Zigazigazigazigazow!

OOC Information
Name: Xep
Contact: Plurk - xep_lag | email - xep_lag@zoho.com | skype - xep-lag
Current Characters: N/A


IC Information
Name: Pažar Tuniec, better known as Xep.
Canon: Hitsuzen-sei OC until he actually appears in his canon.
Canon Point: After Lii runs away, before she comes back with Noxxi.


History: FIRST LET'S GET SOME WORLD BUILDING DONE.

Once upon a time there was nothing but chaos, aka: space. It all swirled together and created madness and had a hell of a time doing so. But eventually one of the starts had a supernova, and a goddess was born from the rubble. This was the sun goddess Suna. Suna then went about creating the world as she felt was best, enlisting her brother Luno (the moon god) and creating thousands of other gods to help them.

With Suna as the leader, the gods worked together to build the earth and make it as perfect as it could be. And why was it not perfect? Because the gods are horrible people and spent most of the time fighting or lazing off or redoing the work of someone else.
Anyway, after a while Suna decided she wanted a dominant species on earth that reflected herself. So out of a sunbeam she made a cat (which is supposedly why cats love the sunlight so much). However, at the same time her nephew Tondro, god of thunder, felt lonely that he was the only god who did not have a creature to fit his nature, so he created a human from clay. Now, remember how cats were supposed to be the dominant species? Well, humans inherited Tondro's loud, rambuctious, overbearing nature... and soon they'd claimed the cats' domain as their own. And Suna got very, very pissed.
She and Tondro started fighting, and because of their ties to other gods it created a civil war among all parts of the earth. The most literal world war you could imagine. Wind crashing into water, trees battling lightning, all the fun stuff. But while this happened, humans adapted quickly and built houses to hide from the elements, while cats took the full blow of the crazy weather patterns. Unaware that a war was happening, the humans saw only very cute creatures lost in the rain and snow and decided to share their resources.

Now the gods saw that their war had actually brought the two species together, and decided to have a truce. A small group of cats split off from the rest and slowly developed into humanoid creatures known as felid-borns, or maus as is the slang term.
More importantly, during the war, the ice goddess Glacia had lost her own species, the arctic mink, in the turbulent weather. Distressed by their destruction, she begged her father Luno to help her recreate a new species. Luno had successfully created a species that was hardy enough to survive nearly anything, the wolf. Glacia had no chance of creating anything so strong by herself. As compensation she was given caribou by Suna, but Luno worked with her in secret to create an ultimate ice species. Thus was born the farfang, sculpted from a glacier while the full moon shone down on it. And damn were they pretty. These things could survive for two months without food, were designed to kill prey and live in the tundra, and were so fierce it left a 5% chance of survival for anything living in farfang territory.

Now this was all peaceful and good until thousands of years later, when chaos started to leak back into the world. See, all creatures these days are born with a tiny fragment of their soul missing, which gods will fill with a fragment of their own. This fragment gives them ~magical elemental powers~. Tondro is one of the gods who really likes everyone pitching in with their own fragments to create diversity, but other gods may not care as much or want certain species to only be their own. Such is with Glacia - she wants all farfangs to be Ice Children. But with so many of each species born every minute, once in a while the gods did not actually have time to bless some of the children. Those children ended up with a broken soul, which was then latched onto by chaos; they became Chaos Children, those blessed by the nonexistant goddess Stella.
Chaos Children must destroy the natural laws around them with their powers, or they become so powerful that they actually melt themselves. This leaves behind a whole lot of magical essence called Black Magic, which it is forbidden to use because it will destroy the user's soul once the deal with Stella is completed.

Okay so on to Xep's actual life.

Pažar was born into the Tuniec clan in northern Gavia, basically the arctic of his world, in a litter of three. The Tuniec clan is among the most well-known, largest and most successful of all farfang clans. Farfangs can be told apart clan-wise by the shape of their horns; every Tuniec farfang that had ever lived had artfully curled horns like those of a goat.

Except Pažar.

See, gods are supposed to bless the children while they're still in the womb, so appearance changes may happen because of it. While Glacia managed to bless most of Pažar's litter, she missed one. So her brother and rival - the fire god Fajron - decided to cover her tracks and bless the pup, preventing him from becoming a Chaos Child. So in a litter of goat-horned, ice-powered puppies, one prong-horned, fire-powered puppy was born. And that's where he got his name; Pažar is a rough translation of the word "fire" in their native tongue of Gavian.

Interestingly, because of Glacia's heavy influence on farfangs Pažar's soul couldn't quite handle the fire in it. During the first few weeks of his life he coughed constantly, struggled to move as fast as his siblings, and would collapse often with what seemed to be heart attacks. Then suddenly, at six weeks of age, he was completely fine. Better than fine. He was stronger than either of his siblings. He had no sense of form, but he was harsh and brave and strong and fast, and in line to become the best hunter in the clan.

But there was a downside to this. Pažar's soul had split in two, one with a fragment of fire and one with a fragment of ice. This was because Glacia had tried to force out Fajron's fragment and replace it with her own, someone which no god had ever tried before. And.. fire and ice don't quite mix. Xep was strong during the day, but the moonlight couldn't heal him like the rest of his clan, and thus he had no appreciation for it. Ice felt too cold for him, and his pawpads were constantly cracking from it. He began to tire much more easily than the others, and slowly became recluded and snappish around other farfangs. And even without that, it was a sign of shame to have horns different from everyone else; he was looked down on just for existing. And most interestingly, his reflection and shadow did not match his appearance; they were those of a young female lion.

One day the elders finally decided they'd have enough of the shame that having Pažar in the clan caused. He was banished, at the age of five months. Yup, tiny kid. So off he went, following his instinct to go south until he finally found himself in the southern regions of Eidolon. There he gave up running and collapsed, so deeply upset that he begged for anyone, anything to help him out. So Stella came to him, and offered him Black Magic as a solution. And, unaware of the danger, he made a deal with her.

Pažar was turned forcefully into a humanoid creature jokingly called a farfang-born, as was the other soul which belonged to his shadow. This was to allow them to speak to each other; she later introduced herself as Liod. Next was the actual gift of the deal; Pažar was given a small territory in the forest of Eidolon within which physics was his bitch. He could create anything from nothing, teleport, float, anything as long as he stayed on the castle's grounds or the nearby forest. If he tried to leave the magic would all be ripped apart, the deal broken and he would lose everything and probably die in the process. However, he would never be able to turn fully back into a farfang; he could turn into one temporarily, but it started hurting after a while if he didn't turn human again.

The other condition was that he couldn't reveal his name to anyone, or he would be under their control. So he took up the name of Xep, and Liod renamed herself Lin. As long as no one knew Lin's true name, she could remain a semi-corporeal "ghost" that could move things and interract with others, and truly exist. And after this deal was all created, he was knocked out and woke up in a huge castle he'd dreamed up.

Xep lived completely along for the first five years in his castle, not counting Lin or the bear that lived outside. He was about 6 when a meteor fell in his territory, and a little ball of fur fell out of the rubble. This furball was an alien dog named Gaaliki Dioji Kukka, from the planet Kanae. Lii, as he nicknamed her, became his little sister and grew up to basically look like a samoyed with bright blue eyes.

Then at the age of 7, Xep found someone new. An 8-year-old human with mismatched eyes, small wings and the stench of black magic surrounding her wandered into the castle. She introduced herself as Angel, and started immediately flirting with Xep. In fact, she kind of became his stalker. That spooked him to the point where he chased her out, nearly killing her first, and became terrified of humans. But.. it also made him realize how lonely he was, having no one but Lii and Lin around. He could still remember how large his old clan had been, and he wanted more.

Xep began capturing humans and felid-borns from the forest as they wandered, whisking them away to his castle where they became his servants, with the help of the bear who turned out to be an ursine-born (humanoid bear) named Lau. He became a bit of a tyrant, snarling orders and punishing mistakes brutally. This was because he was terrified that one day he would meet a human as scary as Angel had been, who he would be unable to scare away. He needed to be at the top or else die trying to get there. The only person he was okay with being stronger than himself was Lau, and only because he knew she was loyal to him and had raised him as her own cub.

Well, Lii wasn't impressed with this. She remembered how worried and kind Xep used to be, and how shy he actually was. Now he constantly yelled at her and pushed her around, and they fought like fire and ice (Lii is an ice child hahaha). Finally she decided she was fed up, and ran away from the castle. Xep, left alone with his thoughts at least, became even more violent since he couldn't go after her.

In truth, Glacia had actually been influencing this. She had visited Lii in her dreams and told her she needed to find other Neon Hearts (those with highly advanced powers like herself and Xep) and destroy Xep, for he broke the balance of their world. And also mostly because he was a fire child and a farfang and that's not how things work 'round here. So Lii found Noxxi and asked her to come back and help battle Xep with her.

This would be where his canon point is, to prevent myself from spoiling future plotpoints for this thing.


Personality: First of all we must keep in mind that part of Xep's soul is literally made of fire. This affects him in pretty big ways; most notably that he shares Fajron's traits of aggression, speed, force, bluntness and impulsion. This added onto his upbringing, which enforced teamwork, silence, order and emotional distance. The exact opposite of what Xep is good with.

Xep's mannerisms are rather harsh; he rarely apologizes or thanks, uses rough language and nudges people around often. He likes headbutts, despite having two lethal horns on his head. He is quick to jump to conclusions and too stubborn to be told anything once he's chosen how his world view should work.

However, there is one thing Xep values much more than being right and in control: evidence. If he can be proven wrong, he's quick to step down and agree. However, it must be undeniable proof, or it's very hard to convince him. He's rather happy to see himself as the boss in charge of the world, so evidence that someone else knows better than him doesn't really do much for his mood.

Speaking of mood, his is almost always angry. He snaps at others constantly, or teases and threatens them. But he is also pretty playful; he likes making people as uncomfortable as he can and picking apart ways to make them even more nervous around him. Because if they're uncomfortable he knows more about them, and they can't stand up to him if he's the one making them uncomfortable. He's the type of person who would happily go into the desert with a year's supply of water and drink it all by himself in front of the starving travellers who wander by.

On top of the above cruelty, he really loves making others thing that his life is much better than theirs no matter how much pain he's going through. He shows himself off as a party animal whose parties you're never invited to, although these parties never actually happen because he absolutely hates having more than five people near him at any time. He wants to be worshipped, and if he isn't worshipped he will still act like he is because it helps with his whole "who cares if you don't like me, you're the only one who doesn't" motif.

This isn't to say that he doesn't have a softer side. But there are so few people that trigger it that it's barely worth mentioning. He has a soft spot for cute faces and lost kids younger than himself. Behind his cruel mask, he knows he's broken beyond repair and wants other people to live lives happier than his own. He wants others to see him as a cool person who helped them out and disappeared to his better life. So he is quick to assist those in serious danger, as long as they don't start following him around afterward. The flipside to this is that happiness makes him very uncomfortable; seeing other people be happy while he constantly suffers just drives the point home that he will never be as happy as them. Because of this he tends to lash out on anyone who tries to actually become his friend.

There is only one true exception to this: Lin. His shadow is the one thing he cares about more than anything in the world. He's become obsessed with his other half to the point where he will actually panic if he can't see his shadow, or if he can't find mirrors. Lin calms him down and makes him feel special, so they have a closer relationship than most twins could hope to him. But on the other hand she reminds him of how different he is from everyone else... not that he will ever admit to this. Lin is the part of him that he wants no one to know about unless they are willing to fully except how crazy he must seem.

Now let's talk about Lin a bit.

Lin actually has a personality separate from Xep's. She is, in a way, his exact opposite. She is what the Tuniec clan would have wanted Xep to become. She is shy, quiet, orderly, and agreeable. She is friendly to others but also willing to fight if she needs to. Her soul is made of ice, but she is nevertheless warm and caring of others. However, she does have a darker side. She never forgives anyone who hurts Xep. She always agrees with who Xep sees as the enemy, and will never back down if she feels she is in danger.

Lin is soft-spoken and never cruel, but she is still not fair. She says what will please others best, whether or not she actually intends to act on it. She cares for others because she doesn't want blood on her hands, while Xep hurts others because he is afraid he can't help them. She is also not opposed to running of and hurting others if Xep asks her to, because her one true goal is to be accepted by Xep as his better half and stay that way.

In truth, Lin is rather selfish. She takes advantage of Xep's need to be loved by someone, draining his attention so she can feed her own ego. Behind the pretty face is the mind of a perfect dictator, something which Xep will never realize. She is someone who could easily rule the world without anyone seeing anything wrong with it; she could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman with white gloves. But at the same time she is braver and stronger than Xep; she has the strength of mind it takes to stick up for herself and rule those around her.

This is also why her animal form is a lion instead of a farfang; she is brave and fierce and sunny while Xep is forceful and shy and gloomy.


Samples
First-Person:

This is degrading! Where am I? I don't have time for this, you know, I... okay, better question, how am I here? I can't leave my domain, this doesn't even make sense! Take. Me. Home! [This is about where he realizes this isn't helping. Huff.] Someone answer me already before I start roasting things! I need to get home now before my stupid useless sister does something worse than she's already done!

...Has anyone seen some gigantic marshamallow of a dog, white with blue eyes? She belongs with me and I swear if she's off getting leaves to dump on me again...

Third-Person: Xep meeting Noxxi



IMPORTANT NOTE: Lin can only speak to Xep outside of Xep's Domain. Inside his castle, or if given the proper magic, she may not only speak to others but leave his side, giving him no shadow or reflection until she returns, and acts almost corporeal but not quite.