[APP] asgardeventide
OOC Information;
Name; Fyre
Personal Journal; fyretoppaaa
Contact;
[E-mail] hotaru.no.tamashii[at]gmail[dot]com
[AIM] eighth helleluia
[Plurk] muffyre
Other Characters; N/A
IC Information;
Character Name; Allen Abaddonia, né Prince Allen Lucifen d'Autriche
Canon; Vocaloid: The Evillious Chronicles, Story of Evil
*For clarification, Allen is not a Vocaloid -- he is a normal human.
Canon Point; Re_Birthday, after he starts hearing the Clockwork Lullaby but before anything else happens
Age; 15
House; Freya
Power; Power Transfer
History; This is a timeline of the songs in the entire series.
The following will be a summary of Allen's history from the novel Daughter of Evil: Closure of Yellow, which expands upon the songs and adds some new plot elements and revelations. It also gives the characters distinctive names other than their Vocaloid versions. There isn't much by way of information in English, so I've decided to provide it.
Here is a timeline concerning the background of the Kingdom of Lucifenia and its Three Heroes, who are instrumental to the story. The events of 500-501 are the ones principal to the novel.
• 399: The Founding of Lucifenia -- Independence movement strengthens in the Belzenian territory of Lucifenia.
The Lucifenian founding dynasty establishes its kingdom.
• 480: Elluka Clockworker is a subordinate of King Arth I.
Lucifenia expands its territory, steadily swallowing up the surrounding states. After its defeat by Lucifenia, the Belzenian Empire enters a speedy decline.
• 490: The Deeds of Lucifenia's Three Heroes --
Belzenia is reduced to a territory in the southern region of Evillious.
Leonhart Abaddonia, Mariam Futapie and Elluka Clockworker, as the subordinates of King Arth I of Lucifenia who helped turn Lucifenia into a great power, come to be called the Three Heroes.
• 500-501: Lucifenia Invades Elphegort -- The Kingdom of Lucifenia suddenly invades Elphegort.
The Lucifenian Revolution -- The Lucifenian people rebel against the prideful actions of the Princess Rillianne d'Autriche.
The revolution occurs under the leadership of Leonhart's daughter, Jermeille Abaddonia.
Elluka Clockworker obtains the vessel of sin, the Venom Sword, from the great merchant Keel Freesis.
Allen and Rillianne Lucifen d'Autriche are the twin heirs to the Kingdom of Lucifenia, born in 486 to King Arth I and Queen Anne. According to the events of Twiright Prank in 491, when the twins were 5, they were still together and met with the "devil" (whose true identity and nature are both unclear) at dusk -- it is known that at this time Allen, having shared his snack with the starving devil out of pity, learned a secret which he later told to his older sister. This is the secret of writing down one's wish, putting it in a bottle and then letting it drift out to sea as a charm to make it come true. Rillianne makes use of it throughout the novel (minus the sea) and again in Regret Message.
In 492, the twins were swept up in a struggle for succession after their mother and father had both died. (It seems as though the king predeceased his queen, who ruled on after his death for a time.) It ended in Allen being declared dead and hidden away among the commoners as the adopted son of one of the kingdom's Three Heroes -- Leonhart Abaddonia. Leonhart, as the Commander of the Royal Guard, taught his adopted son how to ride and wield the sword, and Allen became extremely proficient at both. Also in the household was Leonhart's older adopted daughter, Jermeille, also an accomplished swordswoman.
When Allen turned 13, he was sent into the palace by Leonhart to become the Princess Rillianne's personal servant. The exact rationale for this decision is unknown, though Allen initially believed that his father was respecting his wish to be allowed to protect his twin sister -- albeit in a somewhat unorthodox way (since he could also have inducted him into the Royal Guard). As for how the twins' relation was never realized despite looking... exactly like each other, this was the influence of Elluka Clockworker of the Three Heroes, the court's sorceress. Due to her infallible powers of prophecy, she wielded great power within the palace and its politics. Her stance was that there would always be people who coincidentally looked alike in the world -- and that this was such a case. Allen also suspects her of tampering with Rillianne's memories, since while the princess remembers small elements of her interactions with her brother, she never again remembers their younger years together.
We are introduced to Allen and Rillianne on their 14th birthday in 500. At this point, the kingdom is in the throes of a famine, but the princess' birthday celebrations seem to be proceeding anyway. We are also made very aware of the open animosity between Rillianne and Leonhart -- a product of Leonhart's compassion for the common people clashing with Rillianne's actions as ruler, which... are pretty much never for the good of the people. Relations between them have deteriorated to the point where had Leonhart not been one of the Three Heroes, Rillianne would long since have had him put to the guillotine. It is also for this reason that Leonhart and Allen's familial relation is never told to her -- because if she knew Allen was the son of the man she hated, she never would have allowed him to become her personal servant.
Sometime after the celebrations, Rillianne puts a statesman to death. His younger brother, who is a servant working in the palace alongside Allen, attempts to assassinate the princess... with a dinner knife. Due to the Royal Guard being stationed too far away to rush to the scene in time, Allen takes up a (dull) sword and protects the princess -- in the process revealing the swordsmanship that he's not supposed to have learned as a mere servant.
This comes back to haunt him later. When food starts disappearing from the palace stores, the palace gossip -- a maid named Ney Futapie, adopted daughter of Mariam Futapie of the Three Heroes -- reveals to Rillianne that Leonhart is the one committing the thefts. Due to the worsening of the famine, he has been redistributing the food to the Lucifenian people. Rillianne, of course, finds this a perfect excuse to have him removed. This marks the first time she makes a wish in a bottle and hands it to Allen -- the wish is the order to assassinate his adopted father.
Allen, at first, has absolutely no intentions of complying. It is Ney Futapie who changes his mind when she reveals to him the conversation she overheard between her mother and Leonhart -- in which Leonhart allegedly revealed that the reason he sent Allen into the palace to become Rillianne's personal servant was to place him in a position to assassinate the princess. Convinced that his father is a threat to his sister, Allen steels himself and commits the deed (but not without Rillianne's help and the use of paralyzing agents, since his father, as one of the Three Heroes, is a far more powerful swordsman than he is). It's revealed afterwards that Leon had also intended to give Allen a belated birthday present on that day -- a hand mirror that matches Rillianne's. (The significance of this mirror is unknown, but since it is Rillianne's mirror(s) that connects the twins intricately to the rest of the Evillious Chronicles, it is an item worth noting.)
At this point, the seeds for rebellion are sown when Jermeille learns of her father's death and immediately attributes it to the Daughter of Evil, the tyrant Princess Rillianne. She swears to take revenge and bring down the princess.
Elphegort and Marlon eventually send aid to Lucifenia due to the worsening famine. Marlon is said to have made the gesture thanks to the likely wedding of its prince Kyle to Rillianne in the coming year. (The two had been betrothed by their mothers when they were still small.) At any rate, Allen is sent to Elphegort as an envoy to give thanks for the relief -- which seems to have come from the great merchant Keel Freesis, a powerful leader in the world of commerce. It is on this trip that he meets the mercenary leader Gast Venom and falls in love with Keel's maid, Michaela. However, Michaela has many suitors, one of whom has given her a shell necklace.
Once Allen returns to Elphegort, it is learned that Prince Kyle Marlon has rejected Rillianne's overtures of marriage -- because he has fallen in love with a green-haired girl in Elphegort. Rillianne, mad with jealousy, immediately decides that the mysterious interloper must die. As Elphegort is full of green-haired people, this is a bit of a difficult proposal. Rillianne's solution is to burn down the ancient forests that have until now protected Elphegort from Lucifenian invasion, and to kill every single green-haired woman in the country -- just to make sure. At this point, Elluka Clockworker opposes the princess for the first time -- ostensibly to protect the Millennium Forest and its venerated Millennium Tree. When Rillianne finally threatens another of the Three Heroes, Elluka decides that working for Lucifenia is no longer in her best interests and quits her post as the court's sorceress. She leaves Allen (whom Rillianne tried to order to kill her) with one of her infallible prophecies: "This kingdom will soon fall."
Allen notices a shell necklace among Rillianne's gifts from Kyle -- and realizes the true identity of the green-haired girl.
Thanks to the magic of Elluka Clockworker and her apprentice, the Millennium Forest is saved from annihilation, but enough of the woods are cleared that Lucifenia begins its invasion anyway. Elphegort is easily dominated, and the Green Hunt begins.
Keel Freesis, who has been imprisoned in Lucifenia for allowing a green-haired servant (Michaela) to escape from his household, entrusts Allen with her whereabouts and her fate. Michaela has been hidden away in a bunker in an old well in the Millennium Forest, awaiting Kyle, who has promised to spirit her away to Marlon and safety. However, thanks again to Ney Futapie, Rillianne learns the identity and location of Kyle's love interest as well as Allen's role in the whole affair. This is the second time Rillianne hands her brother a wish in a bottle -- ordering him to kill the girl he loves.
At this point, the narrative becomes completely ambiguous. There is strong evidence suggesting that Ney Futapie was the one who killed Michaela, and that Allen merely found her body. But Allen's decision about which girl to remain loyal to is never confirmed -- we can only speculate. I believe that he did not intend to kill Michaela; he had already harbored thoughts of disobeying Rillianne and voiced these doubts to Ney Futapie -- giving the latter more than enough incentive to commit the murder herself to eliminate the chance that it would not be carried out. There is a scene suggesting Michaela received an unknown visitor the night before Allen made his decision. It was a decision as to whether to offer up Michaela's life, or to keep her safe (perhaps smuggle her to Kyle) and forfeit his own -- and as we have already seen, Allen is willing to die for those he cares about.
Afterwards, it is implied that Kyle found Michaela's body and, bent on revenge, joined the growing Lucifenian resistance headed by Jermeille. When the resistance tries to assassinate Lucifenia's Chief Minister Minis and nearly succeeds, the palace finally realizes the extent of the unrest within the kingdom. Unfortunately, most of Lucifenia's forces are out pacifying the remnants of Elphegort's resistance -- so they are forced to hire Gast Venom's mercenary troops to pacify their own territory.
The revolution begins. Lucifenia's royal government, despite the addition of Gast Venom's forces and finally attempting to recall its troops from abroad, does not quite have the manpower to resist in the midst of winding down a war -- especially since Marlon troops have been added to the resistance.
Once it becomes clear that Lucifenia is being swept by the revolution, ministers and nobles start fleeing the country. The revolutionaries eventually reach their final destination -- the royal palace. Their goal: the princess Rillianne. It is also revealed at this point that Allen's childhood friend Charttetto, who has been serving with him in the palace as a personal servant to the princess, has become a major spy and fighter for the resistance.
In the midst of fierce battles to defend the palace, Allen throws down his life savings to hire the mercenary Gast Venom, called the Demon of Asmodean, to hold off the revolutionaries. Gast, as a mercenary, has no obligation to lay down his life for Lucifenia -- but Allen manages to manipulate him into it anyway by using Gast's guilt over his own younger sister's death against him. Gast is eventually killed by Jermeille.
After revealing his true identity to Rillianne and switching outfits and appearances with her, Allen locks her in her room (which has a secret passage leading out of the palace) and goes to face "her" fate.
Because Jermeille knows her little brother too well, and because Kyle knows his erstwhile-fiancée, the two of them both discover that the twins have switched places while Allen is being held in prison in the aftermath of the revolution. Allen systematically ensures his own execution by taking personal responsibility for Michaela and Leonhart's murders -- even going so far as to cruelly taunt their avengers in order to make sure their wrath is focused on him alone. Kyle is so successfully incensed, in fact, that he sentences him to death without a trial.
As Allen approaches the hour of his death, he begins more and more often to hear the strains of the distinctive "Lu Li La" song that characterizes the Clockwork Lullaby -- which ties the Evillious series together. When he is put to the guillotine, Jermeille and Kyle are the only ones fully aware of who he is -- although Charttetto has started to suspect as well. It is later implied that Keel Freesis also has some idea of who was really put to death that day. The execution occurs the day before Allen and Rillianne's 15th birthday.
Rillianne survives, and begins to put wishes in bottles out to sea in the hopes that someday she might see her brother again -- perhaps in another life. Meanwhile, Marlon takes control of Elphegort and Lucifenia's governments during the rebuilding after the war and the revolution -- ostensibly until they can govern themselves after having recovered internal stability. However, it is revealed that Queen Prim of Marlon has been maneuvering her son Kyle to become the new ruler of the continent all along -- with the help of her younger daughter, Ney Marlon.
As for the Story of Evil's connections to the rest of the Evillious Chronicles -- some have already been touched upon, but the most important one is that Rillianne is in fact one of the Seven Sins that both Elluka Clockworker and the organization Père Noël are trying to round up for their own ends. Each of the Seven Sins can be revived using a certain vessel -- and Rillianne's is said to be the Four Mirrors of Lucifenia, the vessel of Superbia of Pride.
In a theater built by the late avatar of Greed (Gallerian Marlon) in the forest (presumably the Millennium Forest) near the end of the century (around 500 years after Allen's lifetime), the Master of the Court attempts to work out the location of the last Sin's vessel, working with various assembled avatars of the Seven Deadly Sins. Their goal is the assembly of all Sins for the creation of Utopia. The locations relevant here are the Court, the Garden, the Graveyard, the Clocktower, and the Hellish Yard. The Master of the Court is a clockwork doll beloved by Gallerian, whose life is tied to the continued running of the clocktower.
As for Allen, after death he seems to have been plunged into a sort of dark purgatory; shackled in red at the wrists and in blue at the ankles, with only a large gear and the Clockwork Lullaby for company, he naturally has no idea what the hell is going on except that he is being punished for his sins. It is revealed that he is somehow inside the clock tower -- the participants of the Court call him the "Irregular", and all we know about his role in creating Utopia is that it seems he eventually adds the last missing lyric to the song of rebirth.
Personality; In his bio, Allen is described as 'earnest', and indeed seems to be pretty dedicated to everything he does. He takes his duties as Rillianne's personal servant seriously, and even additional duties that might get pushed on him despite not being part of his role (such as organizing and cleaning up Rillianne's birthday feast all day... on his own birthday). He is often ragged on by more lighthearted characters such as Leonhart and Jermeille for being too stiff and serious, since he is normally very observant of proper manners, especially in the presence of someone of higher age or status than him. For example, even though Leonhart is his adopted father, Allen never calls him anything other than 'Commander Leonhart'.
On the other hand, he seems to relax much more in like company. By all accounts, Allen gets along pretty well with the other servants and is fairly comfortable with people his own age of both sexes (his best friend is female, after all). He makes fast friends with Michaela when they realize they are both servants, despite having at first been in awe of her. So, while he may seem a bit stiff at first, once he warms up to you Allen is usually pretty easy to get along with.
He's also pretty good at putting up a front -- whether it's being polite to someone higher up in the food chain who's bothering him, carrying out the daily routine despite life crumbling around him (as in the final days of the revolution), or putting on a show of cruelty to drive away anyone who might have prevented his execution. This is probably another skill acquired from his servant trade, where a failure to act in a way that agreed with Rillianne frequently meant being separated from your head.
Although he was born a prince, and knows it, Allen seems to have resigned himself indefinitely to life as a servant and commoner. Since he is only human, of course, he does have moments of envy and moments where he questions his position earlier on, since it seems to have been pure chance that placed he and Rillianne where they are now. However, 'servant and commoner' is the identity Allen has grown up with and he never once thinks of himself as a prince -- the only time his true title is acknowledged is by Mariam of the Three Heroes just before the final battle in the palace, as a gesture of farewell.
It's likely that he will continue to consider 'servant and commoner' his identity no matter where he is or what has happened -- unless circumstances require he use his true birth as leverage. Even then, as seen when he revealed it to Gast Venom and Jermeille, he stresses the fact that he and Rillianne are twins rather than the fact that they are equals. In other words, you could also say that he thinks of himself as 'actually Princess Rillianne's brother' rather than 'actually a prince'.
As that goes to show, his twin sister Rillianne is the singular most important person in Allen's life -- despite his having been separated from her for several years and raised in a different environment entirely, and despite his occasional jealousy of her.
Throughout the novel, he comes to understand the isolation and difficulties that come with Rillianne's position and eventually seems to let go of any resentment -- though he never blinds himself to the flaws in her nature nor the evil in her deeds. Allen simply takes it upon himself to share them and to try and ease her isolation as best he can despite the impossibility of receiving recognition as her little brother. Essentially, no leader could ask for a more loyal idiot follower -- one who accepts them for everything they are and stays with them anyway. Allen pursues what he believes in (whether it is in the realm of right or wrong; in most cases it has to do with Rillianne's wellbeing) with single-minded abandon, because he cares a little too much. This doesn't necessarily mean he never has doubts -- he comes pretty close to disobeying Rillianne several times, but his ultimate goal is to do everything he can bring himself to do for her happiness.
Thus, Allen's able to be pretty much ruthless to protect her -- it's for this that he murders his own adopted father, it's for this that he manipulates Gast, and it's once again for Rillianne's sake when he lashes out against Kyle and Jermeille to ensure that he is their object of revenge; so that his execution will eliminate any further threats to his sister. This is also why it's unlikely he actually intended to kill Michaela -- she was never a direct threat to his sister, simply someone who caught the eye of the wrong guy. He would not have killed Leonhart if he hadn't been told the latter intended to have his sister assassinated. Allen's devotion makes him at times merciless, but also brave -- he never gives in to hesitation after he's decided to go so far as to die in Rillianne's place.
As might be expected, however, Allen's life hasn't left him in a very good place mental health-wise. Can you say Guilt Complex? It's pretty much visible from space. He states that he shares responsibility for Rillianne's crimes because of their shared blood, and has come to call himself the Servant of Evil (though Evil Servant would probably be closer to the actual meaning) -- obviously implying his belief in his own responsibility for the terrible things he's done.
Despite his concern for the extent of his sister's loneliness, as things snowball and he becomes more and more tangled in her schemes even Allen realizes that he himself is becoming just as isolated -- it doesn't help that his best friend is off helping with the eventual revolution. The only man who really understood what he was going through was a stranger whom he eventually hired to die for him so, uh, oops. About that guilt thing... Anyway, although Allen has had a little time and a Clockwork Lullaby to soothe all of this a little, the fact remains that he has a few too many terrible secrets to his name to be healthy.
The other thing about Allen is that he seems to have a habit of acting alone. He is a practical person and part of a team of servants, of course, so he's perfectly willing to practice give and take with others for everyday things... But when it comes things like, oh I don't know, suddenly being forced into the assassination business or being executed in his sister's place -- he's very much unwilling to drag others into it. The only one he turns to for help is Gast Venom, with money for leverage. It's not exactly a case of being willing to take help so much as desperation. Perhaps it's because at this point, Allen's the only one truly sympathetic to his sister left -- but it seems like this kind of self-reliance has been a habit of his since he was younger. The way Jermeille tells it, when his best friend Charttetto was kidnapped by bandits in the forest and Jermeille captured trying to rescue her, after all the adults had given up, Allen entered the forest by himself and took on the bandits (and defeated them!). Even if he didn't think the adults would listen, he could still have asked for help from someone closer to his age -- but he didn't. A part of this might be a product of when he was very small and came to view everyone as an enemy because of how much the adults around him used and abused him in the succession struggle. He's since grown out of that mentality somewhat, but it's unlikely he could forget the experience.
Thanks to this tendency to try to go it alone, however, Allen also turns out to be pretty easy to manipulate. Despite being much more aware of life and politics in the palace and the real world than his sister, Allen is still pretty naive, and his protectiveness of his sister tends to blind him to others' ulterior motives. Ney Futapie likely fed him lies about his father and was probably the only person besides him, Keel, Rillianne and Kyle who knew where Michaela was -- but in neither case did Allen suspect her nor attempt to investigate what was really an indecent amount of knowledge about everything. While her reputation as palace gossip accounts for this, it still shows his naivety in a situation where acting so simple-mindedly really wasn't in anyone's best interest. In another sense, it took him quite a while to figure out that he'd actually fallen for Michaela -- while he's well-acquainted with girls thanks to his workplace being overstaffed with them, romantically, Allen seems to have had no experience whatsoever.
As seen in Twiright Prank, moreover, he is fundamentally the giving twin to Rillianne's selfish and always has been. While this may not feed directly into how easily he was played as a pawn in Story of Evil, it certainly didn't help matters.
Finally, despite the more serious aspects of his nature, Allen does have a bit of a dorky side to him. He seems to be interested in fashion trends and remarks that he envies Keel for being a businessman and thus able to keep up with the latest styles -- a.k.a. eyeglasses. In a somewhat darker moment but no less amusingly, he congratulates himself on the makeup skills that seem to help with his disguise as Rillianne. He is the one who tells Rillianne about the legend of making wishes by putting them in writing inside bottles and casting them away at sea. Overall, he is more of a practical soul than a dreamer, but Allen does have his moments.
Samples;
Network Sample; Dear Mun post ahoy.
Log Sample; Well, here's one Traveller who would seem right at home in the midst of all these maids and castle attendants -- if he, you know, weren't meticulously groomed and garbed head to toe in gold.
Nevertheless, if you're not looking carefully, you would probably miss him; he walks with his head down and out of the way, with the awkward missteps of someone used to walking like he knows where he needs to be but who has lost his schedule today. And if you're looking carefully anyway, you might just spot the wrinkles in his uniform, the tired weight of his posture, maybe even the faint trembling in his wrists held stiffly at his side.
To say Allen is scared to death wouldn't be entirely accurate. First of all, he would have to be alive for that to be an effective qualifier; second of all, fear implies an absolute negative reaction to something he might expect to happen.
Allen... doesn't have a clue what to expect.
He's died, continued to be, been punished with voiceless bodies and comforted by bodiless voices, and then now, suddenly, again-- Suddenly he's expected to continue.
At least, that is what the faceless, voiceless servant has told him, and while normally Allen trusts servants more than their masters, there is something about these that makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. And if they speak of gods...
He's been waiting for judgment. He's been waiting for it so long, he'd convinced himself it had already been handed down along with the shackles that he can still feel on his wrists and ankles, with the darkness eating at his fingers and toes. But he'd had the lullaby, hadn't he? There is no way that anything with that measure of peace could be called just punishment for what he's done, what he is.
So, then, gods. They will know what to do with him. Play with him, enslave him, butcher him... Erase him.
The thing that Allen hasn't realized until now is this: as much as he knows what he deserves, and as much as he can't bring himself to like or hate any of the options presented, he is still here. And that means he's still the human he was.
And that means there's hope.
That thing that the great criminals and the great warriors have let go of -- because he is no great hero or even any great felon, he keeps the meager letter they've handed him like a wish from a bottle in his pocket and remembers the words ""this world and the one from whence you came" with a blindly funny sort of fixation.
They want him to believe that he still has a reason to be here. He's just reckless enough to want to believe them.
Name; Fyre
Personal Journal; fyretoppaaa
Contact;
[E-mail] hotaru.no.tamashii[at]gmail[dot]com
[AIM] eighth helleluia
[Plurk] muffyre
Other Characters; N/A
IC Information;
Character Name; Allen Abaddonia, né Prince Allen Lucifen d'Autriche
Canon; Vocaloid: The Evillious Chronicles, Story of Evil
*For clarification, Allen is not a Vocaloid -- he is a normal human.
Canon Point; Re_Birthday, after he starts hearing the Clockwork Lullaby but before anything else happens
Age; 15
House; Freya
Power; Power Transfer
History; This is a timeline of the songs in the entire series.
The following will be a summary of Allen's history from the novel Daughter of Evil: Closure of Yellow, which expands upon the songs and adds some new plot elements and revelations. It also gives the characters distinctive names other than their Vocaloid versions. There isn't much by way of information in English, so I've decided to provide it.
Here is a timeline concerning the background of the Kingdom of Lucifenia and its Three Heroes, who are instrumental to the story. The events of 500-501 are the ones principal to the novel.
• 399: The Founding of Lucifenia -- Independence movement strengthens in the Belzenian territory of Lucifenia.
The Lucifenian founding dynasty establishes its kingdom.
• 480: Elluka Clockworker is a subordinate of King Arth I.
Lucifenia expands its territory, steadily swallowing up the surrounding states. After its defeat by Lucifenia, the Belzenian Empire enters a speedy decline.
• 490: The Deeds of Lucifenia's Three Heroes --
Belzenia is reduced to a territory in the southern region of Evillious.
Leonhart Abaddonia, Mariam Futapie and Elluka Clockworker, as the subordinates of King Arth I of Lucifenia who helped turn Lucifenia into a great power, come to be called the Three Heroes.
• 500-501: Lucifenia Invades Elphegort -- The Kingdom of Lucifenia suddenly invades Elphegort.
The Lucifenian Revolution -- The Lucifenian people rebel against the prideful actions of the Princess Rillianne d'Autriche.
The revolution occurs under the leadership of Leonhart's daughter, Jermeille Abaddonia.
Elluka Clockworker obtains the vessel of sin, the Venom Sword, from the great merchant Keel Freesis.
Allen and Rillianne Lucifen d'Autriche are the twin heirs to the Kingdom of Lucifenia, born in 486 to King Arth I and Queen Anne. According to the events of Twiright Prank in 491, when the twins were 5, they were still together and met with the "devil" (whose true identity and nature are both unclear) at dusk -- it is known that at this time Allen, having shared his snack with the starving devil out of pity, learned a secret which he later told to his older sister. This is the secret of writing down one's wish, putting it in a bottle and then letting it drift out to sea as a charm to make it come true. Rillianne makes use of it throughout the novel (minus the sea) and again in Regret Message.
In 492, the twins were swept up in a struggle for succession after their mother and father had both died. (It seems as though the king predeceased his queen, who ruled on after his death for a time.) It ended in Allen being declared dead and hidden away among the commoners as the adopted son of one of the kingdom's Three Heroes -- Leonhart Abaddonia. Leonhart, as the Commander of the Royal Guard, taught his adopted son how to ride and wield the sword, and Allen became extremely proficient at both. Also in the household was Leonhart's older adopted daughter, Jermeille, also an accomplished swordswoman.
When Allen turned 13, he was sent into the palace by Leonhart to become the Princess Rillianne's personal servant. The exact rationale for this decision is unknown, though Allen initially believed that his father was respecting his wish to be allowed to protect his twin sister -- albeit in a somewhat unorthodox way (since he could also have inducted him into the Royal Guard). As for how the twins' relation was never realized despite looking... exactly like each other, this was the influence of Elluka Clockworker of the Three Heroes, the court's sorceress. Due to her infallible powers of prophecy, she wielded great power within the palace and its politics. Her stance was that there would always be people who coincidentally looked alike in the world -- and that this was such a case. Allen also suspects her of tampering with Rillianne's memories, since while the princess remembers small elements of her interactions with her brother, she never again remembers their younger years together.
We are introduced to Allen and Rillianne on their 14th birthday in 500. At this point, the kingdom is in the throes of a famine, but the princess' birthday celebrations seem to be proceeding anyway. We are also made very aware of the open animosity between Rillianne and Leonhart -- a product of Leonhart's compassion for the common people clashing with Rillianne's actions as ruler, which... are pretty much never for the good of the people. Relations between them have deteriorated to the point where had Leonhart not been one of the Three Heroes, Rillianne would long since have had him put to the guillotine. It is also for this reason that Leonhart and Allen's familial relation is never told to her -- because if she knew Allen was the son of the man she hated, she never would have allowed him to become her personal servant.
Sometime after the celebrations, Rillianne puts a statesman to death. His younger brother, who is a servant working in the palace alongside Allen, attempts to assassinate the princess... with a dinner knife. Due to the Royal Guard being stationed too far away to rush to the scene in time, Allen takes up a (dull) sword and protects the princess -- in the process revealing the swordsmanship that he's not supposed to have learned as a mere servant.
This comes back to haunt him later. When food starts disappearing from the palace stores, the palace gossip -- a maid named Ney Futapie, adopted daughter of Mariam Futapie of the Three Heroes -- reveals to Rillianne that Leonhart is the one committing the thefts. Due to the worsening of the famine, he has been redistributing the food to the Lucifenian people. Rillianne, of course, finds this a perfect excuse to have him removed. This marks the first time she makes a wish in a bottle and hands it to Allen -- the wish is the order to assassinate his adopted father.
Allen, at first, has absolutely no intentions of complying. It is Ney Futapie who changes his mind when she reveals to him the conversation she overheard between her mother and Leonhart -- in which Leonhart allegedly revealed that the reason he sent Allen into the palace to become Rillianne's personal servant was to place him in a position to assassinate the princess. Convinced that his father is a threat to his sister, Allen steels himself and commits the deed (but not without Rillianne's help and the use of paralyzing agents, since his father, as one of the Three Heroes, is a far more powerful swordsman than he is). It's revealed afterwards that Leon had also intended to give Allen a belated birthday present on that day -- a hand mirror that matches Rillianne's. (The significance of this mirror is unknown, but since it is Rillianne's mirror(s) that connects the twins intricately to the rest of the Evillious Chronicles, it is an item worth noting.)
At this point, the seeds for rebellion are sown when Jermeille learns of her father's death and immediately attributes it to the Daughter of Evil, the tyrant Princess Rillianne. She swears to take revenge and bring down the princess.
Elphegort and Marlon eventually send aid to Lucifenia due to the worsening famine. Marlon is said to have made the gesture thanks to the likely wedding of its prince Kyle to Rillianne in the coming year. (The two had been betrothed by their mothers when they were still small.) At any rate, Allen is sent to Elphegort as an envoy to give thanks for the relief -- which seems to have come from the great merchant Keel Freesis, a powerful leader in the world of commerce. It is on this trip that he meets the mercenary leader Gast Venom and falls in love with Keel's maid, Michaela. However, Michaela has many suitors, one of whom has given her a shell necklace.
Once Allen returns to Elphegort, it is learned that Prince Kyle Marlon has rejected Rillianne's overtures of marriage -- because he has fallen in love with a green-haired girl in Elphegort. Rillianne, mad with jealousy, immediately decides that the mysterious interloper must die. As Elphegort is full of green-haired people, this is a bit of a difficult proposal. Rillianne's solution is to burn down the ancient forests that have until now protected Elphegort from Lucifenian invasion, and to kill every single green-haired woman in the country -- just to make sure. At this point, Elluka Clockworker opposes the princess for the first time -- ostensibly to protect the Millennium Forest and its venerated Millennium Tree. When Rillianne finally threatens another of the Three Heroes, Elluka decides that working for Lucifenia is no longer in her best interests and quits her post as the court's sorceress. She leaves Allen (whom Rillianne tried to order to kill her) with one of her infallible prophecies: "This kingdom will soon fall."
Allen notices a shell necklace among Rillianne's gifts from Kyle -- and realizes the true identity of the green-haired girl.
Thanks to the magic of Elluka Clockworker and her apprentice, the Millennium Forest is saved from annihilation, but enough of the woods are cleared that Lucifenia begins its invasion anyway. Elphegort is easily dominated, and the Green Hunt begins.
Keel Freesis, who has been imprisoned in Lucifenia for allowing a green-haired servant (Michaela) to escape from his household, entrusts Allen with her whereabouts and her fate. Michaela has been hidden away in a bunker in an old well in the Millennium Forest, awaiting Kyle, who has promised to spirit her away to Marlon and safety. However, thanks again to Ney Futapie, Rillianne learns the identity and location of Kyle's love interest as well as Allen's role in the whole affair. This is the second time Rillianne hands her brother a wish in a bottle -- ordering him to kill the girl he loves.
At this point, the narrative becomes completely ambiguous. There is strong evidence suggesting that Ney Futapie was the one who killed Michaela, and that Allen merely found her body. But Allen's decision about which girl to remain loyal to is never confirmed -- we can only speculate. I believe that he did not intend to kill Michaela; he had already harbored thoughts of disobeying Rillianne and voiced these doubts to Ney Futapie -- giving the latter more than enough incentive to commit the murder herself to eliminate the chance that it would not be carried out. There is a scene suggesting Michaela received an unknown visitor the night before Allen made his decision. It was a decision as to whether to offer up Michaela's life, or to keep her safe (perhaps smuggle her to Kyle) and forfeit his own -- and as we have already seen, Allen is willing to die for those he cares about.
Afterwards, it is implied that Kyle found Michaela's body and, bent on revenge, joined the growing Lucifenian resistance headed by Jermeille. When the resistance tries to assassinate Lucifenia's Chief Minister Minis and nearly succeeds, the palace finally realizes the extent of the unrest within the kingdom. Unfortunately, most of Lucifenia's forces are out pacifying the remnants of Elphegort's resistance -- so they are forced to hire Gast Venom's mercenary troops to pacify their own territory.
The revolution begins. Lucifenia's royal government, despite the addition of Gast Venom's forces and finally attempting to recall its troops from abroad, does not quite have the manpower to resist in the midst of winding down a war -- especially since Marlon troops have been added to the resistance.
Once it becomes clear that Lucifenia is being swept by the revolution, ministers and nobles start fleeing the country. The revolutionaries eventually reach their final destination -- the royal palace. Their goal: the princess Rillianne. It is also revealed at this point that Allen's childhood friend Charttetto, who has been serving with him in the palace as a personal servant to the princess, has become a major spy and fighter for the resistance.
In the midst of fierce battles to defend the palace, Allen throws down his life savings to hire the mercenary Gast Venom, called the Demon of Asmodean, to hold off the revolutionaries. Gast, as a mercenary, has no obligation to lay down his life for Lucifenia -- but Allen manages to manipulate him into it anyway by using Gast's guilt over his own younger sister's death against him. Gast is eventually killed by Jermeille.
After revealing his true identity to Rillianne and switching outfits and appearances with her, Allen locks her in her room (which has a secret passage leading out of the palace) and goes to face "her" fate.
Because Jermeille knows her little brother too well, and because Kyle knows his erstwhile-fiancée, the two of them both discover that the twins have switched places while Allen is being held in prison in the aftermath of the revolution. Allen systematically ensures his own execution by taking personal responsibility for Michaela and Leonhart's murders -- even going so far as to cruelly taunt their avengers in order to make sure their wrath is focused on him alone. Kyle is so successfully incensed, in fact, that he sentences him to death without a trial.
As Allen approaches the hour of his death, he begins more and more often to hear the strains of the distinctive "Lu Li La" song that characterizes the Clockwork Lullaby -- which ties the Evillious series together. When he is put to the guillotine, Jermeille and Kyle are the only ones fully aware of who he is -- although Charttetto has started to suspect as well. It is later implied that Keel Freesis also has some idea of who was really put to death that day. The execution occurs the day before Allen and Rillianne's 15th birthday.
Rillianne survives, and begins to put wishes in bottles out to sea in the hopes that someday she might see her brother again -- perhaps in another life. Meanwhile, Marlon takes control of Elphegort and Lucifenia's governments during the rebuilding after the war and the revolution -- ostensibly until they can govern themselves after having recovered internal stability. However, it is revealed that Queen Prim of Marlon has been maneuvering her son Kyle to become the new ruler of the continent all along -- with the help of her younger daughter, Ney Marlon.
As for the Story of Evil's connections to the rest of the Evillious Chronicles -- some have already been touched upon, but the most important one is that Rillianne is in fact one of the Seven Sins that both Elluka Clockworker and the organization Père Noël are trying to round up for their own ends. Each of the Seven Sins can be revived using a certain vessel -- and Rillianne's is said to be the Four Mirrors of Lucifenia, the vessel of Superbia of Pride.
In a theater built by the late avatar of Greed (Gallerian Marlon) in the forest (presumably the Millennium Forest) near the end of the century (around 500 years after Allen's lifetime), the Master of the Court attempts to work out the location of the last Sin's vessel, working with various assembled avatars of the Seven Deadly Sins. Their goal is the assembly of all Sins for the creation of Utopia. The locations relevant here are the Court, the Garden, the Graveyard, the Clocktower, and the Hellish Yard. The Master of the Court is a clockwork doll beloved by Gallerian, whose life is tied to the continued running of the clocktower.
As for Allen, after death he seems to have been plunged into a sort of dark purgatory; shackled in red at the wrists and in blue at the ankles, with only a large gear and the Clockwork Lullaby for company, he naturally has no idea what the hell is going on except that he is being punished for his sins. It is revealed that he is somehow inside the clock tower -- the participants of the Court call him the "Irregular", and all we know about his role in creating Utopia is that it seems he eventually adds the last missing lyric to the song of rebirth.
Personality; In his bio, Allen is described as 'earnest', and indeed seems to be pretty dedicated to everything he does. He takes his duties as Rillianne's personal servant seriously, and even additional duties that might get pushed on him despite not being part of his role (such as organizing and cleaning up Rillianne's birthday feast all day... on his own birthday). He is often ragged on by more lighthearted characters such as Leonhart and Jermeille for being too stiff and serious, since he is normally very observant of proper manners, especially in the presence of someone of higher age or status than him. For example, even though Leonhart is his adopted father, Allen never calls him anything other than 'Commander Leonhart'.
On the other hand, he seems to relax much more in like company. By all accounts, Allen gets along pretty well with the other servants and is fairly comfortable with people his own age of both sexes (his best friend is female, after all). He makes fast friends with Michaela when they realize they are both servants, despite having at first been in awe of her. So, while he may seem a bit stiff at first, once he warms up to you Allen is usually pretty easy to get along with.
He's also pretty good at putting up a front -- whether it's being polite to someone higher up in the food chain who's bothering him, carrying out the daily routine despite life crumbling around him (as in the final days of the revolution), or putting on a show of cruelty to drive away anyone who might have prevented his execution. This is probably another skill acquired from his servant trade, where a failure to act in a way that agreed with Rillianne frequently meant being separated from your head.
Although he was born a prince, and knows it, Allen seems to have resigned himself indefinitely to life as a servant and commoner. Since he is only human, of course, he does have moments of envy and moments where he questions his position earlier on, since it seems to have been pure chance that placed he and Rillianne where they are now. However, 'servant and commoner' is the identity Allen has grown up with and he never once thinks of himself as a prince -- the only time his true title is acknowledged is by Mariam of the Three Heroes just before the final battle in the palace, as a gesture of farewell.
It's likely that he will continue to consider 'servant and commoner' his identity no matter where he is or what has happened -- unless circumstances require he use his true birth as leverage. Even then, as seen when he revealed it to Gast Venom and Jermeille, he stresses the fact that he and Rillianne are twins rather than the fact that they are equals. In other words, you could also say that he thinks of himself as 'actually Princess Rillianne's brother' rather than 'actually a prince'.
As that goes to show, his twin sister Rillianne is the singular most important person in Allen's life -- despite his having been separated from her for several years and raised in a different environment entirely, and despite his occasional jealousy of her.
Throughout the novel, he comes to understand the isolation and difficulties that come with Rillianne's position and eventually seems to let go of any resentment -- though he never blinds himself to the flaws in her nature nor the evil in her deeds. Allen simply takes it upon himself to share them and to try and ease her isolation as best he can despite the impossibility of receiving recognition as her little brother. Essentially, no leader could ask for a more loyal idiot follower -- one who accepts them for everything they are and stays with them anyway. Allen pursues what he believes in (whether it is in the realm of right or wrong; in most cases it has to do with Rillianne's wellbeing) with single-minded abandon, because he cares a little too much. This doesn't necessarily mean he never has doubts -- he comes pretty close to disobeying Rillianne several times, but his ultimate goal is to do everything he can bring himself to do for her happiness.
Thus, Allen's able to be pretty much ruthless to protect her -- it's for this that he murders his own adopted father, it's for this that he manipulates Gast, and it's once again for Rillianne's sake when he lashes out against Kyle and Jermeille to ensure that he is their object of revenge; so that his execution will eliminate any further threats to his sister. This is also why it's unlikely he actually intended to kill Michaela -- she was never a direct threat to his sister, simply someone who caught the eye of the wrong guy. He would not have killed Leonhart if he hadn't been told the latter intended to have his sister assassinated. Allen's devotion makes him at times merciless, but also brave -- he never gives in to hesitation after he's decided to go so far as to die in Rillianne's place.
As might be expected, however, Allen's life hasn't left him in a very good place mental health-wise. Can you say Guilt Complex? It's pretty much visible from space. He states that he shares responsibility for Rillianne's crimes because of their shared blood, and has come to call himself the Servant of Evil (though Evil Servant would probably be closer to the actual meaning) -- obviously implying his belief in his own responsibility for the terrible things he's done.
Despite his concern for the extent of his sister's loneliness, as things snowball and he becomes more and more tangled in her schemes even Allen realizes that he himself is becoming just as isolated -- it doesn't help that his best friend is off helping with the eventual revolution. The only man who really understood what he was going through was a stranger whom he eventually hired to die for him so, uh, oops. About that guilt thing... Anyway, although Allen has had a little time and a Clockwork Lullaby to soothe all of this a little, the fact remains that he has a few too many terrible secrets to his name to be healthy.
The other thing about Allen is that he seems to have a habit of acting alone. He is a practical person and part of a team of servants, of course, so he's perfectly willing to practice give and take with others for everyday things... But when it comes things like, oh I don't know, suddenly being forced into the assassination business or being executed in his sister's place -- he's very much unwilling to drag others into it. The only one he turns to for help is Gast Venom, with money for leverage. It's not exactly a case of being willing to take help so much as desperation. Perhaps it's because at this point, Allen's the only one truly sympathetic to his sister left -- but it seems like this kind of self-reliance has been a habit of his since he was younger. The way Jermeille tells it, when his best friend Charttetto was kidnapped by bandits in the forest and Jermeille captured trying to rescue her, after all the adults had given up, Allen entered the forest by himself and took on the bandits (and defeated them!). Even if he didn't think the adults would listen, he could still have asked for help from someone closer to his age -- but he didn't. A part of this might be a product of when he was very small and came to view everyone as an enemy because of how much the adults around him used and abused him in the succession struggle. He's since grown out of that mentality somewhat, but it's unlikely he could forget the experience.
Thanks to this tendency to try to go it alone, however, Allen also turns out to be pretty easy to manipulate. Despite being much more aware of life and politics in the palace and the real world than his sister, Allen is still pretty naive, and his protectiveness of his sister tends to blind him to others' ulterior motives. Ney Futapie likely fed him lies about his father and was probably the only person besides him, Keel, Rillianne and Kyle who knew where Michaela was -- but in neither case did Allen suspect her nor attempt to investigate what was really an indecent amount of knowledge about everything. While her reputation as palace gossip accounts for this, it still shows his naivety in a situation where acting so simple-mindedly really wasn't in anyone's best interest. In another sense, it took him quite a while to figure out that he'd actually fallen for Michaela -- while he's well-acquainted with girls thanks to his workplace being overstaffed with them, romantically, Allen seems to have had no experience whatsoever.
As seen in Twiright Prank, moreover, he is fundamentally the giving twin to Rillianne's selfish and always has been. While this may not feed directly into how easily he was played as a pawn in Story of Evil, it certainly didn't help matters.
Finally, despite the more serious aspects of his nature, Allen does have a bit of a dorky side to him. He seems to be interested in fashion trends and remarks that he envies Keel for being a businessman and thus able to keep up with the latest styles -- a.k.a. eyeglasses. In a somewhat darker moment but no less amusingly, he congratulates himself on the makeup skills that seem to help with his disguise as Rillianne. He is the one who tells Rillianne about the legend of making wishes by putting them in writing inside bottles and casting them away at sea. Overall, he is more of a practical soul than a dreamer, but Allen does have his moments.
Samples;
Network Sample; Dear Mun post ahoy.
Log Sample; Well, here's one Traveller who would seem right at home in the midst of all these maids and castle attendants -- if he, you know, weren't meticulously groomed and garbed head to toe in gold.
Nevertheless, if you're not looking carefully, you would probably miss him; he walks with his head down and out of the way, with the awkward missteps of someone used to walking like he knows where he needs to be but who has lost his schedule today. And if you're looking carefully anyway, you might just spot the wrinkles in his uniform, the tired weight of his posture, maybe even the faint trembling in his wrists held stiffly at his side.
To say Allen is scared to death wouldn't be entirely accurate. First of all, he would have to be alive for that to be an effective qualifier; second of all, fear implies an absolute negative reaction to something he might expect to happen.
Allen... doesn't have a clue what to expect.
He's died, continued to be, been punished with voiceless bodies and comforted by bodiless voices, and then now, suddenly, again-- Suddenly he's expected to continue.
At least, that is what the faceless, voiceless servant has told him, and while normally Allen trusts servants more than their masters, there is something about these that makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. And if they speak of gods...
He's been waiting for judgment. He's been waiting for it so long, he'd convinced himself it had already been handed down along with the shackles that he can still feel on his wrists and ankles, with the darkness eating at his fingers and toes. But he'd had the lullaby, hadn't he? There is no way that anything with that measure of peace could be called just punishment for what he's done, what he is.
So, then, gods. They will know what to do with him. Play with him, enslave him, butcher him... Erase him.
The thing that Allen hasn't realized until now is this: as much as he knows what he deserves, and as much as he can't bring himself to like or hate any of the options presented, he is still here. And that means he's still the human he was.
And that means there's hope.
That thing that the great criminals and the great warriors have let go of -- because he is no great hero or even any great felon, he keeps the meager letter they've handed him like a wish from a bottle in his pocket and remembers the words ""this world and the one from whence you came" with a blindly funny sort of fixation.
They want him to believe that he still has a reason to be here. He's just reckless enough to want to believe them.