Etienne

Etienne was an enigma. He seemed to personify one of the most (in)famous traits of species, namely the belief that he is sublime perfection incarnate. However, this faith does not arise from thinking himself the greatest member of the greatest species, but the only great member of an otherwise unremarkable group of lesser versions of himself.

He is also inexplicably Parisian. None of the clan can say how, there being no such thing as a city called Paris or a country of France.

C'est la vie.


He joined Oskeli's clan suddenly, swooping in without so much as a by your leave from the rest of her followers, apparently having been invited directly by Oskeli after she met him in the wilderness while hunting.

When asked why? (Why, gods, why?) she only said 'for the clan', and then wandered off, muttering about posture, shuffling through a foxtrot into another room.

Etienne's purpose, though unclear, remains compelling enough for Oskeli to allow him to stay in the clan and claim a (rather prime) spot in the lair. He is simultaneously inoffensive, insofar as he is rather reclusive, and completely ******* terrifying, as his mere presence is enough to broadcast how very, very dead he will make anyone that contradicts or annoys him.

He lives in a walled off section of lathyrus' garden, cultivating 'those things worthy', which includes a pond full of golden reefprinces, a muster of peacocks (sublime and jade), a grove of luminous almond trees, a field of golden rotola, and the only thing that appears to crack his inestimably bloodthirsty and impeccably tasteful heart: his bees.

He keeps several hives of honeybees, the produce of which he guards viciously, a few blue carpenter nests 'for variety', a grist of free ranging glade swarmers, and a smattering of artificial Perdita colonies.

when Lathyrus found the courage to ask him about the last group, he replied, with a resigned affection, that he was trying to breed them to have a sense of direction, all while nudging lost members back into their boxes.

But his pride and joy, the apple of his eye, are the white lace honeybees. He claims that they are 'refined' and therefore precious.

His abode, as well cultivated and full of rare and beautiful things as it is, would seem tempting enough that more of his clanmates would brave even his dreadful presence to visit it.

It would be, except for the dens of jeweled snakes.

And the nests of crystalline wasps.

And the irradiated prickly pear hedges.

And the hoards of iridescent, murderous parrots and song birds.

And the blood oaks surrounded by their dropped acorns that burst open and coat one's hands and feet in ominously coloured sap while the dark creeper vines growing on their trunks whisper like the souls of the damned.

It seems that 'those things worthy' are the things that are beautiful, charming, deadly, or all of the above.