Name
Balthazar Olivier Cross
Nickname
I wouldnāt, were I you. āBalthazarā will do just fine, anyway. This is not to say that heās never earned a nickname, just that heā¦ discourages their use.
Age
26, give or take. (About two milennia).
Gender
Male
Appearance
At first glance, Balthazar resembles a scarecrow. Heās not excessively tall, but carries a neat six feet with lengthy-limbed elegance. A slim, lightly-muscled fellow, his head is crowned by a mop of dark curls, most usually slicked back a bit, though not tastelessly. His face is very angular, and does not always strike the observer as immediately attractive, though it has been known to grow on people, such that those who might have thought him rather odd-looking at first often do eventually decide that heās quite handsome.
His eyes are a mild grey-blue-green sort of shade, one that tends to favor one or another color depending on ambient lighting. In the sun, they lean towards the green. His visage is most often a carefully-crafted mask of neutrality, though he knows how to manipulate his many expressions with mind-boggling adroitness, and as a result, he is very communicative when he wishes to be, though admittedly his favored faces range over a narrow spectrum of sarcastic, speculative, smug, and sadistic, steering well clear of things like happiness and any amusement not derived from someone elseās folly.
He dresses with incredible precision, usually in expensive suits, silk scarves or cravats, and patent leather shoes, and this only adds to the debonair, refined aura he has about him. Notable for his movement perhaps more than anything else about his outward appearance, Balathazar in motion is the epitome of the languid, easy grace of a cat on the hunt, as though he never took a step in his life that wasnāt some form of poetry in motion. Itās slightly enthralling to watch, and this, too, is quite deliberate on his part. Even the simplest of actions draws attention to himāwhen and only when he wants it to.
Occupation
Balthazar advises King Sabine, should the King find it necessary. Otherwise, there can be much to do in his own life, as he is a noble of very high standing in Daemon society, and has his own affairs to manage as well. This, he can do with simple, brutal efficiencyāthere is no waste in his life, his words, or his household.
Skills/Equipment
As someone who has always preferred the talents of the mind to those of the body, Balthazar is nevertheless trained in both, as survival in Daemon society requires being adaptable and intelligent. Heās always armed with something, most often the slender blade concealed in his cane. At times when carrying even this would look odd, he has become rather good at sleight-of-hand and sneaking knives about his person. If he has his choice, however, heāll always use magic, and he is very good with illusions and mind-magic especially. He is, in fact, the court warlock, and thus in charge of creating and maintaining portals to Earth, a task which he takes most seriously. His favorite talent, though, is one unique to himāheās invented a way to temporarily decompose himself into shadow, in what looks like a wisp of smoke, and hide in the natural shadows of an area. Travel between them at short distances is also possible, but itās something heās still working on.
If he moves like a cat, it is also safe to say that Balthazar possesses several of the associated personality traits as well. He is cool, aloof, unafraid, and perhaps considerably more sadistic than most. When he gets the mood to hunt, he prefers to draw out the endeavor, toying with his prey and giving them false hope. This is usually limited to the prisoners in the Daemon Kingās custody, these days, which is well enough, perhaps. Humans donāt make for much in the way of good sport.
Heās also cunning, and unlike his king, there is no real temper there to occasionally get in the way of his cold calculation. It is, perhaps, one of several reasons why he is the adviser and the king is the king, because Balthazar probably wouldnāt bother much with war. His indifference to the other species is just that extreme. This does, however, allow him the boon of a nearly mechanical mind, with uncanny precision in the calculation of outcomes and excellent efficiency. He does not often bother with forming his own ambitions, content to do the bidding of his king in the best way possible. Not coincidentally, he doesnāt have much of a conscience, and could perhaps be considered in possession of sociopathic tendencies because of this. Heās nothing so distasteful as a psychopath, because they have trouble controlling themselves and often leave a mess. He does no such thing.
Though very wicked, he is perhaps not entirely without redeeming features. Though his intelligence is a force to be reckoned with, he does not turn it against his king for any reason. He is aware that Sabine views people as pieces on a chessboard, but has arrived at the conclusion that the best way to deal with this is either to be the other player (which he has zero inclination towards) or make himself a very valuable piece, indeed. This is the route that he has chosen, and it has worked out rather well for the both of them. Adviser, strategist, court warlock, and spymasterāall of these things have at one time or another fallen under Balthazarās job description, and all of them he has thus far executed flawlessly.
Though it is true he has no regard for other races, it is entailed that he does not hate them. Truly, he cares little for his own kind, either, so in a way, heās the most likely to lend a fair, unbiased ear to any non-demon he comes across. He recognizes logic when he sees it, unclouded by prejudice, and always advocates the most sensible solution, so if reason is on your side, chances are Balthazar will be as well.
Like most of his kind, he is entirely unfamiliar with tenderness or love in any form, though he has studied the other races enough to understand their views on it, and what it usually looks like. He finds it to be a laughable condition, to be under the sway of sentimental attachment to what in daemons induces only lust, if that.
History
Balthazar is heir to and current functioning master of a very prominent daemonic noble house, who took the name āCrossā as a piece of dramatic irony. They are, in fact, that sort of family. His fatherās still alive, but spends more time these days enjoying his retirement than anything, and where he is at any given decade isnāt something that Balthazar knows or particularly cares about. His mother vanished a few centuries ago, for reasons nobody really knows. He was always without siblings, and in his youth raised by servants anyway, so it didnāt bother him much save for the mystery of it.
Heās always been unusually canny and disposed to magic, even for a daemon, and it was perhaps this that earned him his position as the Kingās foremost advisor. He took the position for the opportunity to sharpen his mind on a new task, though he admits to himself that war has grown rather dull. Still, heās quite loyal, and doesnāt have any plans to quit advising anytime soon. This whole thing with the human woman (once he finds out about it) could actually be interesting.
Other
N/A for now.
Post
A languid, svelte form attired sharply in black and green draped over the length of the chaise, the long pale fingers attached to the right hand tapping out some unknown rhythm upon the velvet surface of it. It was a metronome, almost, for even if its conductor injected what seemed a random bar into the pattern, it returned always to a kind of unconscious regularity. Balthazar did not do random. There was no chance, there was no fate, there were only calculations, probabilities, and manipulations as yet unorchestrated.
The index finger of his left hand absently traced the thin line of his lower lip, the claws that resided atip the digit not breaking the relatively tender skin there. When at home, he preferred to abide in his proper shape, horns and all, and these presently curled prominently, obsidian protection sweeping back from his temples over his crown, ending in points some six inches from the back of his head. His neck held the extra weight as though it were not even present, and indeed, for all the wicked contemplation playing in the shadows behind his eyes, his face was a mask of flawless placidity.
The war was stagnating again, but when one had eons to wage it, this alone was not so unusual. Noā¦ it was the another matter that was bothering him. His intuition, a sharpened feature that he was nevertheless usually content to ignore, was stirring, and a general sense of foreboding had settled over his shoulders like a wet cloak. He knew not the reason for it, and nothing had seemed particularly out-of-the-ordinary in any facet of his life recently, so it was almost something he could dismiss as a mere flight of fancy. That said, Balthazar liked to plan for all eventualities, which led him to the unanswered question, and the one that he was presently cogitating over. If something were happening, or about to happen, if by some strange stroke of the faintest possibility, something untoward was to befall them in the near future, from whence would it issue? The lykae? The vampires? Or elsewhere?
Balthazar was ever a man looking to turn the unexpected to his advantage. He reveled in chaos, because he understood it better than most. Nothing was truly random, and once heād accepted that, the world had opened before him like a rose in bloom. Where others of his kind saw problems, Balthazar found opportunities, and there may yet be an opportunity to be found in this.
Just because he hadnāt discovered it yet didnāt mean it wasnāt there. On the contrary, he simply needed to look harder.
