View attachment 142522
Anyway, I've been gradually thinking of this character concept in my head. Went from trying to subvert tropes to having it click what exactly the combination of traits I had in mind would logically mean.
The birth of the fifth prince of the royal house was seen as a curse to many on that day, including the royal family themselves. They had expected a perfect child at best, perhaps some of the deformities that had the misfortune of cropping up in the carefully bred royal bloodline at worst. At first they assumed the child was simply ill. Though they cried little, their skin had a sickly pallor from the very beginning. But when the boy first opened his eyes, those present were taken aback in horror. It must have been the work of a demon, they swore. Yet being well to do and looking upon their own child, they could not bring themselves to cast the child off into the wilderness as most in such a position would do. Thus the child was moved to the lower levels of the castle and raised by a wet nurse, their birth publicly announced as a miscarriage.
The boy scarcely left the castle in his youth, and even rarer during the light of day. It was just as well, though: though the boy ate and slept as well as any man, he had a curious aversion to sunlight, eyes pained at the mere sight and skin singed at a rapid pace. Surely the work of the demon, they assumed, though no matter how many priests they brought they never could seem to purge it. When he did go outside into the gardens, though, he was enamored by the beauty of the world. The serenity of plants, the playful skitter of animals, the quiet beauty of the night sky. There was none of it that he did not love and cherish. Even those around him earned his loyalty despite their dour opinions of him, and in time the lesser servants couldn't help but reciprocate.
As time wore on, however, the proud royal family gradually whittled down. Once prince fell off his horse while hunting, another lost a duel, yet another had his drink poisoned by a lover. Until at last no heirs were left in the sunlit court, and a proud noble was declared successor in their stead. Even with this course of events, the prince did not initially interfere. He was a cursed child, it was not his place to rule on the throne. But rumors of despotism and pepperings of bruises on the arms of his few true friends wore down on his patience, and at last he emerged from the catacombs with a small mob of the most downtrodden of maids and sweeps. Wearing a heavy suit of armor, he cut the tyrant king down from his throne and declared himself ruler, a state of events so shocking that few actually dared to protest.
Many expected his rule to be more cruel than even that of the one he deposed, but to their shock he was one of the most noble rulers the kingdom had ever had. None except his most trusted circle ever saw his true appearance, though fantastical rumors always seemed to float around it. All the while, the scars of being referred to as a cursed prince never truly left his personality, and the man always valued the well being of those around him more than his own. When monsters laid siege upon the land, he called upon himself to fight back, and sent word to all the kingdom to lend him the most true weapon they could find. And so an individual even more mysterious than he was came forth, and offered him a shining blade, rumored to be forged of pure moonbeams. And so with this weapon in hand, the shunned once-prince rode forth, seeking nothing more than to protect the land that had never thought anything of him.
