Name: Lucien Carr
Age: 40
Species: Ailward Guard (Phoenix)
Family: N/A
Face Claim: Norman Reedus

  Narrow blue eyes watched the flames before him intently, the glow reflected in his pupils, as if the embers burned deep in his soul. His back arched as he leaned towards the warmth of the crackling fireplace, pressing his left knee to his chest. A forgotten cigarette dangled lazily from between his fingers, ashes littering the floor in a careless trail. Lengths of shaggy brown hair hung over his face, casting mangled shadows over his sharp features. Only a few more hours and the sun would start it’s ascent from the east, Lucien wouldn’t find rest until long after it had set again; there was no sleep for him on his birthday. It’d been so since he was twenty, today he turned forty.

               It wasn’t that his birth was a particularly tragic event, it’d been pretty normal as far as he’d been concerned at the time. It was only looking back that he saw his mother’s attempt to hide the now, ever-present, wings on his back. She’d known what Lucien had not; to the son of two Initia, those etchings were the first slices to the severance of what he’d known as his life. In a way, the day of his birth signaled the destruction of his family. The one day of the year that he couldn’t seem to hide from the ghosts of days gone by.

               He’d been the last hope of an elitist father to rear a likeness of himself, the son to continue in his very footprints. To Fergus, he and his wife, Maggie- had had three unsuccessful heirs before Lucien. It was probably one of his father’s greatest disappointments, to have finally bred a son who would very clearly specialize in fire, only to find him to be annoyingly rebellious. Lucien’s uncanny prowess for fire was enough to allow him some leeway in the matter. Pride, however, is no replacement for love.

               Nineteen years of life flew by the man’s eyes as he continued to stare into the fire before him. All those years, and still the truth was enough to break any bonds between father and son. It’d been an argument, something that was not so uncommon between father and son.  However, tempers flared much higher than ever before on that unseasonably warm October day. As much as Lucien cared for his family and those in their community, though his siblings had moved to embrace their separate elements in their respective segregations, he wanted to live far from his father’s shadow.

               With enflamed emotion, the markings on his back took form; impressive downy wings came to life and were quickly engulfed in flames. There was a startled silence from both ends of the spectrum, only to be broken by the angry cry of Fergus as he launched himself towards his son. Lucien didn’t hold back, they exchanged blow after blow; it wasn’t until Lucien’s father sent him to the ground, a well-placed foot to the ribs saw Maggie returning home, only to run to her son’s aide.

               Maggie was a fiery red-head who’d never stand one of her children to suffer. Unfortunately, her passion was not enough to over-power her stronger husband. In the end, the back of Fergus’ hand to her face was to be her undoing. Lucien watched wide-eyed as his mother fell to the floor, knocking her head on the edge of their side-table on the way down. Her prone form, and the blood that quickly began to pool, was all the young phoenix needed to lunge for his father.

To this day, the events were oversensitizingly vivid in his mind. He could feel the muscles in his hands tightening as he clamped them around his father’s throat. Lucien could see the life fading from his father’s eyes, as if he’d just now been watching them. The intense pain that ripped agonized screams from his lungs, as he transformed into something else. The young man hadn’t awoken until the early hours of the morning; the tragedy of what had taken place, sunk in instantly- as did the fear of what would happen next.

Lucien packed with purpose, taking only what he could fit in his father’s old duffle. It was surprisingly easy to hitch rides from Florida to New York. How far his younger self thought the cash in his parents’ sock drawer would last, Luce would never know. It’d been a blessing in disguise, however; it was in the warmth of a soup kitchen that Lucien met Norm. A man who took him in without questions about his past, a man who asked only that he find a future for himself, and gave him the strength to do so.

Cursed, it seemed, to forever be unable to find solace for too long a time. The moment it seemed as if he would find his reprieve, it was ripped from his grasp. The human he had come to love was taken at gun point on his way home from the corner store. It was that disregard for life that sickened him; there was so much of humanity that he’d seen; only Norm had given him pause to believe in the goodness of others. Lucien decided that the only thing to do was move on, start over, as he had done before.

The years passed, and the phoenix was no closer to peace than he had been when his journey began. It was only when he came to Evermore, that he found such a large gathering of species. Now set in his loner ways, he stayed on the outskirts of city; hoping his presence would go, for the most part, unnoticed. With the factions so torn, he viewed them all as a broken community. Though Lucien gained some comfort in the knowledge that he surrounded by others in a world steeped in magic; the division was more than he wanted to bear.

It wasn’t until he met a woman named Laura, quite by chance, on a very rare visit to the City- in order to stock up for the coming month. He’d left that day with a new path available to him, and with the road extended, Lucien chose to stand for what he could not have. The Ailward Guard held no prejudice concerning his past transgressions. They were accepting of all species, protecting even humans in their attempt to maintain balance. Lucien’s heart was eclipsed, darkened by fate’s cruel sense of humor; but no matter how blackened, it was true.

Lucien blinked several times, absently flicking the long spent butt of his smoke into the fire before him. He could hear birds singing outside, the world outside beginning to wake. The man stood slowly, stretching his body to relieve him of the creaks and moans his back made for sitting in the same position for far too long. Luce padded his way across the room in bare feet, eyes intent upon one thing. The phoenix lit the tall white candle upon his dresser; the flames sent light cascading over a photo of his mother. If it weren’t for today, forty years ago, she would still be alive.

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