Julien Lavalle; Regent of Baltimore

 "You chose me... so you recognized the skills, so I don't want nobody telling me how to dress, how to act, and how to do this job. You could have stepped up, but instead you chose me. Remember that."
--Julien (Paraphrased and edited from Agent J in Men in Black)
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“If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system. That's much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.”
― Marie Lu, Legend
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"You're a child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile. He's not my lover. This man is more to me than you can dream. He's the moon when I'm lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold. And his touch still thrills me, even after centuries. His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worthy. I love this man beyond measure and reason. He's not my lover. He's all and he's more."
--Julien about Shahin; (Taken from: The Old Guard; Nicky and Joe)
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Julien was born in Saint Domingue.

He doesn't talk about his life. There's an absolute chance he doesn't remember a lot of it. He does know that his father was a white plantation owner and his mother was a slave. She died in childbirth, and he was raised by the man who knew he wasn't Julien's father.

None of that matters. Only that he was born into bondage and lived that way for most of his life. 

August 22, 1791 is known to history as The Night of Fire. It was the night that the Haitian Revolution began. Over one hundred thousand slaves rose against the vastly outnumbered and hated French colonists, and Julien was right there in the center of it all. At seventeen years old and into his eighteenth year, Julien spent those months as a revolutionary.

The burning of the plantation he was born on and lived most of his life happened ten days after his eighteenth birthday, and Julien did not expect to be caught under a burning plank in what had once been the dining room he'd once served dinner in. He thought he was going to die, but the pylon was pulled off of him as he choked on the soot air, and he was lifted and carried out of the fire and into the night.

Leggett was a good man in life and an even better man in death. One of the few white men who'd fought with them, and Julien learned he'd been watched. Leggett had stood on the edges of their meetings for months and watched for the 'right companion' until he'd landed on Julien. Even in his anger at the oppressive life he'd been born into, Julien kept his kindness and peace. Who worked so hard to do the right thing, even protecting white children and women when his brethren would want them dead.

It was then that Leggett turned him. Embraced him into the Night, the Eternal Revolution, and Clan Gangrel.

They traveled a lot. Through the Middle East, Europe, wherever there was someone oppressive to fight. Throughout, his sire instilled in him the need to not interfere. They were dead things, he'd say, and interfering with the living was not their place. It was why, when they arrived in Baltimore and Leggett finally went into his Torpor, Julien kept his promise to do whatever he could to not do so.  To keep himself aloof from the manipulations of other Kindred and Cainites. To isolate himself from the politics of it all, keep his head down, and protect his sire.

Which is what he does to his night. He listens for the whispers of The Movement and keeps his little piece of Baltimore as peaceful without the help of any Camarilla or Sabbat.

Recently, with the fall of various smaller cities around them to the Sabbat and Prince William Good's disappearance, Julien has been thrust into a position of power he's never asked for or wanted. He is adamant that he is not the Camarilla Prince the city deserves, but he is the Experimental-Anarch-Camarilla Regent they need in this dark hour.

At least, he hopes he is.

Because he's what they have.