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[Ready] Lambent Nocturne


Windwright

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Roleplay Type: ANG
Name: Lambent Nocturne
Gender: Male
Age: Young adult
Species: Areion
Eye colour: Silver #bdc3c7 cat-slitted irises like most areion, often half-hidden by pince-nez sunglasses.
Coat: Shade Gray #444444
Mane/Tail: Midnight Blue #2c3e50 for both, with a lighter blue streak (#2980b9) bordered by a yellow one (#f1c40f). His tail is kept neat and trim, but allowed to flow freely, while his mane is a medium length tousle that makes him look more like a sleep deprived rock star than a novelist. Unless he's attending a signing, when he'll slick it back and hide his stripes under a brown fedora.
Physique: Tall and lanky. The way he carries himself and moves are the only things stopping him from looking like a rock band washout. He's too tense and nervous
Residence: Zephyr Heights
Occupation: Novelist under the alias Inque Noire through Pulp Tails Publishing, comic writer under the alias Somber Wing for Mark Horse comics, part time barkeeper in a small café in the Eye district.
Cutie Mark: Magnifying glass over an open book. His cutie mark came to him before his voice started cracking, the first time he made it through the slush pile and sold a short story called The Wandering Eye to a pulp magazine that needed something to fill ad space that fell through. He was the first foal in his cadre with a cutie mark.
Unique Traits: Turns out, areion flight is both quieter and less flashy than pegasus flight. Who knew! Lambent's truly unique trait is his triple life. Noir author by night, comic book author by...night...and mild-mannered areion bartender...by...night...Nocturne is not a 'day pony', okay.

History:
Lambent's parents were a relatively unknown producer and off-Eye operetta who elected to retire after relatively successful careers. While he and his siblings were pushed toward music and musicals, Lambent learned from a ludicrously early age that he had a flair for weaving mysteries. He was the youngest of his four siblings, but the second to find his cutie mark thanks to raw talent and quiet drive. While most of his friends were still trying to figure out how to talk to their crushes without pulling their tails, Nocturne was working on his first play. The biggest mystery of which was how he'd managed to produce a compelling narrative without knowing what either word meant.


From there it was a long string of stories sold by the word to magazines that paid less than half what they were worth, until, entirely by chance, an author working under the nom de plume "Inque Noire" happened to read one of those pieces while she was waiting in a barber's shop. She was getting on in years, and was starting to look towards retiring after a long career of her own, so she sent young Nocturne a letter under her real name, commissioning him to produce a longer work. With the extra space (and a thesaurus), he managed to create a tidy little novella, which he sent off to his mysterious benefactor. He was shocked when, a year later, he read Inque Noire's newest thriller and realized that HE had written it.

 

Not all of it, of course. The wording was different, better, and a few key scenes had been shifted around so that the story was paced better. But it was his plot. The characters had his names. And the solution was HIS solution.
Which is when he got his second letter, with the payment for his first story, a sum that was more than twice what all his other stories had earned combined, and an explanation. His mysterious benefactor was, in fact, Inque Noire. She had a new commission for him, too, but with a catch. Firstly, he couldn't show it to anypony else. This was between the two of them, and second, he would be paid a cut of the royalties, rather than a flat rate. And then, once that novel was published, he was given a third commission, and then a fourth, and then he was doing his own revisions and editing in exchange for a larger cut of the royalties. And gradually, story by story, more and more of Inque Noire's books weren't actually written by this mysterious mare at all. They were written by Lambent.

 

When he realized that he'd been responsible for an entire year's worth of Inque Noire books, he decided to play the sleuth himself and tracked down his benefactor, who turned out to be a kindly old mare who didn't care much for the spotlight anymore, and had been training Lambent for a very special job. Her job. Inque Noire. Because it turned out, she wasn't the first pegasus to publish under that name. It had cropped up off and on for as far back as anypony could remember. Sometimes a pegasus, sometimes an areion, sometimes a mare, sometimes a stallion, and now: Lambent Nocturne swore to keep the secret and keep up her work, which he has done to this day, even after her passing.

 

It didn't exactly pay well, but the work was more than enough to let him afford an apartment in one of the foggy districts, especially once Mark Horse reached out to him with an offer to write episodic plots to use as B plot fillers between major arcs or while waiting for other titles' timelines to catch up for a major event. He's been doing both writing jobs for a few years now, though his family only knows about the bar job, and was quite comfortable with his (admittedly rather spartan) life. Until magic came back and he discovered that he could fly.

 

Character Personality:

While Lambent has plenty of confidence, it's all tied up behind his twin masks. His life and upbringing would have made him a bit of a nervous wreck if not for the early discovery of his special talent. The rest of his family are all, in one way or another, involved in either theatre or music, and so far as they're aware he's a barkeep who occasionally sells short stories for book money. Nocturne is perfectly happy to let them think so, just like he's perfectly happy for his fans to think he's a mysterious, nigh-immortal author of well-crafted Noir novels, or fairly decent detective comic stories, and his professional contacts to think of him as a shy, eccentric author who liked his privacy. The balance between stoic bartender and prolific author does cause him a fair bit of stress, which he vents into his work and his newly found hobby of gliding around Zephyr Heights' theatre district.


Character Summary:

Lambent Nocturne: moderately successful mystery author and bundle of nerves. He's driven by his craft, almost obsessed during his more intense phases, and spends most of his time serving drinks or hunched over his trusty typewriter. His apartment is lined wall-to-wall with bookshelves stuffed to bursting with paperbacks, magazines in organizer boxes, and comic book trade publications, though most of them are from other authors and writers rather than his own works. Notably, he's inherited a collection of first edition Inque Noire novels passed down from author to author to bear the name, which he gives pride of place in his study/office/spare room, an entire bookshelf directly across from his desk so if he needs to look up from his typewriter, he can't help but see it.

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