Difference between revisions of "Sebastien/History"

Sebastien was born in the Ardennes region of Belgium on May 30th, 1992, to parents of differing European nationalities: Gilliam desArdennais, present patriarch of the nouveaux-noblesse desArdennais line, and his British-born wife Marilla, formerly of the Highgate family of Sussex.

It may seem strange at first that a posh English debutante like Marilla Highgate -- accustomed to the boroughs of London -- would throw in her lot with a gruff, earthy horse-breeder born and raised in the backwaters of Belgium's mountainous southern reaches...but the pairing is more sensible than it may at first appear. The DesArdennais line has existed only since the early 1800s, when Napoleon began to carry out his eponymous war against French territories. Prior to that time, the line was known by the surname de Broqueville -- a family with an inherited title of Count; the same de Broqueville family, in fact, that would go on to supply the country with Belgium's 20th Prime Minister, Charles de Broqueville. Tracing its lines back all the way to the Gauls by way of French Pas-de-Calais, the family's focus of expertise was in the breeding and training of horses...a pursuit that made it of strategic value during Napoleon's grim march across the French countryside to the south. Vehement disagreements about the way in which to treat with this military monster fractured the family in half; one half retaining the noble title of de Broqueville, and the other adopting the surname of desArdennais, in order to turn its attention to commercial pursuits, as is traditional.

The Ardennes draft horse is extremely sturdy and unique to the region -- and a powerful wartime asset, both for raw utility in the field and for its meat, which locals have supplemented their diets with for centuries. It's on the sale of this beast to Napoleon's forces that the desArdennais family propelled itself to wealth, even if the nature of its business made for less fame than it did fortune. Gilliam desArdennais may be 'a horse-breeder,' but he is also a legitimate untitled noble, descended from the stock of Counts, and a figure of power and prestige in his chosen, if narrow, field.

Enter Marilla, daughter of a man whose Empire was built by racehorses, and...the rest is history, as they say.

Sebastien's history, specifically.

It shouldn't be difficult to imagine that expectations for the third child (but only son) of the desArdennais line were high from the very start. The physical work required of any person living on what is essentially a working mountainside form (albeit a very nice, very large stable) is immense; add to this the demands of polite society, aristocratic ties, noblesse oblige, the academics required to prepare him for assuming control of his family's business legacy -- a burden he neither wants nor has much interest in, and in fact resents -- and the stage is already set for A Series of Unfortunate Events.

They occurred at the prestigious Westminster School in Britain in 2010, in sixth form (what would be in other countries his 'senior year'), two years after his enrollment.

Under high-pressure circumstances, after a lifetime of repressing his own wishes, he awakened to his Persona and became shadow-possessed. His previously pristine grades plummeted. His public facade as the dutiful son began to erode. His parents brought him back to Belgium, concerned about his increasingly rebellious behavior, until finally -- at wits' end, desperate for a way to put him back on track -- they decided to call in favors with family friends, hoping that their daughter, along with the steadying, restrained influence of Japanese culture, would be enough to rein him in.