Childhood

Alaric Areleous and Vivienne Émile were united in what can only be described as a hasty political marriage- a last-ditch attempt to mend the faltering allegiance between the two families. It was to this turbulent landscape that their twin children, Leone and Alexandre, were born. A rocky start, and one that would not improve from here.

Vivienne, who had essentially been forced into the marriage, had never wanted children- let alone twins. And Alaric, ever-detached, simply sat to the side and waited to see what his boys would grow into. And so the twins were usually foisted on a host of nannies, or left in the nursery of their ancestral home, Brandt House. Brandt House was hardly a friendly place to raise two children, acting more as a memorial to the Areleous legacy than anything, and it was as if the twins were a new exhibit in this endless museum.

It wasn't long before Vivienne disappeared from their lives altogether. When the twins turned five, she and Alaric divorced, and the Émile family formally ended their partnership with him. She would only appear from this point to brag about their achievements to her high society friends, even if she played no part in them. The Émiles made sure to disown the twins. With that, they were purely heirs of the Areleous name, and all the pressure that entails.

The twins experienced a very stringent childhood. Before they'd even started school, they had extensive schedules mapping out every minute of the day. They had expectations far higher than their little hands could possibly reach. But at the very least they had each other. Leone and Alexandre were two halves of a whole, speaking in their own language until they learned to talk, and rarely seen apart. They spent most of their hours trapped within the nursery playacting fairytales, solving puzzles, and telling each other stories. In this stuffy, suffocating world, they were each other's light.

They attended primary school together, spending several years at a Welsh boarding school. The scant time they spent with their father became even more so. Yet despite his apparent absence, Alaric kept a very close eye on them both, examining their every move with surgical detail.

The reason for this became clear upon their graduation. Rather than allow them to continue on, the twins were returned to London. All of their academic achievements, every pass and fail, all studied under their father's inscrutable criteria. And Leone, who had always been quieter and softer and quicker to scare, was the one chosen to remain at Brandt House and be homeschooled. As the favourite. As the heir.

Alexandre was devastated. Not only was he being separated from his closest friend and being shipped off to a strict private school in London, but he'd failed his father. Despite all his efforts, he had let him down. He vowed at this point to work as hard as he could, to impress Alaric and prove he was just as capable of bearing the Areleous name.

Teenage years

As the years went by, Leone's responsibilities grew, and he was driven further into the gilded cage his father built for him. Meanwhile, Alexandre suffered under the strain of life at secondary school. He was nearly buried under the weight of the responsibilties laid on him- fencing, piano, ballet, elocution, business studies, languages were all crammed into his timetable- and that's not even counting his actual schoolwork, which he was expected to get straight A's in. But he took to it, trying and scrambling to be a true Areleous- even if he still didn't truly understand what that meant.

The twins saw less and less of each other, but whenever Alexandre got a chance, he made sure to tell Leone about his adventures in the outside world. Amongst the stress, he did at least enjoy befriending and entertaining fellow students. There was, of course, also the fear that he'd be outed as a vampire, so he couldn't let anyone too close. That, and he was slightly nervous of what Alaric might do to a potential human subject. But he did have fun. Leone enjoyed listening to him, and was, to his credit, not jealous.

The divide between the two only widened as they continued through their teenage years. Alexandre could never seem to get it right- he was too loud, or too familiar, or too affectionate. His grades were amazing, but not enough. He won competitions, but not all of them, so Alaric barely noticed. Leone, meanwhile, seemed to be perfect in every way- the golden child. He was bright, obedient, loyal, and it was like he could do no wrong. Alexandre didn't want to be upset about this. He loved Leone more than anything. But it hurt, to constantly feel like an outsider in his own family.

Things went further downhill when they turned eighteen.

There was an argument. Alexandre didn't remember what it was about. It was stupid, petty. He didn't mean what he said. All that mattered was the very next day, Leone disappeared.

Amidst the sheer chaos, he was struck with the dull, painful realisation that his twin brother had abandoned him. He hadn't even left a note. No reason why, no indication he ever planned on returning. And something in Alexandre broke. He didn't have anyone else. Leone had left him alone, and for what? All that latent resentment boiled over into rage, and the stalwart institution of Alexandre Areleous began to disintegrate.

Some selfish part of him hoped that now, at least, his father would look at him. Would be proud of him. Would love him. Instead, Alaric seemed to turn his full attention to Alexandre's cousin, Val, a warm, charismatic person who seemed to be everything Alexandre wasn't. They'd been fairly friendly as children, but Alexandre grew to hate them.

While he still thought he could gain his father's approval, he decided to audition for a place at the Royal Academy of Music, which is where he met one Calixte Tredoux. Calixte was mean and sharp, but Alexandre convinced himself he was in love. They had a short-lived but impactful relationship that ended when Alexandre failed to get a place at the Academy. A Tredoux didn't date losers.

Forever a romantic, though, Alexandre continued to try and fill the void in his life by flitting from partner to partner, no matter how they treated him. In some way, he dreamed of meeting someone who could take him away from here. Cue Octave Marchand, a beautiful, alluring lover who promised him that much before ripping the rug out from underneath him. Cue a different man who cheated on him again and again, until he barely remembered what trust felt like. Cue a new partner, who neglected to tell him that none of this was ever real.

He was too weak, right? That was the problem. Too palateable. People looked at him and saw an easy target. A dumbass little rich boy desperate for anyone to care about him. He tried to be what his father wanted, and for what? A few trophies and the knowledge he'd never be good enough? It didn't matter that he knew Alaric only ever saw Leone as his pet project, another test subject to mould into something else, it didn't matter that it was his partners that chose to hurt him, Alexandre blamed himself and everything he was.

And so, he decided he had to be something else.

Adulthood

It happened so slowly most people barely noticed at first, but in the span of several months, a quiet academic bloomed into a loudmouthed bitch of a man. He started going by Lys, quit all his extracurriculars, and threw out every shred of the person he used to be. Because Alexandre was weak, and stupid, and naive, he became louder, more callous, harder to like. Harder to hurt.

While he'd engaged with partying and drinking before, it grew to a new, destructive level. He vaguely noted that his mental health was spiralling to an extremely low point, and did not care.

Being miserable about it sure was boring, though, so he didn't bother with that. He had a wonderful time meeting new people, then either fucking them or fighting them. Glitz and glamour became his whole life. Designer clothes, lavish parties, fancy wine- all of it was easy to get a hold of and even easier to brag about. In-between that, he had a brief stint on a teenage soap opera, and the number of eyes on him skyrocketed.

People barely knew who Alexandre was, but they sure had a lot of opinions on Lys. Namely that he was obnoxious and bratty and spoiled. And Lys revelled in the limelight. Never before had he felt so seen! It didn't matter that they hated him because at this point, hate and love were so irrevocably intertwined in his mind that he didn't care. He was on their minds, keeping them up at night, and he adored it. He loved being the bitch for once. Vampiric and human media alike loved to hate him, and he quickly learned how to get the tabloids to keep writing about him. He became almost addicted to the constant stream of negative attention. Even when it hurt, it felt exhilerating and right.

Still, his father did not look at him. His mother only talked to him now to berate him. The mask that had once been a defense became suffocating. He lost himself. At some point, the interwoven personas he had created smothered all he had been. He didn't recognise himself in the mirror, and became scared that underneath the bravado and malice and arrogance there was nothing left.

After his relationship with 'career criminal' H. Scully ground to an awkward end, Alaric finally stepped in. His wayward heir was cause a few too many problems for the family reptuation, and enough was enough. He shipped Lys off first to Vassiliou Academy, a dance school in the south of Cyprus, in the hopes that its draconian headmistress would whip him into shape. Lys lasted a few months before getting expelled. Not to be dissuaded, his father sent him off to Windbite instead.

Lys had absolutely no intention of trying. He'd been there, done that, worn the model student t-shirt. Academia was so 2015. He skipped all of his classes, antagonised his classmates, and generally made a huge nuisance of himself. But things were about to take a turn. Lys was about to fall in love. Again.