Shade: Part One
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 5:38 pm
It began with a song: opera. Jack didn’t even know he enjoyed opera -- it had always seemed almost gaudy to him, an assembly of those who thought their minds sharper and better than others; a practice of the elite, to sneer upon the lesser-thans with few farthings to rub together.
Before that night, Jack had been a simple man who’d lived a simple life. He was a man of faith, though perhaps only out of desperation; lonesome, he spent much of his life in search of something to be found, though he knew not what. For Mr. Perea, life was born of suffering; he had always had a difficult life, with a dead father and a mother almost arcanely fixated with her drugs and other silly, harmful things. Though many would call the man handsome, he wasn’t particularly charming, or even particularly smart. Most of the knowledge he held was surface level, and he didn’t believe himself talented in any particular thing. He was a man devoured by his games, by failed ventures at finding meaning, by friendships dead upon a hill.
And by sorrow. Within Mr. Perea was a great gap, one that could never be filled. So sure was he of this that his mind drew him towards his own demise, often and hauntingly, pulling him closer and closer to the barrel of his own gun.
But on that night, invited by a mother’s old friend - a Godmother, in fact - who wished to rekindle the bond she and the young Jack once held, the sorrow-filled man did indeed take on the woman’s invitation, and attended the performance at the local opera house in a city the man could not even name, reminiscent of an old home one might call Levarin. There, that night, Jack became so transfixed - so taken - by the voice of the man upon the stage, and doubtlessly his charming exterior and complexion, he swore that he was in love.
And he was. Eventually. The two met after the performance concluded, and Jack immediately offered the man a reunion; a date, where the two would not be separated by fifty rows of seats and a stage. This man - Daniel Thomas Nyle - would go on to be Jack's Maker, though not for some time.
Daniel was a cultured man. In many ways, he was everything Jacques was not; suave, intelligent, talented, purposeful. Where one man kept his head down, his eyes trained upon the soil, the other peered at the towers that careened from the cobbled ground, or towards the clouds in the night sky. Never did they meet in the day, but when they met there was an unmistakable passion between them. It never began with lust; always a genuine moment of shared affection. Yet always did it end that way, until that physical intimacy evolved more truly into the love Jack thought he had.
The two sought to spend their lives together. The two even sought to marry. Only was it, then, that Mr. Nyle informed the other of what could only have been a joke: that he was a Dranoch. That he was three hundred years old. That they would live together, but not die together, for one would persist until the day where the earth would rot.
Of course, Jack did not believe his lover at first. He thought him - called him - mad, and teased him endlessly for his divulgence. It was not a revelation he was willing to or prepared to accept, and perhaps because of his faith - the only thing that had kept him alive until he met Mr. Nyle - he did not wish it to be so. Jack wanted only a simple life; to move in together, to adopt, to raise a family and leave a legacy behind. He was a traditional man, as simple as he had been when he met Daniel, only happier.
In coming to understand Daniel's true nature, he equally understood that these possibilities would never come to be. He would die effectively alone; perhaps the man would tire of him. He would be youthful forever, while Mr. Perea… he would decay. His own life was a brief, meaningless commodity. His lover, on the other hand, as enthralling and mysterious a man as he’d always imagined him to be. If any man alive were a Dranoch, it surely was Daniel. The only person in the world who’d managed to make him feel alive. Ironically, a man who had died and been remade long ago.
The two lovers, who feuded and worried for a time, no longer had so much to bicker on after a time. Months past Daniel's revelation, and another uncomfortable truth came to be: Jack was suffering from a lethal cancer of the brain, one that would end his life not in years, but in months. One that had gone unnoticed, and untreated, for some time while it festered and grew.
The choice to his lover was evident and clear: he would make Jacques his progeny; anything to expunge him of the rot within his form. Anything to keep the two together. It was, perhaps, the realization of their wants to marry; a commitment of eternal life at each other’s side.
Almost ironically, the man who wanted to end his own life not too long ago chose to do anything to stay alive. To stay with Daniel. He abandoned his faith, abandoned the day, and abandoned his hopes for the simplicity of human life. He chose death earlier than the cancer would take him, only to be reanimated by the one man he thought he’d been created to love.
Jacques was turned. For a time, as he explored his new life - or maybe unlife - there was peace, and ease. Despite the adversity that came, and the overbearing hunger, the ever-present nature of his Maker and the intimacy shared between them made his early days… incredible. He felt a fascination with what he had become, and he wished to explore it - and the world around him - more and more.
Daniel guided Jack through the life of a blood-hunter, a cannibal. He helped to introduce him to others of their kind, integrating him into a night below; a darkened sprawl that existed within the corridors of that unknown nation's city. In the public eye, the two were effectively meant to keep large sections of their relationship a secret - all of the many misgivings they had fallen prey to in their desire to understand one another, and to be ‘truthful’. Jack understood these terms, and was content to do so, if only to maintain closeness with Mr. Nyle.
It was only his wonder, then, why - beyond the conclusion of one particularly meaningful night - his lover went from him, leaving behind only a note of their shared memories, of the things that he loved of Jack and the things he still wished they could endure, and explore. Of his lamentations that the man would never, in fact, be able to live a normal life… and that he would have to leave him behind, in a steep darkness that filled the corridors of that now empty city. The life of a Dranoch, young and barely made, now alone and absent a Maker. Absent a husband, a lover, that he thought he would always have.
Daniel left him no reason for why he had to disappear, though he did leave him a trail. Within the words were references, ones which - when pieced together - brought him to another world. To a known quantity known as 'Lorien', where Mr. Nyle had clearly gone. That first footfall on the cobbled streets of Nivenhain, separated by years of advancement and growth, is where our story split by dreaming effectively begins.
Before that night, Jack had been a simple man who’d lived a simple life. He was a man of faith, though perhaps only out of desperation; lonesome, he spent much of his life in search of something to be found, though he knew not what. For Mr. Perea, life was born of suffering; he had always had a difficult life, with a dead father and a mother almost arcanely fixated with her drugs and other silly, harmful things. Though many would call the man handsome, he wasn’t particularly charming, or even particularly smart. Most of the knowledge he held was surface level, and he didn’t believe himself talented in any particular thing. He was a man devoured by his games, by failed ventures at finding meaning, by friendships dead upon a hill.
And by sorrow. Within Mr. Perea was a great gap, one that could never be filled. So sure was he of this that his mind drew him towards his own demise, often and hauntingly, pulling him closer and closer to the barrel of his own gun.
But on that night, invited by a mother’s old friend - a Godmother, in fact - who wished to rekindle the bond she and the young Jack once held, the sorrow-filled man did indeed take on the woman’s invitation, and attended the performance at the local opera house in a city the man could not even name, reminiscent of an old home one might call Levarin. There, that night, Jack became so transfixed - so taken - by the voice of the man upon the stage, and doubtlessly his charming exterior and complexion, he swore that he was in love.
And he was. Eventually. The two met after the performance concluded, and Jack immediately offered the man a reunion; a date, where the two would not be separated by fifty rows of seats and a stage. This man - Daniel Thomas Nyle - would go on to be Jack's Maker, though not for some time.
Daniel was a cultured man. In many ways, he was everything Jacques was not; suave, intelligent, talented, purposeful. Where one man kept his head down, his eyes trained upon the soil, the other peered at the towers that careened from the cobbled ground, or towards the clouds in the night sky. Never did they meet in the day, but when they met there was an unmistakable passion between them. It never began with lust; always a genuine moment of shared affection. Yet always did it end that way, until that physical intimacy evolved more truly into the love Jack thought he had.
The two sought to spend their lives together. The two even sought to marry. Only was it, then, that Mr. Nyle informed the other of what could only have been a joke: that he was a Dranoch. That he was three hundred years old. That they would live together, but not die together, for one would persist until the day where the earth would rot.
Of course, Jack did not believe his lover at first. He thought him - called him - mad, and teased him endlessly for his divulgence. It was not a revelation he was willing to or prepared to accept, and perhaps because of his faith - the only thing that had kept him alive until he met Mr. Nyle - he did not wish it to be so. Jack wanted only a simple life; to move in together, to adopt, to raise a family and leave a legacy behind. He was a traditional man, as simple as he had been when he met Daniel, only happier.
In coming to understand Daniel's true nature, he equally understood that these possibilities would never come to be. He would die effectively alone; perhaps the man would tire of him. He would be youthful forever, while Mr. Perea… he would decay. His own life was a brief, meaningless commodity. His lover, on the other hand, as enthralling and mysterious a man as he’d always imagined him to be. If any man alive were a Dranoch, it surely was Daniel. The only person in the world who’d managed to make him feel alive. Ironically, a man who had died and been remade long ago.
The two lovers, who feuded and worried for a time, no longer had so much to bicker on after a time. Months past Daniel's revelation, and another uncomfortable truth came to be: Jack was suffering from a lethal cancer of the brain, one that would end his life not in years, but in months. One that had gone unnoticed, and untreated, for some time while it festered and grew.
The choice to his lover was evident and clear: he would make Jacques his progeny; anything to expunge him of the rot within his form. Anything to keep the two together. It was, perhaps, the realization of their wants to marry; a commitment of eternal life at each other’s side.
Almost ironically, the man who wanted to end his own life not too long ago chose to do anything to stay alive. To stay with Daniel. He abandoned his faith, abandoned the day, and abandoned his hopes for the simplicity of human life. He chose death earlier than the cancer would take him, only to be reanimated by the one man he thought he’d been created to love.
Jacques was turned. For a time, as he explored his new life - or maybe unlife - there was peace, and ease. Despite the adversity that came, and the overbearing hunger, the ever-present nature of his Maker and the intimacy shared between them made his early days… incredible. He felt a fascination with what he had become, and he wished to explore it - and the world around him - more and more.
Daniel guided Jack through the life of a blood-hunter, a cannibal. He helped to introduce him to others of their kind, integrating him into a night below; a darkened sprawl that existed within the corridors of that unknown nation's city. In the public eye, the two were effectively meant to keep large sections of their relationship a secret - all of the many misgivings they had fallen prey to in their desire to understand one another, and to be ‘truthful’. Jack understood these terms, and was content to do so, if only to maintain closeness with Mr. Nyle.
It was only his wonder, then, why - beyond the conclusion of one particularly meaningful night - his lover went from him, leaving behind only a note of their shared memories, of the things that he loved of Jack and the things he still wished they could endure, and explore. Of his lamentations that the man would never, in fact, be able to live a normal life… and that he would have to leave him behind, in a steep darkness that filled the corridors of that now empty city. The life of a Dranoch, young and barely made, now alone and absent a Maker. Absent a husband, a lover, that he thought he would always have.
Daniel left him no reason for why he had to disappear, though he did leave him a trail. Within the words were references, ones which - when pieced together - brought him to another world. To a known quantity known as 'Lorien', where Mr. Nyle had clearly gone. That first footfall on the cobbled streets of Nivenhain, separated by years of advancement and growth, is where our story split by dreaming effectively begins.
