2. Where and when were you born?
The city is still called Berlin to this day, though when I was first born they called the nation Prussia— You know it now as Germany. It was a particularly warm day on the eleventh of August in 1889, or so my mother always said. She claimed that I had brought the warm weather with me upon my birth. Mother always had such high aspirations for me, doting…
3. Who are/were your parents?
Vladimir and Serise Volken. Each as different as night is to day. My father, he was a man of strong principals and stronger faith. He converted my mother to Russian Orthodox, though she only paid lip service to the church. I never knew much about my mother, though I know she was foreign. She never spoke of her homeland, where she came from or her side of the family. It was always about my father's family, always about our homeland. Always about him, in a way. I often wish I'd paid more attention to my mother, listened to her story…
4. Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like?
No, my mother and father had a difficult enough time as it was raising one child in that era. Feeding another mouth would have been a fool's errand, and my father was too pragmatic for that level of risk. Whether or not my mother did anything with her life after my father and I disappeared, I do not know. In truth, it doesn't matter anymore. I was no more her son after that day in Leuven than the man I reside within now is.
5. Where do you live now, and with whom?
I'm not certain you'd call it life, or what it would be called. Thought, memory, the consciousness of man is what sages of old might have called a soul. I'd often been told I did not have one, and now I find irony in the bitter discomfort of proving so many wrong. But parts of me, parts of this simply do not feel right; They don't feel whole. Memories, ideas, feelings— some are missing while others are new. But I live, even if it is only in memory… mine or his.
6. What is your occupation?
I once considered myself a revolutionary, a protector of mankind. It's easy to see how so many others trip into the pitfall of megalomania on that same self-righteous lie. I'm not that— not now. I guess you could say I've taken up mentoring, or perhaps only now am I what I thought I once was… I think the jury is still out on that notion.
7. Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks.
To say I've worn more faces than most men do wouldn't be a lie. I've known only a handful of men who have legitimately donned other guises as often as I have, and even fewer who recalled one face from the next. But each countenance I have worn, the lines and contours are etched into my memory. From the face of my birth, and watching it become sallow and sag with age, to the pitted visage of Richard Santiago, his olive-tan skin and curly hair. Then to taller, broader-shouldered and darker haired youth, relentless eyebrows— Gabriel Gray's features were distinctive, regal, kingly. Now, I have the emaciated frame of some young Italian man. His scar, proverbial and literal, is more of a burden than any other facet of a person I've yet taken on. And at the same time, liberating.
8. To which social class do you belong?
When I was younger, my father often lectured me about the differences of class and status. About how status and stature were all that mattered, and in a way my service to the Reich reinforced that ideal, even if it felt alien to me. My time with my extended family you've come to know as the Vanguard, however, has changed much of that. The way a handful of people can change your perspectives is refreshing, from South American freedom fighters, to the stringy hair of a fragile young girl born to poverty. I don't know where I belong, but I know it's not in the classification that wealth or status can afford. Where I belong is more defined by where my family is.
9. Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses?
I could give something of a jest here, in regards to the Beauchamp girl, but I think too often I've found myself considering her a thorn in my eye, and not as much a liberator. She did what Francois couldn't, and after a fashion I'm grateful to her for it. My true, greatest weakness is my own ego, my own inability to see past the end of my nose. That weakness almost cost me the few precious things in my life, taken from me by my own greedy hands. I'm not sure how I could have endured this purgatory if I had succeeded.
10. Are you right- or left-handed?
I was born left-handed, forced to use my right by my father. Since then I've found familiarity with both, though I always default when writing to my left., a vestige of a rebellious youth.
11. What does your voice sound like?
To be absolutely honest, I've forgotten the sounds of my birth voice. Santiago's is most clear to me, that coarse texture and depth. His voice I more associate with myself than any other. Gabriel's was too fleeting and too foreign, and this new one… it takes getting used to. I feel I may always think of myself with that sandpaper quality of speech, even if it is long since dust and bone.
12. What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently?
I'm fond of the works of William Shakespeare, specifically the Tempest and MacBeth. More often than not, I find it comforting to use some of William's work in analogous quote much to the matter others may quote scripture. He was a talented writer and crafted evocative phrases that held depth of meaning most writers today fail to capture in the same manner, so he's found his way into my nomenclature.
13. What do you have in your pockets?
It would seem to be an empty syringe and a bottle of morphine. I do wonder what this young man intends to do with them.
14. Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?
I've been told I have a habit of verbosity and a flat sense of humor. When I had my cane, there was a tendency to scratch my thumb along a notch in the wolf's head that capped it. The steel was scarred, and it was comforting to remember how. The careful eye may have noticed it more often than any other gesture I make. But it's been a while since I've had my cane, and no one who's seen it would remember how that scar got there anyway… not yet at least.
Part 2: Growing Up
15. How would you describe your childhood in general?
Fair. My father was a strict but a fair man. His upbringing was one of discipline and study, and it was determined before I could walk that I would follow in his shoes to become a soldier, his pride was perhaps the strongest familial trait I would inherit. When it came to my mother's raising of me, she always felt distant, as though she were watching another person's life from far away. She cared for me, for my father, of that I have no doubt. But the look of longing in her eyes, it was always present, she did not want to be where she was. She was homesick, and I fear would remain that way until the day she died. Thinking on that now, I've never visited her grave— nor would I even know where to look. I don't even know the date she died. I should be saddened… I'm not. I think that upsets me more.
16. What is your earliest memory?
I'm not certain if it's my earliest, but I do remember watching my mother in the mornings when I was very little. She would cradle me in her arms in the bay windows of our home, letting the sun and fresh air roll in from the streets just beyond while she watered plants in the window boxes. She had a love for flowers, it showed in the way she smiled when tending them. That, I think is what clings with me the most after all these years. The quality of her smile, earnest in a bittersweet way.
17. How much schooling have you had?
Too much, and none of it proper. I was tutored by my father privately, never attended a proper school. From a young age I was sculpted to be a military man, and everything I learned from a young age was geared towards those endeavors, everything related back to the soldier's life. Math, literature, sciences— it was all still grounded in a soldier's sensibilities. I have never truly stopped learning, though the values instilled in me by my father ensured that no matter what I learned— no matter how old I was— it was always learned with a soldier's sensibilities.
18. Did you enjoy school?
If life has been, largely, my teacher and the world my school— retrospect says that yes, I did enjoy it.
19. Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?
A man as long in the tooth as I am learns to learn from everyone and everything around him. The foundation of military tactics and soldiering was ground into me by my father. Mikhail Petrovich, a Russian Orthodox priest in Vladavostok taught me much of faith and perseverance. He taught me of temperance and balance, of patience. He took the rough, unrefined stone of a man I'd become and ground it down into the iron that would be tempered into steel in service to the Reich.
In a way, one of the most influential teachers in my life I met in Germany. Adam Gerhardt— Monroe now— was an officer in the Reich. He was the first inkling I ever had that others like myself existed. He was like me, in so many ways— older than ages should be, and unable to die. Where he viewed his gift as a boon, I viewed it as a curse forced upon me by an angry God. He showed me that there was more to ourselves than the definitions of our abilities, and together we sought to divine the answers of our origins under the purview of Nazi Germany.
Most of all, Adam taught me that mankind is always at its brightest in the darkest of hours. Strife, calamity and cataclysm bring out the best in men, show them what is worth living for, what is worth dying for. Surely, there would be those that do not survive to see the fruits of such labors, but the thing that remains after— the world that survives after— would be one reforged by turmoil and tempered to new strengths. Perhaps it's Adam's reinforcement I most regret now, or I'd not have made the decisions that still threaten the lives of those I've come to care so profoundly for. In a way, that is why I'm still here, why I'm trying to prevent what's coming.
Ah… I've fallen prey to that vice of mine— verbosity. Where was I? Teachers , yes, that was it. Francois Allegre was a teacher in some ways, showing me that I was not alone in this world in more ways than Adam had. He showed me that every coin had two sides, he validated so many confusing dreams and nightmares into a cohesive whole— that my curse is not mine alone.
In more recent life, it was my time in South America that strikes me as among the most fond. Time spend with the Velasquez family and under the wing of Che Guevara were liberating and particularly lively times of my second life. The bonds I made there in those jungles still stay strong to this day as well, at least in my heart. Of all the recent influences and teachers, though, my Vanguard taught me the most. While I did not realize the value of their lesson until it was too late, they all taught me in a way that what I hungered for more than a change of the world, was the acceptance and close-knit tightness of a family unit. In a way that is what they were to me, a family. Sons and daughters all. Their loss, is perhaps my greatest regret.
20. While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them.
Teachers and role models differ only in one aspect; their ability. My teachers all modeled me in a way.
21. While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?
Passingly. As I had said, my father viewed me as a recruit to train, and my mother cared for me enough, but her distance kept a barrier between she and I that I was never quite able to get beyond.
22. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
From youth, I had the saber of a soldier thrust into my hand. But— and my father would roll in his grave to hear me admit this— I always wanted to be an artist. I wanted to paint, to create and sculpt. Imagine what the world might be like, had I reconsidered my father's path and had his hand in dissuading my rebellious phases not been so firm? I muse on that at times.
23. As a child, what were your favorite activities?
Bow-hunting in the woods with my father. It was a weekly exercise in stealth and learning to utilize my surroundings. We would go out, days at a time, living off the land and stalking a single game for hours on end. There, I feel, he and I were our closest. A father and son bonded in the wilderness over something as primal as the hunt. I'm certain a writer has put some romanticism of past era to those very ideals.
24. As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?
Stoicism was first and foremost, as little else would be tolerated by my father. A complaint was whining, laughter was foolishness and crying was a matter for women. While I had my moments of attempted revelry and rebellion, they were quickly squashed by my father's heavy hand. I learned fast that silence was rewarded best.
25. As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like?
I socialized little with my peers in youth. Father always instructed me to a strict regimen of training exercises and tutoring, leaving me with little space for fraternization. Most children my age did not recognize or know me, so I would often be overlooked. I do recall a girl I knew in my youth that I had a particular fondness for, but for the life of me I cannot so much as recall what color hair she had, let alone her name. Fleeting, memories are.
26. When and with whom was your first kiss?
It's not a topic I'm comfortable discussing, to be honest. My chance of affection in youth was a small margin, and by the time I was an adult my touch had become anathema to life itself. Perhaps some men of the cloth would admire my chaste nature, but I assure you it was not self-inflicted.
27. Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?
I think I've spoken enough on this.
28. If you are Evolved, tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities. If you are just a normal human, describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today.
This is a story I don't recall with much pride or happiness and this is quite likely the first time any truthful revelation of that day in Leuven has ever been recounted from my own perspective. But, as some may have theorized by now, I was not born into the status with which I am now possessed of. I was a normal man, a normal child. Only upon joining the military and suffering the Great War did things change. Looking back on my youth, I fear that perhaps the reason my mother was so distant, was because of the changes my father went through during the war. When he could no longer touch her cheek to reassure her without it being a gloved hand.
You see, I gained my ability— my curse— from my father. Much, as I suspect, he gained his from someone before him. It was the depths of August in 1914, and my father and I were in Belgium with the German army. We were sent to secure the city of Leuven as an advance party, knowing full well the city's defenses were minimal. We were to exterminate any possible presence of Belgian guerrilla fighters. The orders were simple, evacuate the city's entire population and execute those who resisted.
My father, fifteen other youths and myself were sent to secure the Leuven University, when we came under attack my French mercenaries. My father and several of my squad mates were separated from me, and the French soldiers routed the seven who were cut off. I was among the men gunned down, I don't recall exactly how I was shot, but my legs gave out almost immediately. I lay on the floor of the great hall in the university, bleeding out. I recall the sounds of commotion, further gunfighting… My father, he came in at some point and took my hand. He presumed I was dead, and by rights I should have been. My breathing was nearly arrested, blood pooled out and I could not feel my arms or legs, paralyzed to the likeness of a corpse.
My father— the sentimental fool he was at heart— took my hand and began to pray. Whether it was some primal desire, or some cruel twist of fate, but the thing within my father— that curse that would become mine, was transferred into me. Where my life returned, so would his end. I recall the sensation of sucking his life into me, the fiery heat that welled up inside of my heart, restored the pin-pricking sensation of life to my extremities. Then I remember the horror of watching my father crumble to dust before me, the pride, the strength, the invincibility I felt in that resurrection came with the guilt of having slain my own creator.
Part of me broke, there, in that moment. I don't remember turning on my fellow soldiers, or the French soldiers outside. They say the German army burned the city of Leuven nearly to the ground. History calls it the raping of Belgium. I'm fairly certain they were trying to kill me— trying to kill the monster that was rumored to be murdering soldiers of any banner that marched within. By the time I came to my senses, I was miles away from Leuven and hungry as if I had not eaten in all my life.
Those frightened moments, where I realized I could never return home to tell my mother what horrible sin I had committed, was when I realized what I had become. Back then it was not called being Evolved— back then it was called being a monster.
Part 3: Past Influences
29. What do you consider the most important event of your life so far?
There's many events to consider, when you live a life as long as mine. Though in a very poetic way, the day I truly died— in one metaphysical sense or another— is the day where I understood the most, and since that point when I have learned the most. Humility, understanding, humanity— in a way death has been the greatest teacher yet. To think I was denied it for so long.
30. Who has had the most influence on you?
I, like the dirt and dust from which God sculpted Adam from, have been molded by capable hands. Unlike the biblical Adam, however, more than one set has sculpted me into who I am. To give one person more credit than another would be unjust, but my father will always have the merit of being the first to influence and shape me. A measure by which all others are judged.
31. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Ask me that question a year ago today, and I would tell you the day in Rome where I stood before Amato Salucci and decided that the work I sought to do would require more than my own two hands. Ask me that question today— and I will tell you it is the day that I rescued a young girl from the streets of London and herself.
32. What is your greatest regret?
You'll know it soon enough, it is a regret you may not live to understand.
33. What is the most evil thing you have ever done?
In all of my wealth of sin, in all of the terrible things I have wrought upon the world, I did at least under the misguided sense of being right. What I did to Eileen Ruskin, the lie I perpetuated around her, and what I became in my twilight— that was nothing but selfish and evil.
34. Do you have a criminal record of any kind?
They will write stories of my crimes under the light of the future, one day.
35. When was the time you were the most frightened?
That honor to this day, falls to a man named Grigori. It was a particular cold night in December in Moscow. Several members of the Vanguard and I were chasing Grigori through the snowy streets, and I had taken up the hunt personally. Grigori had proven to be a most difficult rabbit to snare. It was on the outskirts of the city, when I saw my daughter Yvette fall dead in the snow at the hands of one of my own men. Blood pooled out from beneath her, and I knew I would be helpless to save her. For a moment, before the veil of that deception had been pulled away from my eyes, I was terrified. Grigori earned my respect, a man clever enough to learn me as well as he did, and trick me so wholly.
36. What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you?
Miss Murphy knows that story well, though I will not give her memory the honor of recounting it here. She was something of an impish trickster, though, and in a way I do miss that.
37. If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why?
Changing the past does not make the future right. But in pure conjecture, I wish I had never entered that building in Leuven. I wish I had stayed closer to my father, not put myself in such a position of risk just to show him how I had grown. Had I not taken the risk, had I performed my orders as requested, I may have not fallen to the ambush, my father may still be alive, and a lifetime of regrets may never have been needed to be lived.
38. What is your best memory?
Ah, there's so few points of light in an otherwise dark life. A particular moment of fondness I recall clearly, came some months after I left Russia for the last time. I had taken Amato, Eileen, Ethan and I out to Paris for a brief stay to meet up with a prospective operative named Elias DeLuca. He had been scouted for me for some time by Lucrezia Bennati, her compound eyes watching his irregular moves with grace and poise. But that night, I had planned to entertain him at a gala event being held at the Louvre. There was to be ballroom dancing, and I knew Eileen would need to be the one to ensure Elias' compliance.
She and I talked, and it was that night in Paris that I first began thinking of her like family. Even if I was intending to use her as an offering to DeLuca, she still… felt like family. I taught her how to dance; a brief instruction on a simple waltz. But it was that very intimate moment, where it felt as though she — and not my true adoptive — was like blood to me. She danced marvelously, that night. I will never forget the grace, nor her pride.
39. What is your worst memory?
It may come as no surprise that my life contains many lows. But despite the grim recollection of my final months as a corporeal being, there are far sadder tragedies in my younger years. When I was stationed in Poland during the height of World War II, I spent several days laid over in the Treblinka concentration camp. It was December, 1942. It had been discovered that a Jew that had been shipped for execution to Treblinka was not who he claimed to be. Intelligence had come in that he was a British spy that had managed to relay information about the German front to his superiors, and we were bereft of answers as to what he knew. Without interrogation, and with his death impending, we were forced to move.
I arrived by a heavily armed escort from Berlin, along with one of my research specimens from the Ubermensch project — Francois Allegre. It was a necessary evil, moving Francois. We had brought him on the off chance that the spy had already been gassed, and that hunch I had proved correct. The spy's body was being hauled off to an iron grid laid across concrete slabs that made up the railway leading to the camp. I arrived just in time to prevent the soldiers from burning the remains. What most people — save for the works of the camps knew — is that those who were gassed often recussetated in the fresh air. SOmetimes they would feign death, other times they were only gassed into unconsciousness and were given the ignoble end of being burned alive, or if given merciful overseers— a bullet.
Francois and I took the young man down from the grating, and I needed not give the Frenchman an order before he was already laying his healing hands down upon that unfortunate man. But it was here that I saw for the first time, the horror of the execution camps. I never saw the horrors the likes of Auschwiz, I never saw the gas chambers up close. I sat on council meetings that deliberated their creation, I was shipped healthy subjects for my tests— but there in Treblinka I saw children's bodies, pregnant women, all stacked up at unbelievable heights to be burned under the falling snow. I wonder, some times, if Francois agreed so eagerly to come out with me to that horrible place, just to see if I had a glimmer of humanity left in me.
I hated that he may have been right.
Part 4: Beliefs And Opinions
40. Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic?
I believe in pragmatism over either of the extremes of optimism and pessimism. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. It is a motto my father raised me by, and one that I still strive to meet.
41. What is your greatest fear?
Once I feared a world overrun with people like myself, I feared a world where the destructive powers of my own kind ran the world into ruin. Or at least, that was the rationalle I gave. In truth, I did not know and I still don't, what I truly fear. Death, man's greatest fear, is something I transcended too long ago to consider an accomplishment. In losing that fear, I hindered my own humanity, stunted myself, my growth as a person. Now, in this state? I fear isolation, lonliness, and an eternity of nothing.
42. What are your religious views?
I was raised Russian Orthodox, and maintained glimpses of that faith thorugh my early years. Two world wars and the Work of the Vanguard has cooled my heart to the idea of an accepting and loving God. But I cannot help but feel there may be something out there, something greater than us all that drives us, guides us and tempts us. My very existance — the very existance of all those like me — is proof enough that the world need not be simply a matter of black or white. Agnostic is almost like the religious analogue to pragmatic, isn't it?
43. What are your political views?
I haven't actively followed politics since the 1940s, and it wasn't a particularly bright period of my life. I've managed to stay out of politicking for the most part, despite my longevity. I feel, though, that like any person — a government must do what it feels is best for its people and their prolonged life. Sacrifices need be made for the greater good, but I also believe in the people's right to oppose a government or an ideal they do not believe in. To be honest, I'm not sure what they classifies me as.
44. What are your views on sex?
I think we've moved past this topic.
45. Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable?
Death is something that is as much the core of what I am as the wind is core to the sky. The first life I ever took was when I was thirteen, a deer I had incapacitated with a bow, and was instructed to finish off with a hunting knife by my father. I failed, so many times, to deliver the proper cut to its throat, that my hands were hot and warm with its blood by the time I was done. But the first true life I ever took that I can be absolutely certain of was my father's.
Killing has always been a part of human nature, it's somethign that I have never had luck denying. It's not something you accept or don't accept, it's like trying to say why a fire burns or a plague spreads; it simply happens. I would kill to defend something I believed in, and I would expect no less of those I attempt to kill.
46. In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do?
Be untrue to themselves.
47. Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?
When I was younger, ideas like this often crossed me. But as you grow older, childish notions become more childish in appearance. Love is much like the same notions of right and wrong — entirely subjective. I believe some people may be fated to be together, or cross paths, but it is not a belief that I feel is solely the province of love.
48. What do you believe makes a successful life?
If I had truly found that answer, I may have been a happier man. Ask me again in another century, perhaps.
49. How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)?
I am not honest, not about anything I feel. It is a habit of my upbringing, to guard my emotions and not show signs of weakness. Not until what Abigail Beauchamp did to me, did I ever truly consider showing the emotions I had kept locked away inside of me. I still do not entirely trust them, emotions are not the province of rational thought, and I value myself as a rational man. In a way, that is what horrifies me so much about my time in Gabriel Gray's body. I wonder, if that was the extreme of rational, or irrational, and what that says for the curse he bears in his own mind.
50. Do you have any biases or prejudices?
Of course, every person does. Someone who says they are without bias is either deceiving themselves or others. Too innumerable are the depth of human contrivance in prejudice.
51. Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it?
This answer is in relation to the question asked earlier, in a way. I refuse to allow myself to show emotions, amusement, anything of the sort. I feel the constant need to keep myself guarded, to keep those around me guessing as to my true intentions, for the better of keeping the element of surprise. It's hard, I've found, to work away from that way of thinking after having lived it for so long.
52. Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)?
I would rather not speculate on that, until the time comes.
Part 5: Relationships With Others
53. In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how?
In the past, much as now, I am too often compelled to treat others how they feel they deserve to be treated. I would say things they wish to hear, do things they wish done, if only to maneuver them into a more proper position for manipulation, to make them do something they ought not normally do without coercion, and yet make it their own idea. People I trust, I am more willing to treat with kindness at arm's length, societial nicities. But, of late, I struggle with the notion of truly accepting someone, or putting down guards and tactical positionning to wholly understand another person. It is a trying process.
54. Who is the most important person in your life, and why?
There aren't people in my life, not any longer. Two young women I once had the delusion of warding are close to my heart, and my guilt, but I am gone from their lives as they are gone from mine.
55. Who is the person you respect the most, and why?
My parents, without question. They lived in trying times and dared to raise a child as best as they could. Knowing now what my father was struggling to control beneath his own skin, and how that must have weighed heavily on my mother, it shows their resolute strength despite all odds. They persevere, they are strong, and in the end they gave everything simply to see that I was raised as bets as they could. They may have had their faults — we all do — but I respect them for it.
56. Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people.
I don't think I've ever had proper friends. My youth was so consumed with being raised to be my ftaher's son that I never had time for the fraternizations of childhood peers, and after taking upon myself this curse I isolated myself from others. The closest thing I ever came to a friend, was absolution, and that camein the form of a priest in Vladivostok. But he's long dead, and that was too long ago to count.
57. Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person.
I've never been in a meaningful relationship. I think that's answer enough, I'm not going to entertain this any longer.
58. Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened.
I— We already went over this. I'm not sure I believe in love, and I'm certain a thirteen year old boy knows nothing of it. That girl— the feelings I had— they were the flights of a youthful mind trying to pry itself free of a father's stern observance. Nothing more. To say of familial love, then of course, but I'm not going to reiterate what's already been said.
59. What do you look for in a potential lover?
…..
60. How close are you to your family?
My family died over a century ago, I've no closeness to them. My extended family, they rightly turned on me to save themselves. I think it's fair to say I am my own island in an empty sea of my own making.
61. Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not?
Always one question related to the others. If you could callt he Vanguard a family, you could say I tried. Between my ill-planned attempts at a legitimate progeny in way of Yvette, and the surrogates I took up greedily for myself as I felt lonely or betrayed, I tried. But like all things not born of unconditional love, there were bound to be resentments and conflicts. Your family might quibble over dinner, mine had me killed. To each their own.
62. Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help?
I cannot even rely on myself these days, I've no one to turn to, nor do I rightly deserve any.
63. Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why?
No.
64. If you died or went missing, who would miss you?
I'm not entirely sure. Several months ago I could have given you a definitive 'no' to that answer, but now… I'm less certain of myself.
65. Who is the person you despise the most, and why?
Whoever birthed this curse I bore into the world. Whatever figment of nightmare that would have given rise to such a power, they are surely deserving of my contempt.
66. Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?
In my youth I was something of an argumentative sort, I always thought myself right. Age and time tempered that to patience, and I would much rather ignore an argument and handle it privately than worry confrontation when egos are still sore.
67. Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations?
I've been told I gravitate towards a position of leadership, I thank the upbringing I was given for conditioning me towards them.
68. Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not?
I don't enjoy large groups. I work well in group environments, but I am at my most comfortable alone, where I can knowingly relax and be at ease. I remember one hot summer day in Cairo in 2001 where I had spent half of the day in the baking hot sun crossing a section of desert with Lucrezia Bennati en-route towards Iraq, and that evening I took such solace in sitting on our hotel balcony staring across at the Nile, watching the way starlight glimmered off of the water and listening to music.
69. Do you care what others think of you?
I care in as much as it means how well they will listen to and respect me, because it is important for a subordinate to afford both attention and respect to a commander. Do I honestly care? Only in regards to a handful of people.
Part 6: Likes And Dislikes
70. What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes?
From a young boy I took an affinity to the sword. Fencing was something my father had little opportunity to teach me, and on the few occasions where I was given practice I was told I had a natural gift for the art. By the time I was a young man, opportunities came more and more as I underwent formal military training. Outside of fencing I have a love for the violin, but I have not played since the war.
71. What is your most treasured possession?
A cane, gifted to me by Ethan Holden after the success of the mission to confront Grigori in Moscow. It bears a steel wolf's head, and in a way the cane became the symbol of everything the Vanguard stood for, with Ethan as my trusted leitenant. The concealed sword within, it was Ethan's way of nodding to my past, and indicating that everything had two forms. One obvious, and one concealed. He's far more cunning and sentimental than he leads on.
72. What is your favorite color?
Turquoise.
73. What is your favorite food?
That's not a question I can readily answer. I don't recall the foods I was fond of as a child, and after a decade of possessing the ability I had, my sense of taste began to diminish. By the time i transferred into Richard Santiago's body, I had lost much of his sense of smell and taste, and food was something of a triviality to me by then, I had other means of sustaining myself.
74. What, if anything, do you like to read?
As I had said near the beginning of this interview, I'm a fan of the works of William Shakespeare. In terms of non-fiction, I've read Plato's Republic several times, and have read some of — but never truly invested myself in — the collective works of Friedrich Nietzsche. His nihilism appealed to me during the war, but the affection faded over time.
75. What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)?
My ideal evening of entertainment would be the theatrics of a dinner — theatrics only in that I needn't eat, but still derive pleasure from the amtmosphere — while listening to a light Classical, perhaps capped off by an evening of dancing. I entertained myself with those ideas only a handful of times in my life, but every one of them was cherished.
76. Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit?
Smoking is vile habit, and had I my way Munin would have stopped. That she was able to release the hold drugs had on her was small wonders enough. Anyone who falls on to these vices is ultimately weak, and searching for something to prop themselves up.
77. How do you spend a typical Saturday night?
The days of the week don't particular hold any significance to me any longer.
78. What makes you laugh?
I don't think I've honestly laughed at much in many decades. From time to time, Ethan or Munin would say or do something to garner a smirk, but I've led an unfortunately humorless life. Those few moments where i do show appreciation of jest, I resent myself for. I thank my father for that complex.
79. What, if anything, shocks or offends you?
After a long enough life, you learn to tolerate the intolerable. I used to find many things I was unexposed to shocking and offensive. It, like many things, fade with time.
80. What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself?
I've actually confronted that situation. About fifty years out after having obtained my ability, I ceased sleeping all together. It started as a tapering off of sleep to an hour or half hour a day. Eventually I found myself awake constantly, sustained by my ability. In those ever-waking hours, I took up reading, quiet hobbies when I was around others who would be disturbed by noise. I remember that evening in Paris, I watched Munin sleep after a night of ballroom dancing. The world has such simple, small pleasures.
81. How do you deal with stress?
As improperly as my father. Bottle it up inside and deal with it in private, which ultimately and invariably leads to moments of blow-out anger and things said that aren't meant.
82. Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan?
My father woul never approve of spontaneous things. I've always been, and always will be a planner.
83. What are your pet peeves?
It's going to sound childish, but I cannot abide when people bite their nails. Just watching that dirty habit in practice is enough to make me want to lay down my cane across the backs of their hands. It's a disgusting habit, and I can't rightly understand where I gained the aversion, but it's a point I simply can't stand.
Part 7: Self Images And Etc.
84. Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted?
Contemplate quietly my failures, all while being presented with the failures of another man.
85. What is your greatest strength as a person?
I've been told my leadership skills are my greatest strength, but I disagree with that as too simple of an answer. In a way simply passing off my strength as a byproduct of my father's manner of raising me seems to cheapen the notion. I prefer to think of my greatest strength to be perseverence. After the length of life I've lived, my conviction and strength of will to carry out what I //believed in — for ill or good — is something I will in many ways always be proud of.//
86. What is your greatest weakness?
Alas, that double-edged sword of perseverence. My greatest weakness is both my own ego and my stubbornness, my inability to afford an ear to the advice of others due to my progressed age, and assuming that age begets unconditional wisdom. Even God himself makes mistakes, and I too often felt myself above even that humility, to disastrous ends.
87. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Nothing I strive to change about myself now will matter.
88. Are you generally introverted or extroverted?
I'm extroverted when an occasion calls for me to be, but that is largely a facade put on as a show. I'm, at my core, an introverted and silent person. It should be no small surprise, given what I've already explained.
89. Are you generally organized or messy?
I pride myself on my organizational skills.
90. Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at.
I could go into another long diatribe here, but I think for the interests of not repeating myself I'll keep it concise. Largely I excell at tactical coordinations, executive work, and — while I have not practiced in many years — surgery. I am less adept at emotional situations of all stripes, which I feel accounts for all three you asked for in one lump sum.
91. Do you like yourself?
I don't feel capable of answering that at the current time.
92. What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…)
I… Often times I am left to wonder if you yourself take these questions seriously.
93. What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime?
What little i have left to accomplish is of great importance, though if I am successful the world will never know I did anything at all.
94. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Right now, even my grim future is too mutable to know that answer.
95. If you could choose, how would you want to die?
Permanently.
96. If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left.
To this question I refuse an answer, I feel the time will come when I am able to do those very things, and I will not cheapen them.
97. What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death?
I do not feel I am worthy of being remembered, but I fear that despite my wishes, I will be remembered in infamy more than anything else.
98. What three words best describe your personality?
Calm, conceited, firm.
99. What three words would others probably use to describe you?
Cold, heartless, and cruel. I would not contest them.
100. If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…)
STOP TRYING TO KILL EVERYONE >8(
Ellis-ST 1253871182|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
