Chapter 1 Act 1: As Pages Turn
A gentle breeze of the clearest wind blew through the entire land. Trees of green rustled in the breeze, the sweet smells of spring filling the entire town as well as the forest outside it. Flowers of the rainbow smiled sweetly at the shining sun. Light filled every window of the town.
People began to open their doors and step outside into the sweet spring morning that had been bestowed upon the town.
Parents stood in doorways as children shot by them, laughing and running through the streets.
The square was filled with activity. Was today a holiday? No, today was just a normal day for this normal town, in this normal land, in its normal dimension.
But today was also a very different day for two people, one of the town at the base of the cliff, beside the river, past the wood; and the other of the castle hidden deep in the dark wood, past the river, at the top of the large cliff.
This old village had no name, nor did the land upon it, but there was one such girl of this town that did have a name.
Sitting in her bedroom, looking outside the large window, was a young woman with long blonde hair, wearing a blue-white dress. She had a butterfly hairpin in her hair, a sweet smile, and a beautiful face and figure.
She was the prettiest, smartest, and most sought after woman in the entire village. Every woman wanted to be her, and every man wanted to be hers.
But none could have her, nor could anyone replace her, for she was truly a person pure of heart.
Her name was Timpani. She lived in the tallest house in town, with her father and mother.
Timpani looked outside her window with a dreamy look about her; she watched as birds fluttered by and people played below.
But far away from the town, far away from peace and happiness, far away from light, was a large castle that had stood the test of time and waited for it to be one day used by the people of the town. But until that time a special group of people resided inside it.
The people of the town said they were demons, vampires, creatures of the undead; shadows that should never be touched, let alone seen.
Inside this castle were the People of Darkness. They lived deep in the castle, deep in the wood, and hated light.
One of these People of Darkness sat outside on a stone bench, watching the dark clouds float by overhead.
While it was light and peaceful down below in the town, it was dark and storming at the castle in the wood.
This young man on the bench was very special. His name was Lord Blumiere, the son of the Count of Shadows, the leader of the Tribe of Darkness that lived in Castle Variado, so named by the people in the town, for it meant Shadow.
Lord Blumiere, son of the esteemed Count of Shadows, was bored. As usual… There were no other young children to play games with inside the castle, and all the adults were busy. It would soon be the Day of Time, a day on which everyone gave thanks for life and its gifts.
So Lord Blumiere sat alone, outside his father’s castle, looking at the clouds and dreaming of a wonderful land where he had many friends and people to play with.
Lord Blumiere wore a small, white top hat and a long cape of white with a black heart on it. Being the son of the Count he would soon become the count and have all the lavish luxuries of his father.
His father wore the same cape and the same hat, but also wore a monocle, and unlike the small shirt that was worn under his son’s cape, he wore a vest and a large black pendant. His cape shrouded his neck with a large protrusion, however Lord Blumiere’s didn’t.
Once again bored, the young lord sighed and stood.
A small black bird fluttered down to his shoulder, and he greeted the small animal with kindness. “Why, hello there, sir. And just who may I ask are you?” Blumiere asked in his normal gentleman’s voice.
The bird squawked at him before flying away. Blumiere sighed as it left.
“If only I could leave this place as well……”
Blumiere decided that he would take a short walk around the castle grounds, even though there was naught a thing to see upon the castle gardens, but it was something to do and Blumiere welcomed the idea.
As the young lord walked around the gardens he noticed one of the guards was standing near the well in the center of the garden, which his father never took care of.
The garden, which was once a vast field of flowers and beauty, was now a rotten house of the dead. Only one plant lived on in the garden, and that was Blumiere’s rose bush that he had planted when he was young. It still stood to this day, casting a beautiful light upon the shameful garden.
The guard acknowledged his superior and bowed to him. “Hail Lord Blumiere, how are thee today?” asked the guard in a cheerful, and well rehearsed, tone.
“There is no need to bow to me, I am not the Count yet…” Blumiere said, trying to make the conversation less formal.
“But thou arte the son of the Lord Count, and as such thee must be shone honor.”
Blumiere shook his head in defeat. “Please… I am not addressing you as a guard, I just want someone to speak with…”
The guard looked surprised but continued just the same. “Sorry, my lord… It’s just… I’m not used to you, nor your good father, speaking to me in such a… friendly manner.”
“Yes, well my father can be an imbecile at times. Now good sir, could you please tell me, to whom do I owe the honor of speaking to?”
“Captain Julius, sir.”
Blumiere smiled and sat on a stone bench beside the guard, motioning for him to sit as well.
The guard complied and the two of them spoke for a brief moment as the doors to the balcony suddenly burst with activity. The Count rushed out and yelled down to his son.
“Blumiere! Get here this instant!”
Blumiere glanced up at his father and stood; the guard jumped so fast he almost lost his balance and fell into the well.
“Good day. Count! How arte thee today?” said the guard to the Count upon the balcony.
“Fine, just get him up here!” the Count ordered as he burst back through the doors.
Blumiere sighed and walked toward the staircase in the Foyer.
Servants and guards ran all about, as did the Three Sature. The Satures were a group of descendants from the ancients, tasked with teaching and protecting the ancients’ lore and history.
Blumiere walked into the Foyer and up a flight of stairs into the Grand Hall. The hall was covered in magnificent tapestries of the ancient lore and battles as well as statues of past Counts. As Blumiere walked down the hall he saw thousands of years of history standing before him as he reached the door at the end of the hall.
Slowly pushing the door open and ascending another flight of stairs, Blumiere entered a large throne room. In the center stood the three Satures, the Count by them. Each one seemed angered by something, but also relieved.
Blumiere stood by them, and although it was his father, bowed to him before speaking. “What is it, Father?”
The Count smirked at his son and gestured to the Three Satures. “Great news, my Son. We have found it…”
Blumiere looked confused; he spoke slowly, a brief glimmer of chance in his words. “… Found what?”
The oldest Sature, a woman clearly quite old, her skin barely clinging to her bones, curtsied to the young lord and spoke. “The Tome of old, hidden in cold, the book we sought, from wars long fought, the prophecy it tells, in evil it dwells, the Prognosticus De Sielo Darkness. Book of shadow, book of might, for its pages obliterate light, the dates it tells, of evil it spells, of events to come, and past of young, to kill and make, to steal and take, for it tells our future and past, hidden in the shadows’ clasp.”
Blumiere stepped away from the Sature and looked at his father in shock and disbelief. “The Dark Prognosticus?!”
“Yes Son, it is ours. The power of shadows has returned home, and has found its wielder.”
Today was the day that all worlds would be changed…
The book of shadows… The Dark Prognosticus… It foretells of events to come… and events long gone… Its wielder fate controls, until it breaks its uttered oath…
The shadows overhead Castle Variado seemed to seethe with power. The book of ultimate darkness had been found… and was held in the hands of the holder of the crown.
The people below
in the town ran inside, a great cloud of shadow drawing near…
Chapter 1 Act 2: The Fallen
Lady Timpani stood from her room inside her house and was taken aback by the sight outside. A dark cloud of purple mist was fuming from the Castle Variado upon the cliff. Turning around and racing down the stairs, she met her father.
“Father, hast you seen the dark cloud outside?” Timpani asked as she greeted her father with a smile.
“Aye, and you should remain here, the cloud seethes with evil.”
Timpani, who wanted to see what this cloud of dark energy was, lied. “But I have to go pick up something from the Market.”
Timpani’s father sighed and looked at her with a trusted smile. “Very well… But be careful, and hurry back!”
Timpani smiled and hugged her father before running down the stairs and out into the town.
The once peaceful aura of the town was gone, the gentle breeze having became a typhoon of winds. Timpani had trouble standing for a moment, but pressed onward toward the tallest point in town, the bridge at the river.
Running as fast as she could as she braved the winds, Timpani headed toward the bridge. All the other townsfolk ran inside their homes, creating a flood of activate against her movements. But still she pushed her way through until she reached the bridge.
The bridge was made from stone and iron and stood quite tall. In its entirety it was the most beautiful structure that the town held. A large door on the right side allowed access to the top of the bridge, used for maintenance, but Timpani had learned how to get inside without a key.
Removing one of her hairpins aside from the butterfly, she pried the lock open and walked inside. She ran up the stairs and exited at the top of the structure, looking toward the castle and the cliff.
Suddenly there was a flash of lightning; Timpani screamed and threw her hands over her mouth as she saw a sight she never thought she would see.
On the cliff,
a figure was falling… falling… falling down… onto the earthen ground below.
Blumiere stood in the throne room only a moment longer before bursting out the doors.
He and his father had done it again, once again they had fought.
“But Father,” Blumiere protested, “the Dark Prognosticus must be destroyed! It is too powerful!”
Blumiere’s father laughed and held up the book. “This book holds the secrets of the future! With it we shall be able to guide our land into peace and prosperity!”
Blumiere took the book away from his father and threw it to the ground. His father and the Satures gasped.
“Blumiere, what ails you?! How dare you harm this tome!”
“Father, this is madness! This book contains powers you could never control!”
The Count scoffed and picked up the book.
“Tis the truth, dearest Count, none you wield it come about, each one dies, from power and greed, two of which I know you feed!”
The Count laughed once again and began to leave the room.
“Thee is right… This book is too powerful for even I to wield, and so it shall be locked away… Would this make thee happy, Blumiere?”
“Quite!”
And so the Count locked away the Dark Prognosticus. But as he left the room one of the Satures turned to Blumiere.
“Shadows choke the light, though will be inside thus plight, Count of Darkness you are not, but evil is your heart that rots!”
These words floated inside Blumiere’s mind as he walked toward the cliff, to look out upon the town below.
Never go to the town, Blumiere! Never speak to humans! They wish you dead!
Blumiere remembered his father telling him these words, but why? The Humans looked kind and gentle. Why would they hurt him? Did they fear the Tribe of Darkness?
Just as these thoughts ran through his mind, the storm overhead grew worse. Before Blumiere knew it a large bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck the ground no more than three feet from him. Blumiere jumped, the earth beneath him crumbled, and he fell screaming to the ground below.
As he fell he saw a figure in blue standing on the bridge run toward him…
Blumiere blacked out as he reached the ground, and with a sickening thud hit the ground with all his force.
A girl in a blue dress ran to him and knelt down.
“Oh my… By the
worlds…”
Timpani banged on the door to her home. Soon after her mother stood and opened the door, then shrieked as her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my… FATHER! GET OVER HERE!”
Timpani’s father bounded down the stairs and ran to his wife and daughter. “Timpani!”
Timpani was soaked in water, rain having begun to fall upon the town. She was propping the man up with her body; he was unconscious and covered in mud and blood.
“Mother! Father! Please, we must help him!”
The three of them moved the young man into the house and lay him down in an extra bed and set to work trying to help him.
Mother ran to the kitchen to find a bowl of water, Father ran for some medicine, and Timpani knelt at the man’s side and tried to see if he would wake. His cape was torn, his hat crushed, and his arms scuffed with blood. He had a large gash in his head and side, showing where he had fallen through a tree.
His skin wasn’t the same paste color of the three humans; it was a dark, almost purple color.
He was not human;
he was of the Tribe of Darkness…
Chapter 1 Act 3: Awakening
Pain filled all of Blumiere’s senses as he began to open his eyes. A long moan of pain was pushed from his lips as he opened his eyes and felt all the pain that his body had engulfed.
Where am I? How am I still alive?
Suddenly Blumiere realized that he wasn’t alone in the room. He looked to his right to see a young woman standing near him. She wore a blue dress and had blond-brown hair that descended down her back. She was turned away from him and had a rag in her hand that she was wringing out into a bowl.
“So… You’re awake?” the woman asked in a gentle calm voice.
Blumiere stirred and tried to lift himself from the bed, but fell back down due to the sheer pain of movement.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” said a male voice as the door opened. A man wearing a brown jacket and brown matching pants and brown hair walked inside. Behind him was a woman in a green dress with long blond hair.
“Mother, Father, our guest has woken up,” said the girl.
The father walked over to Blumiere and examined his face, looking deep into his eyes as if searching for something. Blumiere backed away slightly from the human, who just grinned slightly and turned to leave the room.
“He’s not welcome here, Timpani! Send him out when he’s able! I don’t want one of Those Things in my house!”
With that the man was gone. The woman- the mom, Blumiere guessed- walked up to Blumiere and took a wet rag and dabbed it against the wound on his head. Blumiere hissed from the pain and the woman made a sympathetic face. “You took quite a fall, young man. You should be more careful.”
With that the woman left, but she turned to Blumiere on the way out and winked. “Don’t worry about my husband, he just doesn’t like strangers…. let alone The Tribe of Darkness…”
Blumiere hissed again, not from pain but from disgust, and once again tried to stand. Beside the bed was a cane, one that was not there before. It was wooden and had a large blue stone at the top. Blumiere gripped it and pulled himself up, only to collapse to the floor.
The woman, Timpani as she had been called, dropped what she was doing and tried to catch Blumiere. “What’s the matter with you?! You’re hurt! Rest!”
Blumiere slowly got back onto the bed, but held a confused look. “Y-You do not fear me?” Blumiere asked in a timid voice.
“Fear you? Why would I fear you?”
“… Indigo hair, shadows son, evil thrives in lights death, monsters, creatures, killers of light, these are things I have heard your people say of my kind…”
Timpani sighed. “All people are the same. We are all souls that need guidance and help. What you look like doesn’t matter to me, nor my mother.”
Blumiere chuckled and looked away from the woman. “Then why does your father hate me?” Blumiere asked plainly.
“Simple, he doesn’t like young men my age; it’s a father thing…”
Blumiere laughed a chuckle that soon turned into a cough from the pain he felt as he laughed.
Timpani pushed him back down onto the bed. “Rest… I will take good care of you…”
Blumiere smiled at her as she began to bandage the wounds on his arms. “… My name is Blumiere….”
Timpani smiled. “My name is Timpani; it’s very nice to meet you, Blumiere.”
“Enchanté.”
Timpani giggled
and smiled at Blumiere. This was the last thing that Blumiere saw before
he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
Chapter 1 Act 4: Goodbye
Blumiere tossed and turned in his bed, darkness seeming to choke him in the night. A deep sleep had become an endless nightmare.
Blumiere stood in a large black room; there were candles, each one giving off white light, illuminating only a small amount of the blackness in the room. A figure stood at the north part of the room, sitting on a throne of black and white stone. Blumiere approached the figure cautiously and called out. “HELLO! IS ANYONE THERE?!”
A low moan came from the figure on the throne, a low… long growl… The figure glanced upward, the light casting a dark glimmer across his face. He wore a top hat and a long cape of white and cream, and was holding a book tightly against his person. His right eye used a monocle, and a staff, the same one that Blumiere had used to get out of bed, was in his hands.
“… Heh… heh… bleh…” the figure moaned as he held the book tighter.
“… Hello… Who are thee?” Blumiere asked slowly, trying to find the right light to look at the figure.
Lightning crashed outside the building and the entire room illuminated with white light. Blumiere jumped backward as the figure suddenly jumped at him, screaming.
“CHAOS HEART! OPEN YOUR MOUTH! ENGULF ALL WORLDS! BLECK!”
Blumiere suddenly jumped upward in the bed, sweat and fear dripping from his body as he did so. Lightning flashed outside and a figure stood next to him, her face covered in concern and fear. “…. A-Are you all right?” It was Timpani.
Blumiere sighed and lay back down in the bed. “… I am fine… Just… a bad dream…”
Blumiere turned onto his side, away from Timpani. Timpani sighed and stood. “… Well… Talking usually helps when you have a bad dream…”
“It was nothing! Go!” Blumiere snapped at her.
Timpani sighed and backed away toward the door. But instead of leaving the room, she just shut the door. Timpani took a chair and moved it to the side of the bed and sat down. Blumiere looked over his shoulder and was astonished to see her doing this.
“… Well then… If you won’t talk, then just listen…” Timpani smiled at Blumiere, Blumiere looked away, back at the wall, and a slight blush danced across his features. He swallowed and choked the feeling down before turning back toward her again…
“All right… I’m listening…” Blumiere said with a toothy smile, making Timpani giggle.
And this was how the two spent their first night…Timpani spoke… and Blumiere listened…
However, outside in the storm stood a figure clad in a dark hood and robe. His dark skin blended with the darkness around him. The figure sighed and turned away, walking off into the storm, the wind blowing his robe behind him to reveal the dark skin and the black heart on his robe…
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The next day Blumiere was strong enough to stand. He was standing at the bookcase next to the bed, reading over the book titles.
Blumiere extended his hand and removed a book entitled Cinderella. Pulling a chair up to the table, he sat down and began to read the book. The door opened and Timpani’s mother walked inside and smiled at Blumiere kindly.
“Well hello there… It’s nice to see that you’re feeling better,” said the mother, who Blumiere didn’t know had entered the room.
Blumiere jumped up, knocking the chair over, and bowed to the woman before speaking. “… Um… Thank you, Madame… I didn’t know you had entered…”
The mother giggled. “Well, what a gentleman you are… Not even my husband bows when I enter a room.”
Blumiere smiled. “Well… It is custom for the royal…” Blumiere trailed off, he was not supposed to tell them he was the son of the Count… But Timpani seemed kind…he could tell her…
The mother raised an eyebrow and walked toward the bed, clutching the sheets and putting them in a basket she’d walked in with. “Well once you are able, Father wants you to leave, but do not feel rushed, dear. Take your time to heal.”
Blumiere shook his head. “As much as I wish I could find a way to thank you before I leave, I must take my leave. My father shall be quite… inquisitive as to my whereabouts as of late.”
The mother smiled. “Oh, you don’t need to thank us, you where hurt. Dying! You needed aid, it was the least we could do.”
Blumiere smiled once again and placed the book back on the shelf. The mother smiled as he put the book away. “Did you enjoy the story?” she asked in a motherly tone as she began to walk away.
Blumiere mumbled. “Yes… It is quite… happy…”
The mother grinned and winked as she left the room. “Take it with you, Timpani doesn’t read it anymore.”
Blumiere was taken back. “Really?”
“Sure, just take good care of it.”
Blumiere lifted his hat. “I shall guard it with my life, Madame.”
Timpani walked
slowly down the stairs and met her mother as she began to ascend. “Our
guest is awake, and moving!”
Meanwhile, the
Count paced back and forth in the throne room, a confused grin covering
his face.
“Why? How? What
makes him think he can go into a human’s home!?” the Count exclaimed to
the Satures.
“Perhaps he didn’t know? Perhaps it was chance? Perhaps you saw wrong? Or maybe a reason burns as to he among them?”
The Count spat the words as he spoke. “You fools! Quiet! My son is no fool!”
A servant and a guard burst into the room and bowed to the Count before they spoke. Both were out of breath. “Sire! The young Lord Blumiere! He has left the human dwelling!”
The Count suddenly burst through the doors toward the castle grounds. He shot his glance toward the town and saw the figure of his son walking through the wood behind the town, limping; and behind him…
“GUARDS! BRING ME MY SON THIS INSTANT!” bellowed the Count to his men.
For the sight that the Count saw was one he never thought would grace his eyes.
A human, a woman,
was walking by his son.
Blumiere stopped walking as he reached the halfway mark in the wood. Timpani looked at him with slight sorrow.
“I must go, Timpani; my father already knows that I have been near a human. If he were to even see a human near me he would kill them. Please go back.”
Timpani smiled and sighed at him. “… Well… Blumiere… It was nice to meet you… But try to be more careful.”
Blumiere bowed to Timpani and extended to her a red rose that had been hidden in his robes. Timpani took the rose with a smile and a blush. The blush that danced across her face was seen by Blumiere, who blushed in turn.
“… Au plaisir de vous revoir… Until we meet again…” Blumiere said with a smile.
Timpani smiled and curtsied to him as he left. “… Goodbye… Lord Blumiere…”