Ferris Whit

* Simple
* Collage

> "I meant less true physical death and more that I feel like I have already died a dozen times in some way, shape or form. And this feels like another."
> ― Ferris to Donner
>
>

**King Ferris Ulric Caspian Whit I**, known most commonly as simply Ferris Whit, is the fourteenth reigning sovereign of Telton. Ferris hails from the noble house of Whit, which has sat on the throne for all fourteen generations of Teltish sovereigns. He is the husband of Donner Whit. As a character, Ferris is owned and portrayed by Lark.

## Description

### Appearance

A man with ivory skin and a broad-shouldered build standing at about 5'11. He has black hair, shorn close to his head most often, and a pair of grey eyes. He prefers to be and usually is clean-shaven. Crawling down the back of his left shoulder to the base of his shoulder blades is a bubbling burn scar. His skin is marred by various other scars, most notable of which being a recent brand of the Bilean royal seal on the back of his same shoulder as the burn scar, pressed into the mottled flesh.

## Biography

### Pre-RP

Born a prince and the only heir to the crown of Telton, one could say that Ferris was spoiled in the material sense, at the very least. The one area that Ferris was always lacking in was, perhaps, love. Though both of his parents were around, his father in particular had a tendency to hold him at a distance, to treat him less as a son and more as a pupil or, in later years, an advisor. Equal in mind and spirit, but not in body or title.

Being that as it was, Ferris didn't grow up knowing love in an intimate manner from his father. The bits and pieces that he did receive he saw as coming from pity or resulting from moments of acute weakness. The only exception to this point of view was his mother. Any affection that she would give him was compassion. There was nothing weak about it. And since she was the only one whose affection he approved of, in childhood, he desired nothing more than her unending attention and protection. In his teenage years, this desire twisted into a deeper resentment of his father. He never quite understood why his mother married him, and he never will.

From the time he was ten years old, he was being groomed to one day take the crown. His father ensured that the lessons he underwent with his tutors grew more grueling and demanding. When he was twelve, his father started bringing him in to sit through meetings, quiet in his own corner, so that he could begin directly learning the inner workings of the courts and the responsibilities he would have as king, when that day eventually came. The courts were introduced to him at the same age, and in him they saw the same stoic, cold man that his father had raised him to be, steeled and ready to wear the mantle of a country on his shoulders. Ferris would only realize years down the line that this was his father's own expression of love: ensuring that his son was more than prepared for the difficult life that would await him and the scrutiny that would come along with it.

Even so, Ferris was a teenager, at one time, and with that phase of his life came a desire for rebellion. The castle that he'd been living in all his life had grown dull and boring to him, and he'd long ago learned of a secret passage within his chambers that led outside of the castle, to a part of the grounds rarely visited, obscured as it was by foliage. Not quite sure of what he was searching for but eager for a thrill of any kind, Ferris began sneaking out at dusk, disguised as a commoner. This was his kingdom, his city (or, at least, it would be, soon enough) and he wanted to experience it through the eyes of his people, unburdened by his reputation. He wound up in taverns, mostly, and it wasn't very long before his sneaking out became a nightly occurrence. He found that he enjoyed the revelry, the mindlessness of it. He came to hunger for it, after a time.

It was on one such night, with that hunger tearing greedily through him with particular intensity, that he made and held eye contact with a stranger, a man across the room. The next thing he knew, he'd had his first kiss and his first time all in the same night, and the hunger begged him take more. He didn't know the man, but he could almost imagine that he did, and on the nights where they both drank a little bit too much, it was easy to believe, through the haze of alcohol, that this stranger wasn't a stranger at all, but a man far closer to home: Phineas de Frasier, his childhood friend and the first man he ever loved.

He knew it was a doomed love. Phineas could never reciprocate his affections; he wasn't attracted to men, and never had been. But it didn't stop Ferris from dreaming, and this nightly affair with the stranger only encouraged his fantasies, perhaps even more so for the fact that he wouldn't come to know the man's name until a decade later. Ferris used a fake name for the duration of the affair, bidding his partner call him Caspian so as to prevent him from discovering his real identity, and for a time, Ferris was almost content.

However, it all came crashing down around Ferris the night that Phineas announced his engagement to his now-wife, Mila, to his longtime best friend. Inwardly devastated but forced to hide it, Ferris gave them his congratulations, as was required of him, and when he could finally retreat to his chambers, he snuck out for the last time to indulge in the fantasy that Phineas might one day come to love him in the same way. Too emotional to maintain the façade of happiness, he broke down in the arms of his lover, and though he did not confess his true identity, he did confess his real name. Afterwards, when all was said and done, Ferris fled into the night and vowed to never return, a promise that he did keep.

Following such a profound, invisible heartbreak, Ferris threw himself into his work. He became his father's right-hand man, unquestioning and utterly devoted to his ideals. It was easier to do than let himself feel. And perhaps because he felt so hopeless about the possibility of love, he allowed his father to talk him into a scheme to take territory from their neighbours to the southeast, Bile.

The plan was this: Ferris was to seduce the crown princess, Lucretia Calderara, and gain her trust. From there, he was to use whatever means necessary to gain knowledge about Bile's military power and the defenses in place around the desired land. And because it was what his father wanted, Ferris let it all happen. He held Lucretia by the arm in public, and he let her invite herself into his bed, let her whisper his name and think that she was what he wanted for his future. It was for the good of the kingdom, he told himself, and for this reason, he felt no regret whatsoever. She never saw the invasion coming, never saw the betrayal until it was looking her in the eye in the form of a letter sent by her father, informing her that Telton's Knight Order had swept through their defenses and were making steady progress toward their goal.

The invasion was ultimately successful, and Bile's territory was greatly diminished, having negotiated to hand over the land without argument following a rather quick surrender. Lucretia never forgot the betrayal, however, and she took it deeply personally due to what she felt was a very intimate relationship with Ferris, quietly swearing vengeance upon him. Ferris himself felt that he had paid in spades for that bit of Bile's territory that they'd claimed, for all of the times that he'd had to lie with Lucretia and pretend to love her; if there was any betrayal involved, he thought of it as a betrayal to himself.

Two years later, when Ferris was twenty-two years old, his parents were killed. The story would be told that they died in a seemingly random castle fire, but Ferris and a select few staff that he didn't immediately choose to fire thereafter knew the truth: that there had been a mythical-led attack that had claimed the lives of his parents, and that the scarring on his back wasn't from the fire itself, but from a witch's attack. He was left strangely numb, following the attack, as he was crowned king and forced to juggle his grief alongside his new responsibilities as reigning monarch of Telton.

It didn't take very long for the anger to settle in, though. He had to avenge his mother, who had not deserved such a cruel fate, and his father, who should have seen it coming. Within months, he'd doubled down on the few anti-mythical policies remaining from his father's reign. The restrictions on mythicals got much more severe, and it took what felt like so little time at all before there were arrests being made, murders being turned a blind eye to, and, eventually, public mass executions. And throughout it all, Ferris remained numb, with only that fury to guide him. If his own soul had to be tarnished so that his kingdom remained safe from these mythicals, then so be it.

## Relationships

* Family
* Romance
* Friends

* Neil Whit
* Karoline Laforest
* Lori Odell

Neil Whit was always very hard on his son. Ferris resented him for it throughout his childhood. In his early adulthood, Ferris came to realize that there was perhaps an advantage to not being so emotionally pampered, and he developed a begrudging respect for his father, despite his resentment.

His father's approval was all that he ever sought, however difficult to achieve it may have been. Now that his father is dead, he doesn't know if he ever did achieve it, or if he ever will. He only hopes that wherever his father might be now, he has no regrets.

Karoline Laforest, more commonly referred to as Kora, had always been a calm woman, unruffled by most things. Or so it seemed. Ferris discovered, throughout his childhood, that his mother had a tendency to get defensive with the other nobles when it came to comments about her son, and it was there that he saw the underlying passion in her: in the anger that she hid from the world. Try as he might, he couldn't help but to have a soft spot for her, and he would often gift her with useless material objects, trinkets that he knew held no meaning beyond the fact that he'd given them to her. It was the only way that he knew how to show his appreciation for her.

Now, he wishes he could've done more, spent more time with her, given her more before she died. She, who had been so wild and so contained, all at once. He admires her most, of all of the people that he has ever met, and wishes nothing more than to do her proud.

Lori means little to him. She is a cousin in a long line of cousins that he doesn't care to pay any mind to, all to knowing of the fact that far too many of them are envious of his position and eager to grasp at any amount of power he might be willing to hand off to them. He trusts none of them. Lori, however, is unique in the sense that she has proven more directly annoying than any of his other cousins; even so, he thinks her too daft to make a play for any political power, and it is so very easy to ignore her.

For a time, Lori seemed to be unknowingly competing against Ferris over the attention of Donner, who was, at the time, Ferris's butler. Ultimately, however, between Lori and Ferris, there was no contest; Donner chose Ferris without having to think about it. Since then, Lori hasn't been seen.

* Donner Whit
* Lucretia Calderara
* Adriel

Originally his butler, Donner came to Ferris on the tail end of his mourning process. Intrigued by the pretty butler and what he might want by working this job, Ferris allowed him to remain under his employ, despite the many small mistakes he would made. It took little time for Ferris to realize that Donner was attracted to him and for him to subsequently take advantage of this attraction. This culminated in them sharing a heated kiss, and from that point, behind closed doors, Ferris and Donner were more than just a king and his butler.

Ferris didn't think much of the relationship, at first, until he began to get to know Donner personally. From that point forward, it shocked him, the degree to which he came to care for him, and though he didn't think himself capable of love, he found himself pleasantly surprised by the strength of his feelings for Donner. So, together, they hatched a plan to turn Donner into a nobleman so that it would then be feasible for them to get married. Following the plan's success and the couple's engagement, however, Donner was ambushed and gravely injured at a ball, which sparked the flames of war between Telton and a bitterly vengeful Bile, led by Lucretia Calderara.

Due to the war, Ferris and Donner were apart for some time. Donner spent much of the time lying in bed, sleeping or crying. When they were reunited after two and a half years, burdened both by insecurity and feelings of worthlessness, they couldn't seem to figure out how to be together again. This culminated in a rather one-sided fight that saw them separated again, with Ferris choosing to sleep in a guest room. That was, until it was learned that Orstan was coming to invade, and Ferris and Donner came together again, setting aside their differences so that they could safely flee together.

That night, safely huddled away together, they worked through their differences, and over the weeks of travel that followed have gradually built back up the trust they previously had in each other and the ease with which they'd previously been together, though there is still work to be done yet.

She loved him, but he never loved her. He used her. Their relationship was entirely built on a scheme, and on Ferris's side of things, he went into it knowing that he was to betray her shortly down the line. Their relationship lasted for only a handful of months, but even so, her passion for him grew strong enough to curdle in a bitter need for vengeance following the humiliation that he dealt her.

Truly, Ferris felt no ill will towards her. Not until she enacted the first step in her plan for revenge and nearly killed his intended. Only then did Ferris's general apathy towards her boil into a true anger, and from that anger he drew on as he went to war against her. But she had the greater army, the greater alliance, and it was only a matter of time before he was captured and brought to her personal dungeon, where his anger grew and turned into a genuine, personal loathing towards her as she weaponized everything she knew about him in the form of physical, emotional and psychological torture.

Suffice to say that when he removed her head from her body, he was more than relieved to no longer have to think about her any longer.
haha

* Phineas de Frasier
* Mila de Frasier

slay

Content one

## Trivia

**Fun Facts**

* Ferris once claimed that he had a dog, as a child, named after the first three Teltish kings: X. This was before the history and lore of Telton was fully developed, and, thus, this fact is likely no longer true.

**Behind the Scenes**

* Ferris was originally created to be the villain of Telton's world. However, after his backstory was developed, his owner grew too attached to him, and thus began his redemption arc.

## References

1. ↑ Citation needed
2. ↑ March 25th, 2022
3. ↑ *Unarchived Scene*. March 25th, 2022.
4. ↑ CITATION NEEDED