IDENTIFIED . MARGAUX, LUCIEN

MALE

PANSEXUAL

TWENTY-THREE

MAY 7TH, 1989

FRENCH

FLUENT IN:
FRENCH
CORSICAN
ENGLISH
VERBAL FLUENT:
CANTONESE
CONVERSATIONAL:
RUSSIAN
GERMAN
ITALIAN
SPANISH
ROMANIAN

LUCIEN WEI
RAPUNZEL

0.50

Identified Knight

N/A

N/A

09/03/2013 by Dani

REITGERTE

DARRIN "MOOSE" MOORE
LANCE BISHOP
LUCIEN MARGAUX
KEIJIRO WATANABE
MIKHAIL USENKO

VERY HIGH

RUFUS BARMA FROM PANDORA HEARS

Lucien was born upper class, living a life of luxury and decadence. He's fallen a long way from that in the past two years, however. He is presently unemployed, and it's unlikely he'll end up working. He's inside the United States illegally, meaning any possible chance of him getting a job is slim to none.

He lives in the Crystal Palace on the top floor, which he shares with Kun Shui Wei. To even call it 'sharing' would be fairly generous, considering that Kun Shui owns the entire building, and allows Lucien to stay with him out of something much like kindness. He has his own room, which is nicely decorated in reds and blacks. His prized possession and the focal point of his room is his bookshelf, which has a small but quickly growing collection of books, the majority of which are novels. Every few days he purchases more, and spends a large amount of his time reading.

Lucien is of average height, standing five foot nine. His eyes are a dark red, and his hair is a stark crimson. It's kept long, falling to his waist the majority of the time, and is poker straight with minimal effort. While he has lost his vanity, it's still his habit to take care of his hair, and he brushes his hair frequently to keep it tidy. His hair has some extra value to him in that red is considered a lucky color in Chinese culture, making him a bit of a human good luck charm. His skin is fairly pale due to his seclusion.

When it comes to scars and marks, Lucien is largely free of them. He spent most of his life in luxury, and lacks many of the small scars people often gain as they grow up. He only has one significant one--the 'wei' character is carved onto his inner thigh.

For the vast majority of his life, Lucien was not a nice person. He was arrogant and vain, proud and cruel. The Margaux had always believed that two classes of people exist--the sheep and the wolves, so to speak. For Lucien, cruelty to the sheep was no more horrifying to him than the slaughterhouse cruelty to cows was to the average person. It was a fact of life. To treat all humans equally would have equated with starvation for the Margaux, and for the majority of his life, that sort of mentality ruled. Even if it shaped much of who he was, the past two years have changed him significantly, and all the carefully cultured confidence has gone down the drain.

Of what remains, the majority is not obvious. The remains of his former hedonism is mostly contained within his head. He catches himself sizing people up, thinking of the best ways to use them for his own gain. It's a habit he hasn't managed to break, even if he's not physically repulsed by the idea. He was always a thinker and a planner, and he finds himself coming up with strategies for situations that will never again happen. If a foreign mafia assaults the cafe where he's eating brunch, what's his escape route? How could he convince the valet to give him a car that's not his? Even with all the plans bouncing around in his head, he no longer has the self confidence required to execute them. He'd stumble or falter, unable to deal with the mental pressure of it.

Another holdover is his organizational skills. Previously, Lucien liked being organized in order to be efficient. Now, he seeks organization in order to calm himself. With everything neatly organized, it seems less likely that things will go wrong, and gives him more of a feeling of control than he actually possesses. Realistically, he has no control over it at all, but being able to organize and sort things out lets him feel like he has some power, even if it's just an illusion.

What confidence Lucien once had has long since faded. Being betrayed by his own father left him vulnerable, and a barrage of emotional abuse dedicated to informing him about how worthless and repulsive he was managed to destroy any that remained. He doesn't value himself in the slightest, and considers himself to be a waste of space. Any kindness will only be met with skepticism, as so much of Lucien's self worth was tied to his past connections and power. Without those, he struggles to understand why anyone would want to associate with him.

In general, he's become extremely socially isolated. Over the past two years, his only contact was his tutor (who spoke exclusively about Cantonese) and Jun Shi, who was just as manipulative and cruel as Lucien had been himself. While Kun Shui shared a house with him, over the past two years he's said less than thirty words to him, and he could hardly be counted on for social interaction. As a result of the extreme social isolation, he finds himself jumpy when people speak to him directly. Crowds are enough to make him tense and anxious, and he'll often be forced to move to the edges of any crowd in order to calm down. While he's slowly adjusting to life in LA, and to being around other people, he's still had two years of habits to overcome, and it's slow going.

When he does get into a social situation, he's very polite. Part of this is a carry over from his business-like manners, and a part of this is his need to appease those around him. Even if the person he's speaking to could in no way affect his situation, he still feels the need to be polite, just in case they were ever to have power over him..

Lucien has excessive amounts of spare time, and the majority of that is spent reading. While he was never much of a reader before, in Hong Kong books became his escape. There he had relatively few books (English books requiring special attention), and he devoured them in an attempt to stave off boredom. Now that he's in Los Angeles, he has ready access to literature, and essentially drowns himself in it. Even if he's once again 'free', it's relative, and books are still a better escape to him.

He still has a taste for the finer things in life, and that includes food. He has a special place in his heart for French cuisine, but he's mostly been given Cantonese food. He enjoys Moon Cakes, Wife Cakes, and Shark Fin Soup. Considering the Weis were fairly well off, he's gotten to taste the majority of the more expensive kinds of Hong Kong cuisine, where as he's largely avoided the cheaper varieties.

Lucien was born into the Margaux family, but he missed their heyday. The Margaux family were one of the founding families of the Gang de la Brise de Mer, operating within the Corsican Mafia. They were heavily involved with the French Connection, but when the French Connection went bust, they managed to keep their names away from it, avoiding any possible prosecution. The profits from the operation had kept them in the good books, and the Margaux diversified from there. They ran nightclubs and bars, were involved in racketeering and money laundering. There was nothing to vile or petty for the Margaux, and human trafficking quickly became their area of expertise.

It was around that point that Lucien was born, the first son of the head of the Margaux family. While he later gained a sister and a brother, his status as the eldest largely cemented his position as heir. Barring a major coup when his father stepped down, it would be him taking over the reigns. He bloomed in the position of leader to be, becoming conniving and manipulative. He cared little for other people or their feelings, and used and abused people readily. By the time he was eight, he was actively insulting the woman who cleaned his room, and by the time he was twelve he had someone who would be best termed his own personal servant. Neither was treated with any sort of respect, and while he could certainly be formal and pleasant to those who he considered to be on the same level as him, to those below him he was without mercy.

He saw absolutely nothing wrong with treating those under him cruelly. To him, there were those who were wolves, and those who were sheep. Those who weren't willing to elevate themselves by exploiting others were weak, and doomed to be exploited themselves.

That sort of mentality did not exclude family. While the Margaux could certainly have been considered close as a family, everyone had to constantly watch their back. Lucien was barely sixteen when he began to suspect that his father had gone soft. Sparing a member who had sold them out because his family was in danger just seemed far too sympathetic to Lucien, and buried in the intricacies of mafia politics, he became even more arrogant and bitter. He would be in charge soon enough, and he would lead the family well--so why, exactly, was his father still around? It seemed like he was just dragging it out, and despite Lucien still not having even graduated high school (A prestigious private academy), he was rapidly growing too big for his britches.

When Lucien did graduate, he took a more active role in the running of the family. He oversaw various operations, stamping out those who would betray the organization. He worked on obtaining contacts within the government, feeding them money to look the other way to the Margaux operations. While his father was still the leader, Lucien took larger control within the organization, and began to gain his own loyal followers. They were loyal to him first and foremost, and to his father and the family second. As the months ticked by, Lucien prepared himself for his own little coup, well aware that his age was the big thing holding him back. Few people were going to listen to a nineteen year old--but someone in their early twenties would have a much better chance of it.

So he bided his time, enjoying all that life could offer him. He had his own loft apartment and travelled extensively. He never attended university, but he did study languages extensively. The Corsican mafia had strong connections with the Russian mob, and being able to speak Russian was a considerable advantage. Considering how much he travelled, every other European language was also an advantage, and Lucien strove to be able to speak every common European language at least conversationally. He certainly didn't succeed at that particularly lofty goal, but he did spent a large amount of time learning different languages, and was fluent in several.

Immediately before turning twenty one, his father declared that he had a job for Lucien. Lucien hadn't been expecting any job, but he took it as a positive sign--he was taking on more responsibility, and he was hoping that meant his father would be turning over the reigns.

It wasn't. He was sent out to Hong Kong to attempt diplomacy with the Weis, a long time rival of the family. Everything seemed to be going well. He honestly felt he was making real strides. Then, abruptly, he was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, shoved into a small cell underground. He had no idea what was happening--and it would be quite a while before he learned what had happened.

His father had betrayed him. He had never intended for any real diplomacy to happen. Instead, he'd intended for Lucien to arrive in Hong Kong, get settled in, and then he'd moved people into Hong Kong in an attempt to start a war. When the Weis found out what the Margaux had done, he had fully expected them to murder Lucien to set an example, in which case he'd have a full fledged mafia war on his hands, and all the justification that was necessary. No one in the Corsican Mafia would question a family that claimed the triad had killed their heir apparent. Especially not if a body was shipped back.

The plan did not go as expected, and Lucien was not returned--instead, the Weis simply dealt the Margaux a severe blow, sending them packing back to France. The Margaux lost considerable ground as a result, and their status within the Gang de la Brise de Mer plummeted.

Unbeknownst to the Margaux, Lucien was still very much alive. The head of the Wei family was far more intelligent than they'd suspected, and he'd managed to beat them at their own game. If the Margaux ever went after the Weis again, the Weis needed only to produce Lucien, still alive and largely unharmed, and any status the Margaux had remaining would be gone.

Which left Lucien in the unfortunate position of hostage. He was confined to a small room in the loft that served as the Wei headquarters, kept almost entirely isolated. The head of the family had some vague ideas about Lucien being a friend for Kun Shui, the Wei family heir. It wasn't much of a stretch when one considered their previous positions, but that would have required Kun Shui to have had the time to speak to Lucien. He didn't--he was busy, and rarely saw Lucien.

The people Lucien did see, confined in his little room, were his tutor and Jun Shi. His tutor existed solely to teach him Cantonese. He did nothing else--he refused to speak of anything but Cantonese, even when Lucien attempted small talk. Lucien was entirely convinced that he was being paid extra not to speak to Lucien beyond his lessons, and he was entirely right.

Jun Shi was Kun Shui's twin. Of the two, it would be Kun Shui who was the heir, leaving Jun Shi with a distinct lack of things to do. Jun Shi was everything that Lucien had been--haughty and cruel, eager to take his frustrations out on someone else. Lucien became his target, unable to defend himself either physically and verbally. He was a ripe target as well--already emotionally damaged from his father's sudden betrayal and the sudden loss of everything he had valued.

Jun Shi began a particularly cruel cycle of abuse. He mocked Lucien, pointing out every terrible thing about him. How he had no real value, how he was simply getting what he deserved. Jun Shi had no mercy, but it was impossible for Lucien to simply ignore him. Jun Shi was his only human contact, the only conversations he had. Even when he ate dinner with Kun Shui, it was hurried and done in relative silence, with even those meals being few and far between. Jun Shi bought his silence with the rare book, and books became Lucien's only escape.

For Lucien, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. He knew his father would not abruptly change his mind and take him back. The Weis would never treat him as any more than a formerly important hostage, and his importance was wearing thin. He had little doubt that the only reason he hadn't been shoved back to France (where he'd have been summarily shot) was Jun Shi's interest in him.

So it came as a complete and utter surprise, after two years of relative solitude, when Kun Shui announced he would be moving to Los Angeles, and that he would be taking Lucien with him.