Elliot Nightray (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
satonthewall) wrote2016-02-21 04:37 am
satonthewall) wrote2016-02-21 04:37 am
[Synodiporia App]
P L A Y E R;
NAME: Nai
AGE: 23
PLAYER JOURNAL:starcrossed_sky but RARELY IF EVER used
TIMEZONE: PST
CONTACT: plurk @ starcrossedsky, AIM @ starcrossedskyy, Skype @ starcrossedsky
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: [NOPE]
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Elliot Nightray
CANON: Pandora Hearts
POINT IN CANON: After the tea party in "Unbirthday" but before Oz's presentation ceremony (specifically, just prior to the latter)
AGE: 16
APPEARANCE: Elliot is a young man of moderate height (~5'8) with short-and-messily-cut ash blond hair, blue eyes, and a small mole under the corner of his left eye. He dresses well - usually in his school uniform (first image) or the black clothes that are most common for members of the Nightray family - according to the fashions of his world, which are roughly Victorian. His ears are pierced - both lobes, small gemstone studs - and he can almost always be seen carrying his family sword, a slim black blade with a complex crossguard.
CANON HISTORY: Elliot was the fourth son, and fifth child overall, born to the current Duke Nightray and his wife, Bernice. Elliot is significantly younger than most of his blood siblings - his brothers all seem to be at least late teens to young adults when he was a small child, and his sister, Vanessa, is also at least a few years his elder. When he was six years old, he gained two strange, new, elder brothers by adoption in fairly rapid succession - first the younger, Vincent, and then the elder, Gilbert, who had been living as a servant in the house of rival dukedom Vessalius.
The arrival of Gilbert and Vincent was the first somewhat unusual happening in Elliot's life. Elliot was warned away from the two by his elders brothers, for no reason he could understand - and so, because he didn't understand it, Elliot treated them the same as any other older siblings, even given that neither of them was anything like what his upbringing told him Nightrays should be like (Gilbert, being timid and mild to the point of outright fearful at times; Vincent, being pretty damn creepy even as a prepubescent teen).
Some years later, Elliot, then fourteen, would be taken on a journey to the House of Fianna (the Nightray-run orphanage for those children left behind by illegal contractors) by two of his brothers, and there meet a messy boy named Leo. Leo was different from every person Elliot had met up to that point. Leo didn't give a singular damn that Elliot was from a noble family; he simply wanted to read books, play piano, and be left alone behind the ragged curtain of hair that hung in front of his eyes. Elliot became determined to have Leo, rather than any of the minor nobility, for his manservant, and Leo eventually accepted for the price of a pair of thick glasses that even further shielded him from the world.
Not long after that, Gilbert would obtain the power of the Abyss that was supposed to be reserved for the Nightray house - the Chain Raven, a skeleton bird with black feathered wings that has various powers related to bindings (Chains are entities of the Abyss that can't survive in the normal world without a contractor) - and, not long after, would be poisoned near-fatally by an unknown assassin. A few weeks later, one of Elliot's brothers and his maternal uncle would be violently decapitated by someone know only as the Headhunter (so called for their signature method of dispatching their victims, by means of a Chain that was code-named the Queen of Hearts by the organization Pandora).
A few months before Elliot appears in the story, Gilbert runs away from the Nightray house. Elliot grows angry at his adopted brother and blames it on Gilbert's fear of the Headhunter, but in reality, Gilbert left in order to locate and once again serve the boy who had been his master ten years prior in the Vessalius household, Oz. Around this time, Elliot and Leo, in the ruined capital Sablier, pursued several lost children from the House of Fianna into the Abyss crater. Elliot, embarrassingly, hit his head in the process and both he and the children had to be recovered by Leo and Pandora agents. Soon after, Elliot's remaining two blood brothers would be killed by the Headhunter, leaving only Elliot, Vincent, and Vanessa in the Nightray house. Elliot's mother fell into a deep depression as a result, and started spending most of her time with a foreigner named Isla Yura.
Oz, in fact, is the main character of this story. And Elliot himself - along with Leo, of course, constantly at his side - ran into him at boarding school, where Oz had come to visit his sister, Ada (two years Elliot's senior and thus - due to the strange way time works in the Abyss - her own elder brother's senior by three years). Specifically, Oz, his uncle Oscar, Gilbert, and Oz's strange human-formed Chain, Alice, all snuck in. Posing as students.
This has the result of Elliot yelling at Gilbert for being a twenty-four-year-old man in a school uniform, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
So, Oz appears in the library, and Elliot, not realizing this kid is ten years out of date, proceeds to spoil their mutual favorite book series and then get in a fight with him about it. Leo breaks up the fight, scolding Elliot for asking someone's opinion just to give his own. Oz leaves with Ada without introducing himself, but after Leo (correctly) fingers Oz as one of the intruders causing a ruckus around the school.
Not long after, Elliot and Leo come across Ada, unconscious in a hallway, sans Oz. One of Ada's cats leads them into a secret passage beneath the school, where Oz is held prisoner by a group of people in red cloaks called Baskervilles. Elliot confronts the Baskervilles, loudly announcing his identity and drawing his sword, but before much in the way of actual combat happens, the three teenagers escape down a side passage. There, Elliot gives Oz a lecture about the selfishness of self-sacrifice and then the three barely escape from the Chain of one of the Baskervilles (a woman with pink hair called Lottie).
The passage eventually leads them out into the forest near the school, where Oz asks about a piece of music he'd overheard Elliot playing on the piano earlier. Elliot claims authorship of "Lacie," much to Oz's confusion, given that he owns a hundred-year-old pocketwatch that plays the same melody. It's only when they return to the school that Gilbert blurts out Oz's identity as a member of the hated Vessalius household. Elliot yells at his adoptive brother and Oz in succession and then walks off, leaving Leo to make apologies for him and then follow behind. Leo asks why Elliot claimed ownership of "Lacie," since it was actually his composition, given to Elliot as proof of their friendship. Elliot has no idea what he's talking about.
The next time the duo meet Oz (Elliot goes basically nowhere without Leo) is in the ruins of Sablier, near to the crater left behind by the attempt to drop the city into the Abyss. A boy named Phillippe, an orphan of the House of Fianna, attempts to pickpocket Oz, and the resulting ruckus brings Elliot and Oz to each others' attention. Oz greets Elliot extremely cheerfully. Elliot is having none of this. The group (Elliot, Leo, Oz, Gil, and Alice) move the conversation to the House of Fianna, where Elliot and Leo drop some exposition about it and the state of Sablier in general.
Oz and company leave and proceed back down into the Sablier crater, becoming separated in the process. Elliot and Leo refuse to wait for Pandora aid before chasing them down, and run into Oz, who is wielding a massive bloody scythe against the mutated bodies of those lost in the Tragedy (capital T) and greets them with his usual chipper expression. Elliot yells at him. Gilbert shows up. Elliot yells at Gilbert. You'll notice a pattern in his life.
While they're down there, Zai Vessalius, Oz's father and the younger brother of Duke Oscar Vessalius, arrives, carrying a message from Elliot's father (too physically frail to enter the crater). Elliot demands to know why Zai is speaking to him, a member of the Nightray house, rather than his own son who is standing right there. Zai says something along the lines of "that thing is not my son" and leaves. Gil follows Zai, leaving Elliot and Leo to deal with Oz until Pandora arrives. The two groups split aways again at that point.
A short time later, Oz is investigating something for Pandora, and the people guarding the seal he was investigating are killed... By having their heads cut off, the first movement of the Headhunter in some time and the first time the assassin has moved against someone disconnected from the Nightray house. Elliot shows up at Pandora (neutral ground between the feuding families) after escaping his bodyguards and demands to talk to Oz about the matter, but Oz can't really give him any new information about the Headhunter. The only item of note is a symbol of a snake wrapped around a stake (affiliated with the people guarding the seal), which Elliot recognizes from somewhere but cannot place.
Afterwards, Oscar Vessalius throws a tea party on the Pandora grounds, which Elliot and Leo are dragged along to. At the party, Oz proposes to Elliot that, as friends, the two of them repair the relationship between their houses. Elliot agrees. Then Oscar takes a picture of virtually all the major Oz-aligned characters. When Elliot returns home, Isla Yura is visiting his mother, and Elliot is able to place where he's seen the snake-and-stake before - the symbol of Yura's cult, on a pendant hung around the man's neck.
The information is communicated to Oz, and with some help from Duke Barma, they are able to arrange for Oz's formal presentation to society to be held at Isla Yura's mansion in order to give Pandora a chance to investigate it. Elliot, of course, attends as both Oz's friend and a member of noble society, along with Leo and all his living siblings. The party continues for a while, Elliot and Leo becoming separated at one point that happens to coincide with Oz's group losing track of the suspicious Yura.
...Yeah, you can probably guess where this is going. Elliot and Oz find Leo having a talk with Yura, and Elliot (feeling that Yura is responsible for the emotional loss of his mother even if she's still alive) gets angry about Leo not telling him things. Surprisingly, Leo gets angry right back rather than being the one to keep his cool - and Leo's temper, astoundingly, is even worse than Elliot's. He throws two chairs and a table at Elliot, and then the two stalk off in separate directions. Gilbert follows Elliot and Oz follows Leo, and exposition is dumped.
At that point, disaster begins to strike at the party. A number of Pandora agents are killed exploring the lower reaches of the house - one, Reim, is captured by the Baskervilles. Children wearing the signature red cloaks of the Baskervilles appear. And Vanessa's personal servant, Hans, is beheaded in the center of the ballroom. Chaos explodes. Vanessa runs up the stairs in search of Elliot, and is beheaded before his eyes.
Barely after her head hits the ground, Xerxes Break grabs a hold of Elliot from behind and accuses him of being the Headhunter. Gilbert, also arriving, protests this as much as Elliot does. Break explains about the core contractor of Humpty Dumpty, and how his power (the Chain Mad Hatter, which has the power to destroy other Chains) will be able to suppress Humpty Dumpty for all contractors as long as Break has a hold on the core. Break demands Gilbert open Elliot's shirt to find out if there's a seal or not, but before any such action can be taken, someone else is beheaded.
Break releases Elliot, and he and Gilbert go after the Headhunter again. Elliot, left alone, opens his shirt and inspects his chest. Catching up with Gilbert, he tells his brother that there is no seal. By this time, Break has run off to get revenge for apparently-dead Reim against the Baskervilles (that's someone else's subplot), and Oz, Alice, and Leo have been captured by Yura's cult, which intends to use them to attempt to recreate the Tragedy. Elliot and Gilbert join up with Vincent and plot a rescue.
They find and free Oz, and Gilbert runs off to go save Break's rear (it's his subplot, apparently). Oz gets ready to go save Alice while Elliot goes to find Leo, and Vincent stays in a place where he can watch and be backup. The children of the House of Fianna, who Yura brought to be actors in his "play" of the Tragedy of Sablier, begin to manifest the secondary-contractor-version of Humpty Dumpty.
Elliot finds the unconscious Leo on an altar, and standing over him with a sacrificial knife is Elliot's own mother. She babbles the beliefs of her cult at her son, telling him that it's fine if his sister is dead, because they will all be reunited in the Abyss shortly, as soon as they have Oz kill Leo to fulfill the condition of "Jack Vessalius killing a friend" in the repeat of Sablier.
(Oz is the reincarnation of Jack. Sort of. It's way too complicated and mostly not relevant to Elliot's history. This canon is a mess, sorry.)
Something snaps. That something is Elliot, who comes back to sense standing with his sword through his mother's throat. A voice whispers from somewhere inside him that it'll be okay, he can just forget, the voice will take the memories away. This time, Elliot fights against it, ramming his sword through his own hand, and remembers.
His two elder brothers, after the first Headhunter incident, talking about killing Gilbert and Vincent in a way that mimics the Headhunter. Talking about killing Leo that way, too, saying that they should be grateful, because to be killed by the Headhunter is to be acknowledged as a member of the Nightray family. His brothers, lying dead at Elliot's feet by his hand, and the Chain hovering over Elliot flicking out its tongue and cutting off their heads.
Vanessa, coming up the stairs to find him, and when Elliot refuses to leave without Leo, making a callous comment about how if Leo dies, they can find him a better servant. Off with her head. Sitting against the railing after Break and Gilbert ran off, opening his shirt and seeing the illegal contractor's seal, already three-quarters advanced, and his memory warping around it until he forgets what he saw, because it's too painful.
The crater, at Sablier. Chasing after lost children with Leo; finding their corpses. The third child, who contracted with Humpty Dumpty, and the Chain manifesting above him. Elliot charging the Chain with sword drawn, and the Chain in turn attacking Elliot, thinking he's a threat to Leo. Because Humpty Dumpty is a Chain made from the body of a previous Glen Baskerville, and so is driven to protect the next Glen - a man whose soul has reincarnated in a booy with messy black hair, who wears glasses to hide from the lights of the Abyss that all Glens see.
Elliot, laying on the ground from his injuries, bleeding and dying, except that Leo takes some of Humpty Dumpty's blood and puts it to his lips, forces Elliot to speak the name of the Chain, and so Elliot becomes an illegal contractor. He forgets. The Chain is offered to all of the children of the House of Fianna, who in turn forget all their traumatic memories. Elliot is left with nothing but a hair-trigger compulsion to protect Leo, at all costs.
A vision of Oz, right now, below him, the scythe that should belong to the Chain B-Rabbit (otherwise called Alice) cutting through the Humpties summoned by the children. Just forget. A Baskerville destroys the seal, causing all of the Chains in the area to go berserk, including the manifested Humpty Dumpty.
Vincent appears in the doorway, and offers Elliot a choice - because the seal has advanced so far, when Humpty Dumpty is destroyed, Elliot will die with it. Elliot can wait for Oz to kill his Chain, or he can let Vincent strike him down mercifully now. Elliot takes a third option.
"Humpty Dumpty, I reject you."
The Humpties surrounding Oz dissolve into fragments, and Elliot, lying bloody on the floor, has only enough life left to leave his last words with Vincent - "I'm sorry, Leo." Everyone else becomes aware of his death by Leo's scream of anguish into the chest of Elliot's corpse.
And that is the last of Elliot Nightray.
CANON PERSONALITY: Elliot Nightray is an incredibly straightforward, noble-minded person in a canon full of secrets, schemers, and backstabbers. No wonder he seems to be frustrated at all times. He's stubborn and loud and would probably get himself into serious trouble with his strong opinions if Leo wasn't around to rein him in.
Indeed, Elliot chose Leo as his servant specifically because he didn't want to deal with schemers all around him. His reasoning for choosing Leo - a particularly unkept commoner - is that he wanted "someone he could talk to openly." That is to say, someone without a political agenda of their own, the way the lesser nobility his family would have preferred him to take on would have had. The two of them quickly became an unbreakable partnership once Leo had actually accepted Elliot's offer, but it was only due to Elliot's persistant, stubborn presence that the offer happened at all.
His stubbornness doesn't last forever, though. Elliot is willing to see logic when it's shown to him, he accepts Leo's scoldings without too much trouble, and he's willing to get over his Thing against the Vessalius family when Oz repeatedly pesters him with friendship. His stubbornness is mostly a matter of pride - pride of being nobility, of being in the Nightray family, and of simply being Elliot.
And Elliot takes a lot of pride in his family. This shows itself keenly in his rejection of the Vessaliuses due to the feud (which, to be fair, was started by the Vessalius side, thanks Jack) and the way he carries his Nightray sword with him everywhere, even to completely illogical places like "around school grounds" and "to a Pandora tea party." (The sword is basically his security blanket.) The things that make him the most angry tend to have to do with his family pride - most of the times he yells at Gilbert are because Elliot doesn't think Gilbert has enough of it.
Elliot cares deeply about his family, including his adopted brothers, which is noteworthy and unique in regard to the rest of the family's treatment of Gilbert and Vincent. As far as he is concerned, they aren't any different from his blood brothers, and he holds them to the same standards. Thus he feels betrayed by Gilbert's decision to leave and hang around Oz Vessalius instead - especially because Gilbert is important to the household as the contractor of Raven. This applies even more so now that they're his only living brothers, and Elliot worries about Gilbert especially because he's outside the protection of the household and is, frankly, kind of a wimp.
Elliot hides a lot of things under his brash exterior, including the fact that he worries and cares about people. His primary way of caring is still getting angry, but it's an anger at wrongs done to the people he cares about (example: when he tells off Zai Vessalius in Sablier) or when he thinks they're making a mistake (his lecture to Oz about the selfishness of self-sacrifice the first time they meet). And he cares fairly easily, being willing to rescue Oz without even knowing the boy's name and knowing that the Baskervilles were a potentially deadly threat.
In fact, Elliot seems to not really have a sense of danger at all, or if he does, he's constantly ignoring it because other people are at risk. (Ironic, given that this is the exact thing he lectured Oz about.) He takes Leo and rushes in Sablier when he hears children are in danger, and when Oz and company just might be in danger, even though it probably wouldn't be a long wait for agents from Pandora to arrive. When he hears about the first Headhunter attack, he declares that he's going to kill the assassin himself (fate has a very fine sense of irony where Elliot is concerned), then slips free of his bodyguards later in order to question Oz about it. He's also the only non-contractor to be a part of the attempted rescue at Yura's mansion (at least, as far as he knows) and seems completely unconcerned by that fact.
Secretly, Elliot is also a bit of a fanboy. He's got three main interests - the novel series Holy Knight (which he'll talk about at the slightest indication of interest on the other person's part; he cosplays it in an omake), Xerxes Break (a one-eyed swordsman who serves the Rainsworth house under Pandora; Elliot gushes about being defeated by him when it was basically child's play for Break), and cats. The latter is especially embarrassing to him, as the entire rest of his family likes dogs (Gilbert in fact has a phobia of cats) and cats are more commonly associated with the Vessalius family.
He has a gentler side, but it doesn't come out too often, usually only when he's truly content (for example, his acceptance of Oz's offer to change their houses at the Pandora tea party). Elliot makes his displeasure known loudly, but his happiness is much quieter, and somewhat more awkward, such as when he, on a whim, gives the melody Statice to Leo as a gift of their friendship. (He also dotes on Ada Vessalius' two cats, when he thinks no one is watching.)
He also has a more thoughtful side, and tends to hide his troubles, especially the nightmares that are the result of the memories that Humpty Dumpty has repressed. It's just in the heat of the moment that Elliot has trouble considering things fully; take him away from the situation and he's likely to acknowledge what and where he's gone wrong. Leo's scolding serves this purpose as well, taking Elliot's temper down a notch immediately, though Elliot is somewhat resentful about admitting where he's screwed up before he's calmed down completely.
A note on Humpty Dumpty and Elliot's temper: Though Elliot's anger can make him somewhat violent, it's not violence that's truly intended to hurt - he'll punch and slap, but more to make a point than anything. Under the influence of Humpty Dumpty, however, Elliot reacts with true, extreme violence to anyone who threatens Leo, even in passing.
And a final cultural note: Pandora Hearts takes place in a psuedo-Victorian hodgepodge of England and France, and Elliot has a lot of social mores appropriate to that time period. Elliot being Elliot, he has strong opinions on propriety that presumably include the distinct sexism and homophobia of the time period, prudish and uptight notions about sex and how much skin is appropriate to show, and so on. It's not you, it's him.
ABILITIES: As far as Elliot is aware, he is a perfectly normal person, with a normal set of skills for his status and age. His primary noteworthy skills are swordfighting (which he's not a slouch at but he's no prodigy, either, landing somewhat ahead of the curve for his age but soundly average overall) and his skill at the piano, which is quite excellent and includes original composition (which he's quite practiced at after several years).
Oh, and yelling surprisingly wise things at people when he's angry, if you count that as a skill.
The reality is a bit more sinister; several months prior to his canon point, Elliot formed a blood-magic contract with a Chain (an entity of the Abyss that's half minor-cosmic-horror and half weird-thing-to-do-with-a-dead-body-isn't-it) called Humpty Dumpty. As an illegal contractor (that is, one who consumed the blood of the Chain directly rather than using a contract mirror as a proxy), Elliot has a seal on his chest that counts down the time until he will be dragged into the Abyss, where he would presumably die and become a Chain himself.
Most Chains are used for combat, and Humpty Dumpty is no slouch in this department; it is an unnerving orb of a face with an impossibly long, sharp tongue that can decapitate humans without too much effort (bottom panel here). Like many Chains, Humpty Dumpty also possesses unique abilities.
The first: Unlike other Chains, Humpty Dumpty can have multiple contractors at a single time. These secondary contractors alleviate the burden on the core contractor (in this case, Elliot), causing the needle of the clock-shaped seal to move more slowly. These seconadry contractors can summon color-inverted versions of Humpty Dumpty with the same physical combat abilities as the original. If the core contractor is in a situation where Humpty Dumpty cannot be summoned, however, none of the secondary contractors can summon it, either.
The second: Humpty Dumpty has the power to repress memories. Specifically, it represses all of the major negative and traumatic memories of its contractors. In Elliot's case, these memories are those of murdering his immediate family (specifically, two of his elder brothers, and eventually his sister and mother); these murders were, themselves, driven by Humpty Dumpty's drive to protect the current host of Glen Baskerville - Elliot's servant, Leo.
Note that in Elliot's specific case, the memory of making the contract is one of the repressed memories; therefore, he has no knowledge that he possesses Humpty Dumpty except when actively using the Chain, and will lose any related memories shortly thereafter. This extends even to the seal on his chest, which is edited out of his own memories any time it would be visible (when the power of the Chain is used, or permanently after it ticks back to twelve-o-clock).
Lastly, as an illegal contractor's seal moves forward, they become more closely tied to their Chain. Elliot's seal, at three quarters/nine-o-clock, is far enough advanced that injuries to Humpty Dumpty are reflected on on him, and killing the Chain would also mean Elliot's death (though not, inherently, vice-versa; if Elliot were to die, Humpty Dumpty would be destroyed not from the loss of its contractor directly but because Chains, without a contractor, cannot survive long periods in the real world). Technically, Elliot should be drawn into the Abyss when the needle finishes its revolution, but since he'll be outside of his world, that rule probably doesn't apply.
INVENTORY; Clothes (Victorian young men's casual, ie Formal For Literally Anyone Else; mostly black, white undershirt, blue tie). Nightray house heirloom sword (slim blade, complex/elegant crossguard, entirely black) with scabbard, kept in peak condition. Small compositon notebook, musical ruling, approximately 1/3 filled. A change of earrings, tucked into a side pocket of his coat, just in case he loses one of his current pair.
Humpty Dumpty is internal to Elliot's body and usually dormant; I'm including the Chain here for completion's sake and because characters with supernatural perceptions may be able to notice it.
It's also of note that Elliot's sword is the "Key" that allows contracts to be formed at the Nightray House gate to the Abyss. Elliot himself is not aware of this quality; he's simply protective of the sword as a family heirloom that was entrusted to him.
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE: Snatches an old TDM
PROSE SAMPLE:
The familiar Nightray carriage rattled along down the road towards Isla Yura's mansion, a path it had taken a number of times, but never with these occupants. Usually it was Elliot's mother who rode down to the foreigner's, attracted by whatever had drawn her into his strange cult (and with her, prestige and money). This time, in contrast, the carriage was packed full with Elliot, two of his siblings, and Leo. The evening was clear, so Vincent and Vanessa's servants were riding on the outside, Hans up front with the driver and Echo serving as a lookout out the back.
Leo was the only one of the household servants who rode inside the carriages with his master with any regularity. Usually Vanessa would object to it - Vincent didn't seem to care much either way about Leo, which Elliot was secretly grateful for - but in this case, Leo had also been extended an invitation, as a personal friend of Oz Vessalius, who would be formally presented to society this evening. Leo, as usual, didn't seem to care one way or the other for family politics, and was buried deeply in a thick book from the Nightray library. The bumps of the carriage sent his thick hair swaying, but aside from that and occasional murmurs of commentary and the flick of turned pages, Leo might as well have been a statue on the other end of the seat he shared with Elliot.
Across from them were his siblings, both being equally their usual selves. Vincent was leaning against his wall of the carriage, eyes half-closed and seemingly daydreaming. Vanessa was sitting upright, directly across from Elliot, as far down the seat from Vincent as she was able without being obvious about it. Elliot had made an annoyed huff at her when he first noticed, but no matter what he did, it seemed impossible to repair things between his sister and their adopted brothers, and it frustrated Elliot no end. Sure, Vincent had been a kind of creepy kid (if Elliot was completely honest, he was a kind of creepy adult sometimes), but in Elliot's view, that didn't justify at all the way he and Gilbert had been treated by the rest of the family.
Not wanting to watch the standoff between his siblings any longer, and not stupid enough to disturb Leo while he was reading, Elliot wound up staring out the window as various other noble properties passed by. His sister's voice eventually interrupted his thoughts. "Elliot?"
A little startled, Elliot turned away from the window to look at her. Vanessa's attention was on him; neither Vincent nor Leo seemed to have moved beyond breathing (and, of course, turning pages at a rapid clip). "What is it?"
"What do you think of Oz Vessalius?"
It was quiet for a moment, like the brief time between the flash of lightning when everyone is waiting for the thunder to sound. The only noise was the faint whisk of a page turning. Then Elliot opened his mouth.
"Oz vessalius? He's an idiot! He acts bright and cheerful even at ludicrous times so that no one will worry about him! He hasn't been introduced to society, but he doesn't even seem to care! He spends all his time running around Pandora with Gilbert and this weird girl who does nothing but eat meat all the time!" At Gilbert's name, Vincent's eyes flicked towards Elliot (who was now standing in the middle of the carriage), though he didn't otherwise move. "He's constantly dragging people into things without concern for how they might feel, and then he just smiles like that's all he has to do to get them out of it! And don't get me started on his opinions about Holy Knight - "
"Elliot." At the voice of his servant, Elliot's back stiffened slightly, his muscles going tense just in case he'd managed to annoy Leo into throwing the book at him. Thankfully, the dark-haired boy settled for a simple "That's enough," and ducked back behind his book.
Embarrassed at having been caught getting scolded by Leo in front of his siblings, Elliot sat back down. "He's okay, I guess. For a Vessalius."
From Elliot, it was practically high praise. Vanessa gave him a confused look, but Elliot thought he could see Vincent smiling, just a little.
NAME: Nai
AGE: 23
PLAYER JOURNAL:
starcrossed_sky but RARELY IF EVER usedTIMEZONE: PST
CONTACT: plurk @ starcrossedsky, AIM @ starcrossedskyy, Skype @ starcrossedsky
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: [NOPE]
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Elliot Nightray
CANON: Pandora Hearts
POINT IN CANON: After the tea party in "Unbirthday" but before Oz's presentation ceremony (specifically, just prior to the latter)
AGE: 16
APPEARANCE: Elliot is a young man of moderate height (~5'8) with short-and-messily-cut ash blond hair, blue eyes, and a small mole under the corner of his left eye. He dresses well - usually in his school uniform (first image) or the black clothes that are most common for members of the Nightray family - according to the fashions of his world, which are roughly Victorian. His ears are pierced - both lobes, small gemstone studs - and he can almost always be seen carrying his family sword, a slim black blade with a complex crossguard.
CANON HISTORY: Elliot was the fourth son, and fifth child overall, born to the current Duke Nightray and his wife, Bernice. Elliot is significantly younger than most of his blood siblings - his brothers all seem to be at least late teens to young adults when he was a small child, and his sister, Vanessa, is also at least a few years his elder. When he was six years old, he gained two strange, new, elder brothers by adoption in fairly rapid succession - first the younger, Vincent, and then the elder, Gilbert, who had been living as a servant in the house of rival dukedom Vessalius.
The arrival of Gilbert and Vincent was the first somewhat unusual happening in Elliot's life. Elliot was warned away from the two by his elders brothers, for no reason he could understand - and so, because he didn't understand it, Elliot treated them the same as any other older siblings, even given that neither of them was anything like what his upbringing told him Nightrays should be like (Gilbert, being timid and mild to the point of outright fearful at times; Vincent, being pretty damn creepy even as a prepubescent teen).
Some years later, Elliot, then fourteen, would be taken on a journey to the House of Fianna (the Nightray-run orphanage for those children left behind by illegal contractors) by two of his brothers, and there meet a messy boy named Leo. Leo was different from every person Elliot had met up to that point. Leo didn't give a singular damn that Elliot was from a noble family; he simply wanted to read books, play piano, and be left alone behind the ragged curtain of hair that hung in front of his eyes. Elliot became determined to have Leo, rather than any of the minor nobility, for his manservant, and Leo eventually accepted for the price of a pair of thick glasses that even further shielded him from the world.
Not long after that, Gilbert would obtain the power of the Abyss that was supposed to be reserved for the Nightray house - the Chain Raven, a skeleton bird with black feathered wings that has various powers related to bindings (Chains are entities of the Abyss that can't survive in the normal world without a contractor) - and, not long after, would be poisoned near-fatally by an unknown assassin. A few weeks later, one of Elliot's brothers and his maternal uncle would be violently decapitated by someone know only as the Headhunter (so called for their signature method of dispatching their victims, by means of a Chain that was code-named the Queen of Hearts by the organization Pandora).
A few months before Elliot appears in the story, Gilbert runs away from the Nightray house. Elliot grows angry at his adopted brother and blames it on Gilbert's fear of the Headhunter, but in reality, Gilbert left in order to locate and once again serve the boy who had been his master ten years prior in the Vessalius household, Oz. Around this time, Elliot and Leo, in the ruined capital Sablier, pursued several lost children from the House of Fianna into the Abyss crater. Elliot, embarrassingly, hit his head in the process and both he and the children had to be recovered by Leo and Pandora agents. Soon after, Elliot's remaining two blood brothers would be killed by the Headhunter, leaving only Elliot, Vincent, and Vanessa in the Nightray house. Elliot's mother fell into a deep depression as a result, and started spending most of her time with a foreigner named Isla Yura.
Oz, in fact, is the main character of this story. And Elliot himself - along with Leo, of course, constantly at his side - ran into him at boarding school, where Oz had come to visit his sister, Ada (two years Elliot's senior and thus - due to the strange way time works in the Abyss - her own elder brother's senior by three years). Specifically, Oz, his uncle Oscar, Gilbert, and Oz's strange human-formed Chain, Alice, all snuck in. Posing as students.
This has the result of Elliot yelling at Gilbert for being a twenty-four-year-old man in a school uniform, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
So, Oz appears in the library, and Elliot, not realizing this kid is ten years out of date, proceeds to spoil their mutual favorite book series and then get in a fight with him about it. Leo breaks up the fight, scolding Elliot for asking someone's opinion just to give his own. Oz leaves with Ada without introducing himself, but after Leo (correctly) fingers Oz as one of the intruders causing a ruckus around the school.
Not long after, Elliot and Leo come across Ada, unconscious in a hallway, sans Oz. One of Ada's cats leads them into a secret passage beneath the school, where Oz is held prisoner by a group of people in red cloaks called Baskervilles. Elliot confronts the Baskervilles, loudly announcing his identity and drawing his sword, but before much in the way of actual combat happens, the three teenagers escape down a side passage. There, Elliot gives Oz a lecture about the selfishness of self-sacrifice and then the three barely escape from the Chain of one of the Baskervilles (a woman with pink hair called Lottie).
The passage eventually leads them out into the forest near the school, where Oz asks about a piece of music he'd overheard Elliot playing on the piano earlier. Elliot claims authorship of "Lacie," much to Oz's confusion, given that he owns a hundred-year-old pocketwatch that plays the same melody. It's only when they return to the school that Gilbert blurts out Oz's identity as a member of the hated Vessalius household. Elliot yells at his adoptive brother and Oz in succession and then walks off, leaving Leo to make apologies for him and then follow behind. Leo asks why Elliot claimed ownership of "Lacie," since it was actually his composition, given to Elliot as proof of their friendship. Elliot has no idea what he's talking about.
The next time the duo meet Oz (Elliot goes basically nowhere without Leo) is in the ruins of Sablier, near to the crater left behind by the attempt to drop the city into the Abyss. A boy named Phillippe, an orphan of the House of Fianna, attempts to pickpocket Oz, and the resulting ruckus brings Elliot and Oz to each others' attention. Oz greets Elliot extremely cheerfully. Elliot is having none of this. The group (Elliot, Leo, Oz, Gil, and Alice) move the conversation to the House of Fianna, where Elliot and Leo drop some exposition about it and the state of Sablier in general.
Oz and company leave and proceed back down into the Sablier crater, becoming separated in the process. Elliot and Leo refuse to wait for Pandora aid before chasing them down, and run into Oz, who is wielding a massive bloody scythe against the mutated bodies of those lost in the Tragedy (capital T) and greets them with his usual chipper expression. Elliot yells at him. Gilbert shows up. Elliot yells at Gilbert. You'll notice a pattern in his life.
While they're down there, Zai Vessalius, Oz's father and the younger brother of Duke Oscar Vessalius, arrives, carrying a message from Elliot's father (too physically frail to enter the crater). Elliot demands to know why Zai is speaking to him, a member of the Nightray house, rather than his own son who is standing right there. Zai says something along the lines of "that thing is not my son" and leaves. Gil follows Zai, leaving Elliot and Leo to deal with Oz until Pandora arrives. The two groups split aways again at that point.
A short time later, Oz is investigating something for Pandora, and the people guarding the seal he was investigating are killed... By having their heads cut off, the first movement of the Headhunter in some time and the first time the assassin has moved against someone disconnected from the Nightray house. Elliot shows up at Pandora (neutral ground between the feuding families) after escaping his bodyguards and demands to talk to Oz about the matter, but Oz can't really give him any new information about the Headhunter. The only item of note is a symbol of a snake wrapped around a stake (affiliated with the people guarding the seal), which Elliot recognizes from somewhere but cannot place.
Afterwards, Oscar Vessalius throws a tea party on the Pandora grounds, which Elliot and Leo are dragged along to. At the party, Oz proposes to Elliot that, as friends, the two of them repair the relationship between their houses. Elliot agrees. Then Oscar takes a picture of virtually all the major Oz-aligned characters. When Elliot returns home, Isla Yura is visiting his mother, and Elliot is able to place where he's seen the snake-and-stake before - the symbol of Yura's cult, on a pendant hung around the man's neck.
The information is communicated to Oz, and with some help from Duke Barma, they are able to arrange for Oz's formal presentation to society to be held at Isla Yura's mansion in order to give Pandora a chance to investigate it. Elliot, of course, attends as both Oz's friend and a member of noble society, along with Leo and all his living siblings. The party continues for a while, Elliot and Leo becoming separated at one point that happens to coincide with Oz's group losing track of the suspicious Yura.
...Yeah, you can probably guess where this is going. Elliot and Oz find Leo having a talk with Yura, and Elliot (feeling that Yura is responsible for the emotional loss of his mother even if she's still alive) gets angry about Leo not telling him things. Surprisingly, Leo gets angry right back rather than being the one to keep his cool - and Leo's temper, astoundingly, is even worse than Elliot's. He throws two chairs and a table at Elliot, and then the two stalk off in separate directions. Gilbert follows Elliot and Oz follows Leo, and exposition is dumped.
At that point, disaster begins to strike at the party. A number of Pandora agents are killed exploring the lower reaches of the house - one, Reim, is captured by the Baskervilles. Children wearing the signature red cloaks of the Baskervilles appear. And Vanessa's personal servant, Hans, is beheaded in the center of the ballroom. Chaos explodes. Vanessa runs up the stairs in search of Elliot, and is beheaded before his eyes.
Barely after her head hits the ground, Xerxes Break grabs a hold of Elliot from behind and accuses him of being the Headhunter. Gilbert, also arriving, protests this as much as Elliot does. Break explains about the core contractor of Humpty Dumpty, and how his power (the Chain Mad Hatter, which has the power to destroy other Chains) will be able to suppress Humpty Dumpty for all contractors as long as Break has a hold on the core. Break demands Gilbert open Elliot's shirt to find out if there's a seal or not, but before any such action can be taken, someone else is beheaded.
Break releases Elliot, and he and Gilbert go after the Headhunter again. Elliot, left alone, opens his shirt and inspects his chest. Catching up with Gilbert, he tells his brother that there is no seal. By this time, Break has run off to get revenge for apparently-dead Reim against the Baskervilles (that's someone else's subplot), and Oz, Alice, and Leo have been captured by Yura's cult, which intends to use them to attempt to recreate the Tragedy. Elliot and Gilbert join up with Vincent and plot a rescue.
They find and free Oz, and Gilbert runs off to go save Break's rear (it's his subplot, apparently). Oz gets ready to go save Alice while Elliot goes to find Leo, and Vincent stays in a place where he can watch and be backup. The children of the House of Fianna, who Yura brought to be actors in his "play" of the Tragedy of Sablier, begin to manifest the secondary-contractor-version of Humpty Dumpty.
Elliot finds the unconscious Leo on an altar, and standing over him with a sacrificial knife is Elliot's own mother. She babbles the beliefs of her cult at her son, telling him that it's fine if his sister is dead, because they will all be reunited in the Abyss shortly, as soon as they have Oz kill Leo to fulfill the condition of "Jack Vessalius killing a friend" in the repeat of Sablier.
(Oz is the reincarnation of Jack. Sort of. It's way too complicated and mostly not relevant to Elliot's history. This canon is a mess, sorry.)
Something snaps. That something is Elliot, who comes back to sense standing with his sword through his mother's throat. A voice whispers from somewhere inside him that it'll be okay, he can just forget, the voice will take the memories away. This time, Elliot fights against it, ramming his sword through his own hand, and remembers.
His two elder brothers, after the first Headhunter incident, talking about killing Gilbert and Vincent in a way that mimics the Headhunter. Talking about killing Leo that way, too, saying that they should be grateful, because to be killed by the Headhunter is to be acknowledged as a member of the Nightray family. His brothers, lying dead at Elliot's feet by his hand, and the Chain hovering over Elliot flicking out its tongue and cutting off their heads.
Vanessa, coming up the stairs to find him, and when Elliot refuses to leave without Leo, making a callous comment about how if Leo dies, they can find him a better servant. Off with her head. Sitting against the railing after Break and Gilbert ran off, opening his shirt and seeing the illegal contractor's seal, already three-quarters advanced, and his memory warping around it until he forgets what he saw, because it's too painful.
The crater, at Sablier. Chasing after lost children with Leo; finding their corpses. The third child, who contracted with Humpty Dumpty, and the Chain manifesting above him. Elliot charging the Chain with sword drawn, and the Chain in turn attacking Elliot, thinking he's a threat to Leo. Because Humpty Dumpty is a Chain made from the body of a previous Glen Baskerville, and so is driven to protect the next Glen - a man whose soul has reincarnated in a booy with messy black hair, who wears glasses to hide from the lights of the Abyss that all Glens see.
Elliot, laying on the ground from his injuries, bleeding and dying, except that Leo takes some of Humpty Dumpty's blood and puts it to his lips, forces Elliot to speak the name of the Chain, and so Elliot becomes an illegal contractor. He forgets. The Chain is offered to all of the children of the House of Fianna, who in turn forget all their traumatic memories. Elliot is left with nothing but a hair-trigger compulsion to protect Leo, at all costs.
A vision of Oz, right now, below him, the scythe that should belong to the Chain B-Rabbit (otherwise called Alice) cutting through the Humpties summoned by the children. Just forget. A Baskerville destroys the seal, causing all of the Chains in the area to go berserk, including the manifested Humpty Dumpty.
Vincent appears in the doorway, and offers Elliot a choice - because the seal has advanced so far, when Humpty Dumpty is destroyed, Elliot will die with it. Elliot can wait for Oz to kill his Chain, or he can let Vincent strike him down mercifully now. Elliot takes a third option.
"Humpty Dumpty, I reject you."
The Humpties surrounding Oz dissolve into fragments, and Elliot, lying bloody on the floor, has only enough life left to leave his last words with Vincent - "I'm sorry, Leo." Everyone else becomes aware of his death by Leo's scream of anguish into the chest of Elliot's corpse.
And that is the last of Elliot Nightray.
CANON PERSONALITY: Elliot Nightray is an incredibly straightforward, noble-minded person in a canon full of secrets, schemers, and backstabbers. No wonder he seems to be frustrated at all times. He's stubborn and loud and would probably get himself into serious trouble with his strong opinions if Leo wasn't around to rein him in.
Indeed, Elliot chose Leo as his servant specifically because he didn't want to deal with schemers all around him. His reasoning for choosing Leo - a particularly unkept commoner - is that he wanted "someone he could talk to openly." That is to say, someone without a political agenda of their own, the way the lesser nobility his family would have preferred him to take on would have had. The two of them quickly became an unbreakable partnership once Leo had actually accepted Elliot's offer, but it was only due to Elliot's persistant, stubborn presence that the offer happened at all.
His stubbornness doesn't last forever, though. Elliot is willing to see logic when it's shown to him, he accepts Leo's scoldings without too much trouble, and he's willing to get over his Thing against the Vessalius family when Oz repeatedly pesters him with friendship. His stubbornness is mostly a matter of pride - pride of being nobility, of being in the Nightray family, and of simply being Elliot.
And Elliot takes a lot of pride in his family. This shows itself keenly in his rejection of the Vessaliuses due to the feud (which, to be fair, was started by the Vessalius side, thanks Jack) and the way he carries his Nightray sword with him everywhere, even to completely illogical places like "around school grounds" and "to a Pandora tea party." (The sword is basically his security blanket.) The things that make him the most angry tend to have to do with his family pride - most of the times he yells at Gilbert are because Elliot doesn't think Gilbert has enough of it.
Elliot cares deeply about his family, including his adopted brothers, which is noteworthy and unique in regard to the rest of the family's treatment of Gilbert and Vincent. As far as he is concerned, they aren't any different from his blood brothers, and he holds them to the same standards. Thus he feels betrayed by Gilbert's decision to leave and hang around Oz Vessalius instead - especially because Gilbert is important to the household as the contractor of Raven. This applies even more so now that they're his only living brothers, and Elliot worries about Gilbert especially because he's outside the protection of the household and is, frankly, kind of a wimp.
Elliot hides a lot of things under his brash exterior, including the fact that he worries and cares about people. His primary way of caring is still getting angry, but it's an anger at wrongs done to the people he cares about (example: when he tells off Zai Vessalius in Sablier) or when he thinks they're making a mistake (his lecture to Oz about the selfishness of self-sacrifice the first time they meet). And he cares fairly easily, being willing to rescue Oz without even knowing the boy's name and knowing that the Baskervilles were a potentially deadly threat.
In fact, Elliot seems to not really have a sense of danger at all, or if he does, he's constantly ignoring it because other people are at risk. (Ironic, given that this is the exact thing he lectured Oz about.) He takes Leo and rushes in Sablier when he hears children are in danger, and when Oz and company just might be in danger, even though it probably wouldn't be a long wait for agents from Pandora to arrive. When he hears about the first Headhunter attack, he declares that he's going to kill the assassin himself (fate has a very fine sense of irony where Elliot is concerned), then slips free of his bodyguards later in order to question Oz about it. He's also the only non-contractor to be a part of the attempted rescue at Yura's mansion (at least, as far as he knows) and seems completely unconcerned by that fact.
Secretly, Elliot is also a bit of a fanboy. He's got three main interests - the novel series Holy Knight (which he'll talk about at the slightest indication of interest on the other person's part; he cosplays it in an omake), Xerxes Break (a one-eyed swordsman who serves the Rainsworth house under Pandora; Elliot gushes about being defeated by him when it was basically child's play for Break), and cats. The latter is especially embarrassing to him, as the entire rest of his family likes dogs (Gilbert in fact has a phobia of cats) and cats are more commonly associated with the Vessalius family.
He has a gentler side, but it doesn't come out too often, usually only when he's truly content (for example, his acceptance of Oz's offer to change their houses at the Pandora tea party). Elliot makes his displeasure known loudly, but his happiness is much quieter, and somewhat more awkward, such as when he, on a whim, gives the melody Statice to Leo as a gift of their friendship. (He also dotes on Ada Vessalius' two cats, when he thinks no one is watching.)
He also has a more thoughtful side, and tends to hide his troubles, especially the nightmares that are the result of the memories that Humpty Dumpty has repressed. It's just in the heat of the moment that Elliot has trouble considering things fully; take him away from the situation and he's likely to acknowledge what and where he's gone wrong. Leo's scolding serves this purpose as well, taking Elliot's temper down a notch immediately, though Elliot is somewhat resentful about admitting where he's screwed up before he's calmed down completely.
A note on Humpty Dumpty and Elliot's temper: Though Elliot's anger can make him somewhat violent, it's not violence that's truly intended to hurt - he'll punch and slap, but more to make a point than anything. Under the influence of Humpty Dumpty, however, Elliot reacts with true, extreme violence to anyone who threatens Leo, even in passing.
And a final cultural note: Pandora Hearts takes place in a psuedo-Victorian hodgepodge of England and France, and Elliot has a lot of social mores appropriate to that time period. Elliot being Elliot, he has strong opinions on propriety that presumably include the distinct sexism and homophobia of the time period, prudish and uptight notions about sex and how much skin is appropriate to show, and so on. It's not you, it's him.
ABILITIES: As far as Elliot is aware, he is a perfectly normal person, with a normal set of skills for his status and age. His primary noteworthy skills are swordfighting (which he's not a slouch at but he's no prodigy, either, landing somewhat ahead of the curve for his age but soundly average overall) and his skill at the piano, which is quite excellent and includes original composition (which he's quite practiced at after several years).
Oh, and yelling surprisingly wise things at people when he's angry, if you count that as a skill.
The reality is a bit more sinister; several months prior to his canon point, Elliot formed a blood-magic contract with a Chain (an entity of the Abyss that's half minor-cosmic-horror and half weird-thing-to-do-with-a-dead-body-isn't-it) called Humpty Dumpty. As an illegal contractor (that is, one who consumed the blood of the Chain directly rather than using a contract mirror as a proxy), Elliot has a seal on his chest that counts down the time until he will be dragged into the Abyss, where he would presumably die and become a Chain himself.
Most Chains are used for combat, and Humpty Dumpty is no slouch in this department; it is an unnerving orb of a face with an impossibly long, sharp tongue that can decapitate humans without too much effort (bottom panel here). Like many Chains, Humpty Dumpty also possesses unique abilities.
The first: Unlike other Chains, Humpty Dumpty can have multiple contractors at a single time. These secondary contractors alleviate the burden on the core contractor (in this case, Elliot), causing the needle of the clock-shaped seal to move more slowly. These seconadry contractors can summon color-inverted versions of Humpty Dumpty with the same physical combat abilities as the original. If the core contractor is in a situation where Humpty Dumpty cannot be summoned, however, none of the secondary contractors can summon it, either.
The second: Humpty Dumpty has the power to repress memories. Specifically, it represses all of the major negative and traumatic memories of its contractors. In Elliot's case, these memories are those of murdering his immediate family (specifically, two of his elder brothers, and eventually his sister and mother); these murders were, themselves, driven by Humpty Dumpty's drive to protect the current host of Glen Baskerville - Elliot's servant, Leo.
Note that in Elliot's specific case, the memory of making the contract is one of the repressed memories; therefore, he has no knowledge that he possesses Humpty Dumpty except when actively using the Chain, and will lose any related memories shortly thereafter. This extends even to the seal on his chest, which is edited out of his own memories any time it would be visible (when the power of the Chain is used, or permanently after it ticks back to twelve-o-clock).
Lastly, as an illegal contractor's seal moves forward, they become more closely tied to their Chain. Elliot's seal, at three quarters/nine-o-clock, is far enough advanced that injuries to Humpty Dumpty are reflected on on him, and killing the Chain would also mean Elliot's death (though not, inherently, vice-versa; if Elliot were to die, Humpty Dumpty would be destroyed not from the loss of its contractor directly but because Chains, without a contractor, cannot survive long periods in the real world). Technically, Elliot should be drawn into the Abyss when the needle finishes its revolution, but since he'll be outside of his world, that rule probably doesn't apply.
INVENTORY; Clothes (Victorian young men's casual, ie Formal For Literally Anyone Else; mostly black, white undershirt, blue tie). Nightray house heirloom sword (slim blade, complex/elegant crossguard, entirely black) with scabbard, kept in peak condition. Small compositon notebook, musical ruling, approximately 1/3 filled. A change of earrings, tucked into a side pocket of his coat, just in case he loses one of his current pair.
Humpty Dumpty is internal to Elliot's body and usually dormant; I'm including the Chain here for completion's sake and because characters with supernatural perceptions may be able to notice it.
It's also of note that Elliot's sword is the "Key" that allows contracts to be formed at the Nightray House gate to the Abyss. Elliot himself is not aware of this quality; he's simply protective of the sword as a family heirloom that was entrusted to him.
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE: Snatches an old TDM
PROSE SAMPLE:
The familiar Nightray carriage rattled along down the road towards Isla Yura's mansion, a path it had taken a number of times, but never with these occupants. Usually it was Elliot's mother who rode down to the foreigner's, attracted by whatever had drawn her into his strange cult (and with her, prestige and money). This time, in contrast, the carriage was packed full with Elliot, two of his siblings, and Leo. The evening was clear, so Vincent and Vanessa's servants were riding on the outside, Hans up front with the driver and Echo serving as a lookout out the back.
Leo was the only one of the household servants who rode inside the carriages with his master with any regularity. Usually Vanessa would object to it - Vincent didn't seem to care much either way about Leo, which Elliot was secretly grateful for - but in this case, Leo had also been extended an invitation, as a personal friend of Oz Vessalius, who would be formally presented to society this evening. Leo, as usual, didn't seem to care one way or the other for family politics, and was buried deeply in a thick book from the Nightray library. The bumps of the carriage sent his thick hair swaying, but aside from that and occasional murmurs of commentary and the flick of turned pages, Leo might as well have been a statue on the other end of the seat he shared with Elliot.
Across from them were his siblings, both being equally their usual selves. Vincent was leaning against his wall of the carriage, eyes half-closed and seemingly daydreaming. Vanessa was sitting upright, directly across from Elliot, as far down the seat from Vincent as she was able without being obvious about it. Elliot had made an annoyed huff at her when he first noticed, but no matter what he did, it seemed impossible to repair things between his sister and their adopted brothers, and it frustrated Elliot no end. Sure, Vincent had been a kind of creepy kid (if Elliot was completely honest, he was a kind of creepy adult sometimes), but in Elliot's view, that didn't justify at all the way he and Gilbert had been treated by the rest of the family.
Not wanting to watch the standoff between his siblings any longer, and not stupid enough to disturb Leo while he was reading, Elliot wound up staring out the window as various other noble properties passed by. His sister's voice eventually interrupted his thoughts. "Elliot?"
A little startled, Elliot turned away from the window to look at her. Vanessa's attention was on him; neither Vincent nor Leo seemed to have moved beyond breathing (and, of course, turning pages at a rapid clip). "What is it?"
"What do you think of Oz Vessalius?"
It was quiet for a moment, like the brief time between the flash of lightning when everyone is waiting for the thunder to sound. The only noise was the faint whisk of a page turning. Then Elliot opened his mouth.
"Oz vessalius? He's an idiot! He acts bright and cheerful even at ludicrous times so that no one will worry about him! He hasn't been introduced to society, but he doesn't even seem to care! He spends all his time running around Pandora with Gilbert and this weird girl who does nothing but eat meat all the time!" At Gilbert's name, Vincent's eyes flicked towards Elliot (who was now standing in the middle of the carriage), though he didn't otherwise move. "He's constantly dragging people into things without concern for how they might feel, and then he just smiles like that's all he has to do to get them out of it! And don't get me started on his opinions about Holy Knight - "
"Elliot." At the voice of his servant, Elliot's back stiffened slightly, his muscles going tense just in case he'd managed to annoy Leo into throwing the book at him. Thankfully, the dark-haired boy settled for a simple "That's enough," and ducked back behind his book.
Embarrassed at having been caught getting scolded by Leo in front of his siblings, Elliot sat back down. "He's okay, I guess. For a Vessalius."
From Elliot, it was practically high praise. Vanessa gave him a confused look, but Elliot thought he could see Vincent smiling, just a little.