What the Night Remembers

 

Writing Timeless Monsters with Human Hearts

Good evening my gothic friends,

Please have a seat, help yourself to some wine or absinthe, if you feel a little decadent or maybe I can tempt you with a brooding cup of tea. Tonight I am reflecting on a question asked of me a few weeks ago. A question that really stood out.

The question? ‘Living Memory’.

More specifically about immortals and how they would perceive memory, what it would mean to those who don’t die?

The psychology of immortality

I remember asking my grandad, many years ago, what it was like in to live for hundreds of years. He was only in his seventies at that time, but as a child I believed he was much older than Methuselah. He spun wild, fantastic stories a little like Cervantes’ windmill chasing Don Quixote. He was a scallywag at heart really, a complete rascal with a great memory.

 In a lot of gothic and fantasy stories, vampires seem to float through time with  with no memory of their human lives. But my warriors? They remember. They choose to carry their mortal lives with them. Their trauma is sacred, it makes them ‘feel’. Though as vampires they can’t feel human emotion. This makes them dangerous in a way because they remember what it was like to feel, once, and that my friends, is the sharpest blade that they carry in their arsenal.

What it means to carry history inside a character

Can you imagine what it is like being around for millennia?

That’s the burden that Peo and Luca carry. They’ve seen empires rise and fall. They’ve seen the world rebuild itself from ashes.

Is it any wonder that they get irritated?

But each remember it differently.

Luca was a General in emperor Vespasian’s army, he was ambitious, and he was deeply in love, until fate stepped in, cruel and wicked and turned him.

Peo came later. A Praetorian Guard under emperor Aurelian. Unlike Luca, Peo’s fate feels earned. Some would say he bloody deserved his fate, the curse of eternity, that he warranted his fate to walk for centuries remembering all that he had done. Memory for Peo is both a punishment and a penance.

 Why my "monsters" are more human than most humans

So, to answer the question of ‘living memory’ that I was asked, my Tempus Militibus warriors remember the horrors that they have witnessed and inflicted, they want to remember. For them to remember is to hold onto a smidgeon of what they once were. But what makes them more human than mortals? It’s because they want to remember how it felt to love, to hate, to be angry and how to weep, even though tears no longer fall.

The Tempus Militibus aren’t just ancient warriors. They are memoirs carved in flesh.

Thank you for joining me this evening my lovely dark academics, now I am off to listen to an interview with the wonder director, Neil Jordan, and hopefully, gods, (or ghouls) willing, I will have him sign my book.

Until next week,

Iubentium.

ADM xoxo