OOC: The Wake application

[did_i_say_percy]

Personal Information
Name: Sam
Age: 46
Personal Journal: dame_grise 
Email / AIM / MSN / Plurk: dame.grise@gmail.com / HisSecretOrchard / n/a / DameGrise
Current Character(s): n/a

Character Information
Character Name: Armand st. Just
Fandom: The Scarlet Pimpernel (musical)

Character History:

When they were only children, Marguerite and Armand lost their parents. Eventually Marguerite found work in the theatre, gradually rising to become the leading lady of the Comedie Française in Paris. She met Chauvelin during the storming of the Bastille and took him as a lover for a brief time. After that, but while Armand was still in his late teens, Marguerite met and became engaged to English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney. Armand accompanied his elder sister to England for her wedding.

When Percy discovered that his friend, the Marquis de St. Cyr, was executed (and that his new wife was responsible for informing on St. Cyr), he rallied his friends to rescue the suffering innocents from the guillotine in France. Armand overheard their plans, and swore himself to be loyal and brave to their cause. After all, it was his own country that had gone mad. He was reluctantly admitted into the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel on condition of absolute secrecy: he mustn't tell Marguerite a thing about what he's doing.

So Armand threw himself into the activities of the League. For the next few months, Percy, his friends, and Armand were constantly traveling between England and France on their missions to rescue aristocrats and other unfortunates. One of the people they rescued from the scaffold was Marie Grosholtz, an outspoken artiste who used to work as a costumer for the Comedie Française.

When a lonely Marguerite complained of their absences to Armand, he vehemently defended Percy's honor and good character, despite Marguerite's protestations that Percy had grown distant and flippant to her. When Chauvelin requested Marguerite's help in tracking down the Scarlet Pimpernel, she scornfully refused. But Armand was ordered on another mission to France to return the recently rescued Marie to Paris so she could look for her missing fiancé and do some work to assist the League. Marguerite protested his departure in fear for his life. Armand promised her he would safely return to her.

Only moments later, he expressed his own fear to Percy, not for his safety, but for his ability to keep lying to his sister. He didn't understand why Percy couldn't trust her. Percy brushed over Armand's concern with balderdash about not being able to trust anyone in this world. Armand, still unhappy but obedient to his leader, departed for France with Marie.

[This is the canon point I'm taking him from.]

Armand was arrested in France, and Chauvelin used this to force Marguerite to identify the Pimpernel through questioning Percy's friends at  Lord Grenville's Ball. A meeting was arranged at the footbridge, but Marguerite went early to warn the Pimpernel away and beg him to help her brother, who was surely being tortured by the French to reveal the identity of the Pimpernel. The Pimpernel gave orders to his men and used his foppish disguise to escape Chauvelin's suspicions.

Unsure whether her pleas would save her brother, Marguerite went to France in disguise to find him herself. Chauvelin recognized her and took her to see Armand, who was denying Chauvelin and his men the information they sought. Chauvelin's hope was that Marguerite could get the information he wanted or that Armand would trustingly confide in his sister. Marguerite promised to get the information, but when she thought they were alone, she revealed her plan to Armand that they escape back to England together. Chauvelin overheard and ordered them both to be executed. He arranged for a false rescue from the scaffold assuming that Armand would run straight to the Pimpernel for safety, which he did. On the way, Armand accidentally told Marguerite that Percy is the Pimpernel.

When they arrived at the little village on the sea coast where Armand hoped to meet up with Percy or other members of the League, Chauvelin showed up instead and taunted Armand for his foolish act. When Percy arrived, he and Chauvelin dueled. Chauvelin eventually won, so he sent Marguerite and Armand off to be beheaded. When he also ordered the Pimpernel guillotined, Percy called his bluff and revealed the trap he'd planned to catch the wily Frenchman. Chauvelin was left with evidence pointing to him as the Pimpernel, and everyone else went home to England on Percy's private yacht, the Day Dream.


Character Personality:

Armand was born naturally passionate and chivalrous, often giving into the impulse to be generous to the point of foolishness. He will want to leap to the defense of those he sees as weaker than himself even when he's clearly outmatched, simply because it's the right thing to do. His idealism is firmly rooted in compassion. He grew up in the shadow of his sister's cleverness, trusting her to make the difficult decisions, so he has little confidence in his own abilities. This leaves him extremely vulnerable to sensitivity about his height, his age and his perceived intellect. When he compares himself to heroic men like Percy, he's aware of his many shortcomings.

He strives to overcome his tendency to let temper and pride get him into trouble, but he's not caught on that the heart is as treacherous a leader. His temper tends to crest in a heartbeat and dissipate just as quickly if he's not provoked further. He's not as stupid as some would have him but woefully ignorant in many regards, and often too hot-headed to use what intelligence he does have before he's already in the water with the sharks. Romantically, he'll give his heart willingly on a whim, and lose a little of himself with it unknowingly.

He will endure almost any hardship for those he loves, though not likely quietly. If he considers you his, he will defend and support you as much as he's able. He's extremely affectionate, downright touchy-feely, with people he considers family or close friends, freely giving and hoping to get hugs and familial kisses. His sister taught him decent 18th century manners while he was growing up, which are extremely formal by 21st century standards, so he may seem reserved sometimes to strangers but that opinion might not survive any closer acquaintance.

His entire life revolved around his sister. She raised him, and he reveres her even more than he does Percy, for whom he was willing to die. In casual conversation, "my sister says" or "Percy says" will be common phrases. His attachment and loyalty would be very hard to erode under even the direst of circumstances. That being said, losing the support of his family would be a blow to him. He's a young man, not yet twenty, and thinks rather less of his own capabilities on his own.

Powers and Abilities:  Nothing more than what would be known by a late 18th century French teenager with a half-decent middle class education. And by teenager, I mean he's 19.

Samples

Network:

I'm sure this no surprise that when one stands at a Gate, the gray nothingness spreads out into the distance, more blank than English fog. Yesterday, I stood for a very long time, trying to remember how it felt to be home, to smell the sea air aboard Percy's yacht, hear the sea gulls of the Channel, or even the quiet, polished halls of Blakeney Manor, but I heard nothing. I felt nothing, only cold, and empty, and alone.

I do not remember the call some people say is their reason for being here. Please, don't think I'm denying it happened to me as well. I am here, and most definitely am not home, and that is proof enough that some unusual thing happened. But I don't remember a call. I cannot hear it in my mind, not as a sound or a voice. I think, perhaps, I can feel it, though, if it feels like a call to battle, a pull to set oneself up straight and fight. I volunteered for the Pimpernel's war on the Committee, but I have no memory of agreeing to this one. I feel that we here must be joined in some great struggle thought I don't know our enemy.

Am I putting too much into it? I cannot imagine that we are brought here merely to learn how to summon our dinners out of thin air. That would be pointless!

So if there is a point, I wish to know about it. I may not ever be strong enough to help, but I need to know who commands this army. Or if it is merely a rabble, at least what we oppose.

I'm not normally one for making demands, but I don't feel it would pay to be reticent about this.

Why are we here? Speak up, if you know, or explain how this is not the case, if you think you can.


Third Person:

Outside The Fisherman's Rest in Dover, Armand handed Marie Grosholtz down from the carriage. Marie shook off his arm immediately, though he didn't think she was being rude, and turned to collect her one piece of luggage from Percy's driver. Armand couldn't help but admiring the independent spirit of the artiste, so like his sister and yet not.

He worried about leaving Marguerite at Blakeney Manor as unhappy as she'd been when he was forced to say good-bye by his orders. He didn't want to go, but Percy--no, the Pimpernel he had to remind himself--had been firm with him. Keep doing as you're told, and tell Marguerite nothing. Even when the silences and absences of her husband and brother both were breaking her heart. He didn't know how much more of this she could take, or he could take, for that matter. Percy's heart seemed quite hardened on the matter.

Marie kissed his head, almost sisterly, then went inside the inn to get some supper before meeting Percy's yacht for the tide. Armand's job now was to check in with the ship's master to see when that would be, so he walked toward the docks, still trying to puzzle out how to help his sister and her estranged husband. He had no idea why Percy didn't trust her, the man wouldn't confess that to him, Marguerite's very own brother, probably for fear that it would be a secret he couldn't keep.

Later, when he and Marie were safely on the schooner, Armand paced the deck, trying to work off his nervous energy while staying out of the way of the necessary sailing crew. He didn't want to be exhausted when they reached France, since Marie's safety depended on his wits as much as hers, but his problems wouldn't leave him alone.

In his mind eye's he could see the happy glow on his sister's face when she'd first introduced him to Sir Percy Blakeney, and remember the fire that had kindled in his own spirit at that man's amiable charm. He could still see the force of Percy's personality in his work as the Pimpernel, and how he commanded near a dozen other men to do his will in France. He could see the man he loved as dearly as he loved his sister, the man she used to love even more. But now poor Marguerite wilted in the dreary fogs of Britain, restrained and perhaps even over-matched by the stilted, formal manners of the English ladies who frequented Blakeney Manor and the Prince Regent's coterie. It hurt him almost more than he could bear to see her fading so.

But what could he do? He was Marguerite's younger brother, despite her avowing him her "little father," as he called her, "little mother." They'd been orphans; what else could they have done but parented each other? But now, Marguerite was Lady Blakeney, and didn't need to be cajoled and schooled by her immature sibling. She hardly listened to what he said to her. And there was little he could do to influence Percy, who held an oath from him of perfect obedience. It didn't help that Percy cheated, as far as Armand could tell, by demanding that obedience even in matters that seemed unrelated to League business. But what did Armand know? Nobody told him, whom they universally addressed as "the boy," anything.