Alejandro Velasco de Mereliot
Alejandro.jpg
Fullname: Alejandro Velasco de Mereliot
Played by: Alexander Siddig
Gender: Male
Age: 39
Birthdate: Nov 17th
Class: Noble/Foreigner
House: Mereliot
Occupation: Baron de Narbonne
Province: Eisande
Country: Terre d'Ange
Parents: The Vizconde de Cabrera and his wife
Siblings: Santiago Velasco (d), Mateo Velasco (d)
Marital Status: Married to Sofia Mereliot, Baronesse de Narbonne
Children: None

Known Information

The youngest of three male siblings, Alejandro was perhaps the most privileged and least responsible of the Cabrera noble family of Velasco. While their father had reared his oldest brother, Santiago, for eventual stewardship of the family's holdings, and Mateo departed to serve in the Aragonnian militia and further the family's reputation abroad, Alejandro was left to his own vices of wine, women, and sketching the local vistas and wildlife. As the dawn of the Renaissance convinced many noble families of the value of more scholastic pursuits, he was sent to the university in Tiberium to provide a legitimate foundation to his existing talent for the arts. Though exposed to the works of some of the period's emerging figures, he managed to become expelled within a year, spending most of his time eavesdropping on young women bathing or undressing — though he produced vividly detailed drawings of their beauty, nevertheless.

Having squandered a small fortune to secure his tenure, Alejandro did not have the heart to return home in failure, thus he remained abroad for a few years to develop his talents by more unconventional methods. It was while laying awake one night with a Bhodistani whore that he discovered his true calling, spending the waning hours before sunrise committing the image of her slender shape half wrapped in the bedsheets to canvas. He left the tavern before she woke, leaving the portrait as compensation.

By 25 the young noble had expired the remainder of the funds he'd been given for tuition and living expenses, and having not seen another disbursement from his father in over a year, was forced to return to Cabrera and come back into the fold. He arrived to find his family's affairs in disarray. His father had passed two years prior from natural causes, while a riding accident claimed Santiago not long after. His mother had initiated a desperate attempt to reach the second brother, Mateo, only to find he had lost his life in a skirmish in the south only a week prior. Alejandro had returned just in time, and yet his prolonged absence and indulgent lifestyle had cost the family much even before the recent series of tragedies. He was not met with open arms.

Thus the new Vizconde de Cabrera served his penance in the years that followed. Without father or brothers to guide him, Alejandro held up the family's lands as best he could. He would steal a moment here and there to sketch a bird upon the branch, or a particularly captivating sunrise. Yet the responsibilities of leading the vizconde demanded most of his energy. His thirtieth year came, and then his thirty-fifth. Soon his days of chasing women and painting their risque portraits were but a memory.

Despite his best efforts, the family lands fell into distinct decline under his stewardship. An outbreak of the bubonic plague particularly devastated the population, and along with it, trade in the region and revenue from taxes. Worse yet, the aging noble saw his fortieth birthday approaching without a single heir, or even prospect for marriage. It was clear a union with another noble family was paramount to the survival of his. Not that Alejandro wasn't perfectly happy letting the Velasco name die with him. Nobility had undermined even his passion for life. He drank himself to sleep most nights, and it was not uncommon for a servant to find him lying in a field a few miles from the estate with the dawn, a bottle in one hand and a sketchbook in the other, its pages full of the faded drawings from his youth.

Then, opportunity struck. Sofia Mereliot, Baroness of Narbonne and niece to the Duchesse of the most prominent noble family of Eisande, had proclaimed an interest in uniting with a foreign house. Alejandro had always wanted to travel to Terre d'Ange. Despite its formal alliance with Aragonia, it held a notorious reputation among the religious peasantry of Cabrera for its reverence of free love and prostitution, and its blasphemous assertions of Elua's divinity. His mother certainly frowned upon the union, not only for the origins of his prospective wife’s family, but the consequential surrender of his superior title. Yet, fortunately for Alejandro, Sofia counted the floundering Vizconde among her greatest prospects. Their courtship was brief and quick to flourish. And, despite the protest of many of her own fellow nobles about the union, claiming the dissolution of pure d'Angeline bloodlines with the rising foreign presence within the sovereign nation, the marriage proceeded without obstruction in her home city of Marsilikos. However, the King of Aragonia only agreed to the arrangement so long as their firstborn son be returned to Cabrera to inherit the abandoned title.

Alejandro had looked forward to their wedding night. During his travels within Tiberium and abroad, the young noble came upon the infamous Les Trois Milles Joies. Though he bedded many gullible tavern wenches and street prostitutes in those days, none would have rivaled any of the revered courtesans of the Night Court. Sofia was nobility, but she had spoken much of the d'Angeline's reverence of the Night Court, and her own patronage of the salons. He was confident he had wed himself not only to a wealthy baroness, but a beautiful and passionate lover. And through her, perhaps, access to the greatest prostitutes in the world.

Much to his chagrin, the bedding proved as brief as the courtship. And Sofia grew distinctly cold with her newfound husband following that night. Alejandro could not understand why. She appeared genuinely smitten with him during their long walks through his family's lands. A wicked smile touched her face whenever he alluded to the decadent exploits of his youth. With her, he could wear his shameful history like a badge of honor. Now, it seemed he had entered yet another family disgusted with him.

One night, Alejandro learned the truth. Relapsing into his late night habits of drinking and sulking beneath the stars, he happened upon a curious commotion within the servant's quarters of his wife's estate. Under secret candlelight, the Baroness engaged in acts with a young handmaiden not even the indulgent vizconde had dared to imagine. His heart raced and stung, all at once. It seemed the sour reputation of the illicit lives of the nobility of Terre d'Ange was true after all.

And so, Alejandro pursues his new life in the city of Marsilikos, born and married into the privilege of nobility, yet cursed with its rampant political machinations. Surrounded by beauty and not-so-secret debauchery, but saddled with a newfound reputation to preserve. His worn heart longs for a new inspiration. A rekindling of his youthful passions. An aging artist having not yet produced his masterpiece. Perhaps, in the heart of Terre d'Ange, his true talent will be realized.

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