Ilexandre Aurescu XV

Ilexandre 'the Pure' Aurescu XV, or Ilya, is a mortal prince of the nations of men, who rose to prominence in the generations following the fall of Invictus and the restructuring of mankind's culture around Ilya's royal family, House Aurescu.

The Aurescu, in their pursuit of perceived perfection, carefully arrange family marriages around consanguinity and selective breeding. Despite coming from a long line of successful rulers and conquerors, Ilya is born subjected to a myriad of chronic conditions and congenital deformities from excessive inbreeding. He has very limited mobility, too weak to utilize crutches or use a wheelchair without assistance, and spends the majority of his days languishing in bed.

Though his body fails him, Ilya's mind remains sharper than his cousins'. As such, he caught wise to the lies and cultish behavior of his family early, and abhors the mundane monstrosity behind his ancestor's claims of divine will. He is painfully aware of his own isolation from the rest of the world, and unable to fit in with the eccentric and insular culture of the Aurescu, who go so far as to shun reading and writing in anything beyond a fractured, archaic dead language of their ancestors. Ilya has endeavored to fill in the gaps of his knowledge in secret, and finds joy in learning about a world that his family has shunned.

Ilya is, to date, the oldest survivor of his generation of Aurescu, as his younger cousins have all so far met untimely ends due to the inevitable collapse of their incestuous bloodline. His survival has guaranteed his succession to the throne of the city-state Aurexia, which his family founded. Despite the emphasis of his importance to the Arescu line by order of succession, there is mounting evidence that his father is actually a lowborn without connections to the family. Ironically, the evidence consists of his health issues not being as severe as his sibling-cousins. Among other hints, his eyes do not hold the 'divine pearlescence' (cataracts) that is endemic to his family line.

Surviving Aurescu members hold Ilya’s succession in contempt; particularly his mother, Bottilde, who had conceived him in order to recreate the incestuous romance her mother held with her father/grandfather. Since Ilya cannot take the risk that would come with rejecting her advances outright, he has moved the promised date of their marriage back further and further to coincide with the date of his coronation on his 20th birthday, which he did not expect to reach. Until then, he is subject to his mother’s overbearing, oscillating love-hate feelings for him.

Despite not expecting to survive long enough to take the throne, much of his energy is put into his studies of law and leadership. Vainly, he dreams of ruling just long enough to undo the damage his family has done, and ensure his cursed bloodline dies with him. His contempt for his family is stronger than his hatred for himself, at war with his own body and unable to hold any independence in his sickly state.

A thoughtful and well-spoken man, Ilya’s desire for basic company and companionship is soured by bouts of depression and a tendency to lash out in his moods. He retains an ingrained superiority complex towards those seen as the ‘common folk’, frequently talking down to others and taking out his frustrations with himself and his circumstances on others. Since he often comes off as rude and outspoken, he prefers the company of people who can match his attitude in kind.

Bottilde has become increasingly jealous of anyone who would get too close to him as he grew into a man, but is seemingly ignorant of her son’s frequent affairs with servants and mentors. Despite his poor health, Ilya takes brief moments of enjoyment in sleeping around; preferring men and nonhumans out of a fear of accidentally impregnating someone and passing down his family’s afflictions.

Physical Characteristics

Ilya, for all intents and purposes, looks almost exactly like his namesake, founder of the Aurescu line Ilexandre the First. Since he resents this comparison, Ilya has opted to keep his hair grown out and rejects the status symbol of the ancestral crown unless forced to wear it in public. The only indication of his rumored illegitimacy is his clear, cataract-free eyes, though it has been so long since congenital cataracts entered the Aurescu gene pool that nobody remembers whether his brown eyes are an indication of lowborn bastardry or not. As a benign quirk amongst the Aurescu, his dull blonde hair naturally turns a darker brown at the ends.

As the Aurescu hold a strong superstitious distrust of doctors - primarily to hold onto their ignorance about the consequences of their inbreeding - many of Ilya’s physical issues are considered preventable and treatable, but a lifetime of neglect has left him in a much worse condition than he could have been. Without correction, his spine was left to twist into scoliosis, and his poorly maintained club foot is one of many factors to his chronic pain.

His left arm, despite being fused into a permanent angle, would have been considered his dominant hand. As he can only reliably use his right, its non-dominant nature adds a layer of difficulty to actions already turned into ordeals from intermittent muscle spasms and tremors brought on by a minor case of palsy. Ilya generally keeps his left arm covered and tucked close to his chest, as its shriveled appearance and the hand’s fused fingers are a source of self-consciousness.

Ilya’s malformed ribs have given him a concave chest, which puts uncomfortable amounts of pressure on his heart and lungs and exacerbates his periods of chest pains, heart palpitations and erratic breathing. Frequently, his uneven breathing is punctuated by gasps, often brought on by the sudden jolts from his spasms. His body is incredibly weak and atrophied, and his left arm and right leg are somewhat shorter than the other.

While other Aurescu indulge in correcting their weak and poorly formed limbs in secret, Bottilde has purposefully neglected to grant her son such a mercy out of spite for not returning her affections.

Onset of the Maneater’s Curse

Shortly before his coronation, Ilya meets the maneating Renari Blanca by chance, and strikes up a strange and vitriolic friendship. As he has a latent death wish, he frequently tries to goad Blanca into indulging their desire to kill and eat him, but finds that they hold a genuine affection for him that keeps their hunger at bay. Thus, he keeps them around as a source of entertainment and companionship.

As Bottilde grows fed up with her son’s dissidence, she begins attempting to poison him in secret, hoping to finish him off before he can inherit the crown of their family line. Ilya falls gravely ill, and is unable to stop Blanca from ‘saving’ him through force-feeding their own blood to him. Since Renari gain power from eating the flesh of man, Blanca hoped that Ilya could benefit from partaking in what their kind colloquially calls the ‘flesh tithe’, though instead of seeking a transformation into a human form, Ilya would be gaining strength and energy through devouring healthier men.

Unfortunately, Blanca is unusual amongst their kind as a Renari whose craving for flesh extends beyond their instinct to transform, leading to an inability to integrate into the rest of society or see other people as anything other than prey. Ilya is now subject to a similar curse, which he resents Blanca for forcing upon him, even as his new craving for flesh leads to an improvement in his condition.

As Ilya takes the crown as King of Aurexia, and takes his revenge out on his family, he never develops the taste for his obligate anthropophagy the way Blanca does, causing a rift in their relationship. Blanca still provides for his particular needs, but is delegated by him to only use victims who are anonymous and guilty - generally criminals and vagrants - as the King still holds guilt over needing to feed on human flesh. Even though his curse has improved his health, its diminishing returns are unsatisfactory for a man whose goals are rekindled by his newfound agency.

As Ilya grapples with his curse, he begins to start seeing his subordinates as prey, despite being repulsed by these intrusive thoughts of predation. His continued sexual relationship with Blanca is soured by his newfound ferocity, as Blanca cannot bring themself to bite him the same way he happily bites them.

Notes

• Ilya's epithet, 'the Pure', was self-titled as an ironic jab that stuck among his subjects.

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