A knight in service of the crown, loyal to a fault, capable, honest and ready to lay down his life if it means the royal family prevails.
He is proud to serve alongside formidable knights in the fight against Nidhogg and his brood and feels more and more able to take on the world with every battle won.
But pride goeth before destruction.
They didn't know. How could they possibly have known?
Consuming Ratatoskr's flesh for strength; for the means to fight on a scale beyond mortal limits, had seemed like the only choice. The right choice. But none of them knew what it would entail, what it would mean to inherit the strength of a being able to live for eons.
It changed them, all of them, and beyond the power it gifted them. Very few of them had opportunity to realize this before the brood came for their heads, seeking revenge. Not long after the Four High Houses were established as the new leaders of Ishgard their counts were picked off one by one. Felled in battle all of them, some earlier than others.
But not even twenty years should pass before he saw them all dead and burried. And be it skill, the will of the Fury, or simple luck: Flavien was spared such a fate -- or denied it, if one considered what came after.
It occured to him much later, just how deeply the change had affected him. Decades had come and gone since the day Lord Haldrath left the burden of rule to his companions, and only when he, too, was locked away inside a coffin, unchanged in looks from the day they parted ways, did Flavien stop to really think.
With his heart still struck with grief, older and more recent alike, Flavien turned to his family for support as he had done so many times before. Some sorrow was soothed when he laid eyes on his sons. Especially watching hid oldest son -- now a young man rather than a child -- practice his swordsmanship filled his chest with pride and love, but when he turned to smile at his wife and tell her so, Flavien really saw the greying of her hair for the first time, took proper note of the wrinkles becoming ever more visible on her face -- all while he remained the same as he had been on that fateful day.
It seemed the dragon's flesh had not only granted him strength, but a longer lifespan as well. His aging was slowed, halted even. He quickly realized that he would not be able to conceal the truth about what he and his companions did much longer should he remain in Ishgard. Questions would arise which he would not be able to answer without breaking the oath he had sworn.
And so he made a decision.
With a heavy heart, he devised a plan to fake his own death and disappear. The last of the Knight's twelve vanished, leaving the ruling of Ishgard to the next generation.
From then on he was left to roam the world for centuries, his appearance unchanging, but his conscious heavy with grief for losses old and new. An age old lie weighs on his heart to this day, but he continues to guard the secret, to hold it close to his chest.
After all, it is all he has left.