Name: Damien Chevalier
Age: Nineteen
Gender: Male.
Faction: Hashishin/Assassins - Untitled, to be made an Apprentice.
Appearance: A dark skinned boy with long, dark brown-red hair. His hair is somewhat wavy. His nose was recently broken, and thus, is bandaged up. He has high cheekbones, a long nose, and a relatively strong jaw. He has hazel eyes, and dark, heavy eyebrows. He's rather short, at 5'6, and has a slight, thin build. He has heavy dark shadows around his eyes, and dresses primarily in black as well. He has a very slight accent, from his French speaking parents.
Weapons: Box-Cutter.
Ancestor: Mikal Al-Arshaq; the apprentice of the Rafik of Damascus. Mikal was considered to be a mediocre assassin at best, and a horrible one at worst. He very rarely killed anybody, and died in a later battle of Arsuf - the area always being contested territory. The young man was beloved, but it was generally understood that he wasn't much of an assassin at all - his talents lie in book keeping, languages, and history. Though his loyalty and family might have been Hashishin, his personality certainly was not.
History: Born to french immigrant parents in Moscow, Idaho. His parents were both college professors. His mother was a proud, French woman who taught her native tongue at the college. His father was of Middle Eastern descent, and had immigrated to France when he was very young, with his own parents. His father taught anthropology - and filled their house with old pots, old furniture, and things hardly identifiable. They had been, in all respects, a perfectly normal, average family, that lived in a perfectly normal house, with a perfectly normal life.
When he was thirteen, he tried to kill himself. Just to see what would happen. He just tried to stop breathing. He forgot about not breathing. And he didn't die.
When he was fifteen, he tried to kill himself. His first girlfriend had ditched him for something petty and immature. And so, he tried to kill himself for an immature reason. He swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and was disappointed to see in the morning that he was still alive and well.
Then he found the box.
The box was filled with some of his father's things, but it also included a journal. A journal from a long begotten age, written by a long forgotten man. His name had been Mikal Al-Arshaq. It was his diary. It told the story of a young apprentice in an order of assassins called the Hashishan, about how the young man's failures as an assassin, and triumphs as a scholar. The book was filled with funny ideas. Especially for the time. Mikal no longer believed in God. He no longer believed in much of anything. His friend had died. His friend was named Kadar Al-Sayf. He had slept with his best friend. And he had watched his friend die. And then, Mikal had been carted off to Damascus to serve under the bureau leader there. He was a cruel man. His name was Rafik. He had cheery, black humour, but was cruel nonetheless, and he was successful at getting under Mikal's skin.
Damien began to see similarities between himself and Mikal. They had the same red-brown hair. They had the same French heritage. Neither one of them believed in God. He read on. The diary was tough to read - it had been written in old French, which used grammar and spelling that was almost entirely foreign. Mikal's words got darker as time went on. He spoke of invasions, and battles and carnage that were hard to believe. Mikal and Damien both felt horrified and sickened. Both of them, as if they were a single being.
And then, the unthinkable happened. Mikal fell in love with Rafik. He had torn him down, he had decimated him, and still, he loved him. Damien knew why. Because Mikal was going to die, and Rafik was all he had left. He didn't want to die alone, like Kadar. They slept together, they ate together, and they were killing each other. Damien had never known such a devotion like that. He felt like he was both alive and dead at the same time - like some part of him was far away in Damascus.
And then, he came to the last five pages.
On the first of the last five pages, Mikal left Rafik. He called himself an abomination, a sodomite, a monster. He left him and effectively broke away from the order, vowing never to touch the golden dagger he was given on the day of his initiation ever again. Mikal married some merchant girl from Damascus. There were no children and the relationship was never consummated. He was twenty.
When he was twenty two, he wrote the next page. He was going home. He was done with being married. He was a Hashishin, through all of it and all of him, even if he had never killed a soul. But when he came back to Damascus, the bureau was empty. It had been burned to the ground.
The third page was covered in blood.
The last two pages were written in a hand that wasn't Mikal's thin, neat writing. It was sloppy, large, and with a heavy weight. The french was very poorly written, nothing like Mikal's eloquent phrases and metaphoric tangents. It was blunt and to the point; Mikal is dead. I killed him. I didn't mean to. He was already dead. He was dying in my arms. I gave clean death. He wanted it. I so sorry. I so, so sorry. Rib punctured lung. Losing blood. Never looked more beautiful. He died in my arms with my sword through his heart. No more. These are the last words. I die now. Like him. Like all of us. Sultans will get us eventually. Better to get a clean end. I write my name here so you know who killed him. Rafik El-Hashem.
Damien no longer felt alive. It was like he had died in the book. Like he had been killed by his friend and lover. It was all over. Without the book, he no longer knew what to do. So he slept. He figured he could sleep off the intense sorrow he felt. And when he slept, he dreamt. And he only dreamed the same dream; the sword plunging into his chest, the feel of tears falling on his cheeks, his own voice murmuring, "It's okay, It's okay" as he was held in a set of arms that he knew far too well. Rafik.
He was experiencing the Bleeding Effect without ever being in an Animus. He just felt it within his bones. And so, when Damien was nineteen, he tried to kill himself. He took a box cutter from one of his father's cabinets, and sliced both of his wrists. He was found, bleeding out on the floor, and was rushed to the hospital.
It was there that the modern Assassins found him. It was there that he was taken away, to be given the Hashish. He doesn't know why he was taken away. He doesnt know who he is. All he knows is that he didn't die.
And he's furious.