A
An Angry Hussar
Guest
Original poster
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
The fever hadn't been so Goddamn bad. It burned through the Confederate Captain by the time the sun had risen. The doctors hadn't known what to make of it, blaming it on the Georgian heat. Who the Hell dies overnight from a simple dog bite? Captain Eli Murray, 4th Kentucky Cavalry, was buried underneath an oak tree just outside Atlanta. The city was burning by that time, put to the torch by William Tecumseh Sherman and his fellow Yankees. The Confederates reeled towards Savannah, unable to stop the rolling tide of Federal blue backs.
As Atlanta burned, Captain Murray stirred within his grave. He arose that night, as the sky was burned orange by the flames, choking on dirt and saliva. His mind reeled with confusion, drunk on near-death and the sensation that something was terribly wrong with his world. The soldier writhed within his own shallow grave, until the first hints of the high moon hit his grave site. He gripped his hair and screamed for death. He could feel his bones shattering, fusing together, and growing anew. He could smell the carbon and the blood in Atlanta. He tasted the black powder burning in rifles and cannon.
The death of an entire platoon of Zouave troops from New York would be officially blamed on Confederate militia. Reports would omit the presence of bite and claw marks. How more than one body had been torn to shreds, feasted upon, before being left to the carrion birds that were now coming to roost in the dead ruins of the flower of the South. A squad of troops from the 1st United States Sharpshooters, under the instruction of Colonel Hiram Berdan, were sent by order of the President to find out what had killed the men. They were unsuccessful.
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Eli fled that night. Fled the war, fled his home and fled his country. He abandoned the Confederacy in its dying days. He traveled west, officially listed as 'Killed in Action' in Confederate records of the war. His family's name, and their inheritances, would die by this falsehood. Eli would be forced to live the rest of his life hiding the beast he had unknowingly released on the burning city of Atlanta.
By the 1890s, he had learned to control the thirst and the hate that embodied his existence each full moon. By the time the century had turned, he was able to control it at will -- though he never had the interest in the wolf that howled within him. It had turned his life upside down. He went by various assumed names, traveling as a mercenary for Indian tribes, a scout and a guide for expeditions to the Northwest Territories. Three times during this point in life he attempted to end it all. The memories of the war, the bloodiest war in American history, and what he was too much for the veteran. Each time he'd wake up, spitting out the lead ball in his breakfast.
He never aged. He traveled north as civilization advanced in the 20th century. He read in newspapers of a Great War in Europe. How hundreds of thousands died in trench warfare and under the onslaught of technology. The old man, who had not aged a day since 1864, had sat back and reminisced how it was the same way for him and his men. The American Civil War was fought with the experienced earned in blood by the Napoleonic Wars. So it was for the Great War, fought with the memories of the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War.
He heard of the Second World War after he had been forced north of the border, seeking out shelter and solitude in the Yukon. By the time rumors of Vietnam were circulating, he had traveled to the very heart of the Canadian wilderness north of Yellowknife. The winters were harsh, though he didn't feel them. It kept the curious away. He traveled the three hundred miles to Yellowknife each spring, trading furs and gold he had panned for black powder and supplies.
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Eli knew what aeroplanes were. He was no backwards fool, regardless of how he lived. He had been outside his cabin, sharpening an ax, when he saw the smoking plane shudder overhead. It crashed some few miles from his cabin, erupting into a plume of smoke. Eli had stared at the smoke for some time, his mind racing about the implications about what was going to happen next. Crashed planes meant rescue parties. Even he knew that. The smoke dissipated into nothingness.
Little did he know how much this plane would change his life in ways he never expected.
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Out Of Character!
What are you looking for?
I'm looking for another advanced (female) player to 'play the above out. There are elements of fantasy here, though my character being a werewolf shouldn't be the single focal point of the roleplay. The roleplay will revolve around a conservative soul, who very much wishes to be left alone, being forced to interact with a woman who is the product of our modern society. Neither may like the situation, but with the winter snows blocking the passes to Yellowknife and no search team on their way to get her, the 'eccentric' man in the cabin may be her only chance to survive the winter.
I wanna be a vampire/werewolf/tigerbot!
The point of the roleplay should not revolve around fantasy. Though Eli is a werewolf, this is not the defining feature of who he is. PTSD is as much a reason as to why he seeks solace as his infliction is.
What about character development?
Both of our characters should develop by the time the roleplay ends. As to the extent of that is up to us and the natural flow of the story.
How do I contact you? Are you any good?
PM me. Do not reply to this post. I might not catch it.
Since I'd rather choke myself to death than type up a 'roleplay resume', I'll allow the below to speak for me:
https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/threads/the-apocalypse-is-over-rated.112000/
Hey, isn't that Goddamn Josey Wales?
You're Goddamn right it's Josey Wales. You a Red Leg?
