ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Jul 13, 2022 22:13:32 GMT
 Alec had been a part of the supernatural world for such a long time now that the truth was that he didn’t really remember too much about a time before that. It had taken him a long time to find out that he was a phoenix but the day he had learned the truth so much had started to fall into place. Suddenly what his parents had written in the letter he’d found after they died about him being found in the rubble of his worried home when his mother and so many others had lost their life made sense, it was because he was a phoenix and ever since figuring that out he had been doing his best to make his mark on the world. He knew that a lot of people said they wanted to do that but the truth was that Alec really did. Being a phoenix meant that he didn’t age and he would continue living until someone killed him in a way that he couldn’t come back from. He had lived a long life already and he had a longer life ahead of him still so he knew that he wanted to do something good with his life. He knew that being supernatural himself and being a hunter might be a bit contradictory but Alec was doing things his own way as always. He knew that there were humans and supernaturals alike who were capable of good and evil so he only went after those who deliberately hurt others and he didn’t hesitate in standing up for other supernaturals when they needed it. Mystic Falls was somewhere that he had heard about even before Evangeline had told him that she was going to be moving there. He had thought about heading there himself a few times but each time something else had come up or he had found another lead on his father. Every lead seemed to bring him to a dead end and that was something that Alec had grown used to but even so he refused to give up. His friends always told him that he was stubborn and he knew that they were right, this was something that he just couldn’t bring himself to give up on so he had jumped at the chance of another lead when Evangeline had offered it. That was one of the reasons why he had headed to Mystic Falls and the other was to help the two boys Evangeline had told him about. Alec knew that he needed to reach out and help them but first he needed to get himself settled so he had taken a couple of days to get his house up together before venturing out into town to have a proper look around. As he was walking through town his phone chimed with a text and he pulled it out of his pocket, his eyes widening in surprise at the message from Evangeline which said he should head to the local high school because he might find the answers he needed about his father while he was there. It seemed surreal that his mission might finally be at an end but Evangeline had even given him a room number so clearly she had found something and Alec knew that he didn’t want to waste any time in checking it out. Instead he headed to the school and raised his hand to knock on the door after making sure that there was no study session going on even though the rest of the school had already gone home for the day. “Excuse me, are you Finn De La Salle?” he asked as he pushed the door open fully and he came to a stop as he recognised the familiar figure before him. “Sorry, I must have been given the wrong room number,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again,” he added, able to recall the last time they had seen each other vividly. It was in the middle of a war and Alec hadn’t even known that the man before him, Finn Charbonneau, was supernatural so seeing him looking just like he did back then was a surprise to say the least. “How have you been?”FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Jul 27, 2022 18:06:53 GMT
Squinting at the first on the thin pile of tests, Finn tried to make out what the scrawled phrase was supposed to mean. Summer schools ran for a reason – to try and get the kids who’d slipped under the pass line up to standard in the couple of months where they just wanted to run away from the classroom. It made some combative, scared some straight, left others scooting by in the way they always had.
He sighed, picking up his red pen to start picking apart the pop tests that would make up a quarter of the final grade. Crosses scored the page within minutes, lines drawn heavily under some words, others corrected in a way he knew wasn’t even going to register in this kid’s head. Oscar hadn’t bothered in the two years he’d already spent at the school – undeterred by summer school every year and endless detentions – somehow he doubted the F he drew at the top of the page with a 37 circled heavily next to it was going to make much difference now. ”You’re lucky kids don’t get tossed to the stables now,” he muttered to himself. Education was privilege a lot of these kids didn’t recognise.
Finn capped the pen, set it aside to rub two fingers over his eyebrow. The headache was already brewing, stress induced before he’d really gotten a start on all of this. Gadifer’s teaching methods would have seemed like brutality to these kids but in that bone deep physical and mental exhaustion he’d found his place. And it wasn’t as a teacher.
Teeth raked at his lower lip, that hollow feeling building between his shoulder blades as he dragged the next test in the pile in front of him. For centuries he’d bounced from one war to another, weapons strapped to him, growing to be a part of him that he missed like a lost limb now. War was far more brutal than his makeshift education, but at least he understood it, found some sort of satisfaction in end bloody ends of those battles. The end of wars that would have chewed up these kids to leave nothing but broken bodies and grief behind.
This town was supposed to have been the start of another war – one that wasn’t just about one dictatorship trying to cut down another. Other than Parrish and the bodies constantly springing up in the town there seemed little evidence of it. Or his son.
It was a fool’s errand believing that he would be drawn here. The overwhelming chances were still that Alec had taken after his mother and had perished thousands of miles from here more than two hundred years ago. Like the parents of these kids, he still had hope though, foolish or not. Until he had proof, like the glare of that red pen, he could not give up.
Half way down the page a shadow fell through the open classroom door. The kids had gone home an hour ago, happier than ever to flee the school at the end of their sessions. He’d through most of the teachers had as well. Finn glanced up, the pen still tapping restlessly at his desk top as he studied the man in the doorway. Not a year older than the last time he had seen him, although, that, it seemed, was a constant with the people in his life who had circled back around to this tiny spot on the map.
Finn set the pen down slowly. Swivelling his chair towards the young man. De la Salle hadn’t been the name he’d been using the last time they had seen one another, a ‘death in combat’ somewhere in Beirut had forced that change. ”It’s Alec .. .isn’t it?” The surname had escaped him, as most did these days, the face halfway there too. After a time it would have vanished the same way so many others did.
Humming lightly, Finn tilted his head, looking away from the tests on his desk as he caught sight of the scatter of red crosses again. ”Tortured,” he said lightly. ”I never thought I’d take full scale battle over peace, but this … this has me reconsidering.” Dark eyes slipped up from the tests to Alec again. ”And yourself?” Obviously well for him to have shown up again … looking for him. Finn’s brows furrowed. He had said de la Salle, not Charbonneau, perhaps the man he had thought he was finding was not the one he thought he’d found.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Aug 10, 2022 0:11:12 GMT
Alec had fought in wars before and lived to tell the tale but the truth was that the thought of meeting his biological father for the first time scared him more than any war ever had. He’d had a good life with his parents, sure they were absent quite a lot of the time but that had only been because they were working hard to make sure that he would have a good life so he knew that he couldn’t really hold it against them for that. Ever since learning he was adopted he’d had questions, though, questions that only a biological parent could ever answer. He had learned that he was a phoenix when he had died and come back to life and Lucian had helped him understand what he was. Since then he had been learning as much as he could about what he was while still making sure to live his life and he really did feel comfortable in his own skin now but he still hadn’t given up on finding his father and he wasn’t sure that he ever would. Evangeline had told him that his father was working at the local high school and Alec knew that she wouldn’t have said anything if she wasn’t certain but as he made it to the room number she had given him it was a face from his past that he found sitting at the desk and he couldn’t deny that he was disappointed. Alec had been following leads about his father for a long time and every time he had ended up coming up short. He knew that he was going to have to speak to Evangeline and see if she had possibly been given the wrong room number by her source but there was something that he needed to do first. “That’s right. You’re Finn, aren’t you?” he asked, pretty sure that he had remembered that right. He wasn’t the Finn that Alec was looking for but he was a Finn nonetheless. They had fought together so there hadn’t been a huge amount of time to get to know anything personal about each other but the guy didn’t look a day older than he had back then so Alec knew that he had to be supernatural too. “That bad, huh?” he chuckled as he looked over at the man. “The youth of today don’t know how lucky they have it, they take too much for granted,” he added with a shrug. Most were too easily distracted these days and weren’t able to see that things they learned when they were younger might just prove to be useful in later life. “Busy but that’s how I like it,” Alec admitted. He had never been the kind of person who liked having nothing at all to do and he was pretty sure that he never would be. Thankfully he’d always had his job and hunting to keep him busy and he was grateful for that. “I’m actually here looking for someone but you’ve probably figured that out already. You don’t know anyone by the name Finn de la Salle, do you?” he asked, knowing that it was probably a long shot but he would never know unless he tried. FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Aug 17, 2022 19:18:17 GMT
He had reinvented himself so many times over that sometimes Finn wasn’t sure if he was just playing a role in this town or if somehow Mystic Falls had stripped back the layers of lifetimes like wallpaper steamed from the walls. Each face that had appeared here to draw him back to a previous time took another with them. All that was needed was Gadifer to strip away that last part of him, the layer that had wrapped around him as he’d been plucked from the ashes and christened ’Fin’ – the end. Maybe Gadifer had been psychic enough to see his future – long and lonely for the most part, the connections he had seeming brief at the time. Everybody he grew close to taken from him eventually, burned in the flames of a life that just sprouted from the ashes each time for him. He was the only one who emerged from them though, everybody else was consumed, blowing away on the wind as though they had almost never existed in the first place.
Finn rubbed his hand over his chest as he eased back in his chair, looking up at Alec as though he’d drifted back out of those ashes. Dark crumbling specks suddenly made whole again, like a video in reverse. The name had been easy to come by, despite the thousands upon thousands he’d heard and let go of almost immediately over the years. Like his son, those letters scrawled in Bridget’s hand in the letters she’d sent. ’We have a son. Alec. As strong as his father.’ As dead as his mother, the two of them laid to rest together at least. Geraint might have been to blame for so much but at the very last he had done something right by his daughter and grandson.
The corner of Finn’s mouth lifted. There hadn’t been many who’d brought his son to mind over the years – he hadn’t let himself think of him that way until Mystic Falls had offered some possibility – but that had. ”Yes, Finn. You’ve a good memory.” One that probably hadn’t been overlaid with so many layers. Seven hundred years spread out like the rings in a tree or the lenses of sediment in the ground, each another lifetime. His students had barely had time to build up one, at least those in the military had started to feel them grow. ”Worse than you can imagine,” Finn said lightly, frowning faintly as he turned away from the marking on purpose. ”They’ll soon learn when they’re out there in the world. They imagine they won’t need what they’re learning now but someone will be glad of it one day.” As he had been of Gadifer’s lessons, all hard learned.
Almost absently Finn made a small sound of agreement at Alec’s words. Busy had been what he had imagined life would be like in Mystic Falls, only none of what was supposed to pass here had. It had become a search for a son with a tiny chance of being alive as much as it had fighting a war. Had the sudden pang for it in his stomach somehow been to blame for Alec’s sudden question? Swallowing hard, brow furrowing, Finn stared up at the man he’d fought side by side with. ”You’re looking for a Finn de la Salle?” he asked cautiously. The name he had given then had been different, another reinvention, another layer pasted on out of necessity. ”Oui,” he said hoarsely. ”You’re looking at him. Although I guess you didn’t expect I was the one you were looking for. You didn’t put it together? Finn isn’t exactly like John or David…” Common enough that a call of either one on the battle field once upon a time would’ve had a hundred men looking back at you.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Aug 24, 2022 22:22:29 GMT
Alec couldn’t deny that he’d had a pretty good life while he was growing up, there were times when he was younger when he’d wished his parents had been around more since they had both been pretty busy working and they’d both tried to make him follow a path he wasn’t sure that he’d wanted to go down but he had never doubted that they had loved him or that they had wanted what was best for him. They had done so much to make sure that he’d had everything that he would need and to this day he was still grateful to them for that. They were his parents but after he’d found out that he was adopted he couldn’t deny that he had become curious about the man whose blood he shared. He knew that his mother had died when he was just a baby but his parents hadn’t known what had happened to his dad. Had his mother been like him then she would have risen from the ashes just like he had done so he knew that it had to be his dad who was a phoenix like he was and that knowledge had always given Alec the hope that the man would be out there somewhere still. “Fortunately it’s an easy name for me to remember,” Alec admitted. It was the same name as his father but the truth was that Alec didn’t know whether it was this guy’s real name or whether it was just a name that he had assumed over time. There were certain similarities between them, some were obvious and others not quite so much, but Alec knew that he could quite easily just be seeing what he wanted to be seeing right now. He had already given his father’s full name once and the guy hadn’t reacted at all so Alec just hoped that what Evangeline had told him about the guy he was looking for working at the school was true. “Definitely. It all seems so irrelevant when you’re young but when you get older you learn to appreciate all of those lessons,” Alec nodded, knowing that Finn was right. There were things that he had taken for granted when he was younger but he had learnt from that mistake and he was sure that others would one day too. As Finn repeated what he’d said, Alec found himself nodding. “I am,” he confirmed, his eyes studying the man before him carefully for a moment. There was a part of Alec that had hoped that he would finally find his father after all this time but there was another part of him that had thought that he might have to go back to Evangeline and tell her that she had been wrong after all. As the guy confirmed that he knew where he could find him, Alec’s eyes went wide as he elaborated. “Believe me when I say it’s a more common name these days than you’d think,” he admitted, doing his best to keep his surprise in check even though he wouldn’t be surprised if it was written all over his face. “I’d hoped it might be you but it seemed too much of a coincidence that we would be put in each other’s path twice if you were the one I was looking for all along,” he explained. He hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up only to end up being disappointed the way he had been so many times before. “This is probably going to sound crazy but my real name is Alec de la Salle. I’m your son,” he said, his eyes searching Finn’s for a reaction. Alec had been searching for his father for such a long time in the hope that he’d end up getting some answers at last but now he was suddenly nervous and he could only hope that he wouldn’t be rejected. FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Sept 8, 2022 18:04:55 GMT
There had been another name once, murmured from the lips of those who had brought him into the world, but like everything else in those first couple of years of his life, it had turned to ash. Gadifer had believed he was doing the right thing by shrugging off everything that the boy had been before, Finn wasn’t so sure he had. Looking back through the dusty pages of history he had seen just what how impossible things must have been for his parents. People forced to abandon their religion to accept the invading press of another. Punishment wreathed in flame for doing it. What might have remained of them in him had vanished in the flames, leaving him an empty shell for Gadifer to pour a new identity, new beliefs into. Gadifer had pushed on him a name that would draw a line between his old life and his new, never letting the boy he had raised forget that he had been the last.
Until Alec.
Remembering the way Bridget’s stomach had swelled, the way the child inside of her had responded to his voice, the touch of his hand, Finn had believed that perhaps Gadifer had been wrong, he would not be the end. The shattering of hope was a sick, devastating feeling, something best to be avoided, although by rarely allowing himself to feel it, Finn knew he had cut himself off from what might have been instead of that life he had imagined. Finn’s smile tightened subtly, like a bow string pulled. ”And anonymous enough these days,” he said lightly. The students rolling through his classroom had proved that there had been a resurgence in old fashioned names - although in a town where the supernatural were thick on the ground, was it truly any surprise?
Even here though, kids would still be kids and most attempts to get them to learn the things that didn’t interest them fell on ears as deaf as his own had been when Gadifer had tried to talk to him of religion and philosophy when all he had wanted to do was wield a sword as well as the knights. He had little use for one here, although the thought of hacking the tests to pieces with his broadsword left him smiling fondly. His dark eyes ticked up from his desk to the man before him. ”Some perhaps,” Finn murmured. ”There are still some I could’ve done without learning.” There was a twinge of wry humour in his voice, but beneath there was that twisting sensation like a blade in his chest. Time and time again fate had shown him how trying for a human life just ended up burning those around him.
He was the one to pull himself from those ashes again and again, brushing himself off to rebuild his life while those he loved were buried. The phoenix rising … and falling. Finn felt the sensation sensation roll through him. There had been a good chance his son should have been as he was, but even at the last, Geraint had sworn that Alec had perished alongside his mother. Now the old man’s words echoed in his ears - fight, or you shall never see your son again. It had been the threat that had sent him out onto the battlefield.
Finn planted an elbow on the edge of the desk, dragging his palm over his face as he made a small sound. ”Oh I know how common,” he managed hoarsely. ”There’s no such thing as too much coincidence.” It took an effort of will to draw himself upright as Alec spoke the words he hadn’t allowed himself to believe he would ever hear. Doubt dragged claws through his gut, tearing open those scarred parts of himself. ”My son died with his mother nearly three hundred years ago. He took after her, not me, he would have died.” That was the part that sounded crazy. What had he been for the last couple of years if not crazy though? Lingering in this town, trying to find a truth he thought long, long buried.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Oct 5, 2022 23:35:19 GMT
“With the way the population has grown over the years that’s not really surprising,” Alec nodded. Most people were so wrapped up in their own worlds that they didn’t really take too much notice of what was going on around them. He knew that on occasion he was guilty of that as well but the truth was that he was trying to do better. He hadn’t followed Evangeline to Mystic Falls initially, none of them had, but he had heard about the town. If he was honest he had been a little unsure about heading there at first but the idea that his father might be in the town had eventually drawn him to it. Alec knew what it was like to lose people he loved, his parents had died while he was at college and he hadn’t seen Lucian since they’d parted ways after escaping the war. There were times when being anonymous wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but right now there was one person that Alec was determined to find and he knew that he wasn’t going to stop until he did. As Finn said there were some lessons he could have done without learning, Alec found himself nodding once more. “I know that feeling. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to but I always try and think of it that everything that has happened has made me who I am today. That’s what gets me through,” he shrugged. It wasn’t always easy to see it that way and there were times when he had come so close to giving up especially during the war when he was being held prisoner and tortured only to find that Lucian was assigned as one of the guards meant to keep an eye on him but in the end things always worked out one way or the other. It was during that time that he’d found out that he was a phoenix, before that he had simply known that he didn’t age and that a few other strange things had happened but he hadn’t known why. Had it not been for Lucian staying with him after they escaped then he never would have learned the truth and ever since that day he had been searching for his father so he could get some answers. “I’m not so sure about that,” Alec admitted as Finn said that there was no such thing as too much coincidence. He had been searching for his father for such a long time but the idea of his father being someone he had met in the past had always seemed too surreal to Alec. Now as it turned out that was exactly what had happened and as Finn said that his son died with his mother nearly three hundred years ago, Alec shook his head. “I know that’s what you were told but it was a lie. I was found in the ruins of our home after it burned down. No one knew how I’d survived and I was given to a couple who didn’t have any children of their own. I was still young when they brought me to America but after they died I found this letter which explains what happened,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter he had kept with him ever since that day. “It sounds crazy but I swear it’s the truth. I’m a phoenix like you.”FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Oct 22, 2022 16:58:02 GMT
The world had grown amazingly over the years. As a child it had seemed as though there was nothing beyond the court and the forests that surrounded it all. He couldn’t remember the village he had been plucked from the ashes of, or the parents who had raised him until Gadifer had killed them. Gadifer had spoken of places far beyond even there, but it had all seemed like stories to the boy learning at his knee. His first time on a boat, accompanying Gadifer on one of his voyages, had astounded him. Now he could cross the same distance in just a few hours, on something that flew through the sky like a bird. If he’d not lived through it all, that leap would’ve been terrifying. He had though and Finn knew the world would be utterly unrecognisable again in a few centuries – except for the people, no matter how big the world got or how many developments there were, people would always remain the same. And he would hide within it all.
Finn murmured an affirmation at the man in front of him. He nodded, his fingers drumming lightly on the arm of the chair. It was how things like him survived, drifting among those expanding populations, rewriting their existence every time. Dozens of times he’d flitted between one military service and another, safe in the knowledge that there were none there old enough to remember the man who had worn a slightly different uniform decades before. The names he took on were a cover, at least until he had come here. Those faces swam into focus for the first time in forever – Parrish, Magnus, now Alec. Each time someone appeared it twisted something inside of him, leaving him wondering what if or how.
Looking up at Alec, Finn wondered if there were answers out there to all those questions, just ones he hadn’t looked and seen. That was for him to discover in this town, in picking apart what they said, what this place could do. ”Fate,” he said lightly. ”My father always told me that I could change it, but I think he was just holding onto a belief that made him feel better. I think everything that happens is to keep us on a path we have little clue of.” As heartbreaking as that was, Finn doubted that he could have changed any of the nightmares that had twisted his existence. Gadifer, Joan, Bridget, his son, the universe had planned for them all and he hadn’t been able to change a single thing that had happened, he had just been the soul drifting through all of that, holding onto their memories and the knowledge of what had really happened. ”It’s not a bad philosophy to hold on to.” Something softened in his dark eyes as he looked at the man. He would have called him a young one – old in soul perhaps – but their previous meeting left him knowing better. Like him this man hadn’t aged.
Perhaps not since the day he was supposed to have died with his mother in a cottage burned to the ground by the English. Asking for just Finn might have been a coincidence, but there was none of that here, even if Alec believed differently. He had dragged a hand over his face, shaking his head at the man’s admission. Just a single word had him freezing though. Father. No, he had not been one of those since the day he had reached the cottage and found nothing but ash and scorched stone. His wife and son had died, he’d been certain of that, had killed the man he blamed for it because of that loss. ”Geraint swore,” Finn said firmly, already feeling the ties of certainty inside of himself coming loose. ”He would not have lied about his daughter.” But the grandson he had sworn he would never see again if he didn’t go and fight? Mon dieu.
Hands down now, Finn stared at the man before him. Dark haired, like his father – just as Bridget had told him – hazel eyed like his mother. A warrior, a survivor. He lifted his chin slightly, his throat feeling tight. ”They brought you here from Scotland? Did the letter mention your grandfather?” If there was one who had known the truth of all of this it would have been him. Finn’s gaze swivelled down to his hands, his fingers curling into his palm. ”Bridget always told me that my son was a mirror image of me. I was never able to see him to tell for myself. Did that letter give you my name? Did it explain about your mother?” Had Geraint done the unthinkable? If he had then the man deserved to burn here and in hell for what he had done.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Dec 22, 2022 0:51:22 GMT
It was the promise that Evangeline had found a lead on his biological father that had drawn Alec to Mystic Falls in the first place. He had moved around a lot over the course of his life, never drawing enough attention to himself to make people realise that he wasn’t ageing, and it had been somewhat of a lonely way of living for the most part. There had been a few people who had ended up coming and going from his life like Lucian and there were others who had become a constant since he met them like Evangeline. Alec knew that blood wasn’t everything because he had loved his parents even after learning that they weren’t his biological parents and he still did to this day. Evangeline and the others in her little circle had become family to him as well but he couldn’t deny that he was curious to know just where he had come from. He knew that his biological mother had died when he was just a baby but considering that he was a phoenix he had known that he’d needed to inherit that trait from one of his parents and his dad was the only one that made sense. Had his mother lived then he liked to think that she would have kept him with her even if she had been reborn but instead he had been handed over to another family to raise and he’d lost the last connection he’d had to his biological family until now. “That sounds about right, there are a few things I wish had happened differently,” Alec admitted. Lucian staying in his life was definitely one of those things. It had been such a long time since they had last seen each other but Alec had never stopped loving him despite the fact that he had never told Lucian that and now he wasn’t so sure that he would ever get that chance. That decision was out of his control but there were other things that Alec hoped that he would be able to do now and the first was to finally get to know his biological father. As the man said that it wasn’t a bad philosophy to hold onto, Alec nodded. “It isn’t. It has ended up getting me through quite a lot,” he agreed. He had meant it when he’d said that there were a few things he wished could have happened differently but those things had all made him who he was now and he felt comfortable in his own skin so he knew that it wasn’t all bad. The moment Alec revealed that he was Finn’s son he could see the disbelief written all over the man’s face and he really couldn’t blame him. There was a part of Alec that wondered if he was being selfish by reopening those old wounds for the man, a man that he had fought alongside in the past it turned out, but now the words were out there he couldn’t take them back even if he wanted to. He had wanted to get to know his father for such a long time but now more than anything he was worried that Finn might not want to have anything to do with him. As he said that his grandfather swore and wouldn’t have lied about his daughter, Alec shook his head. “He didn’t lie about my mother but he lied about me,” he said gently. He knew that it was a lot to take in but he had to hope that Finn would give him a chance and want to build a relationship with him now that they had the chance. As Finn asked if his parents brought him here from Scotland, Alec nodded. “That’s right. I don’t remember much about growing up there as I was only four when we moved. They said it was going to be an adventure for all of us and I guess they were right about that,” he shrugged. Things hadn’t worked out the way they had planned as he was still pretty young when he lost both his parents but the life he’d lived with them wasn’t a bad one. He had never doubted that they had loved him, he had only wanted them to one day realise that he was different to them and that he had different dreams rather than continuing to try and thrust theirs upon him. They had died before they’d had that chance, though, and now and then he found himself wondering what they would have made of the man he had become. “You’re welcome to read it for yourself, it explains all of it,” Alec said as he held the letter out to his father, hoping that seeing it in black and white might just help it sink in. FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Dec 31, 2022 15:36:59 GMT
Science had answered questions Gadifer never could’ve dreamed of in his wildest imagination. It had erased the sort of war he’d been taught to fight, had shrunk the world so that places Gadifer never could’ve reached were just a few hours from him, but it hadn’t found a way to turn back the clock, and maybe that was for good reason. God, he would’ve gone back if he could, made Joan run before the Duke’s people had come for her, refused Geraint’s order for him to go to war. Bridget might never have forgiven him for not helping the cause, but his presence had not made the difference, the Scots always would have lost and they could have had a lifetime together before he lost her to something far less brutal than the fire. Old age, even some disease that would have taken her a bit at a time, it would have given her decades with her husband and son, instead of just a few months with them scattered. That would have changed the thousands of lives that spiralled out from his own, from theirs perhaps, but he would have been selfish enough to try it.
At Alec’s admission Finn made another of those low noises and almost laughed at it. The sassenachs said it was a peculiarly Scottish noise, but there were versions of it worldwide. Agreement or the opposite that you couldn’t voice. A sound that covered a thousand sins … and regrets. It had been fused somewhere inside of him, the same way millions of other experiences had and now Alec was reminding him how each of those events had forged who he was now. Finn bobbed his head slowly, his lips twitching faintly into something that often passed as a smile for him. ”You’re wise for your years,” he murmured. Wiser than him perhaps, but he’d had nearly 700 years for his doubts and those regrets to work their way deep inside of him, like water into a rock, creating those minor fractures that it would one day blow wide open to shatter him again. Like today.
He'd been searching, had suspected and hoped that perhaps his son had been as he was, but he never really believed. Until the proof was standing there, looking at him with eyes so like his own. It would have galled Geraint to look down at the bairn and see the face of the son-in-law he despised looking back at him – but had it galled him enough to give the child away and lie about him? Yes. Finn’s expression froze as he felt that heat in the pit of his stomach. It had boiled out on the day he’d reached the estate and had seen the face of the man who’d destroyed his life. ”He’d sworn I would lose you both if I wouldn’t fight for them. I suppose he saw his chance to make it happen.” Oh, he’d blamed him for Bridget’s death too, as though his not being there had caused it, even though he’d sent him away.
Finn pressed his fist right below his sternum, like it would ease the ache that had started to build almost like indigestion. A bubble expanding, threatening to choke him. He huffed out a breath as Alec began to explain. ”The English started to clear the highlands,” he said hoarsely. ”They would’ve tried to get you a better life.” And he’d followed, hadn’t he. The two of them in the New World, completely unaware of each other’s continued existence. Dark eyes found the letter his son extended to him, then rose to his face and all its echoes of his own. ”They cared for you …” he said hoarsely. With numb fingers he took it and began to read. The lines of grief in his face deepened as he read it. He had to avoid crumpling it at the end. ”How long have you been trying to find me?” he asked hoarsely at the end. Had he looked at him as they’d fought side by side and seen anything of himself there?
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Feb 12, 2023 19:29:00 GMT
It seemed to surreal to think that he had found his father at long last. Alec had known that his parents loved him but they had wanted him to be someone that he wasn’t and he had felt like it was his duty to make them proud even if that meant that he’d had to live a lie. They had never given him any indication that they weren’t his biological parents but the letter he had found after they’d died had done that for him and he had been trying to find answers about his biological parents ever since then. Alec had learned a lot about the supernatural along the way and he knew that being a phoenix was hereditary so one of his parents had had to have been one too. If his mom had been then she would have been able to raise him so that wasn’t it, that had left his dad out there somewhere and Alec had been searching for him ever since. He and Finn had crossed paths in the past and now that he really looked he could see himself in the man but back then during the war there hadn’t been any time for anything like that. Alec had known that if he had died then he would only come back but the same wasn’t true for those around him and he had known that he’d wanted to keep them safe as much as he could. “I have to be. I’ve been through a lot,” he shrugged. There was so much that he was going to have to tell his dad and he had so many questions that he wanted answers to but the truth was that he didn’t even know where to start now that he finally had the chance. “It sounds like it. My parents said I was given to them pretty quickly after that, he probably didn’t want to risk you finding out the truth,” Alec shrugged. He had no memories of the man whatsoever but the truth was that Alec still hated him. He had handed him off to strangers so that he wouldn’t be raised by his own father just because the two of them hadn’t gotten along. Alec couldn’t imagine ever wanting to do that to anyone but it had set in motion the chain of events that his life had become and it wasn’t all bad so he was grateful for that at least. If he hadn’t been taken to America and they hadn’t settled where they had done then he might never have met Lucian and even though it had been decades since the two of them had last seen each other, Alec knew that he wouldn’t want to take back meeting him for anything in the world. “That’s exactly what they did. They brought me here to America and built a life for the three of us,” Alec nodded. As Finn said that they had cared for him, Alec’s expression softened. “They did. They both worked so a lot of the time I was looked after by my friends’ parents but I never doubted they loved me,” he said gently. “They always did what they thought was best for me even if I didn’t agree with them,” he added. They had made him stay on campus for college even though he had wanted to travel each day and in doing so they had taken him away from his friends. It had made his miserable but that was a long time ago now. As Finn asked how long he had been trying to find him, Alec lifted his gaze to meet his. “Ever since I found that letter. There were times when I would go for ages without finding any new leads but I never gave up hope of finding you one day,” he explained, hoping that he would understand. “I’m sorry, I know this is a lot so if you need time to process all of this and decide what you want to do, I’ll understand.” Right now he didn’t even know if Finn would want a relationship with him or whether he would be able to accept the man that Alec had become and Alec would be lying if he said that the idea of being rejected now after finally finding his dad didn’t terrify him. FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Feb 22, 2023 20:46:33 GMT
Going to war to bring about a peace his child could live in had sounded impossible. Tucked up in his cottage – Geraint would not bear him in the main house even with a ring on Bridget’s finger legitimizing the pregnancy that had swelled her stomach to the point where it lay like a pillow between them. With his hand on the curve of it, he’d watched as the baby had surged towards his touch. Bridget had sworn that the child had known him, known the sound of his voice. If his son had heard him whisper that war had never brought a peace like that for him, then he’d forgotten it all. Years later, Alec had joined in battle, just like he had. There was no escaping that violence. Someone would always want what someone else had, would always look at another spot on the map with an avarice that would leave him taking it by violence. There would always be some that suffered for that, and he had.
A smart man would’ve put that suffering behind him and taken himself off to some place he could try and live his life out without getting drawn into such things again. He might’ve thought himself smart, but his attempt to do just that had been what had brought Bridget into his life again. After that … Finn watched his son shrug and puffed a breath out through his nose, like there was something wry about the comment. It was such a simple way of putting it. Where did you start when you had lived like the two of them had?
Mon dieu. If it had just been anybody else to find Alec in the remains of their cottage, perhaps … Mentally warning himself not to waste this moment on wishing he could’ve gone back and changed it, Finn slowly broke from his stupor. He braced his forearms on his knees, curling around that ache inside that had never entirely faded away. ”He’d no clue what I was, but he knew if I was to survive the battle, I’d come for them … for you and your mother.” It only surprised him that the man had not spilled the truth when he’d felt the flames start to blister his skin. Bridget had inherited her father’s stubbornness, but in Geraint there’d been something truly evil to go with it. ”I hope you know that wherever you had gone with them, I would have found you if I had known.” There was a sudden gleam of earnestness in his eyes. He suspected that Alec knew he’d been unaware of the connection, but perhaps not entirely aware of the lengths he would have gone to in order to find his son, the one part of Bridget he had left.
Now Alec stood in his office here, so many years and miles later, telling him that it had not been all bad with the parents Geraint had chosen for him. Finn nodded slowly, the knot in his gut easing a little to hear that they had been good people. Like Gadifer, he supposed, raising a child that hadn’t been him – no matter the circumstances that had left them together. ”I came in the end,” Finn said flatly. ”To fight against the English during the Revolution.” Like he could somehow avenge the lost by punishing the country he thought was to blame for what had happened to Bridget and Alec. Had he been this close then and not even known it? The frown deepened, the cracks shooting through his heart again as he read the letter Alec had held out to him.
Eventually he held it back out, his fingers feeling strangely numb. ”I suppose I made it no easier? I couldn’t stay as I was. Every time I … died … I had to start over. A new name, a new place until it was safe to perhaps double back.” A story his son likely knew just as well now. ”Recently I began to suspect perhaps you had been as I was. I did start to look for you.” At the suggestion that perhaps he needed time, Finn was standing up, shaking his head. ”You’ve no reason to apologise. I have my son, that is all that matters.” What decision was there to make? Finn stepped in, pulling his son in a hug.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on Mar 31, 2023 21:36:00 GMT
Alec hadn’t known that he was adopted while he was growing up, there had never been a doubt in his mind that his parents loved him even though they’d struggled to show it at times. He knew that they’d had their reasons and their own way of doing things, they had thought that they were doing what was best for him but there was a part of him that had felt like it all suddenly made sense after finding the letter that his parents had written for him. It was only when he was going through their things after they died that he found it but in there they told him who his biological parents were and he had spent years since then looking for his dad. He believed them when they said that his mum had died but after finding out he was a phoenix he had known that he must have taken after his dad. That had given him the hope that the man was still out there somewhere and it had taken him a long time to find him but now Alec finally had and he couldn’t be happier about that, or more nervous. He knew that it had to be a shock for Finn and there was a chance that he might end up turning him away but the truth was that Alec really did want to have a relationship with his dad so he honestly hoped that he would get that chance. As Finn said that he would have come for him if he had known, Alec found himself nodding. “I don’t doubt that you would have,” Alec assured him. They had met in the past and Alec had realised then that Finn was a good man. It had never occurred to him that the guy was his dad but now he knew the truth and if he was honest it was a relief. His dad could have been anyone but it was someone he had fought alongside and that made it that much easier as far as Alec was concerned. “I can see how much you’ve been hurting, I’m sorry you had to go through losing us both,” he added gently. Alec knew what it was like to lose people he cared about, his parents had died and he had lost plenty of people since then but he was immortal and he knew that that came with the territory. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for his dad to lose his wife and son in one fell swoop, though, and his heart really did go out to him. Nodding as Finn said that he eventually fought against the English, Alec’s expression softened as Finn went on to say that he hadn’t made it any easier. “I could never hold that against you, I’ve learned what it’s like to have to do that myself,” Alec assured him. It was rarely easy to move on and start over after dying but it came with the territory so in a way he had ended up getting used to it. “It wouldn’t have been any easier for you, I’ve moved around a lot as well,” Alec assured him. Now was the moment of truth, if Finn needed time then Alec knew that he would give it to him without hesitation but it really did want to get to know his dad. Alec already knew that he took after him in that he was a phoenix and they even looked alike so he couldn’t deny that he was curious as to what other ways they were similar. “You mean it?” Alec asked, getting his answer a moment later when Finn pulled him into a hug. For a moment Alec was a little dazed but then he found himself hugging his dad back tightly. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this day,” he admitted, still hardly able to believe that it was actually happening. FINN DE LA SALLE
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FINN DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 266
Age:
651
Occupation:
French Teacher/Mercenary
Status:
Widowed
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Oct 20, 2024 15:21:40 GMT
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Post by FINN DE LA SALLE on Apr 10, 2023 18:29:24 GMT
The English had been tracking down the men who had escaped the battlefields. Posters had gone up across England, up into the low lands of Scotland, bearing the faces of those they accused of leading the battle against their rightful rulers. Finn had spotted his own in a small tavern outside of Lanark, but by then the man he had become bore little resemblance to the fierce warrior who’d cut his way across the field, fighting not for his adopted country, but the woman who had wished to see it flourish out from under the English King’s thumb. A matted beard, shadowed eyes, flesh honed down by his burning determination more than the starvation was slowly killing the people expected to feed the English troops before their own people. He’d slipped through English patrols, played the part of a beggar when he had to. It had been slow, too slow, by the time he’d managed to reach the cottage where he’d left his wife and son the ashes were cold and the only thing that still burned was his anger.
Finn’s expression flattened, some hint of apology there in his eyes as they fixed on his son. Cold blooded murder had never been something he’d set out to commit, but with both the Duke of Burgundy and his father-in-law he had been unable to resist the part of him that wanted to burn the life for them in return for the ones they had taken, both directly and indirectly. ”I regret that I was unable to get there in time,” he said hoarsely. ”I did my best.” But it had not been enough and there was no way of changing that, not a day later, or centuries after the fact. Finn drew in a breath at his son’s words, his expression softening as he nodded his gratitude. ”I am sorry you had to go through losing us, and the people who took you in. They were obviously good people.” The one evil in it all had died in his bed, still denying that he had done anything wrong. His daughter had married a monster, what had happened after her death would have been proof of that if the old man had survived. Thankfully he hadn’t, even if it meant it had taken this long for Alec to find him.
Over the centuries he had turned time and time again, eventually not even trying to hold onto the loyalty he had once had to the nation who had claimed him as a son, or the ones he had lived in long enough to start to consider somewhere a home. In the end it had been whoever had been willing to pay him, the excuse for killing could always be found in the little white lie that it was always him or them. Finn’s brows rose faintly as he looked up at his son. ”I would have saved you from that if I could. Your mother wanted a life of peace for you. For both of us.” And that wish had died in the flames. Bridget had still remained the voice of reason and hope in his heart and mind, but even she could not have imagined this. ”It is part of the curse for our kind – not being able to remain in one place for too long. The English may no longer be trying to conquer the world, but there are still some that would stamp people like us out for being what we are.” And he had met some here in Mystic Falls unfortunately.
On his feet, Finn had hugged his son. He felt the momentary hesitation in his son, understood what it was like to still be reeling – his mind was still a whirl of shock, sure to settle and stun him again later. ”I mean it,” he assured his son, his hand clapping between Alec’s shoulder blades. This was the spring board for all that was to come from here. He laughed hoarsely as he finally drew back. ”I wish that I could say the same, but this is the best sort of surprise.” Sniffing in a breath, he studied his son again. ”Are you staying here in town? This isn’t just a brief stop for you…” He had put down roots here over the last couple of years, but he would hack through them all if the news came that this was just a pit stop for him. None of them were worth letting his son walk from his life again.
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ALEC DE LA SALLE
Phoenix
Posts: 42
Age:
276
Occupation:
Mystic Grill Bartender, Hunter
Status:
Married
Partner:
Lucian Ackerman
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Sept 23, 2024 23:16:00 GMT
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Post by ALEC DE LA SALLE on May 1, 2023 16:38:38 GMT
Alec hadn’t had a bad life while he was growing up but he would be lying if he said that he hadn’t wanted to find out more about who his parents were when he learned that he was adopted. After finding out that he was a phoenix he had realised that he must have inherited that from one of his parents and given that his mother had died when he was just a baby, the obvious answer was that he had taken after his father in that respect. His adoptive parents had told him who his parents were but he still hadn’t had any way of finding his father and Alec had spent his life looking ever since then. He had managed to refrain from letting his search consume him completely because he knew that he wouldn’t have really been living if he had done but it had always been there in the back of his mind. He had spent such a long time searching and it felt surreal now to know that he had finally found the man but the truth was that Alec was happy, he just hoped that Finn was too. Alec knew that he wasn’t the only one who had lost someone, his father had been made to believe that he had died alongside his mother and Alec couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for him. “I believe you,” Alec said gently as Finn said that he did his best to get there in time. Alec could see that this was a surprise but his father wasn’t walking away from him or telling him that he didn’t want any part of this so Alec knew that he could only take that as a good sign. “They were. I hated losing so many people but it made me who I am,” he shrugged. There was a part of him that wondered if he should perhaps mention Lucian and the way the guy had been there for him in some of his darkest moments but Alec wasn’t sure whether his father would be able to accept that part of him just yet so he knew that he wanted to get to know him a bit first. “I know, I get the feeling you would have been an amazing father,” Alec admitted. Better than the one he’d had, that was for sure, but he had put that behind him a long time ago. Now he just wanted to get to know his biological father and build some kind of a relationship with him provided that Finn wanted that too. “It wasn’t all bad, I reconnected with an old friend during one of the battles and he’s the one who helped me figure out that I’m a phoenix. I had no idea what I was before that,” he shrugged. “I also got to fight alongside you even if I didn’t know who you really were back then.” He knew that he would never regret finding Lucian again or fighting alongside Finn so it wasn’t all bad at all. He didn’t know where Lucian was now or even if he was still alive but he hoped that he was out there somewhere and that he had found the happiness that he deserved. “Trust me, I learned that the hard way,” he admitted. He’d had a couple of run ins with hunters along the way but he had been doing much better at flying under the radar over the last few decades. “Have you been here for long?” he asked, not sure whether his dad was going to have to move on soon or whether he would be sticking around for a while. Alec had grown used to having to move away and start over but he had just arrived in Mystic Falls so he hoped he would be able to call it home for a while. Alec’s head had been filled with worries that his father wouldn’t want a relationship with him or that it wouldn’t work out but the moment Finn’s arms wrapped around him, Alec felt those worries start to ease. He wanted to get to know the man whose blood he shared and it seemed that Finn wanted it too so he really was glad about that. “I’m so glad you think so,” he admitted as Finn said that this was the best sort of surprise. He really hadn’t known how it would go when he finally found his father but the truth was that right now it was going so much better than he had ever thought that it would. “No, I’m here to stay,” Alec assured him. “I have a friend who owns the Grill, she’s the one who told me I might find you here. She offered me a job and I have a place in town,” he explained. He knew that he definitely owed Evangeline for this and he was going to have to find a way to thank her, that was for sure. “I’m not going anywhere.”FINN DE LA SALLE
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hope to see you in the discord! 
