he drops that act, but even then he's quiet and seemingly mild-mannered.

On an entirely different note, as a soldier Cassian doesn't allow his quirks and personality to compromise his performance in the least. He took his line of work seriously long before he gained his particular flairs, and his commitment to the army runs deep. He is the kind of leader who will stop at nothing to get the job done, and he always takes the route that is most tactically sound. He doesn't waste time or energy on trying to keep those stationed under him alive. His job is to ensure the success of the mission, not to make sure everyone gets home in one piece.

Even if he likes you, he has no reservations against putting you in grave danger for the greater good. He won't enjoy it, but he recognizes that sacrifices must be made and only the truly foolish try to ensure the safety of individuals over the army as a whole. After all, everyone dies.

WEAPONS/ABILITIES/ETC: Cassian comes with all of your soldier-standards. He's built for speed and stamina, the type to outlast rather than rely on ending a fight quickly. He's capable of deadly precision, but where's the fun in that? Primarily, he likes to fight with the sword his adoptive father gave him, with the aid of the mechanical arm that took the place of the one he lost.

His arm is his pride and joy, and a majority of his abilities come from it. He made it himself, and in addition to being fully functional as an arm, it's also capable of producing an electromagnetic field. This drains the battery on it quite quickly, but he's used it to deflect bullets, steal weapons from his opponents, and tear shrapnel out of people to end their suffering. It's also capable of discharging electric pulses and contains quite a number of small concealed weapons. He also claims that it gives excellent handjobs, but we wouldn't take his word on that one.

His one other ability is a skill that seldom sees use as there hasn't been much of a need for it in the past, but one of Cassian's hobbies is to mix various fragrances he wears as perfumes. Recently, he's begun putting additives in those fragrances to all kinds of fun effects. Aphrodisiacs, paralytics, even poisons. It's time-consuming, as he has to condition himself until he's immune to a full dose of the stuff before he uses it on anyone else, but so far the results have been worth it. ♥

SAMPLE
JOURNAL:

I find it strange to think that soldiers are meant to fight for peace. That's what we're here for, though, isn't it? To fight for... peace. To bring an age of prosperity to Avatica, so that our people will no longer have to suffer as they have.

Which is all well and good, and I endorse it wholeheartedly, and yet...

[ Soft laughter, punctuated by the rustling of fabric as Cassian turns to sprawl on his other side, fingers lazily trailing over the soft sheets on his bed. ]

Soldiers, groomed to fight for peace. Does no one ever wonder what becomes of us once we obtain peace? Once there is no more a need for us, or our intimate knowledge of how to bring about death and destruction? We are a sorry breed of creature indeed, fighting for the very thing that will unmake us in the end.

Perhaps none of us are meant to survive this, and we exist only for the convenience of the moment. Like an anonymous lover, we give you release and then are expected to exit as quickly as we came.

How funny. How fun. How perfectly ironic for the lot of us.

So let us fight, men. Let us pick up our swords and spears and guns. Let us march and let us charge so that we may someday be obsolete. Let us kill and be killed to end this, so that we are needed no longer and can finally rest.

Let us soldier on until we are soldiers no more.