I have long been interested in the moment Lord Blumiere became Count Bleck, and this story is my version of the events. And Blumiere/Bleck, Timpani, the Tribe of Darkness, and whatever else is mentioned in this story are property of Nintendo.
Blech
For a millennium and longer still had the Tribe of Darkness devoted their long years of isolation to studying deep the Dark Prognosticus and all its secrets. It told of a future that might simply be one possibility or an absolute certainty, and as long as they had pondered over which this might be, they had speculated just as long and just as hard over who would bring about the events it foretold. For a millennium, even the wisest and most aged of scholars among them had puzzled over the meaning hidden in the cryptic lines dressing its pages in an effort to find the identity of this person, but Lord Blumiere, despite his young years, knew exactly who it was, and that man was him.
The young man, son of none other than the king himself, cloaked within a flowing, white cape to ward off a chill he should've long grown accustomed to, drifted down one of many dark passageways riddled about the innermost sanctums of the palace, kept guarded against most for fear that untold calamity could be unleashed if that which they guarded fell into the wrong hands. But, he was well-trusted, well-loved by even the servants, whom he treated no differently than the nobles who had no choice but to accept what would no doubt be perceived as a slight to their rank had anyone else, even the king, done that very thing. No one thought twice when he tipped his tall top hat before heading without a word into the most secure room of the palace, the hall where the Dark Prognosticus was kept, not even this generation's scholars present, which was for the best. He didn't think he could look them in the eye right now.
He wasn't a bad person. In fact, he was a very good person. He had been given no other choice. Not after what his father had done to his beloved. It was the very thing the Dark Prognosticus spoke of. Who was he to deny the fulfillment of that ancient tome's purpose when it had chosen him to be the one to carry it out?
He had been given no other choice.
Lord Blumiere's luminous, monocled gaze fell heavy upon that dark book, its cover beset with stones and exuding an aura that never failed to set his stomach in a knot, regardless of the number of times he had looked upon it. All his young years, he had felt the strangest sense that the book was calling to him, a notion he kept secret once his father insisted this wasn't so, and never until this day did he know what title it had bestowed upon him, that of master.
And he would be as such. Only it and it alone held the secret to erasing that which had caused this suffering upon him and his dearest, now no longer existent in this miserable world. Such a world had no right to exist, when it could inflict such pain that eclipsed any happiness he had ever felt.
How very happy the two of them had been once. He simply couldn't be a bad person if he had been able to make her smile so.
He lifted the tome from its pedestal in gloved hands, and he saw his face reflected back at him from the jewel set in its center, and he turned the first page and studied its scrolling and archaic words with such intent, he scarcely noticed the door open behind him.
"Blumiere, my son, you know not what you hold in your hands. Put it away, and we can forget that which I know is in your head tonight."
Blumiere's gaze rose from the book, and he blinked a single time, but he didn't turn. "I am the one the Dark Prognosticus spoke of, the one destined to erase all dimensions. But, you already knew this, didn't you?"
"Why do you think I forbade you to speak to that human girl? It mirrored the very thing that book claimed would set into motion the tragedy you speak of. The joining of our kind and—"
The young man, at last, faced his father, who once towered over him just years past, but who now only stood above him in nothing more than rank and the degree of skill he possessed over magic, but soon, that would all amount to naught.
Soon, all things would. What was the meaning of it all? Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing.
"Don't claim your goals were entirely noble, father. You hated her. You hated what she was. And you hated that I was happy when you were not, and have not been, ever since we lost mother."
His father grew stiff, this, Blumiere could tell, even with no outward indication of it. They stared at each other, the silence of the hall a weight he could feel as surely as he felt the heaviness of what he held in his hands.
"Put it away—"
Blumiere raised a hand. "I will do as the Dark Prognosticus tells me. I will obey its every command, just as it will mine, and I will make all in existence as if it never was, just as it should have been. It seems our suffering, father, had no purpose, but at least it won't have to continue for far longer."
"Blumiere—"
"Speak, Dark Prognostic, and lend me the power I require to make my wishes real! Heed your master, the one you awaited for a thousand years!"
"Please…"
"Goodbye, father."
He had it coming. He had caused this. If he hadn't killed her, I wouldn't have been forced to—
He left me with no—
Oh, Timpani, forgive me…
With a great roar, as if the very fiber of existence itself was being sucked from the room, a tear began between the two of them, crackling with bolts of purple, and his ivory cape billowed in the tempest as the tear split open, and his father was no more, and the hall itself, and soon everything, every last inch of the palace and the woods that encompassed it, until nothing remained, no sound, no color, just white and a few bits of dust and rubble, crumbs left behind by a hungry beast, and Blumiere looked upon what he had done, and he felt nothing. He lowered the hand he had held aloft until now as his quickened breathing slowed, and the Dark Prognosticus fell with a thump to the ground.
A good person would not have done this. I have no right to be called Lord Blumiere anymore.
The young man, his name since birth shed, stooped and took up again the tome that had made all this possible, and he was silent as he decided on a more fitting name for what he had become.
Blech. Black.
Bleck.
With an exhalation of breath, Count Bleck straightened his top hat and vanished.
I know it's not much, but I hope you enjoyed it, nonetheless. Please review, my dearies.