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The Benoît & Fauchelevent Family

The French-speaking Benoît & Fauchelevent families merged in an attempt to keep their dwindling bloodlines pure dog, specifically Australian Shepherd. They originate in the southern US, located mainly in Tampa, Florida, some of whom migrated to the French-friendly New Orleans, Louisiana. They have since scattered and hybridized, keeping only their family name as a remnant of their failed dream -- and, as some of the more superstitious dogs believe, a family curse of bad luck.

Available Adoptables: Paquette Benoît Fauchelevent, Laurier Fauchelevent

Additionally, any character listed in the family tree with a name and no page can be claimed and designed! Contact Miyu if interested: PM here! Please skim the History and Defining Features sections for inspiration first. :) Miyu is happy to help with designs and artwork if desired!

Family Statistics

Basics

Creator:

Miyu

Species:

Dog

Subspecies:

Australian Shepherd

Origin:

Southern US

Surname:

Benoît : Benedict, "blessed"
Fauchelevent : Les Misérables[1]

Members

Statistics updated Aug 2013.

Total:

~13

Surviving:

9

Active:

0

Location:

Tampa, New Orleans, Japan, Loners

First Onboard Member

Name:

Cosette Fauchelevent Trouillefou

Location:

Loners

Date:

Oct 2012

First Onboard Birth

Location:

-

Date:

-

Founding Birth Parents:

-

Founding Birth Children:

-

Family Members

First Generation

  • Euphrasie Fauchelevent x Brujon Benoît (1) — 2006
    • Fantine Benoît Fauchelevent
    • Azelma Benoît Fauchelevent
  • Euphrasie Fauchelevent x Brujon Benoît (2) — 2007

Second Generation

Third Generation

Influence and Influences

Families

  • Trouillefou — Fantine's litter by Jacquez; Éponine's litter by Jacquez.
  • Sadira — Din's daughters by Claude; Din's son by Gringoire.
  • Orochi-Izumi — Paquette's litter by Kei.

Defining Features

  • The original Benoît & Fauchelevent families were Australian Shepherd dogs, Canis lupus familiaris.
    • They are medium-sized herding dogs with a stocky, athletic build, and long colorful fur. Some are born naturally without tails, or with a short stub in place of one. The merle patten is prevalent, lending patchwork colors and bicolored eyes. If the merle gene is doubled, however, it can result in colorless fur, deafness, and blindness, seen in Clopin.
    • The first generation was part Cardigan Welsh Corgi thanks to Euphrasie Fauchelevent.
    • In later generations, there is hybridization with other subspecies and breeds:
    • The original family are all Luperci, converted through their close proximity to humans during the initial virus outbreak.
    • They are Francophones, in some cases knowing more French than English. They typically choose French names to honor this heritage.
  • While not a feature per se, the Benoît & Fauchelevent descendents seem to be cursed with bad luck, particularly when it comes to romance. Some in the family attribute this to founder Brujon Benoît's rage over Euphrasie Fauchelevent's deception, and the supposed curse he laid on his descendants. Notable examples include:
    • Azelma struggling to conceive children with her mate, and eventually dying from birthing complications
    • Gringoire being murdered by his jealous brother Claude over the woman they both desired
    • Éponine slowly starving herself to death over a broken heart, when her incestuous lover spurned her

History

Origins

The Benoît Fauchelevent family is a merger of two separate lines of Australian Shepherd dogs once owned by human breeders in the southern United States. The Benoît dogs believed in purity of confirmation above all else, and as their bloodline predictably dwindled down during the age of Luperci, they began resorting to incestuous coupling and lost many litters to the double merle genes. Knowing this would lead them to extinction, they left their settlement and sought out more Australian Shepherds in a last ditch effort to preserve their breed.

The Fauchelevent clan of Tampa was in similar straits, but less strict about arranged mateships. They accepted other herding breeds of dog into their family, believing the spirit of their kind was more important than the appearance. They were happy to join with the Benoît shepherds, and Euphrasie Fauchelevent and Brujon Benoît became the founding members of the merged family. Euphrasie herself was not a pure Aussie, though she looked the part. She and Brujon had two litters totaling five children before the truth came out; Euphrasie was part Corgi. The Benoît family was outraged that their efforts at maintaining purity had been for naught, and soon deserted the Fauchelevent family altogether. According to family legend, a vengeful Brujon Benoît cursed them for leading their breed to extinction. Euphrasie's children were raised to love whomever they wanted regardless of breed or species, and kept the Benoît name in honor of the failed dream of their forefathers.

First Generation

The firstborn, Fantine, remained in Tampa all her life. She fell in with a troupe of dogs led by the charismatic Jacquez Trouillefou, and eventually birthed his children, Gavroche Benoît? and Éponine Fauchelevent. After raising them to adulthood, Fantine succumbed to illness and passed away. Unlike her littermate, Azelma did not want to live in the crowded and tumultuous city any longer than she had to, and once she came of age, the Aussie mix set off to travel across the United States. Her path led her northwest, and she eventually reached the spacious wilderness of Montana and made it her home. There was a small pack of local mountain coyotes and coydogs that were friendly enough to her. She rapidly integrated into their feral lifestyle, and became a full-fledged pack member when she claimed a coyote male named Sterling as her mate. She had several miscarriages and only one surviving offspring, Lyserg Benoît, before the childbirth complications claimed her life.

When the second litter came of age, Claude, Gringoire, and Paquette decided to travel as a group and see the world. A lone wolf named Din was traveling along the coastline, and fell in with the Benoît Fauchelevent siblings for a spell. The brothers Claude and Gringoire were both enamored with her and fought for her affections. Din enjoyed the attention, and when she went into heat, she secretly mated with both of them with no intention of ever choosing one over the other. When the passionate brothers discovered this, they flew into a jealous rage. In the heat of the moment Gringoire was killed, leaving Claude to lie about his brother's whereabouts and claim Din as his rightful mate. The traveler gave birth to three pups, and Claude assumed all three were biologically his own. However, Din soon grew bored of parenthood without the excitement of the brothers' romantic rivalry. She eventually drifted off again, leaving her son and daughters with scarce memories of her, intending them to be raised by Claude and his sister Paquette.

Second Generation

Fantine's children, Gavroche Benoît? and Éponine Fauchelevent, both eventually leave Tampa and coincidentally head to New Orleans separately from each other, and evolve into talented actors and liars. Gavroche puts his talents to use participating in minor crimes, and was taken in by a group called The Guild. For two years Gavroche and his partner Rémy Lebeau work alongside the rest of The Guild, committing burglaries and gaining control of several parts of New Orleans. This comes to an abrupt end when an ambush kills many of The Guild's members, and forces Gavroche to leave the city and head north after Rémy, making his way to Freetown. Meanwhile Éponine Fauchelevent developed an unhealthy fixation on seeing their father again. As luck would have it, Jacquez Trouillefou made port in New Orleans, and when they are reunited he was in a drunken stupor and mistook her merle fur and blue eye for his old companion and secret love interest, Ruri Aceline. Deciding he would like her better if she played along, Éponine adopts the role and plies him with alcohol so that he does not realize otherwise. Éponine is so caught up in acting she becomes his lover, eventually bearing two children of incest: Cosette Fauchelevent Trouillefou, and Clopin Benoît Trouillefou. However, a deluded Jacquez finally catches on, and in a rage, he drives his daughter and their children from the city. Éponine is brokenhearted, and never recovers; by the end of the season, she stops eating and starves herself to death. Cosette and Clopin are a scant six months old, and decide to leave the south and never return.

Azelma's son, Lyserg Benoît, grew up in a more feral setting in Montana. When his mother died, he adapted to the coyote ways of his pack, which was forcibly disbanded when wolves overran their territory. Lyserg and his hotheaded friends were bitter toward wolves and yearned to find a place where coyotes could reign dominant, but the further north they went, the more wolves had already laid claim to the land and chased them off. Their luck turned one winter day when they encountered a lone female wolf, and Lyserg captured her as a prisoner and bargaining chip. He had been helpless to stop the wolves from driving him from his childhood home, and helpless to save his mother from dying; now he finally felt like he was in control. That was about the time his prisoner mixed hemlock into their foraged provisions, and poisoned them all to make her escape. Lyserg was paralyzed for days, and when he was finally able to raise his head, he saw that all three of his friends had already died. As he slowly regained his strength, he burned his friends' bodies, then buried their scorched bones -- all but one. He kept his best friend's skull as a permanent reminder of what he lost. He blamed himself for getting his friends killed and being helpless again, and the grief and guilt drove him to become a healer and try to atone.

Categories: Benoît Fauchelevent | Dog