Lords of Gossamer and Shadow NPCs: Marcello Cavalier of Perstep

Marcello Cavalier becomes more distant every year that passes Image by Pablo Vazquez, legalese at bottom of the page

My name is feared in my own domain, and as I hear it, feared across the Grand Stair more and more each day.  I do not understand this fear of me for I am an open and honourable man who acts only on the proofs before me. Give me a problem and the facts and I will build a solution that will stand the tests of time.  The Eidolon will bolster my judgements.  Some may see the results as extreme but none will argue that they are unfair.

I was once well liked.  I find that looking back, people trust you more if you are able to barter your honour like a prison snitch.  Everyone wants a piece of you if you know secrets and are willing to share them.  But I decided a long time ago that I would take the path of the honourable man and I have only ever deviated twice since that time.  Both times have caused me untold pain and damage yet I ask not to have that removed.  These are my burdens and I will carry them alone.

My honour breaches?  Well if I were talking to someone of a lesser station I would have you on latrine duty by now but I see how that may be relevant in this role.  They were both affairs of the heart.  The first was soon after I had been promised to another.  I had not thought of the ramifications of it all and soon found out that I would be a father for the first time.  I felt trapped and scared.  There was an older woman in my unit, a new recruit of sorts who was vivacious and looked to me like a true leader.  I did not realise it at the time but as I trained her I was falling for her.  Her name was Ylvana Sendar and we danced the gentle dance of flirtation.  Until one day when she was to transfer to another unit, worlds away.

That night when we said goodbye, we both knew then that we were more to each other than could be helped.  She had her husband and I my wife but she returned several months later on leave.  We met and mad love to each other for one passionate embrace.  I loved her then but I am an honourable man and I would not, could not destroy my, or her, family for one more embrace.  She has returned in recent times and seeks something from me.  Something that I can no longer give.  It pains me for her marriage is sour and cruel.  But I cannot let these be my issue.  My family is my creation, and I will not destroy it for something that once was.

The other is a more vicious and recent thing, but also steeped in history.  Some would say it is even less severe but in reality it is the one that I wake with every day and the one that I go to bed with every night.  When I was younger, much younger than today I met a girl just as I was changing.  She was a raven haired beauty with dark eyes and pale skin.  A smile and laugh that pulled immediately at my soul so that I would say I was completely smitten with her.  We were much more friends as we were young though it did become physical toward the end of one hot steamy summer.  We never consumated our love but we had fun exploring, perhaps for one of the first times, what life was like as a sexual being.

We were from two different worlds though and that distance caused us to naturally lose connection.  We would say hello and talk for a time if we did see one another but it was never again so heavy.  Until recently.  She has recently found the Grand Stair, my beautiful Star Leach, and with it she has realised her powers as I long ago realised my own.  She knows my true name and she has used it to climb back into my head.  We have shared nights of romantic passion via this remote connection and when I think of her I am close to useless.  She came so suddenly back to me but she, like I, has a family and she fights against this primal connection that we have.

She is stronger than I though.  She and I spent one last night (of countless nights that I am embarrassed to admit) in the throws of passion through her wrighting.  But on the dawn she broke this connection.  She tells me that we can not be.  I am in love though and now I bear that love in silence.  I have tried to contact her, but our conversations are now back to impersonal, distant and it hurts me more with every piece of small talk I must endure.  She is the one that I would truly consider destroying everything I built for.  I would throw it away so that she and I could be one.

So, for those that have levelled a finger at me, stating that I could not do this for you sir because I have no love in my heart.  I tell you that my coolness, my reasoning and my Eidolon powers are so astute because I have too much love in my heart.  If I were to let it free then I could destroy not only my own Gossamer reality but many others dreams and lives too.  I will suffer with these breaches of honour.  I have learned from them, and live with them.  Unless the enemy is my beautiful Star, I am the man for this position.