A Life Altering Reading

The Prologue (Or "An Apology")

It all started innocently enough.

Almost nine years ago I met Jon and we started to work on our Epic. It now looks almost nothing like what we started with (be thankful for that) and is of interest to only a handful of people. And the Penguins, but that's another story. (Fear the Penguin Mafia!)

Our story (or rather Story, which is not the same as this story) usually begins with some enigmatic allusion to one Monsieur Erik von Riese. He's Welsh, can you tell? (don't blame me, he's Jon's doing).

Monsieur von Riese was born in Wales in the late 1100's. He is often described as "breathtakingly handsome". (But not by me.) He has brown shoulder length hair and "soft" brown eyes. (For all intents and purposes, he is played by Dan Stevens. Who has blue eyes. But that's beside the point.)

Shortly after being knighted (what else are breathtakingly handsome men going to do in the 1100's?), Erik meets His One True Love (TM). They marry, then he is killed shortly after (Naturally. This is An Epic, after all). True love never dies, blah blah blah, Hello, Vampire! (There's a musical just asking to be written.)

So now, we have an angst ridden, breathtakingly handsome immortal hero trying to make ammends for past evil deeds. Who is British. With brown hair.

(Yes, we really did write all this years before RTD and TenRose. No, I don't expect you to believe that, Your Honor. )

Then there's Hope.

Hope Elisabeth Whitten is another immortal (convenient, no?) who befriends Monsieur von Riese. She has her own long and overly complex backstory (which has since merged into another character's back story, incorporating dimensional portals, time vortexes and a wide assortment of other cliches. This one is all my fault) Hope is not an Elf. I never thought about making her an Elf. Not once. (Okay, maybe twice,)

About two hundred years later (at least in this week's version of the time line), Hope and Erik meet Claude M. (I can never remember how to spell his last name). Claude is delightful. Claude is a Vampire. Claude is French (so he has a British accent, naturally) and is ever so slightly (yeah, right!) addicted to brandy. (Claude also belongs to Val, thus explaining his brilliance).

So now we have a happy little Trio of Goodness and Angst. (TM) With the occasional night at the Opera thrown in.

(And yes, I realize that you can't have a paragraph with only two sentances. That's why we call this Creative Writing.)

Now it's time to introduce our very own Tragic Beautiful Blond Mortal Heroine (TBBMH)(TM) - Marie St. Just. (No relation to Armand or Marguerite.) Yes, we have a Blond girl in love with a Vampire. No, we were not aware of Buffy and Angel at the time. (Honestly, Your Honor.)

Marie and Erik fall in love (we're not entirely sure why) which dooms her to die in his arms. (Though, being An Epic, there are lots of delightful loopholes to exploit to bring her back.)

What follows is a period affectionately referred to as Angst on a Log. (TM) Not much happens. For about 100 years. (Well, some stuff happens but Erik and Claude refuse to discuss it. Or what they were doing with the feather boas. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.)

Eventually, this will all have a happy (but not too happy) ending. (Of sorts.)

So there you have it, along with my sincere apologies to anyone who made it this far. I only did it because Jon, upon hearing that I planned to start writing again, quipped that he was in for a life altering reading.

Indeed.