Alessio Lejeune

Character: Alessio Lejeune
Based on: Sir Lucan
Age: 27
Occupation: journalist

Bio:

Past:
Lucan, the brother of Bedivere, was one of Arthur’s earliest knights and held the post of butler. Quiet, discreet, responsible, he fought in Arthur’s early battles, but after the court at Camelot was more firmly established, remained behind to see to his post. He returned again to the field of battle at Camlann where, as the battle drew to a close, he supposedly begged Arthur not to face Mordred. This advice was ignored, and Lucan died shortly after the battle trying to help move his King away from the battlefield.

Present:
Alessio (usually called Alex) is the son of Louisiana old money and a first-generation Italian immigrant. The youngest of five, he was the child of his parents’ older age and his father died when he was relatively young. His school years passed unremarkably (he eventually gave up hoping a teacher would read his name and not feel compelled to start a conversation about his heritage), he went on to a fairly good liberal arts college and, unsure what else to do with an English major, found himself working for a newspaper in Washington state.

After emptying the nest, his mother had moved up north to Britannia, liking the small-town feel. She’s getting on in years, though, and Alex, as the only Lejeune left without a family of his own, was appointed by his siblings the duty of moving back east to take care of her. So, Alex quit his job at the Washington paper, found one at the little local Britannia paper, and made the move.

Of course, he dreams. As a child, his dreams confused to him to no end, as his combined Cajun-Italian cultural background didn’t exactly cover Arthurian legends. But an avid reader and writer from an early age, he soon filled in the gaps with a little help from his library card. Since his late teens he has remembered, if not everything, then enough. There was a time he was desperate to meet someone else who shared his dreams and memories and sense that he still has duties to his King to fulfill. But after a few years passed and no King Arthur came popping out of the woodwork, he tried to let it go, and has increasingly attempted to dismiss those thoughts as some kind of youthful fancy. The dreams and memories remain, but the passion and burning sense of duty have faded.

Until now, anyway.

Personality:
A very quiet and unassuming type of person, Alex’s strategy has always been to keep your head down and work hard. After being given one or two interviews to perform early on in his career, his editors quickly learned that he was terrible at them; he’s quite good, however, at quietly digging and poking and coming at things from different angles until he can find the truth of it. And he believes there always is a truth to get to.
When Alex has said he’ll do something, he’ll do it, be it taking care of his mother or getting good stories for his newspaper. This later became a point of contention between him and some friends out west—namely, whether taking a tidbit casually mentioned in a social setting and using it as the base of research for an exposé is quite kosher—and these beginnings of what promised to devolve into something of a feud certainly helped make his departure for Britannia somewhat less than painful. It is evidence, however, of his peculiar sense of what might even be called duty: a stated obligation to his job will always come before an unspoken one to a friend. He’ll always follow the scoop a friend casually let slip. (But he’d also always help to carry his King off the battlefield.)

( Sample Post )