Post by Zernebog Pendragon-Romanov on Mar 7, 2011 22:51:55 GMT -8
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; border: solid 10px black; -webkit-border-radius: 100px; -moz-border-radius: 100px; border-radius: 100px; background: url(http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac26/nachtmare/Board/2gwg8qdjpg-1.png); color: black;] ✎__________DOWNLOADING_FILE...  VANIR FILE #002833 HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOADED.  ▶ ▷ ▶ ENTRY ONE BARE-BONE BASICS full name: " Zernebog Viktor Vsevolodovich Pendragon-Romanov " nickname(s): " His Russian friends call him Vsevolodych or Vitya. However, those who are very close to him call him Viten'ka. Either way, those names often confuse or cause difficulties his non-Russian friends so he tolerates the usage of Zerne or Vic. He prefers his actual name over any of those though. " age: " eighteen " sex & sexuality: " Male and b]heterosexual |
nationality:
" Primarily Russian, but there is also German and English along with even more nationalities that was gained through the Romanov line that are prestigious yet distant. "
attribute:
" Chosen Child of Pride "
aettier ranking:
" Silver Ættier "
alignment:
" His natural tendencies along with his upbringing have made him currently Neutral Evil, especially as he has had no outstanding pillar of morals and ethics to model himself after. "
▶ ▷ ▶ ENTRY TWO
APPEARANCE
height & build:
" He is an impressive 6'4" with a lean yet very muscular build from all the fights he gets into as well as his martial arts training. It does help that he eats a proper balanced and nutritious diet due to his pride on his looks. "
notable clothing:
" Zernebog has very long white hair worn in a low ponytail that he refuses to cut more than once per two years, preferring it at such unusual lengths for a guy. He has striking gold eyes that he may hide using shades or goggles; if not he would just use the goggles or the shades as mere accessories. There's also the red markings that outline his eyes, form one pair of stripes under said eyes, and bolt-like markings that go from his shoulders to his wrists. He has a white head band with red lightning bolt designs on the sides and a circle with two lines going from top to bottom of the cloth, which is his favorite piece of clothing."
face claim:
[b]Okami[/b] • [i]Gekigami[/i] • Zernebog Viktor Vsevolodovich Pendragon-Romanov
▶ ▷ ▶ ENTRY THREE
BEHAVIOUR
positive personality traits:
" Intelligent • Independent • Diligent • Perfectionist • Creative • Resilient • Enthusiastic • Ambitious "
negative personality traits:
" Competitive • Manipulative • Prideful • Vicious • Relentless • Unpredictable • Cynical • Greedy "
likes:
" Good Wine • Praise • Martial Arts • Challenges • Meat • Hot Foods • Spicy Foods • Good Music • Women • Being the best • Rodion • Other Vanir • Getting his way • a sense of humor • Ice cream • Cold places "
dislikes:
" Failure • Being humbled or bested • Idiots • People who ruin his plans • People who insult him or Rodion • Doing nothing • Wasting time • Pacifists • His dad • Horrible Music • Losing • Illegal Drugs • Gay men hitting on him • Goodie two-shoes • Honor • Traitors "
habits & hobbies:
" Martial Arts • Singing • Dancing • Playing the piano, guitar, and saxophone • Wine critiquing • Messing with people's minds • Proving himself to be the best • Striving for the best in his current obsession • Arena battles • Reading"
▶ ▷ ▶ ENTRY FOUR
HISTORY
" Zernebog Viktor Vsevolodovich Pendragon-Romanov was born during winter, to an enthusiastic father and a very reluctant mother. Both of them have a complex past that intertwined with Zernebog’s own, and influenced how he would be brought up to be the person he is today. In order to explain it properly, one must go back into the past to see how those stories intertwined and how they relate to Zernebog’s own up till the present.
In 1919, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov had escaped to London to avoid execution by the Bolsheviks. He had just had a falling-out with Prince Felix Yusupov, fearing what staying with him would do to his already-damaged reputation and miniscule chance to succeed the throne if the monarchy ever came back to power. As it was, he was angry and depressed about many things, which made him decide to drink his sorrows away in some obscure bar in the seedier parts of London.
It was there where he met a beautiful woman by the name of Amelia Pendragon, who was drinking away the hardships of life with the liquor that the barkeep gave to her out of pity, even if a woman drinking at a place like this was extremely unseemly. With their minds fogged by alcohol, they had inadvertently made drunken love to each other… resulting in a child. Once Dmitri learned of it, he gave the woman hush money and told her to keep quiet about it or else before going away from London to prevent terrible implications placed upon him. Of course, she was upset about it but she had no choice but to comply. It was something that she would never forgive him or the rest of the Romanov house for the rest of her long and hard life.
That child was then raised to believe that Dmitri and his family had ruined his mother’s life by making her impure and unfit for marriage during that time without telling him how, which gave him a hatred for them as powerful as his mother’s. This hatred was then passed on to his progeny as a necessary part of their upbringing, with the poor child never knowing the truth about his parentage despite all attempts to knowing who his father was. The cultivation of this hatred was seen in his son’s eldest daughter, one Ekaterina Pendragon, a successful entrepreneur of wine who owned a huge vineyard in England and Greece.
One day, she and her partner digimon- a Grizzlymon with the name of Marcus- visited Russia. She had been invited there by a few people as an ‘investor’ in their business. It was there that she met a young and handsome man named Vsevolod Mikhailov Romanov in a bar that served her wines. To be specific, she met him as he and his digimon- an IceDevimon with the name Vladimir- were engaged in a drunken brawl with another man with an Angemon that tore up the bar and injured many patrons, including Ekaterina herself. Of course, she broke up said brawl by having her Grizzlymon knock all of the involved participants out, thinking that she was doing everyone and herself a favor.
Of course, that action did not go unnoticed. She was then approached by the man’s parents a week, who introduced themselves and their apologetic son in a weak and pathetic attempt to apologize. Given her hatred of the Romanov clan instilled into her since she was a child by her parents and grandparents, she did not take the revelation well at all. In a fit of controlled hate, she told them politely that it was nothing but that she never ever wanted to see any of their faces again without explaining why. This only angered the couple since they saw it as an unjustified and downright rude dismissal, but decided to comply with her wishes since their son was the one at fault this time.
As for Vsevolod himself though, he was actually fascinated and annoyed by the pretty girl. For him, it marked the first time that anyone had ever been so blatantly rude to him and his parents, especially given their considerable pull within society. Those made him decide to try and befriend her, as he simply could not accept that there was such a pretty person who took an instant dislike to him without even getting to know him.
For the next few years, he doggedly pursued her all over the world with a zeal that thoroughly annoyed not only Ekaterina, but also her relatives in England. All of her rebuttals only served to make him much more interested… and the few times that she actually helped him due to honor were enough to make him fall for her completely and utterly, making him even ‘more’ obsessed. Not only would he not leave her alone no matter what she tried, but much to her reluctance she was also starting to fall for him despite the hatred she was raised with, causing her to second-doubt herself and what she had believed in all her life. It even came to a point that she secretly started to see him as a friend and potential love interest.
Unfortunately for Vsevolod, all of that progress was undone in a single night. In a terrible twist of dramatic irony, they acted on their infatuation with each other in a bar after having too much to drink, just like Dmitri and Amelia years ago. This had drastic results, the most glaring of which being that they had conceived a child out of wedlock. Naturally, she was upset and blamed him for it even though it was both of their faults… but moreover, she was extremely shamed at what she had done and kept it to herself, hiding from Vsevolod and the rest of his ilk while reluctantly restraining her Grizzlymon from attacking the guy because it might implicate her.
Her relatives found out anyway, and they forced her to find a way to abort the baby growing in her womb without telling their perceived enemy about it as they were afraid that they would destroy her life like Dmitri had to Amelia Pendragon. Unwilling to use traditional methods, she instead looked for a more esoteric and honorable way. After some time of searching, she found it in the form of the DEATHS organization, which conveniently had their main headquarters in London. She figured that offering up the fetus for science was better than just dumping it off somewhere, with the benefits being just a nice bonus. She then signed up for the tests, eager to get rid of the shame she had put upon her family.
Fate then decided to mess with her big time by making the tests a complete success. She tried to pass it off as a fluke, but the appearance of a digitama on her fifth month of pregnancy pretty much destroyed those delusions. She then tried taking her own life, but DEATHS would not permit her to do so since she had one of their precious few successes in her womb. DEATHS then kept her under tight watch to ensure that there would be no further attempts at suicide, something which unsettled her family since they didn’t know how she attracted that kind of dangerous attention.
Having no choice left, she and her Grizzlymon decided to face the music instead of running away from her responsibilities by flying to Russia with the digitama in tow despite protests from herself and her family. Most of the Romanovs were annoyed at her presence, mostly due to her attitude concerning them, but Vsevolod was happy to see her again… until he noticed her very pregnant figure and became terrified. She then told Vsevolod’s family the truth, complete with evidence.
The Romanov family then forced the two to marry in order for this not to become a scandal… or at least a bigger one when it did come out amongst the Russian people even if they weren’t rulers anymore. It suited Vsevolod fine despite the shock since he still loved her, but Ekaterina was very much depressed and dejected at what she was essentially forced into, given that she still despised him for that mistake.
A few months after the marriage, Ekaterina gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Said child had white hair and golden eyes that were distinctively of the Pendragon line, but even now his face can be clearly seen to have a very distinct Russian quality to them. The strange thing about the child though were the strange red markings that showed up on his face and arms at birth, which confused everyone but the mother as to why he had them. The mother herself attributed it to the Eiter that the child was given as a fetus that she neglected to tell anyone else about… even Marcus and her husband. She let them form their own conclusions instead of telling them what she thought was the case, since she was trying to keep the fact that she tried to kill the child a secret from her new in-laws and her husband.
A few days after the boy was born, the egg hatched into a purple ball with eyes, a mouth, and sharp pointy ears. On first sight, the digimon and the human baby immediately hit it off, giggling and playing with each other like young infants should. His father and the Grizzlymon usually played with them while they were being watched over by an amused IceDevimon and a standoffish Ekaterina. This was the start of a very wonderful friendship between a boy and his digimon, and of a bond that was tougher than even chrome digizoid.
Unfortunately, while watching scenes like this Ekaterina became sad and regretful, realizing for the first time what grave sin she had wanted to commit in her blind hatred of the Romanov clan and Vsevolod. This was immediately picked up by Marcus, who became concerned for her and asked her what was wrong. After a while of badgering her and promising her that he’ll never tell, she confessed to the truth one night after she had taken care of the baby’s needs. Needless to say, the Grizzlymon was shocked and appalled at what his partner had done even though he understood why she had done it. Despite his misgivings, he still kept it a secret.
Zernebog and Rodion grew up in the Romanov household most of the time, sparing four months a year going on vacations with the Pendragon clan all over Europe before he had to go to school. With the Romanovs, he was taught how to act properly in Russian society as well as in court in the faint hope that he might need it if the monarchy was ever restored. Given that his parents were often gone on business and with Ekaterina still distant to her son, he was mostly raised by his Romanov grandparents for the earliest part of his life. These old people connived to turn him into the man that his father wasn’t able to become due to silly things like morals, so they taught him how to be a true Machiavellian prince. With only limited interference from the Pendragons and Vsovolod, they were successful in raising him to be that way… too successful in fact.
This success was helped by the fact that even as a child, Zernebog seemed extremely aggressive for a child his age; almost to the point of being vicious in his early years. In fact, he seemed to be awfully focused on these teachings, as if they were the words of Yggdrasil himself. This was because of the fact that he only really had Rodion and his grandparents’ digimon to play with on a regular basis during this crucial time in his life. The few other children in the household ostracized him and left him out of their games, saying that they didn’t want to play with a mistake and because they felt that he looked weird with his white hair, golden eyes, and red markings. Those words hurt the young Romanov and angered him, but his grandparents forbade him from extracting revenge from them. As a concession though, they enrolled him into martial arts classes in order for him to be able to vent all of his frustrations in a dignified manner.
That treatment in the Romanov household made him value his trips with the Pendragon side of his family even more. With them, he never felt prejudiced by his cousins there or pressured by his maternal grandparents… even though they seemed a bit distant from him for some reason. That was because he didn’t know of the hatred most of the clan used to have at the Romanovs, before that melted away with their mostly wonderful treatment of the boy. With them, he learned many new things about other countries like their languages and their cultures. During this time, DEATHS kept a very close eye on him and the Pendragons, especially when they were in London.
Those trips were ruthlessly cut down to a measly two months when he started school, much to his displeasure. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it as both sides of his family agreed that he definitely needed to go to school to become educated and ready for the real world later on. He was stubborn about not going to it at first but when his parents themselves talked to him about it, he was finally convinced that maybe school wouldn’t be so bad by playing on the fact that he was very eager to get their attention and please them at all times.
School was a strange and interesting experience for young Zernebog. While he was in no way sheltered from other people with the Pendragons, he certainly was sheltered from life outside with the Romanovs. It was his first time interacting with commoner Russians extensively other than a polite hello, and soon it became immediately apparent that he was different from the rest of them. Very different. While they were more accepting of him than the cousins he had at the same age, they were also intimidated by him at first, especially when he put into play all that he had learned from his grandparents so far.
This cemented his place as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable people at the school… until they started having history lessons. It was there when his classmates became bolder, openly mocking him for being in a family of fallen aristocrats who produced someone as weak as Nicholas II as an emperor. The mocking wasn’t that bad though since the Communist government that succeeded them was much worse and the very recent Russian Federation still had a lot of flaws. Despite that, Zernebog took their words to heart and sought to prove to them that the later Romanov bloodline was not a failure like they implied it was in some history books. This made him- and in turn Rodion- more aggressive to the point of actually being vicious, making him worse than he was before.
The school authorities were very reluctant to mention his behavior to his family, since he technically wasn’t doing any lasting harm. That all changed when he and Rodion seriously injured someone during a sanctioned fight despite warnings not to do so. They had both parents sent in and politely told them that they needed to keep a better watch on the child to make sure he doesn’t act out like that again. Vsevolod and Ekaterina took that to heart by spending much more time with Zernebog in an effort to counteract the old Romanovs’ influence on him.
However, their increased attention on him only encouraged this destructive behavior as the white haired boy used it to his advantage while making it seem like he did this because he didn’t know better. Predictably, his parents fell for it hook, line, and sinker, putting more and more attention to him and trying to correct his behavior. Of course, eventually he obliged them… but only when he felt like it. This was an opportunity he didn’t want to slip through his fingers after all.
Soon, while it was easy to keep his dad’s attention on him, it became apparent that even after all this time Ekaterina was still distant from him. Seeing that, the boy tried to remedy it in a different way: by excelling in things he heard his peers say that parents liked to see, like singing, dancing, and playing instruments. He managed to do so beautifully, but it only made his mother feel sadder and guiltier inside, making her even more distant and aloof.
He finally became exasperated with this when he had reached the last year of his middle secondary school years. Instead of asking his mother directly about it, he instead badgered and manipulated her Grizzlymon into telling the reason why she was so distant. He managed to succeed when he entered the senior part of his years in secondary school after getting the bear drunk on Vodka. Once he found out, he definitely wished he hadn’t as Marcus had given him the most of the picture without tinting it in a favorable light. The knowledge that his mother tried to kill him when he was a baby chilled him to the core even though his dad never knew about it.
Horrified at this realization, he confronted his mother about it and asked her why she did it… and if she really loved him. Ekaterina was made very sad at that comment as she had come to love her son very much; she was hurt that he even insinuated that she didn’t love him. However, she only explained some of it and promised to tell the full thing only when he was eighteen. From what Zernebog did hear, he was shocked to be shown the fact that the Pendragons used to hate the Romanovs because of what one of his ancestors did- one Dmitri Romanov- to Amelia… especially as Ekaterina had figured out what he really did to her.
He then patiently trudged through the rest of his senior years in a bit of a depression, as seen when his normally stellar grades dropped and his performance and mood became rocky. His father asked him why he was this way, but he refused to tell his father the reason why, telling him to just ask his mother. Of course, his mother wouldn’t tell either, making Vsevolod very frustrated at the secrets the mother and son were keeping from him… so frustrated in fact that Vsevolod actually followed him to London on the summer that Ekaterina promised to reveal everything.
It was there that Ekaterina told her full story to Zernebog, Rodion, and unwittingly her husband and his digimon as well… even the parts about her deal with DEATHS and his identity as a Vanir. Those revelations were met with utter disbelief from all four of her listeners, so much that Vsevolod actually emerged from hiding and demanded proof after calling her out on the foolishness she had done just because of an old family hatred. As proof, she led them to DEATHS headquarters in London and had them explain to her son and husband the bitter truth.
The people from DEATHS managed to make them believe the truth… which put a heavy burden in the hearts of the Romanov males that were listening. This made Vsevolod more determined to try and connect with Ekaterina more, while Zernebog had begun to be disillusioned by his world views. DEATHS then made things complicated as they ordered him to bring the legendary Æsir to London as per the agreement they had made with Ekaterina. Despite her protests- perhaps just to spite her- Zernebog freely took the job even if he had serious misgivings about being ordered around by someone else.
Thus… after some time in London, Zernebog set off with Rodion, his parents, and their digimon to the great tournament. He had a very good feeling that he would meet the Æsir there. It was probably inevitable that one of them would show up in the tournament… and besides, he wanted to vent his frustrations at the revelations he had been given as well as show off his and Rodion’s prowess at battle at the world stage. "
In 1919, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov had escaped to London to avoid execution by the Bolsheviks. He had just had a falling-out with Prince Felix Yusupov, fearing what staying with him would do to his already-damaged reputation and miniscule chance to succeed the throne if the monarchy ever came back to power. As it was, he was angry and depressed about many things, which made him decide to drink his sorrows away in some obscure bar in the seedier parts of London.
It was there where he met a beautiful woman by the name of Amelia Pendragon, who was drinking away the hardships of life with the liquor that the barkeep gave to her out of pity, even if a woman drinking at a place like this was extremely unseemly. With their minds fogged by alcohol, they had inadvertently made drunken love to each other… resulting in a child. Once Dmitri learned of it, he gave the woman hush money and told her to keep quiet about it or else before going away from London to prevent terrible implications placed upon him. Of course, she was upset about it but she had no choice but to comply. It was something that she would never forgive him or the rest of the Romanov house for the rest of her long and hard life.
That child was then raised to believe that Dmitri and his family had ruined his mother’s life by making her impure and unfit for marriage during that time without telling him how, which gave him a hatred for them as powerful as his mother’s. This hatred was then passed on to his progeny as a necessary part of their upbringing, with the poor child never knowing the truth about his parentage despite all attempts to knowing who his father was. The cultivation of this hatred was seen in his son’s eldest daughter, one Ekaterina Pendragon, a successful entrepreneur of wine who owned a huge vineyard in England and Greece.
One day, she and her partner digimon- a Grizzlymon with the name of Marcus- visited Russia. She had been invited there by a few people as an ‘investor’ in their business. It was there that she met a young and handsome man named Vsevolod Mikhailov Romanov in a bar that served her wines. To be specific, she met him as he and his digimon- an IceDevimon with the name Vladimir- were engaged in a drunken brawl with another man with an Angemon that tore up the bar and injured many patrons, including Ekaterina herself. Of course, she broke up said brawl by having her Grizzlymon knock all of the involved participants out, thinking that she was doing everyone and herself a favor.
Of course, that action did not go unnoticed. She was then approached by the man’s parents a week, who introduced themselves and their apologetic son in a weak and pathetic attempt to apologize. Given her hatred of the Romanov clan instilled into her since she was a child by her parents and grandparents, she did not take the revelation well at all. In a fit of controlled hate, she told them politely that it was nothing but that she never ever wanted to see any of their faces again without explaining why. This only angered the couple since they saw it as an unjustified and downright rude dismissal, but decided to comply with her wishes since their son was the one at fault this time.
As for Vsevolod himself though, he was actually fascinated and annoyed by the pretty girl. For him, it marked the first time that anyone had ever been so blatantly rude to him and his parents, especially given their considerable pull within society. Those made him decide to try and befriend her, as he simply could not accept that there was such a pretty person who took an instant dislike to him without even getting to know him.
For the next few years, he doggedly pursued her all over the world with a zeal that thoroughly annoyed not only Ekaterina, but also her relatives in England. All of her rebuttals only served to make him much more interested… and the few times that she actually helped him due to honor were enough to make him fall for her completely and utterly, making him even ‘more’ obsessed. Not only would he not leave her alone no matter what she tried, but much to her reluctance she was also starting to fall for him despite the hatred she was raised with, causing her to second-doubt herself and what she had believed in all her life. It even came to a point that she secretly started to see him as a friend and potential love interest.
Unfortunately for Vsevolod, all of that progress was undone in a single night. In a terrible twist of dramatic irony, they acted on their infatuation with each other in a bar after having too much to drink, just like Dmitri and Amelia years ago. This had drastic results, the most glaring of which being that they had conceived a child out of wedlock. Naturally, she was upset and blamed him for it even though it was both of their faults… but moreover, she was extremely shamed at what she had done and kept it to herself, hiding from Vsevolod and the rest of his ilk while reluctantly restraining her Grizzlymon from attacking the guy because it might implicate her.
Her relatives found out anyway, and they forced her to find a way to abort the baby growing in her womb without telling their perceived enemy about it as they were afraid that they would destroy her life like Dmitri had to Amelia Pendragon. Unwilling to use traditional methods, she instead looked for a more esoteric and honorable way. After some time of searching, she found it in the form of the DEATHS organization, which conveniently had their main headquarters in London. She figured that offering up the fetus for science was better than just dumping it off somewhere, with the benefits being just a nice bonus. She then signed up for the tests, eager to get rid of the shame she had put upon her family.
Fate then decided to mess with her big time by making the tests a complete success. She tried to pass it off as a fluke, but the appearance of a digitama on her fifth month of pregnancy pretty much destroyed those delusions. She then tried taking her own life, but DEATHS would not permit her to do so since she had one of their precious few successes in her womb. DEATHS then kept her under tight watch to ensure that there would be no further attempts at suicide, something which unsettled her family since they didn’t know how she attracted that kind of dangerous attention.
Having no choice left, she and her Grizzlymon decided to face the music instead of running away from her responsibilities by flying to Russia with the digitama in tow despite protests from herself and her family. Most of the Romanovs were annoyed at her presence, mostly due to her attitude concerning them, but Vsevolod was happy to see her again… until he noticed her very pregnant figure and became terrified. She then told Vsevolod’s family the truth, complete with evidence.
The Romanov family then forced the two to marry in order for this not to become a scandal… or at least a bigger one when it did come out amongst the Russian people even if they weren’t rulers anymore. It suited Vsevolod fine despite the shock since he still loved her, but Ekaterina was very much depressed and dejected at what she was essentially forced into, given that she still despised him for that mistake.
A few months after the marriage, Ekaterina gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Said child had white hair and golden eyes that were distinctively of the Pendragon line, but even now his face can be clearly seen to have a very distinct Russian quality to them. The strange thing about the child though were the strange red markings that showed up on his face and arms at birth, which confused everyone but the mother as to why he had them. The mother herself attributed it to the Eiter that the child was given as a fetus that she neglected to tell anyone else about… even Marcus and her husband. She let them form their own conclusions instead of telling them what she thought was the case, since she was trying to keep the fact that she tried to kill the child a secret from her new in-laws and her husband.
A few days after the boy was born, the egg hatched into a purple ball with eyes, a mouth, and sharp pointy ears. On first sight, the digimon and the human baby immediately hit it off, giggling and playing with each other like young infants should. His father and the Grizzlymon usually played with them while they were being watched over by an amused IceDevimon and a standoffish Ekaterina. This was the start of a very wonderful friendship between a boy and his digimon, and of a bond that was tougher than even chrome digizoid.
Unfortunately, while watching scenes like this Ekaterina became sad and regretful, realizing for the first time what grave sin she had wanted to commit in her blind hatred of the Romanov clan and Vsevolod. This was immediately picked up by Marcus, who became concerned for her and asked her what was wrong. After a while of badgering her and promising her that he’ll never tell, she confessed to the truth one night after she had taken care of the baby’s needs. Needless to say, the Grizzlymon was shocked and appalled at what his partner had done even though he understood why she had done it. Despite his misgivings, he still kept it a secret.
Zernebog and Rodion grew up in the Romanov household most of the time, sparing four months a year going on vacations with the Pendragon clan all over Europe before he had to go to school. With the Romanovs, he was taught how to act properly in Russian society as well as in court in the faint hope that he might need it if the monarchy was ever restored. Given that his parents were often gone on business and with Ekaterina still distant to her son, he was mostly raised by his Romanov grandparents for the earliest part of his life. These old people connived to turn him into the man that his father wasn’t able to become due to silly things like morals, so they taught him how to be a true Machiavellian prince. With only limited interference from the Pendragons and Vsovolod, they were successful in raising him to be that way… too successful in fact.
This success was helped by the fact that even as a child, Zernebog seemed extremely aggressive for a child his age; almost to the point of being vicious in his early years. In fact, he seemed to be awfully focused on these teachings, as if they were the words of Yggdrasil himself. This was because of the fact that he only really had Rodion and his grandparents’ digimon to play with on a regular basis during this crucial time in his life. The few other children in the household ostracized him and left him out of their games, saying that they didn’t want to play with a mistake and because they felt that he looked weird with his white hair, golden eyes, and red markings. Those words hurt the young Romanov and angered him, but his grandparents forbade him from extracting revenge from them. As a concession though, they enrolled him into martial arts classes in order for him to be able to vent all of his frustrations in a dignified manner.
That treatment in the Romanov household made him value his trips with the Pendragon side of his family even more. With them, he never felt prejudiced by his cousins there or pressured by his maternal grandparents… even though they seemed a bit distant from him for some reason. That was because he didn’t know of the hatred most of the clan used to have at the Romanovs, before that melted away with their mostly wonderful treatment of the boy. With them, he learned many new things about other countries like their languages and their cultures. During this time, DEATHS kept a very close eye on him and the Pendragons, especially when they were in London.
Those trips were ruthlessly cut down to a measly two months when he started school, much to his displeasure. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it as both sides of his family agreed that he definitely needed to go to school to become educated and ready for the real world later on. He was stubborn about not going to it at first but when his parents themselves talked to him about it, he was finally convinced that maybe school wouldn’t be so bad by playing on the fact that he was very eager to get their attention and please them at all times.
School was a strange and interesting experience for young Zernebog. While he was in no way sheltered from other people with the Pendragons, he certainly was sheltered from life outside with the Romanovs. It was his first time interacting with commoner Russians extensively other than a polite hello, and soon it became immediately apparent that he was different from the rest of them. Very different. While they were more accepting of him than the cousins he had at the same age, they were also intimidated by him at first, especially when he put into play all that he had learned from his grandparents so far.
This cemented his place as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable people at the school… until they started having history lessons. It was there when his classmates became bolder, openly mocking him for being in a family of fallen aristocrats who produced someone as weak as Nicholas II as an emperor. The mocking wasn’t that bad though since the Communist government that succeeded them was much worse and the very recent Russian Federation still had a lot of flaws. Despite that, Zernebog took their words to heart and sought to prove to them that the later Romanov bloodline was not a failure like they implied it was in some history books. This made him- and in turn Rodion- more aggressive to the point of actually being vicious, making him worse than he was before.
The school authorities were very reluctant to mention his behavior to his family, since he technically wasn’t doing any lasting harm. That all changed when he and Rodion seriously injured someone during a sanctioned fight despite warnings not to do so. They had both parents sent in and politely told them that they needed to keep a better watch on the child to make sure he doesn’t act out like that again. Vsevolod and Ekaterina took that to heart by spending much more time with Zernebog in an effort to counteract the old Romanovs’ influence on him.
However, their increased attention on him only encouraged this destructive behavior as the white haired boy used it to his advantage while making it seem like he did this because he didn’t know better. Predictably, his parents fell for it hook, line, and sinker, putting more and more attention to him and trying to correct his behavior. Of course, eventually he obliged them… but only when he felt like it. This was an opportunity he didn’t want to slip through his fingers after all.
Soon, while it was easy to keep his dad’s attention on him, it became apparent that even after all this time Ekaterina was still distant from him. Seeing that, the boy tried to remedy it in a different way: by excelling in things he heard his peers say that parents liked to see, like singing, dancing, and playing instruments. He managed to do so beautifully, but it only made his mother feel sadder and guiltier inside, making her even more distant and aloof.
He finally became exasperated with this when he had reached the last year of his middle secondary school years. Instead of asking his mother directly about it, he instead badgered and manipulated her Grizzlymon into telling the reason why she was so distant. He managed to succeed when he entered the senior part of his years in secondary school after getting the bear drunk on Vodka. Once he found out, he definitely wished he hadn’t as Marcus had given him the most of the picture without tinting it in a favorable light. The knowledge that his mother tried to kill him when he was a baby chilled him to the core even though his dad never knew about it.
Horrified at this realization, he confronted his mother about it and asked her why she did it… and if she really loved him. Ekaterina was made very sad at that comment as she had come to love her son very much; she was hurt that he even insinuated that she didn’t love him. However, she only explained some of it and promised to tell the full thing only when he was eighteen. From what Zernebog did hear, he was shocked to be shown the fact that the Pendragons used to hate the Romanovs because of what one of his ancestors did- one Dmitri Romanov- to Amelia… especially as Ekaterina had figured out what he really did to her.
He then patiently trudged through the rest of his senior years in a bit of a depression, as seen when his normally stellar grades dropped and his performance and mood became rocky. His father asked him why he was this way, but he refused to tell his father the reason why, telling him to just ask his mother. Of course, his mother wouldn’t tell either, making Vsevolod very frustrated at the secrets the mother and son were keeping from him… so frustrated in fact that Vsevolod actually followed him to London on the summer that Ekaterina promised to reveal everything.
It was there that Ekaterina told her full story to Zernebog, Rodion, and unwittingly her husband and his digimon as well… even the parts about her deal with DEATHS and his identity as a Vanir. Those revelations were met with utter disbelief from all four of her listeners, so much that Vsevolod actually emerged from hiding and demanded proof after calling her out on the foolishness she had done just because of an old family hatred. As proof, she led them to DEATHS headquarters in London and had them explain to her son and husband the bitter truth.
The people from DEATHS managed to make them believe the truth… which put a heavy burden in the hearts of the Romanov males that were listening. This made Vsevolod more determined to try and connect with Ekaterina more, while Zernebog had begun to be disillusioned by his world views. DEATHS then made things complicated as they ordered him to bring the legendary Æsir to London as per the agreement they had made with Ekaterina. Despite her protests- perhaps just to spite her- Zernebog freely took the job even if he had serious misgivings about being ordered around by someone else.
Thus… after some time in London, Zernebog set off with Rodion, his parents, and their digimon to the great tournament. He had a very good feeling that he would meet the Æsir there. It was probably inevitable that one of them would show up in the tournament… and besides, he wanted to vent his frustrations at the revelations he had been given as well as show off his and Rodion’s prowess at battle at the world stage. "
▶ ▷ ▶ ENTRY FIVE
THE ROLEPLAYER
ooc name:
" Wingz, Omega, Zerne, Ranryu "
time zone:
" GMT +8 in Asia. Not telling where though. "
find me:
"The affiliates icon you had with Digital Hazard."
other characters:
" N/A "
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