Henri Baptiste Lefèvre

## Family history

The Lefèvre family had had a rough couple of decades, even before Henri was born. Because of some gambling debt in the family, they were forced to live a whole lot simpler than they even imagined possible. From the small mansion in the city, they moved to a small house in the middle of nowhere. Shame was great, and Henri's grandfather, Baptiste Adhèmar Lefèvre, was determined to earn every cent back to return to the original house. He completely lost himself in his job as an alchemy professor at the University at Bordeaux and the small alchemy shop at home, until dementia took its toll. Adhèmar Donatien Lefèvre, Henri's father, did not receive enough schooling for such a high job and thus wounded up being a cleric. He, too, lost himself in his job in an earnest attempt to go back to the place their bloodline would deserve.

## Early life

Henri often took care of his grandfather, who seemed to be stuck in some loop in time. By listening to this once great man, Henri could repeat the professor's lessons word for word. The lengthy monologues, which got ignored by his mother, caught his interest and Henri decided to try some things for himself. The shop and the forest were amazing places to gather ingredients for his experiments. Soon he began to see the logic in this wonderful madness that was his grandfather's world, and concucted new things.

At 15 years of age, he already opened his grandfather's shop again. Word of mouth got around: affordable healing potions were very popular. Over time, Henri added more things to his shop, dependant on which ingredients he could find, how fast he could pen down recipes from his grandfather's memory, and which things people asked him were possible to make. His parents, even though a bit dismayed that he wouldn't follow his father's footsteps, realized good fortune of having once again an alchemist in the family and allowed this. His mother even hoped that talking to customers would help a bit with his social discomfort. If it had, it is not noticeable in the least.

Around Henri's 21st birthday, his beloved grandfather passed away. This meant two big changes for him. Firstly, the time that would have gone to taking care of his grandfather, was now time he could spend on other things. In his mind, he was already exploring the Wyld more. Sadly, the second change was that his mother, too, got more free time on her hands now, and was determined to put that time and effort to her son. Henri began to avoid home during teatime, as there was more often than not some girl with her mother visiting. His mother's encourages to "just talk to her" always resulted in the same: a bright red head, some stuttering, and Henri who walked away in shame when the girl in question laughed, raised an eyebrow or rolled her eyes.

## Into the Wyld

Growing up in the outskirts of Bordeaux, Henri spent lots of time exploring the forest near his home. By his emphatic nature, he always tried to help when he saw a creature or animal in need. Animals that were too sick, he often took home to nurse back to health. For this purpose, he had a small space in the family's shed to his desposition. The healthy animals got sent back to the Wyld. Of those who died, Henri tried to salvage anything that could be of any use in his alchemist endeavours. When he was not exploring, gathering ingredients or helping inhabitants of the woods, Henri often took his time to draw anything he thought was interesting - a fieldmouse eating some nuts, the footprints of some large creature he did not yet know, a plant he did not yet find in any of grandfather's books.

## A cleptomanic companion

As stated before, Henri tried saving any animal that might need saving. One of these was a squirrel kitten, eyes barely opened and without its mother. He was in very bad shape and Henri did everything he could, even the very questionable decision to give the animal a new alchemical experiment. At first sight, it worked. The kitten could once more breathe evenly and got somewhat more colour. It took some weeks before Henri noticed strange things around the squirrel. When he took out his lunch, he often got startled by some noise from behind them - but there never was anything there. To complete his confusion, the food was gone completely, no matter where he looked. The same process repeated itself when Henri took the squirrel to another place. It soon became clear no food was safe when the seemingly innocent red little floof was around.

When the time came to release the squirrel back to the forest, Henri encountered a problem he'd never had before. The squirrel kitten had no memories of living without Henri and did not want to leave his side. After some failed attempts, Henri had to accept that this squirrel had chosen where his nest was (Henri's hair). He started to call him Monsieur Plumeau.

It took some time for Henri to realise all the changes the alchemical experiment had wrought upon the tiny animal, and tried to make use of Mr. Plumeau's new abilities. As Mr. Plumeau is still young, Henri is still hopeful that his familiar could be more easy to handle and give back things that Henri asked to store in his cheeks of holding. A hope that is possibly in vain.

Monsieur Plumeau doesn't like it when Donatien inhabits Henri's body. He will follow him around, in hopes that Henri comes back soon. In this period, Donatien will ignore any signs of a red tail or objects going missing. He does, however, seem to be very untidy when it comes to leaving bits of snacks at his working table. Especially when it's fruit or nuts.

## Being better (?)

After some events in B party (fights with fireweapons, melting faces by Professor Dragavei, finding corpses hanging from tree branches,...) Henri found difficulties to cope. He already had the feeling most humanoids aren't very tolerable with socially incapable people with a stutter, and really tried to find his place in the Wyld where he thought all of this would matter little enough to actually fit in somewhere. Add in these new PTSD problems (nightmares, paralysing fear in moments he should fight and panic attacks) and Henri felt like an utterly useless human being in every way. If only he were smarter, less afraid, more social, just... Better. If only he were better.

A gift from a (somewhat rude) faerie planted a seed of a great idea in Henri's head. Because if there's a magical lollypop to make people calm down, why couldn't he make a potion to do just that... And more?

Night after night, Henri tried and tried to get the recipe just right. The mutagen he aspired needed to do a lot of things, and there was always this voice in the back of his head telling him it was *just not quite right yet*. First tries had no effect at all, or very little. A later try did succeed in removing his fear; but it overpowered in him a sense of loathing. Was this who he had become? A sad, scared little man in a pauper's clothes, dabbling with things he clearly couldn't do? He felt utterly powerless as the mutagen already started to faint away. Whatever it was that breathed the air that night, was not ready yet to leave as it smashed Henri's equipment off the table. When Henri cried himself to sleep that night, a reassuring thought entered his mind. *We're almost there.*

....

Deep purple it was, and the liquid seemed to move inside the bottle without stirring. Henri could barely contain his excitement when he realised that this might be it - his ticket to being better. As he placed the glass vial eagerly at his lips, he heard a voice. "They're expecting you in the tent. Now." He quicky stoppered his grail and placed it safely in a tiny pocket near his heart. Now was not the time for rash changes. Now, they needed him (not that he was of much help, of course, in the state he was in) in order to get Chicha's mate back to his right mind so everyone can see him for the good boy he was. And, of course, set the rest of the Wyld back to its usual business. During the (seemingly endless) talking, some perceptive lookers might have seen Henri brushing over his chest, almost smiling in doing so. It felt almost alive. It didn't like the wait.

.....

As an explosion just nearly missed him, Henri ducked away. He couldn't believe this was happening again. Just a few moments before, he actually found his courage and tried to attack a fiend by ramming him (quite literally, by turning into a ram). Unfortunately, he ended up ramming through his opponent and onto the lovely lady Evy, wedded only seconds before that, and now very much unconscious and bloodied. As his horns slowly melted into hair in front of his eyes, he saw them still dripping the warm liquid. A cold hand squeezed his heart tight. This could not be happening. Her husband was right to berate him so. He was a completely and utterly useless human being. As Monsieur Abbé left, Henri agreed to stay behind and keep an eye on the lady. He probably wasn't much help with the rest of the party anyways, and maybe this could be a partly atonement for his disgraceful attempt to actually be of any use. That is what he hoped, of course. Even in this, he apparently could not help but to let down. An attacker was coming towards the still onconscious lady, and he was hyperventilating behind some rubble. *Enough.* Henri's breath faltered for a moment. *My turn.* Entranced, Henri took out the little vial. Was it his own heartbeat he felt? The liquid felt somehow both warm and cold, and with every steadying breath, things became increasingly clear. He saw his own hand reach for a musket. Before he could ponder at that, his mind turned blissfully blank. *Ease into it, little brother. I'll take care of you now.*

## Donatien

The mutagen Henri created, gave way to a second personality. Henri's 'brother' calls himself Donatien and is everything Henri aspired to be via his mutagen: social, confident, smart, ambitious, courageous, and not so damnable emotional. He truly is all Henri visioned when making the mutagen. If this makes Donatien better, is debatable. For Donatien might be social, but not empathic as Henri is. He is confident, up to the point where it's donwright arrogance. He might be courageous, but all his goals seem to be material and superficial. And, for the moment, he seems not to be that good at sharing the body with Henri. If you'll ask him, he'll argument that Henri needs more time to recover from his trauma. One cannot help but wonder why Henri can't answer that question himself...