VESTIVAL

GENERAL INFORMATION:
Name: Vestival
Gender: Stallion
Breed: Andalusian x Mustang x Thoroughbred
Age: 9 years
Orientation: Heterosexual
Coat color: Flaxen liver chestnut splashed white
Height: 17.2 hh
Eye color: Blue (left) and green (right) – heterochromia
Reference: Click!

PERSONALITY:
[ caring ] [ honorable ] [ courageous ] [ selfless ] [ compassionate ] [ proud ] [ gentle ] [ comforting ] [ romantic ] [ loving ] [ wise ] [ passionate ] [ proud ] [ serious ] // [ careless ] [ rash ] [ aggressive ] [ vicious ] [ unforgiving ] [ calculating ] [ cunning ] [ destructive ] [ self-loathing ] [ brooding ]

Vestival often seems quite serious and brooding. When he was still a young colt, he seemed more light-hearted and naive. He was very close to his mother Adaline and looked up to her.

As a grown up stallion, Vestivals personality became increasingly complex. He has a troubling bloodlust that has often become a major problem for him. When he gives into the urge to turn it all off, he becomes rash, careless and destructive. The ‘ripper’ side of him usually causes him to push people away. The dark, smoldering fire that lurks in his heart, awakens only at times when Vestival switches off his emotions. He changes from a sweet, caring stallion into a real assassin without compassion. Once without emotions, he becomes a totally different horse. Vestivals wicked attitude brings on that he can’t be trusted, he is a rare side of any coin and can’t be known to which know whether he’s heads or tails, because he will change within minutes or rather like seconds. He’s aggressive, calculating, cunning, proud and vicious. He doesn’t care for the lives of others anymore. Vestival also has a raging temper. He acts out on it fairly often and is unforgiving no matter who is on the receiving end of it. There is nothing that can turn his feelings on, nothing but himself. Only he has the key to his humanity. But it is the question if he wants to use it or not.

However, there is also a large part of Vestival that cares deeply for his own humanity. As the bewitching mare Eris had once told him, his heart is pure, and that this would be his curse. This is what has caused a majority of the self-loathing and brooding, which has become deeply associated with Vestivals personality. When he is at his best, he is extremely caring and compassionate. He does not like to see others in pain and can be very wise and comforting to others. Vestival can also be highly honorable, courageous and selfless, especially when it comes to the people he cares about. He is always willing to lend a helping hand when it is needed most and he will put the needs of others before his own. He is always willing to save people, especially those who need saving the most at a particular time. Vestival is the kind of person who tries to protect and save everyone at the same time.

Vestival is generally a very romantic person. His love for Faylice has highlighted how his values have changed since he met her and also how deep and loving he can be. He is often very sweet and gentle towards Faylice, but also very passionate about her. He has proven many times that respect and trust are very important to him when it comes to relationships and love. Even after all the ups and downs they have been through together, his love for her has only deepened and grown. Vestival believes that she is his soulmate and the love of his life. He would do anything for her, even if it means that he has to sacrifice his own life for her.

What defines Vestival is not some personality disorder which he unequivocally does not possess, but his deep and abiding loneliness and the sense of exile which has been with him from the very beginning.

ABILITIES:
Empathy: Vestival possesses the ability to remove or dull his emotions. He can turn off his ability to feel emotions such as fear and guilt allowing him to kill without remorse, go against any opponent without fear and relieve himself of depression and sadness. With his emotions turned off he is far more calculating and direct than when he keeps them on. However, he will become a remorseless killer, almost unrecognizable from the person he truly is.

HISTORY:
Every life begins at birth, the tragic event that brings something miraculous in itself. My life began in just such a way, on a warm summer afternoon in September..

“I feel how my mother is doing her best to squeeze me of her womb. Her anxious whinny echoes down the birth canal where I lie, the gateway to the big bad world. More and more I slide toward that world, surely with a curious feeling in my heart. Finally, after some labor pains, is the big day I meet Mother Earth. With a soft thud I land in the bright green grass, the wind tugs at my wet coat and a shiver slips through my spine. Immediately I feel the urge to climb back into that tube toward the warm uterus. However, a moist, warm tongue, lovingly stroking over me, keeps me from that. I look with a blurry vision to the big mare lying next to me. Adaline is her name, lead mare of the Egalise and mate of my father, Vester.”

At a young age I got her wise words put in my mouth. She was a caring mare, moreover, I was her ‘everything’. I always came first to her, even my father was less important. I did not see him often; he was frequently traveling to faraway places. But on those rare occasions he was home, jealousy bubbled in him. My mother then tried to comfort him. With the months it got worse and worse. I remember that one dark day in my life like if it were only yesterday..

“It’s night, the moon is hidden behind a dark cloud package. It’s pitch dark, I am not able to see anything. ‘Thus blind horses have to feel like this,’ mutters my voice, a little hoarse. I hobble like an old stallion through the herd, seeking my mother. After a long day playing with my friends I had not seen her yet. There were rumors wandering around that she was abducted by Vester, my father. Ideally I would like to banish that thought from my mind, but unfortunately, it was not that simple. My long legs lift me into a trot, worrying about where she is or what my father’s been up to with her. At that time an icy, pained scream pierces the silence of the night. Immediately, a stab of recognition slides through my body. I urge myself to gallop and move towards the source of her wailing. After having progressed a few hundred meters, I see a big, liver chestnut stallion and a radiant, white mare. Vester and Adelin, my parents. The smell of blood is strong. Anxiously, I break off and look straight to my mother. Her blue eyes closed, her slender figure lying in a circle of flowers. I see my father who, bloodied and dark of sweat, lays his head on her neck, his manes covering her porcelain face. ‘Mom?’ echoes the oh-so-familiar word out of my mouth. I take a step toward her, but my father does not allow it. ‘Go away! You devil, because of you Adaline is dead! Never come back, or else you will regret it.’ In panic, I turn around and run back to the herd, where gossip has gone round about the sudden, mysterious death of their lead mare like wildfire. Everyone looks with a dirty glance at me, even my two best friends give me that same look. ‘Devil’s Child. Murderer. Get out of our midst.’ Are the words that are assigned by the herd members toward me. Confused and frightened, I leave- discouraged- the herd. That was the last time I saw them in my life.”

For months I lived alone, developed a particular hatred for all things that were feminine. Indeed, it were only mares who lived in the herd, the only two stallions were foals that were barely a day old, so they totally had no idea what was going on. I never knew why or how my mother had come to her end. It was definitely not a natural cause of death. I did not even want to know, the only thing I wanted was to forget everything and pick up my life again. Three long years I traveled alone, sometimes running into a single companion. As the days grew longer and the fall began, I entered new lands. The land of the Blue Moon..

Here, my life took a dramatic turn; everything suddenly seemed to be in my favor. I found the mare of my dreams and took the leadership of rank one upon my shoulders. My life seemed to be running, until I came to know of the existence of the Shades, bloodthirsty immortal demons that possessed the bodies of horses. Again, I had to fear for my life, every second of every day. It also proved to be that my mate had an evil Shade father and that she was harassed every Blue Moon. I have never known anything about it until the last moment when our relationship ended. Many problems precedents before this actually happened. I had an affair with another mare and she became unintentionally pregnant with my foal. On a certain night this secret came up, something that I had been studiously trying to avoid. Faylice found out and that was the moment we broke up. I knew I had made a stupid mistake and full of guilt I fled the land of the Blue Moon, leaving the past two years of my life behind.

Broken and mentally destroyed due to the loss of my one true love, I became a nomad again and began my long travel back home, to the land I was banned from long ago by my own father. I would take my revenge on him for murdering my late mother. My plan was to take his life and become the new leader of the Egalise, like Adaline had always wanted. During my travel I encountered countless new faces, crossed borders and discovered my ability to switch off my emotions when I desired to. I made regular use of my newly uncovered gift, got addicted to it, could not live without. The moments that I banished my emotions out of my system, I felt free and without worry. The pain that had terrorized my mind in the months after having lost Faylice, had disappeared like snow in the sun. Gradually, I lost my touch with reality, more and more I became lost in my own body. I felt drawn to the dark characters that crossed me on my path, inadvertently laying my trust in their hands. Somewhere in the months that I was slowly losing myself, I met a certain mare known as Eris. She was black as coal, obscure as my darkest desires. I instantly felt an inexplicable attraction to her bewitching smile, but deep down I sensed that she was no good, but at that time I did not care at all. She pretended to be an angel, but in reality she turned out to be a witch. That made it no less that I was sucked into her sinister plan. I was bewitched by her. She already knew all of my secrets, desires and fears. And she made unprecedented abuse of that advance. She told me lies about my past and the cause of my mother's passing. Eris used me as her personal puppet. She enjoyed it everytime when I murdered someone. She was the real queen of control, even without the ability to turn off emotions she never let go of her façade. This torture went on for about four months, until this one day.. Eris was - for once - away, leaving me all by myself. Without pondering, I took the opportunity and made sure she would never find me ever again. This was the end of weeks full of torture and feeling out of control.

After many months of abuse I was more mentally damaged and broken than ever before. It was an incredible relief to be rid of the coal black mare forever. But now that I was free I had no clue where to go next. I doubted whether it was a judicious choice to return to the lands of the Blue Moon. Still, I did not have to think twice about that choice, the answer had already been determined before my brains even began to think about considering it. I would make my return to the land that remained so dear to me while I had experienced so many terrible things there. And so I made my comeback in the lands of the Blue Moon.

Almost instantly upon arrival I came across a familiar face. The toffee-colored mare with the bicolor eyes whom I recognized all too well. Her name was Dahlai and she was the one that I had an one-night-stand with years ago. But all that was of the past. She had no feelings for me, or so I made myself believe. We got caught up in a heated argument in which guilt and betrayal went hand in hand. Long-hidden secrets were revealed. It turned out to be that Dahlai had become pregnant after our brief affair. But the filly that was conceived during our short time together never saw the light of another day, she was stillborn. A fact that shocked me, even though I had never met her. Confused by all the details of the last few years and without a second thought I told Dahlai that I loved her. The toffee-colored mare returned these feelings and told me she had been in love with me ever since we first met. At that time my sanity kicked in, telling me that I had made a huge mistake, I would hurt her all over again because I still loved Faylice. I panicked and fled from Dahlai. I never saw her again after that day.

A short period of time passed since the meeting with Dahlai and I unexpectedly encountered the former love of my life, Faylice. All of the intense desires and passionate feelings that I still felt for her came back in an instant as if they had never left. Unfortunately, our reunion went less smoothly than I had hoped, but as time progressed we became closer again. Ultimately, something happened I had not even dared to dream in my wildest dreams. Faylice confessed that she still loved me even after everything I had done to her. The affair, the unintended pregnancy of Dahlai and the countless times I had hurt Faylice by leaving the lands of the Blue Moon, they did not seem to matter anymore. It was just her and me again for the remainder of forever. Or at least that was what I had hoped. Regrettably, destiny had never been on my side.

The demons from my past came back and this time I did not have the strength to fight them. They terrorized my mind day and night, never gave me a moment’s rest. Even Faylice was not able to stop me from making that fatal decision. I would put an end to my life for good. The place where I would end it once and for all were the cliffs of Orlais. Once there, it began to storm. The wind pulled roughly at my tangled manes while my eyes were focused on the boisterous sea below the cliffs. With my eyes closed I took the last step and let gravity do its job. My body made a staggering fall into the depths, and with a loud bang my body met the sea. I disappeared out of sight, withdrawn deeper and deeper into the dark water. It was nearly over. My thoughts were as blank as snow. Numb. The slate-colored water looked like an endless dark hole trying to suck me down. I let my body hang limp for a second too long and started to drop. Imagining myself plunging into the freezing water, having it hit me like concrete at that speed. A fast death. But then I saw angry clouds in the distance and jerked back up. I was sure I’d glimpsed her stormy eyes and thought I saw her face above the black waves of the ocean. The wind whispered to me. “Not yet.” It was her voice, gravelly and insistent that urged me on. Reminding me why I was still here and what I needed to do. Automatically the muscles in my legs began to work. Meter by meter I climbed closer to the surface. And the cold feeling inside me started to heat up into newborn hope. I would get there, whatever it took. I finally managed to reach the coast, but once I was ashore everything had changed. She had left, gone with the wind.

I had searched months for her, crossed unknown lands and borders, looked in placed she would never hide. But I came to the bitter conclusion that Faylice didn't want to be found. And so I returned home to the lands of the Blue Moon, with little hope in my heart left.

RELATIVES:
Parents: Vester x Adaline
Offspring: Pilgrim
Friends: None
Enemies: Eris, Aeron
Knows: Karah, Qzarina, Savanna, Magdalena, Skyfall.
Relationship: Faylice
Loved: Faylice, Dahlai
Animals/pets: None

QUOTES:
“Loneliness. That’s why you and I memorialize our dead. There’s the briefest of moments before we kill where we literally hold their life in our hands, and then we rip it away. But in the end we’re left infinitely and utterly alone.”

“The line between what brings us pain and what sustains us is thinner than you’d imagine.”

“Don’t underestimate the allure of darkness. Even the purest hearts are drawn to it.”

“There is darkness inside all of us, though mine is more dangerous than most. Still, we all have it—that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it. Some use it as a shield to hide behind, others as an excuse to do unconscionable things. But, truly, the darkness is simply a piece of the whole, neither good nor evil unless you make it so.”