Turnus Wyllt/Pre-Veritas

"I'm not like other princes. I don’t need to rely on a damsel’s emotional labour."

- Never Quite Enough

Turnus Wyllt [he/him] is a prince who hails from a cold, harsh North. It’s Canada. He’s from Canada.

Born to two mages, one of which who took on the name of Merlin, Turnus is hexpected to follow the destiny of King Merlin’s son in the Princess Mayblossom, essentially becoming a love interest lacking both name and personality, here to serve as some princess’ trophy husband.

It’s a disturbing prospect, one that he’s against vehemently, but identifies as Neutral, believing that his heritage (being born to parents without destinies) disallows his right to an opinion.

Personality
Once upon a time, Turnus used to be brilliant.

People thought he was smart. He once had a natural skill for retaining knowledge, and when he was not learning about the world around him, he was creating a world - through fiction and imagination. Once, he had been seen as loud and spontaneous, quick-witted and thoughtful. Once, he had demonstrated a love for fantasy novels and other fictional works. Once, he had been someone with a vivid imagination and a yearning to be something bigger and better than the mere prince he was.

That was before Ever After High, of course.

Secretly, Turnus wants to change the world, but feels powerless to do so. After all, his parents were both destiny-less. And he’s only in his Storybook-given story for one line. How can one incredibly, incredibly minor prince change anything in a world so driven by destiny? Turnus doesn’t know, but goddamn, will he try.

Natural intelligence is a given for him, and if put in a suitable environment, he could really flourish. But Ever After High is not that environment. He fits in with neither fellow princes or wizards. He’s a mage with no magic; he’s a prince with neither kingdom nor purpose. He loves high fantasy but is in a world of fairytales. He has three cultures and still isn’t entirely sure how they intersect. He’s a third-wheel to his close friend trio.

Mostly important, he has absolutely zero idealism and is most disillusioned in regards to the fairytale world. He struggles to find his place in the universe and only knows his escape through fiction.

Due to this, he has mostly given up. At Ever After High, Turnus has become a bit of a slacker, skating off natural intelligence. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but because this is not what he wants to do and not where he wants to be, and feels like he has no real purpose to exert effort.

Once, he used to be so certain about himself, and now he’s not at all. Once, things were better. Once, he used to be better.

Now, with a destiny on his shoulders, he feels greatly burdened. He feels constantly guilty for not having the magical skills of his parents, and even guiltier that he can't bring pride to the family in a proper, successful marriage/connection to a great kingdom.

Turnus hates the fact that the Storybook forced a destiny upon him, since he thinks that his role in Princess Mayblossom is suppressing his potential. Being a trophy husband was something that has never sat well with this prince. Turnus always had a wish to explore the world, to find out more about Ever After. Being the prerequisite to a princess’ Happily Ever After is the antithesis of that.

To most fairytales, first appearances make Turnus appear awkward. He never seems to know what to say, or what to do, and often says things very bluntly. In fact, his standard reaction when being told of somebody’s fairytale is to start critiquing all the plot holes.

Of course, this can be a little rude, and frankly, Turnus doesn’t really care. This boy is sick of this fairytale world, and sick of staying at Ever After. He finds the environment draining, he finds keeping up with all the proper decorum exhausting, and he finds a grand majority of the people frustrating.

And he’s tired. This is not his place, these are not his people. It’s constricting to be stuck somewhere where you know your potential is limited and where you feel like you’re getting nowhere. He is simply a young man trying his best in a world that was not written for him.

Some people will claim to be born in the wrong generation. Turnus Wyllt was born in the wrong genre.

Appearance
Turnus is a pretty youth of mixed Black and Arab (Algerian) heritage. He’s tall, gangly, and rarely looks as if he knows what he’s doing. His hair, which is almost always kept long and loose, is usually straightened, giving him the appearance of an elf from a high fantasy novel. In fact, some students have believed that this son of wizards was not quite entirely human a few times before.

Turnus is not really one for looking people in the eyes. Take note, though, for his own are a vibrant yellow. If you look at them for too long, they appear to glow.

High Fantasy, Worldbuilding, DnD and all that smooth jazz
Turnus is a classic nerd. No doubt or question about it.
 * He is the Dungeon Master for a current "Dungeons and Damsels" campaign, though I'm not exactly sure who is in it.
 * Some outdated, but still funny content.
 * Writes fanfiction.
 * Writes original fiction too, it's just that his fanfiction gets more hits.
 * According to his Mirror Blog, he's been published in EAH's literary magazine.
 * Really obsessed with how the world works and likes to explore that.
 * Fictional means are a fun way of doing so.

A Very Complex Relationship With Magic (or rather, the lack of it)
Turnus can't do magic. He can't use magic. But the thing is he grew up surrounded by magic, with two mages for parents and a talented older brother. Furthermore, he lives in the world of Ever After, which uses magic to such a liberal degree that not having any magic is an absolute disadvantage.

But it's not just casting spells that affects him... Unfortunately for the boi, Turnus is really fascinated by magic. How it works, why it works. Once upon a time, Turnus wanted to know this information so that he could understand why he lacked it and how to "fix" himself. Now, it's just out of interest. However, due to magic being nearly completely barred off to him, Turnus lacks the means to study it, and hence, understand it properly. Books and words can only do so much, you know.
 * Cannot actively use magical items.
 * ie, a magical item can be used on him (because he's passive), but he cannot utilise the effects of a magical item.
 * A magical item is defined by something with a significant portion of magic. (Because let's face it - this is the fairytale world and magic is imbued in everything.)
 * Turnus struggles to enter most magical portals, and physically cannot complete Rumplestiltskin's detentions of spinning straw into gold.
 * Cannot make magical potions.
 * Basic chemistry is fine.
 * But when the chemical compositions contain high levels of magical energy, that is when it gets :/ for Turnus.
 * Cannot detect magical spells, charms, or magical energy / items.
 * In a lot of fantasy settings, the ability to detect magic is magic in itself. In particular, the setting of DnD.
 * For this reason, Turnus is very suspectible to falling under magical curses / threats as he cannot foresee them coming.

Pop Science
While Turnus absolutely depises the stereotype that mages only turn to science when they lack skill in magic, he despises himself more for falling into it. He thinks knowledge is cool and he thinks people who hunt down knowledge is cool. Whether or not that knowledge is arcane or not matters not to him.

But it's not just science...

(Applied) Mathematics
Maths.

There's something to be said about a field that deals with the absolute. With truth. With things that are unchangeable and certain, that, despite magic or no magic, can not be denied.

Turnus doesn't know his place in the world. But maths? Mathematics will always have a place somewhere - there's a place for it everywhere. Perhaps, indulging in maths is this boy's own way of finding somewhere for him, too.
 * Read the Klara Spejl section of Turnus' relationships page for more information.

Other

 * Really, intensely homesick for Canada.
 * Picked up ice hockey just because it reminded him of home.
 * Will cry if you mention Tim Hortons because he hasn't had coffee in literal months.
 * "just got out of a depression nap what's up"

How the Story Goes
Wikipedia page

How does Turnus come into it?
"On a school record, on a slip of paper, Turnus holds the title of Prince. He takes the classes, he sits with fellow princes at the castleteria. He refuses to wear a crown, to take up weaponry, or to bother with politics." Turnus had never hexpected to be a prince. I mean, he is one. His mother was an Algerian princess and mage; his father studied under a school in Wales, under the name of Merlin - the Merlin, who nurtured the rightful King of Britain. Prince, to Turnus, was merely a title, something that granted him little more than an extra box to tick on legal documents.

Neither did his parents hexpect him to be a prince. They were mages - powerful, resplendent, commanding magic with practised ease. Without a doubt, the two decided, that their children would follow their steps. Their first son turned out to be equally magnificent: a dux, handsome, immeasurable skill.

However, the same thing could not be said for the second. Turnus' magic from childhood was weak, fizzling out with bathos. And when he reached his youth, that magic left him completely. Co-opting a term from a popular book series, Turnus was a squib.

His parents, as parents tend to be, were worried. What sort of future would the child of two mages have, if he were not a mage himself? But luck (or what they perceived as luck) came in the form of a destiny: King Merlin's son. The Princess Mayblossom of the next generation was roughly Turnus' age, and a husband was needed for her. Not only was Turnus a prince, but one with the name of Merlin, so in the eyes of his parents, this arrangement seemed like fate.

But oh, how wrong they were.

Opinion on Destiny
The Princess Mayblossom is not a story that Turnus can rightfully call his own. He feels no emotion towards it, and has only read it once – and by skimming. He’s aware that his role is merely brief, he’s aware that he’s worth little to the princess, and is merely a trophy husband to celebrate the end of her bad-luck-curse.

And Turnus thinks little of fairytales in general. He finds those inheriting destinies as nepotistic, believing that their “success” is merely given, rather than rightfully earned. Having grown up seeing his immigrant parents build an empire out of nothing, he finds that he dislikes princes and princesses from old money families who never had to work a day in their lives.

In his mind, it’s not the past that indicates a family’s greatness, but their present. There’s no pride in achieving simply because your ancestors were great. Due to this, he places great weight on the idea of success through his own merits.

Therefore, when receiving news of his destiny, he was absolutely horrified. Success through a well-off marriage is near the top of his list for "worst-case scenarios". He's downright against the idea of being a trophy husband, nothing more than a princess' prize.

Although he’s not enraged by the Fairytale Authorities’ choice of a prince, he finds it irritating. He’s got his own life, his own things to do. He has plans to start up his own company or something, or work in Geneva, or do something interesting with his life. Being married to a Princess Mayblossom essentially puts a stop to all that. Turnus refuses to have any potential of his stifled.

However, due to his heritage, he feels like he's not allowed any input on destiny matters, so has opted for the alignment of Neutral.

Parallels
Considering that Turnus (quite frankly) makes for a terrible King Merlin's son, there are very few parallels.
 * One should note, however, that Turnus has literally 0 (zero!) motifs in his design that nod or allude to his tale or role.
 * He does share the same surname as Merlin himself though "Wyllt", though it was never his father's original surname.
 * Unlike the pseudohistorical Merlin, Turnus isn't fatherless. His father, however--
 * As Turnus was destined to fulfill the role of King Merlin's son, any Merlin-like qualities or traits are actually more present in his father than in him.

Trivia

 * Turnus is named after Prince Turnus from the Aeneid. No particular reason, I just wanted a cool, Latinate name.
 * Wyllt refers to Myrddin Wyllt, a figure introduced into Arthurian Legend as Merlin the wizard.
 * In real-world terms, Turnus would be from Montreal, Canada.
 * He speaks with a Quebecois accent.
 * He can speak French (Quebec), English, and Arabic (only conversationally, not technically).
 * In earlier drafts, Turnus was written as from Haiti. This was later changed to Turnus being Canadian in nationality, with an Algerian & Welsh background.
 * Turnus' mother being from Algeria is a reference to the French-Algerian philosopher and author, Albert Camus. His father is Welsh to explain the surname, and also for the connection with Merlin.
 * Both Canada and Algeria are previously French-controlled regions. Madame D'Aulnoy is a French writer.
 * His school "notes" are a mess. They're mostly highlighted scanned pages from the textbook, and any individual notes he takes during class at mostly written in Quebecois French, with notation he invented himself and diagrams that only he seems to be able to decipher. Also, a good portion of the things he does take down are funny remarks the teacher or other classmates say.
 * Needless to say, no one goes to him for his notes, not even in desperation. Though, even if they were fantastic notes, Turnus comes off as too pretty and standoffish to approach, anyway.
 * Turnus' favourite Disney princess is Jasmine.
 * Something about her being the only princess of MENA descent... or the whole "I am not a prize to be won!" thing...

Quotes
"I suppose we can't dishonour a friendship bracelet promise."

- from an unpublished fic

"No joke, I'd hate to be a princess. But almost every princess has what I don't. I guess... I guess you really learn to undermine the importance of agency and autonomy when it gets taken away from you."

- from Ask the OC Below You a Question