Cain Hargreaves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misterblackbird) wrote2013-07-15 11:04 pm
misterblackbird) wrote2013-07-15 11:04 pm
Aungier House Application
OOC Information
Name: Caru
Age: 31
Characters already in game?: N/A
Contact: cateyed.crow@gmail.com; icarus_suraki at Plurk
IC Information
Cain gave the letter a cursory reading. Another invitation--and so soon. The Valdemars. The name rang a bell, he thought. Old friends, perhaps even friends of his father, or perhaps distant relatives again. There were scores of those.
He considered the letter--certainly, such an unexpected invitation did remind him of that fateful invitation to visit the Cromwell house, the so-called "Butterfly Mansion." Others might wonder more often about the fate of the daughter of that house, Lucia, and her haunted obsidian eyes. Poor creature, poor caged bird. She had been more used than anything, more sinned against than sinning. Even her ostensible madness had been hypnosis--more smoke and mirrors, as ever, and little wonder that that suspicious medium had been in the midst of it.
Well, it had been a surprise at the time. But, in point of fact, that chance encounter with the ostensibly powerful Dominic Crehador had turned out to be rather useful. That medium could be had for a price. And, as Crehador himself had said, to understand the superstitious, one must think superstitiously. A charlatan like the others, Cain was pleased to observe, but one with something of an honest bent. He would own up to his tricks, and he could be had for a price. No, he was valuable enough. He had information that would otherwise be hidden and his loyalty could be bought.
But that morning in the garden, that power (was it a power?), that moment when it seemed that, at a touch, Crehador could look into the darkest corners of Cain's own soul--was that a power? Or was that more hypnosis and smoke and mirrors? It couldn't be magic. That was nonsense.
Anyway--to be sure, the image of Lucia's face surfaced in his mind from time to time, the fear and desperation and sometimes madness in those dark eyes. But she was a passing shadow and he found himself more haunted by her brother, Emile.
Brother? Perhaps. They were step-siblings, in truth, as she had been the daughter of her father's late Japanese wife, and he had since remarried. But Lucia had loved her stepmother's son to the end, and he had loved her her. It mattered little when she rushed to hold his broken body there at the foundations of their own house. And the butterflies, for the place was named honestly, began a magnificent midnight funeral procession. Yes, he had been her brother. There was no doubt. After all, hadn't he fallen for her sake? Hadn't he said it was a sacrifice for her? Hadn't he--?
He hadn't needed to. That was the raw center of it all. He had taken the step from the edge of the roof himself, but he had as good as been pushed. And by Cain's own father. He knew that now. He knew that was the center on which it all had turned.
There was always one like Emile tangled in the midst of these things. If not Emile, who threw himself to his own death (and Cain could hardly think of that moment without remembering that laugh, that nightmarish laugh, that swept over the whole of the house; a laugh he knew instantly to be his father's and even now it chilled him), then Leroy, Duke Gladstone's prisoner of late.
Was it possible for someone like them, someone so like him, who has looked so deeply into the darkness, to find their way back to the light?
He, too, had been lost in that labyrinth for so many years. It had been Riff who had pulled him from those depths.
It had been Riff, too, who told him that Leroy had escaped the hospital to which they had taken him. It was by none of his own fault that Leroy was so shattered and wounded--in more ways than one. The world he fell in was far too vile for a boy so young to endure. He was another victim in DELILAH's great web, another prisoner in that same set of traps. Again, it was his father's will that dragged so many down into torment and agony.
But that they found themselves so close to him, or he to them-- How did it work? What was the pattern of it?
Perhaps the poison of Cain's own shadow stretched so far as that, to encompass even those met almost by chance, with only the most tenuous connection--a would-be pickpocket proven to be an old acquaintance of his sister. And that cheerful boy was swallowed up by the same darkness that threatened to consume everything.
Cain would say himself that he was cursed. He had warned Merry against the same. He was cursed. His father had cursed him with his name and--
He let the letter fall to the floor and sighed. Riff passed by then and, patient as ever, set the letter on a table nearby. A small gesture, a commonplace gesture, an expected gesture--to pick up dropped things and set them to rights. But that, Cain thought, was Riff. And he knew in these moments how fortunate he was to have had someone to pull him out of the darkness. Hadn't that been his own feverish dream not so long ago? Feverish or poisoned, more like. Another plot, as ever, but that one had failed--but still at the cost of another pair of siblings. Forever these others being drawn into the dark, even as Riff managed to pull him out endlessly. The machinations of his father's dark enterprises turned around him and crushed those near to him even as that same nightmare machinery passed him by.
Cain reached for Riff's sleeve--for no other reason than for the assurance of Riff's reality, of his existence. And he was real.
"Lord Cain? Do you plan to accept this invitation?"
Cain's grip held.
There was no rest nor peace--not now nor ever until either his or his father's blood baptized the very ground. And so be it. He was prepared for war, if war it would be. And if this was another trap or trick, so be it. He would go into it with his eyes open and he would be ready. And if it was not a trap or trick, if it was simply an invitation from a forgotten connection, then he would pay this visit and in so doing laugh in the face of those who would disrupt his life. The same way he courted dozens of ladies, was forced to refuse invitations only because he had too many, went to parties or balls every night, traveled, made his face known, made his reputation known, reveled in the rumors that Society carried about (which were but the palest shadows of the truth, but dark enough for most of them)--he would not be chained as he once was, that much was certain.
"I do, Riff. It would be outright disgraceful if my father's organisation tried the same trick on me twice, inviting me to pay a visit to witness more of their cruelties. I can't imagine they'd try the same thing twice." He caught Riff's eye, though, and held it. "But I shan't be taking Merry along this time. Look after her, Riff. I'll only be gone a few days. I expect it'll be a tedious time. But I hear there might be a curiosity shop in town that could be of some interest to me."
AU History (revised): It's quite simple, really: now the internal matches the external.
The life that Cain has seemed to live to those who don't know him so well (and that's most people, to be fair) will be the actuality of his life. He will seem to be another nobleman, although with something of a bad reputation for breaking the hearts of hopeful young ladies and with more than his fair share of death in his life. No wonder he's so inclined to be cutting.
The son of Lord Alexis Hargreaves and Lady Augusta (Lord Hargreaves's cousin; it was an arranged family match), Cain was somewhat frail as a child and lived most of his young life in the countryside.
Unfortunately, his mother took ill and died when he was quite young. The household was, of course, plunged into mourning.
His father, now a widower, did his best to have Cain brought up under the proper circumstances. But it was difficult, as Alexis had always been somewhat distant and cold and now he was still grieving for his dead wife (whom Cain resembled more than a little).
Still more unfortunately, Alexis took his own life when Cain was 10 years old. The household held that he had finally given himself over to his grief over the Lady Augusta's death; he could bear it no more. He leaped onto the seaside cliffs below the family house (although the church was considerate about the whole ordeal and kindly avoided the word "suicide" and suggested instead that he slipped while walking or was perhaps thrown from his horse--his body was never found).
Cain, not even yet 11 years old, was formally given the family title: Earl of Hargeaves. And he was given over into the guardianship of his uncle Neil (family rumor suggested that Neil was inordinately fond of Augusta and would have married her himself if she had not chosen Alexis over him) until he would reach his majority.
Neil did his best for the young earl, bringing him to London, setting him up with the best tutors, introducing him to the families close to the Hargreaves family, teaching him the ways of polite society, encouraging him in his obvious intelligence, &c. And Cain did well in London.
But having endured so much death already, to have been orphaned in such a fashion, and to have lived so long in his father's cold shadow, Cain was already a notedly melancholy child. And this melancholy was tempered with a kind of wildness or fierceness that Neil put down to the boy's having lived in the hills and moors and cliffs of Cornwall for a time on some of the family's property. The look in his eyes seemed so much older than the boy himself was. And he had a way of smiling that suggested that he knew more than he was letting on, and perhaps that he could see right through any story or lie or half-truth.
Still, it was agreed by all callers to the house that the young earl was quite charming and reminded everyone of his father in a most striking way. He could be a little petulant and a little difficult, sometimes outright demanding (as the servants could attest), but he was obviously clever and witty, if somewhat dark in his humor.
At about this time, Cain was besotted with his cousin, Suzette. A few remarked that the two seemed so like Cain's own parents that it would be almost haunting to have such a similar match come about again. They were only 13 or 14 at the time, certainly no more. And they were as shameless in some regards as any young lovers are.
Suzette, unfortunately, threw Cain over for another young man much older than her. Compounding the tragedy, this young man threw Suzette over for another young woman (with the added cruelty of taking back a ring from Suzette and giving it to his new lover). Suzette heard news of their wedding, took ill, and died that same night.
Most said she died of a broken heart, but a few remarked on her immense fondness for the play Romeo and Juliet and said that they wouldn't be surprised if she had perhaps drunk poison.
Cain, naturally, was distraught and the memories of his affection for his cousin haunt him to this very day. He still dreams of her and fancies that he sees her in crowded places sometimes.
Little wonder that he would grow to be a little cynical on the subject of love.
Some time later, Neil arranged for Cain to meet the daughter of the Lauderdale family, a family that had long been close to the Hargreaves. Indeed, it was intended that Cain should marry her. And, certainly, he did recall her from years ago. The match, however, was not ideal and the couple could not exactly be called "happy." It was more out of duty than out of love that they were engaged.
Again, death touched the household as Emmeline was killed in a carriage accident not so very long before the intended wedding.
But the complexity therein was that Cain had, while engaged to Emmeline, encountered a mysterious and delicate young lady at a party (alone; Emmeline had been indisposed that evening). She was said to be a fortune-teller (something that Cain scoffed at endlessly--smoke, mirrors, piano wire, and cold readings). Still, he could hardly deny his attraction to her. Her name, it was said, was Meridiana.
She was under the close watch of her brother (who, it could be said, was very carefully manufacturing her reputation as a medium and fortune-teller; the two rode the party circuits of London society and were certainly the subject of great conversation and speculation). So the two new lovers were obliged to see one another only in secret.
It was in the midst of this affair that Emmeline was killed in the carriage accident--and, certainly, Cain did feel some kind of confused guilt regarding the death of his "thorny princess." He did feel some kind of affection for her, even if it was not precisely love.
Meridiana, however, was severely consumptive (perhaps this was part of her charm or part of how she appeared so frail). She kept this secret from Cain as best she could until the illness became to great for her to bear. There was no shortage of desperation on the part of both of them to see one another one last time, no matter how her brother might resist. And Meridiana did die, but Cain was grateful that he could be with her when she did.
It can't be a wonder that he's turned out, now at only 17, so sharp and so cold, after having lost so many close to him. He dislikes most of his family: they're prone to gossip, they're inclined to grapple for power, some outright resent him. But he's immensely fond of and protective of his uncle. He'll forever defend his uncle, even if he knows he's the source of more than a few of his uncle's troubles. He'll only smile at that--but not cruelly.
And so, he lives his life as something of a Byronic hero: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He's dark and darkly charming. He knows the social graces and sometimes chooses to ignore them. He's certainly quite popular in his particular social circle--or, at least, he appears to be. He certainly receives more than his fair share of invitations to this house or that ball or some other party (probably because of his title and his fortune). And he goes to most all of them and more, though he finds a good deal of it all rather dull. He goes to play games and to watch the claws come out and to listen to the delicate sorts of battles that go on even in a social set said to be above such things. Far from it. And that would be why he would accept an invitation to the Valdemar's house: to see what there is to see, to watch the household's internal workings play out, to see what sorts of secret struggles there might be hidden behind pleasant faces and a careful veneer.
He's very trying for his uncle, as he's old enough now to get into trouble but still his uncle's responsibility (Cain can't wait to be old enough to truly be his own master). He's still a bit wild, but in that same polished way he's always had. He has a few coarse friends and a few questionable acquaintances (but, fortunately, he's managed to keep himself out of both debt and the opium dens, even if he has been seen in a few other dangerous situations). He'll start up romances and love affairs with one lady after another and never allow the affair to become anything but an amusement to him (wasting the lady's infinitely precious time). He has a reputation as something of a heartbreaker. But that seems as attractive as anything to some. He'll make enemies, though not serious ones. He'll fairly take apart those who annoy him. He's just clever enough and just enough at loose ends to be dangerous. Neil will sometimes wonder when he'll hear of Cain being connected to a murder (though he usually thinks better of saying such a thing; if anything, Cain might be the one investigating the murder and putting the police to shame with how deft he'd be at unraveling it all).
In short: Cain will have forgotten the whole of the truth of his parentage, his father's malicious secret organization, the death and destruction for which that organization is responsible, the instances of murder he has investigated, the attacks on his own life, his poison collection [which he refers to as his "children" sometimes], and even Riff and Merry. To be quite honest, to have forgotten such important people as Riff and Merry and important things as his own vows of vengeance will be nothing short of a shock when he does remember.
He'll essentially be an ordinary Victorian lord, though a bit more dashing and romantic than is historically accurate. In that way, his personality can still stay intact: the kind of dark charm he has in canon, together with no small measure of intelligence. But he'll have forgotten why it is that he is the way he is and what urges him on (since he's so driven by his vengeance against his father). If anything, he'll be more like he is in the very earliest stories of his canon (the Cain Saga half) before he knows the whole truth about DELILAH and before the reader knows the truth of his past (and with less murder and poison, too).
He'll end up as a rather darkly romantic but distinctly commonplace Victorian nobleman.
Name: Caru
Age: 31
Characters already in game?: N/A
Contact: cateyed.crow@gmail.com; icarus_suraki at Plurk
Name: Cain Hargreaves
Canon: Godchild (Godchild is the second half of his complete canon; the first half is titled, in North American translation, Count Cain, and the two halves together are collectively called The Cain Saga)
Canon Medium: Manga
Age: 17, physically and actually
Gender/ Sex: Masculine/Male
Canon History: Here is the Wikipedia article on the series, and VIZ has some information on Godchild and Count Cain. This site is, admittedly, a fan site, but the summary they provide is accurate so far as I can tell.
Canon Point: The end of volume 5 of Godchild (which is the end of volume 10 in the entire series of The Cain Saga).
Powers: Whether Cain has powers is a little complicated. He himself does not believe in anything more supernatural than, say, God. He does not believe in the spiritualists and their tables, he does not believe in fortune-tellers, he does not believe in tarot cards, he does not believe in ghosts. He encounters situations in which the supernatural appears to be taking place and he pulls back the curtain to show the man with his mirrors and his wires and that there is no ghost, no spirit.
However, later in his canon, he is briefly possessed by a ghost. A magician and psychic medium who attempted to channel the spirit himself (the spirit possessed Cain instead) states that Cain likely has psychic abilities that make him predisposed to possession and channeling. This instance is basically the one and only time that these abilities are called by name, identified, or even involved in the storyline as a whole. So strictly speaking, he may have some latent psychic abilities, but he doesn't even know about them at this point.
Now, in the more rational realm, outside of supernatural abilities, he is extremely skilled with regard to poison--identification, use, antidotes, symptoms, &c. He is a master of poisons. And he will always have a little with him.
Personality: Cain is charming. This is his primary persona. He is charming, cool, flirtatious, witty, aristocratic, fond of parties and balls, the one standing in the corner catching everyone's eye... But he also exudes an air of the Byronic hero: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He has a Reputation as an eccentric for his and his family's poison collection and as a playboy for all the women he's been with and, if he's not proud of it, he's content with it. But all of this has a darker edge to it. His personality has a bite to it. He's as quick to be cruel in his flirtations as to be charming. He's fond of "difficult women" and is happy pushing them to their emotional limits. They may smack him with their fans, but he knows they love him and will keep coming back to him. He's not wantonly cruel or sadistic, but he is and can be cruel. At his best, he comes across as darkly charming and mysterious.
An elegant young gentleman--and an earl besides. Cain is seventeen in his canon, but he will, of course, be aged to eighteen in the game. There will be no noticeable physical differences when he is aged up, and it's doubtful that Cain will even notice that he's older. Cain is slender, and perhaps somewhat smaller than average. There is no canon height or weight given for him, but he seems to be around 5 feet, 6 inches tall, maybe a little taller.
In appearance, he's what one might call painfully beautiful. Characters in canon say he looks like a religious painting or like a dark angel, and he has, with success, disguised himself as a woman more than once. His hair is dark, like his father's (and his aunt's/mother's, though he only saw her after it had gone white with distress), and his eyes would be green like his father's too, if they weren't tinted and flecked with gold. His golden eyes are one of his most recognizable features, but Cain hates the color of his eyes, as it's a reminder of his cursed existence and his incestuous parentage. Unfortunately for him, his eyes are also quite striking and more than a few characters remark on them.
More significant than his eyes, though, are the scars that lace his back from his father's nightly ritual whippings. From about the age of four to about the age of ten, his father would literally whip him in a ritual intended to cleanse him of his sins--whatever sins his father saw in him, at least. No one is allowed to see these scars except for Riff. And no one is allowed to touch these scars except for Riff. Cain will never admit to them and will never reveal them, and he's clever enough to know how to hide them.
But he denies that past to all appearances. He dresses elegantly, if slightly darkly, in long coats and top hats, as suits his Victorian world. He also wears a small black earring in his left ear--it's a piece of a stone he found in his father's things. He had it made into an earring, and Riff is the one who pierced his ear. The sight of it, he says, will remind him of the pain of it and what he's endured to come to where he is now (there's more to the stone than that, but...). He seems young for his position sometimes, but he carries it extremely well.
And yet, at the same time, he can be remarkably logical and deductive. In several stories, he acts as kind of Sherlock Holmes (with Riff standing in for Watson). The crimes are inevitably shocking and twisted, and Cain seems not to bat an eye. A girl who kills people and turns them into dolls, a woman set on collecting the eyes of others for an arcane ritual to make her beautiful again. He's angered by them, perhaps horrified by them, but he's cool in the face of them. It's especially bad (and especially common) when they're committed by DELILAH, Cain's father's organization devoted to black magic and inhuman medical experiments. It's often Cain's half-brother, Jezebel, who commits these crimes too--cutting out eyes or murdering without concern. So Cain seeks to set things to rights--especially if it's Merryweather, his sister, who's gotten herself caught in the middle of something. But his way of setting things to rights...well...
But this coolness and charm is all a cover for a more turbulent background and mind. And, it's little wonder that he is as dark as he is. His father kept him a prisoner in their house and beat him nightly to "cleanse his sins". If that dark charm of his seems a little twisted, that's probably because it is. He'll use people, drive towards his own ends, break the law occasionally, even murder, but driving this is a sense of justice, if slightly tinged and slightly twisted itself.
More often than he'll ever admit, Cain has acted as kind of Angel of Death or Angel of Revenge. He'll take justice into his own hands, though not directly. If a man is guilty of a crime and happens to die, what fault falls on Cain for that? As one character says, "An angel of death must have cursed him." A cup of tea with some ink in it looks like the poison a man used on his brother--it's only ink, but in his panic, he drives off a cliff and what a shame it is. But justice is done. It's a matter of flushing out the crime. How useful that Cain can apply his Sherlockian logic to it all. He sees himself as something like a "scourge", a medieval idea of someone damned but sent to bring justice and cleanse the sins of others with impunity to his actions because he is already damned. He never doubts that what he does is proper, though he knows it's not within the law. He acts on behalf of others, not out of kindness or sympathy as much as out of revenge on their behalf. Likely, this stems from his own wants for revenge.
He's emotional, though not expressively. He dislikes appearing vulnerable and, yet again, it's only with Riff that he can be more honest in terms of his emotions. That is the kind of intimacy and trust he has with Riff: it is only with Riff that he will say what he means or feels. He only really mourns the deaths of two lovers with Riff. He's desperate and frantic when he loses Riff. Riff looks after him, takes care of him, makes his tea, ties his shoelaces. Is it love? Probably not. But it is devotion and needing. He does not cry and has not cried since he was ten years old, when he saw his father (apparently) leap to his death and Riff held him back from jumping after him. Riff, he says, dried up his tears that day. That is how central a presence Riff is to his life. It's only with Riff that he can really be the disturbed teenage boy he really is.
He is called a "playboy" or a "lady-killer" more than once in canon. And it's true, he loves the company of women. Numerous times in canon, he's found teasing them, kissing them, seducing them, sleeping with them, threatening to steal them away, threatening to marry them. He's not weak to a beautiful woman, but he certainly does like them. A very great deal. Sex is a powerful weapon and he does like to wield it. He plays around, plays the field. But while his overt flirtations tend towards relationships with women, one of the main things to understand about Cain is that true intimacy, really being vulnerable with another person, is something he does not take very lightly or do very well. So, yes, he prefers women, but the main aspect of his really intense relationships is not gender so much as it is trust.
He has fallen in love at least three times in canon (some argue even more times, but we'll be sticking with canon confessions here) with three different women. And all three times ended in tragedy.
The first woman was with his cousin (really his half-sister) Suzette. However, Suzette didn't love him as much as he loved her. She loved another man, and that man betrayed her, to both their ends. It's only after she's died that Cain admits to loving her, probably in no small part for her independence and determination. They grew up together and knew one another very well. Cousins (siblings!) or not, with that much closeness, it's little wonder he fell for her. This love for her comes back to haunt him--fairly literally--when he has a vision of Suzette's ghost and visits her grave again, only to meet with her bizarre clone Mikaela. Despite Mikaela's physical similarities to Suzette, he cannot love Mikaela (his father might wish it, of course). There is no trust or love--indeed, the violation of Suzette's body to create Mikaela destroys all possibilities of it. He can pity her, after coming to more of an understanding about her, but he cannot love her. Beautiful and familiar or not, love is not about looks.
As a young nobleman he is expected to marry, and in his case, he is expected to marry to restore some of the reputation of his family. And so an arranged, political marriage is organized between him and an old childhood acquaintance, Emmeline Rotterdale.
While he never clearly confesses to loving Emmeline, it's seems quite likely that he does love her. It's not as overt as it is with some of his other love affairs, but at her funeral, he kisses her lifeless lips and wishes she could wake up, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, order him around again, his "thorny princess." He thinks they might have been happy if they'd married. Even if they'd fought every day, he would have been happy. He has her body buried in his family's plot. Even if this isn't an example of true love, it's certainly proof of his care for her and his sympathy for her. As children, he was cruel to her since her miserable situation in her family was similar to his. He was likely attracted to her for her fierce personality, though he realized it only slowly. Quite possibly, their similarities and sympathies would have allowed them to reach the kind of trust Cain requires. But, yet again, he only realizes his affection for her after her death.
The most well-known and lingering love-affair he has is with the mysterious fortune-teller, Meridiana. Their relationship is truly love at first sight--or perhaps first touch, as the moment she touches his hand, she is reminded of her lost memories and buried emotions, and he likewise feels what he describes as "sweet anxiety" and a deep understanding. He does like her better when she starts to remember things more and grows more of a spine, going so far as to slap him and shout at him (it's later noted that Cain likes "difficult women"). His mind revolves around her for a long time, especially as the murders and mysteries around her deepen. Regardless, no matter what he learns about who and what she is, his affections don't waver. They swear themselves to one another, despite all obstacles, even death or reincarnation as one rose in a field of thousands. They likely would have married if Alexis, Jezebel, and DELILAH hadn't intervened. In the end, he is willing to sacrifice his eyes and his life for her, but she sacrifices herself for him, saving his life with her death.
Her death strikes him deeply and he mourns for her the way he mourns for Suzette and Emmeline: difficultly at first, but then faintly, and likely he'll mourn forever. Perhaps her death is the worst of the three, as there seemed a very real possibility for a happy ending. It's no wonder that he's hesitant to trust or be affectionate when the objects of his affection seem to meet such violent ends. So while he's still attracted to women and very much enjoys them, affection is difficult to come by with him.
Complicating all this, though, is his relationship with Riff, his butler, assistant, aide, and confidante. They've known one another for years, endured some of the worst years of Cain's life together, and they say that they "saved" one another. Cain is comfortable with Riff to a level that even some married couples aren't. This closeness is the level of trust necessary for real affection with Cain. Riff is the only person allowed to see or touch the scars on Cain's back. While there's no evidence in canon of there having been any sexual contact between them, nor do I suspect any is meant to be implied, there is affection and care between them. However, it isn't romantic love, but it's deeper than friendship or duty. Cain realizes, at a crisis, that Riff has sworn his life to him. It is Riff that Cain turns to when he's struggling or in trouble. He says he hides behind Riff when he's worried about something. While lacking the sexual element, theirs is as intense a relationship as any love affair. This is the kind of trust necessary for real intimacy with Cain--not sex, note, but trust and intimacy.
The same kind of intense trust is present with Meridiana, though through very different methods. It was her ability to see into Cain's mind, past, and future (together with her blue eyes, which reminded him of his mother's and Suzette's) and to understand and accept him as deeply as she did that drew him to her and pushed them both to the very edge. It was a much more instantaneous connection that resulted in a level of trust similar (though not identical) to his level of trust with Riff. His relationship with her is the most intense of any of his love affairs. (Tellingly, perhaps, it's Riff who manages to get him out of the collapsing house when Cain would rather mourn over Meridiana's remains.) This time, because of sexual preference, the relationship becomes romantic.
The author of the series seems to have tossed in vague homosexual elements from time to time, but those are likely for the titillation of the BL fans reading the series--the author admits to being a BL fan herself. Sometimes it's a suggestion or a bit of flirting, sometimes it's a man chasing after Cain (Oscar, for example). Amusing as these are, Cain's preference is canonically shown to be for women.
Real affection with Cain will only begin with intense, intense trust. Gender matters a little less in that regard. Otherwise, he prefers women, fully aware and quite skilled in flirtation and teasing. A beautiful woman with a bit of a temper and a tendency to be led on is like a magnet for him. Sex is enjoyable, sex is pleasant, but there won't be any affection without trust.
He is affectionate with his younger (half-, later step-) sister, Merryweather, as best he can be. He's not especially overtly affectionate, but his intense protectiveness of her (and Riff too, to some extent) and wanting to provide for her and entertain her do prove how very much she matters to him. She is the last of his immediate family to him. Yes, he has uncles and aunts, but he wants the strength of close blood ties, or something deeper than blood ties.
But blood ties are a messy thing, especially with a father like Alexis and a half-brother like Jezebel.
The deepest, darkest motivation for him of all is vengeance against his father and his father's organization, DELILAH. Between the tortures that his father put him through, the tortures that his father put his mother (his father's sister) through, the tortures his father puts Cain's friends and lovers through, there's more than enough reason to try and stop them. Cain doesn't yet know the full extent of what DELILAH is or does, but he knows his father is their head. He knows that his father is essentially after him, moving very slowly and unstoppably. And the member of that organization he sees the most is, yet again, his half-brother Jezebel. Women he's with die by his father's orders. Friends vanish. Traps are laid for him. It's all by his father's orders. But no one but his father is allowed to kill him, proving Alexis's god-complex in naming him "Cain". It's just important to torment him. And he is tormented. As close as he came to saving a boy, so similar to him, from jumping to his death, he still failed. And his father was there to remind him that Cain cannot save anyone.
It's no wonder, then, that his charm seems a little dark. He really is mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
AU Role: Given how similar Cain's own background is to the setting of the game, it would be easiest for him to play a role as a family friend, or perhaps a very distant relation (there are several stories in his canon in which Cain visits distant cousins or relatives, which very fortunately puts him in the right place to unravel the current murder mystery). In this instance, more likely a family friend.
AU History: Cain's life is only slightly changed in this alternate universe, at least in some parts up to the point from which he will be taken. Given his era (1888, 1889 or so) and life, there's little that can be changed.
However, recent time might have to be a little bit elided or be left unsettled so far as he is concerned, as Cain fell in love with a young lady named Meridiana in 1888. She was revealed to be a "Devil Doll," or a woman built by agents of DELILAH rather like Frankenstein's monster: she was made out of the parts of other deceased women. Those parts were said to be collected by Jack the Ripper (later revealed to be Meridiana's own mother). Since the Ripper murders were ongoing from 1888 to 1891, but Cain's story with Meridiana does not continue as far as 1891 (indeed, they knew each other only a very short time--ah, young love), one must assume that the blame for the Ripper murders fell on Meridiana's mother but that she was not, in fact, Jack the Ripper. Or (more likely, given the canon as a whole) she was not the only person involved in the ongoing Ripper murders and another person (or persons) is committing the murders under the auspices of DELILAH and their ongoing medical research, and these murders are being blamed on the unknown Jack the Ripper figure.
And so Cain buried the third of his three great loves (Suzette, Emmaline, and Meridiana) and carried on in his quest to destroy his father's wicked secret organization.
His most recent tangle with one of the arms of this shadowy organization is not so far behind him. Of late he was invited to spend a few days at the home of Duke Gladstone (not to be confused with the prime minister, who does not appear in Cain's world) and to ostensibly celebrate the opening of the new Crimone Gardens, the construction of which the duke had sponsored. The gardens were, in fact, chosen as a site of sacrifice as part of the elaborate rituals carried out by DELILAH: the gardens occupy a particular position within the city which, when mapped with other locations of fire and bloodshed carried out by DELILAH's agents, begin to form a pattern similar to that of Stonehenge. In essence, DELILAH is working to create a kind of sacred space for its black magic and dark rituals that occupies the whole of London. So the gardens were rigged with explosives set up by a local gang in the duke's pay which were designed to go off during a fireworks display. The idea was, quite simply, to kill as many people as possible and thereby "sanctify" the ground with their blood.
Cain's invitation to the duke's house was somewhat secondary to the actual bloodletting, but it evolved out of a confluence of events, including an accidental meeting between Cain and a mute young lady taken into Gladstone's care (and Cain's first encounter with Gladstone's hypnosis trick), and Jezebel (Cain's half-brother) visiting with Gladstone and the two of them entering into a bet as to whether or not the duke would succeed in hypnotizing and capturing Cain (Gladstone was quite convinced he would be able, Jezebel doubted it and reminded Gladstone that Cain was technically off-limits, as per Alexis's orders).
The whole affair was a bit complicated. Cain consulted with Crehador, a suspicious "medium" whom he of late had had on retainer for advice on the occult, as to what could be done to ward off Gladstone's hypnosis and was armed with a kind of "smelling salts." Cain and his butler (he's more like a valet, but let's not split hairs) set off for Gladstone's manor in town. Gladstone made his move, Cain feigned being hypnotized, there were attempts on his life and on Riff's life, the bombs went off, there was panic and violence, there was more than a little trickery, and the mute young lady was revealed to be a normally-speaking young man held as prisoner by means of addictive drugs (no, seriously, I don't know what this canon is either).
There was little to be done for the dead and dying in the violence of the gardens. But, with the help of the young man, Cain revealed Gladstone's dealings with the infamous gang to the public (he literally had the letters organizing the bombings rain down on the attendees of an opera performance). Gladstone obviously lost the bet and lost his life (I'll leave it at that). Cain had Leticia-now-Leroy taken to a hospital to be cared for until he could overcome the addiction forced on him (his ending is more tragic than that sounds, but...). And Cain returned home, frustrated at once again being unable to completely prevent the tragedies he knew DELILAH to be planning.
Given that this much bloodshed, fire, and violence would certainly be newsworthy, and anyone within the aristocracy would be known by others of his class (especially a duke), this affair could be shrunk to a single murder or a set of murders in the gardens. The gang responsible for the murders would stay the same, but the man at the top of that tower could be more at a wealthy industrial magnate rather than a nobleman--therefore a commoner and therefore suspect. (And this same concept can be applied to any situation in which the events of the story would have made for more news and would therefore unduly intrude on the story of the game. The events would be shrunk but remain relatively similar.)
So, after having undone the wickedness of Mr. Gladstone and his orchestration of murder, Cain returned home. He was yet still frustrated at being unable to completely prevent the tragedies he knew DELILAH to be planning.
A few days after the ordeal, he received a letter from the Valdemar household. So far as he could recall, the Hargreaves family and the Valdemar family were either distantly related--something like cousins, though the actual connection was buried somewhere among some mother's sister's cousins--or old family friends. In any event, the letter invited him to pay a visit for some time. Cain was initially suspicious of such an offer--after all, it hadn't been so long ago that his relative, Lord Cromwell (again, not that Cromwell), had had a letter written in his name which invited Cain and Merryweather alike to his house. And Cain remembered well what had transpired there. At the same time, he doubted if DELILAH would be so stupid as to try the same trick twice.
Still--if it was because of DELILAH's doings, he would do well to investigate it. He wasn't inclined to throw himself headfirst into danger, but he had to admit that his curiosity was piqued. But this time he would be certain to go alone. Loath as he was to leave Riff behind, it would be best for him to watch over Merry and the household. Merry would not be pleased with his going, especially after this most recent ordeal, though he felt that she knew it wasn't unusual for him at all to vanish for a few days. He would go alone and he replied to the letter thanking them for the invitation and accepting it gratefully.
He would leave in a few days time for the Valdemar house in St. Erasmus.
Unfortunately, once he gets there, his memories of DELILAH and its acts and his intentions of revenge will become clouded. He'll recall great animosity towards his father and his father's cruelty towards him, but the details will become more quietly personal and less entangled in the fate of London and the country at large. In other words, he'll retain his air of being mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but the danger of his family connections (to murderers and madmen) will be somewhat lessened. Perhaps there are rumors, certainly he is still an eccentric who collects poisons for his hobby, and he still manages to get himself involved in things that he really shouldn't. In short, he'll be more like he was early on in his canon: solving mysterious crimes, the son of a dark and haunted family, with a father who leaped to his death in front of his son's eyes, still followed by rumors and stories, but not yet embroiled in supernatural affairs and the murder of thousands of innocent Londoners.
His personality is the same, his early life is unchanged, but the vastness of the story he finds himself involved in in his canon becomes smaller and more personal and, indeed, he puts a great deal of it out of his mind during this visit.
SamplesCanon: Godchild (Godchild is the second half of his complete canon; the first half is titled, in North American translation, Count Cain, and the two halves together are collectively called The Cain Saga)
Canon Medium: Manga
Age: 17, physically and actually
Gender/ Sex: Masculine/Male
Canon History: Here is the Wikipedia article on the series, and VIZ has some information on Godchild and Count Cain. This site is, admittedly, a fan site, but the summary they provide is accurate so far as I can tell.
Canon Point: The end of volume 5 of Godchild (which is the end of volume 10 in the entire series of The Cain Saga).
Powers: Whether Cain has powers is a little complicated. He himself does not believe in anything more supernatural than, say, God. He does not believe in the spiritualists and their tables, he does not believe in fortune-tellers, he does not believe in tarot cards, he does not believe in ghosts. He encounters situations in which the supernatural appears to be taking place and he pulls back the curtain to show the man with his mirrors and his wires and that there is no ghost, no spirit.
However, later in his canon, he is briefly possessed by a ghost. A magician and psychic medium who attempted to channel the spirit himself (the spirit possessed Cain instead) states that Cain likely has psychic abilities that make him predisposed to possession and channeling. This instance is basically the one and only time that these abilities are called by name, identified, or even involved in the storyline as a whole. So strictly speaking, he may have some latent psychic abilities, but he doesn't even know about them at this point.
Now, in the more rational realm, outside of supernatural abilities, he is extremely skilled with regard to poison--identification, use, antidotes, symptoms, &c. He is a master of poisons. And he will always have a little with him.
Personality: Cain is charming. This is his primary persona. He is charming, cool, flirtatious, witty, aristocratic, fond of parties and balls, the one standing in the corner catching everyone's eye... But he also exudes an air of the Byronic hero: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He has a Reputation as an eccentric for his and his family's poison collection and as a playboy for all the women he's been with and, if he's not proud of it, he's content with it. But all of this has a darker edge to it. His personality has a bite to it. He's as quick to be cruel in his flirtations as to be charming. He's fond of "difficult women" and is happy pushing them to their emotional limits. They may smack him with their fans, but he knows they love him and will keep coming back to him. He's not wantonly cruel or sadistic, but he is and can be cruel. At his best, he comes across as darkly charming and mysterious.
An elegant young gentleman--and an earl besides. Cain is seventeen in his canon, but he will, of course, be aged to eighteen in the game. There will be no noticeable physical differences when he is aged up, and it's doubtful that Cain will even notice that he's older. Cain is slender, and perhaps somewhat smaller than average. There is no canon height or weight given for him, but he seems to be around 5 feet, 6 inches tall, maybe a little taller.
In appearance, he's what one might call painfully beautiful. Characters in canon say he looks like a religious painting or like a dark angel, and he has, with success, disguised himself as a woman more than once. His hair is dark, like his father's (and his aunt's/mother's, though he only saw her after it had gone white with distress), and his eyes would be green like his father's too, if they weren't tinted and flecked with gold. His golden eyes are one of his most recognizable features, but Cain hates the color of his eyes, as it's a reminder of his cursed existence and his incestuous parentage. Unfortunately for him, his eyes are also quite striking and more than a few characters remark on them.
More significant than his eyes, though, are the scars that lace his back from his father's nightly ritual whippings. From about the age of four to about the age of ten, his father would literally whip him in a ritual intended to cleanse him of his sins--whatever sins his father saw in him, at least. No one is allowed to see these scars except for Riff. And no one is allowed to touch these scars except for Riff. Cain will never admit to them and will never reveal them, and he's clever enough to know how to hide them.
But he denies that past to all appearances. He dresses elegantly, if slightly darkly, in long coats and top hats, as suits his Victorian world. He also wears a small black earring in his left ear--it's a piece of a stone he found in his father's things. He had it made into an earring, and Riff is the one who pierced his ear. The sight of it, he says, will remind him of the pain of it and what he's endured to come to where he is now (there's more to the stone than that, but...). He seems young for his position sometimes, but he carries it extremely well.
And yet, at the same time, he can be remarkably logical and deductive. In several stories, he acts as kind of Sherlock Holmes (with Riff standing in for Watson). The crimes are inevitably shocking and twisted, and Cain seems not to bat an eye. A girl who kills people and turns them into dolls, a woman set on collecting the eyes of others for an arcane ritual to make her beautiful again. He's angered by them, perhaps horrified by them, but he's cool in the face of them. It's especially bad (and especially common) when they're committed by DELILAH, Cain's father's organization devoted to black magic and inhuman medical experiments. It's often Cain's half-brother, Jezebel, who commits these crimes too--cutting out eyes or murdering without concern. So Cain seeks to set things to rights--especially if it's Merryweather, his sister, who's gotten herself caught in the middle of something. But his way of setting things to rights...well...
But this coolness and charm is all a cover for a more turbulent background and mind. And, it's little wonder that he is as dark as he is. His father kept him a prisoner in their house and beat him nightly to "cleanse his sins". If that dark charm of his seems a little twisted, that's probably because it is. He'll use people, drive towards his own ends, break the law occasionally, even murder, but driving this is a sense of justice, if slightly tinged and slightly twisted itself.
More often than he'll ever admit, Cain has acted as kind of Angel of Death or Angel of Revenge. He'll take justice into his own hands, though not directly. If a man is guilty of a crime and happens to die, what fault falls on Cain for that? As one character says, "An angel of death must have cursed him." A cup of tea with some ink in it looks like the poison a man used on his brother--it's only ink, but in his panic, he drives off a cliff and what a shame it is. But justice is done. It's a matter of flushing out the crime. How useful that Cain can apply his Sherlockian logic to it all. He sees himself as something like a "scourge", a medieval idea of someone damned but sent to bring justice and cleanse the sins of others with impunity to his actions because he is already damned. He never doubts that what he does is proper, though he knows it's not within the law. He acts on behalf of others, not out of kindness or sympathy as much as out of revenge on their behalf. Likely, this stems from his own wants for revenge.
He's emotional, though not expressively. He dislikes appearing vulnerable and, yet again, it's only with Riff that he can be more honest in terms of his emotions. That is the kind of intimacy and trust he has with Riff: it is only with Riff that he will say what he means or feels. He only really mourns the deaths of two lovers with Riff. He's desperate and frantic when he loses Riff. Riff looks after him, takes care of him, makes his tea, ties his shoelaces. Is it love? Probably not. But it is devotion and needing. He does not cry and has not cried since he was ten years old, when he saw his father (apparently) leap to his death and Riff held him back from jumping after him. Riff, he says, dried up his tears that day. That is how central a presence Riff is to his life. It's only with Riff that he can really be the disturbed teenage boy he really is.
He is called a "playboy" or a "lady-killer" more than once in canon. And it's true, he loves the company of women. Numerous times in canon, he's found teasing them, kissing them, seducing them, sleeping with them, threatening to steal them away, threatening to marry them. He's not weak to a beautiful woman, but he certainly does like them. A very great deal. Sex is a powerful weapon and he does like to wield it. He plays around, plays the field. But while his overt flirtations tend towards relationships with women, one of the main things to understand about Cain is that true intimacy, really being vulnerable with another person, is something he does not take very lightly or do very well. So, yes, he prefers women, but the main aspect of his really intense relationships is not gender so much as it is trust.
He has fallen in love at least three times in canon (some argue even more times, but we'll be sticking with canon confessions here) with three different women. And all three times ended in tragedy.
The first woman was with his cousin (really his half-sister) Suzette. However, Suzette didn't love him as much as he loved her. She loved another man, and that man betrayed her, to both their ends. It's only after she's died that Cain admits to loving her, probably in no small part for her independence and determination. They grew up together and knew one another very well. Cousins (siblings!) or not, with that much closeness, it's little wonder he fell for her. This love for her comes back to haunt him--fairly literally--when he has a vision of Suzette's ghost and visits her grave again, only to meet with her bizarre clone Mikaela. Despite Mikaela's physical similarities to Suzette, he cannot love Mikaela (his father might wish it, of course). There is no trust or love--indeed, the violation of Suzette's body to create Mikaela destroys all possibilities of it. He can pity her, after coming to more of an understanding about her, but he cannot love her. Beautiful and familiar or not, love is not about looks.
As a young nobleman he is expected to marry, and in his case, he is expected to marry to restore some of the reputation of his family. And so an arranged, political marriage is organized between him and an old childhood acquaintance, Emmeline Rotterdale.
While he never clearly confesses to loving Emmeline, it's seems quite likely that he does love her. It's not as overt as it is with some of his other love affairs, but at her funeral, he kisses her lifeless lips and wishes she could wake up, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, order him around again, his "thorny princess." He thinks they might have been happy if they'd married. Even if they'd fought every day, he would have been happy. He has her body buried in his family's plot. Even if this isn't an example of true love, it's certainly proof of his care for her and his sympathy for her. As children, he was cruel to her since her miserable situation in her family was similar to his. He was likely attracted to her for her fierce personality, though he realized it only slowly. Quite possibly, their similarities and sympathies would have allowed them to reach the kind of trust Cain requires. But, yet again, he only realizes his affection for her after her death.
The most well-known and lingering love-affair he has is with the mysterious fortune-teller, Meridiana. Their relationship is truly love at first sight--or perhaps first touch, as the moment she touches his hand, she is reminded of her lost memories and buried emotions, and he likewise feels what he describes as "sweet anxiety" and a deep understanding. He does like her better when she starts to remember things more and grows more of a spine, going so far as to slap him and shout at him (it's later noted that Cain likes "difficult women"). His mind revolves around her for a long time, especially as the murders and mysteries around her deepen. Regardless, no matter what he learns about who and what she is, his affections don't waver. They swear themselves to one another, despite all obstacles, even death or reincarnation as one rose in a field of thousands. They likely would have married if Alexis, Jezebel, and DELILAH hadn't intervened. In the end, he is willing to sacrifice his eyes and his life for her, but she sacrifices herself for him, saving his life with her death.
Her death strikes him deeply and he mourns for her the way he mourns for Suzette and Emmeline: difficultly at first, but then faintly, and likely he'll mourn forever. Perhaps her death is the worst of the three, as there seemed a very real possibility for a happy ending. It's no wonder that he's hesitant to trust or be affectionate when the objects of his affection seem to meet such violent ends. So while he's still attracted to women and very much enjoys them, affection is difficult to come by with him.
Complicating all this, though, is his relationship with Riff, his butler, assistant, aide, and confidante. They've known one another for years, endured some of the worst years of Cain's life together, and they say that they "saved" one another. Cain is comfortable with Riff to a level that even some married couples aren't. This closeness is the level of trust necessary for real affection with Cain. Riff is the only person allowed to see or touch the scars on Cain's back. While there's no evidence in canon of there having been any sexual contact between them, nor do I suspect any is meant to be implied, there is affection and care between them. However, it isn't romantic love, but it's deeper than friendship or duty. Cain realizes, at a crisis, that Riff has sworn his life to him. It is Riff that Cain turns to when he's struggling or in trouble. He says he hides behind Riff when he's worried about something. While lacking the sexual element, theirs is as intense a relationship as any love affair. This is the kind of trust necessary for real intimacy with Cain--not sex, note, but trust and intimacy.
The same kind of intense trust is present with Meridiana, though through very different methods. It was her ability to see into Cain's mind, past, and future (together with her blue eyes, which reminded him of his mother's and Suzette's) and to understand and accept him as deeply as she did that drew him to her and pushed them both to the very edge. It was a much more instantaneous connection that resulted in a level of trust similar (though not identical) to his level of trust with Riff. His relationship with her is the most intense of any of his love affairs. (Tellingly, perhaps, it's Riff who manages to get him out of the collapsing house when Cain would rather mourn over Meridiana's remains.) This time, because of sexual preference, the relationship becomes romantic.
The author of the series seems to have tossed in vague homosexual elements from time to time, but those are likely for the titillation of the BL fans reading the series--the author admits to being a BL fan herself. Sometimes it's a suggestion or a bit of flirting, sometimes it's a man chasing after Cain (Oscar, for example). Amusing as these are, Cain's preference is canonically shown to be for women.
Real affection with Cain will only begin with intense, intense trust. Gender matters a little less in that regard. Otherwise, he prefers women, fully aware and quite skilled in flirtation and teasing. A beautiful woman with a bit of a temper and a tendency to be led on is like a magnet for him. Sex is enjoyable, sex is pleasant, but there won't be any affection without trust.
He is affectionate with his younger (half-, later step-) sister, Merryweather, as best he can be. He's not especially overtly affectionate, but his intense protectiveness of her (and Riff too, to some extent) and wanting to provide for her and entertain her do prove how very much she matters to him. She is the last of his immediate family to him. Yes, he has uncles and aunts, but he wants the strength of close blood ties, or something deeper than blood ties.
But blood ties are a messy thing, especially with a father like Alexis and a half-brother like Jezebel.
The deepest, darkest motivation for him of all is vengeance against his father and his father's organization, DELILAH. Between the tortures that his father put him through, the tortures that his father put his mother (his father's sister) through, the tortures his father puts Cain's friends and lovers through, there's more than enough reason to try and stop them. Cain doesn't yet know the full extent of what DELILAH is or does, but he knows his father is their head. He knows that his father is essentially after him, moving very slowly and unstoppably. And the member of that organization he sees the most is, yet again, his half-brother Jezebel. Women he's with die by his father's orders. Friends vanish. Traps are laid for him. It's all by his father's orders. But no one but his father is allowed to kill him, proving Alexis's god-complex in naming him "Cain". It's just important to torment him. And he is tormented. As close as he came to saving a boy, so similar to him, from jumping to his death, he still failed. And his father was there to remind him that Cain cannot save anyone.
It's no wonder, then, that his charm seems a little dark. He really is mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
AU Role: Given how similar Cain's own background is to the setting of the game, it would be easiest for him to play a role as a family friend, or perhaps a very distant relation (there are several stories in his canon in which Cain visits distant cousins or relatives, which very fortunately puts him in the right place to unravel the current murder mystery). In this instance, more likely a family friend.
AU History: Cain's life is only slightly changed in this alternate universe, at least in some parts up to the point from which he will be taken. Given his era (1888, 1889 or so) and life, there's little that can be changed.
However, recent time might have to be a little bit elided or be left unsettled so far as he is concerned, as Cain fell in love with a young lady named Meridiana in 1888. She was revealed to be a "Devil Doll," or a woman built by agents of DELILAH rather like Frankenstein's monster: she was made out of the parts of other deceased women. Those parts were said to be collected by Jack the Ripper (later revealed to be Meridiana's own mother). Since the Ripper murders were ongoing from 1888 to 1891, but Cain's story with Meridiana does not continue as far as 1891 (indeed, they knew each other only a very short time--ah, young love), one must assume that the blame for the Ripper murders fell on Meridiana's mother but that she was not, in fact, Jack the Ripper. Or (more likely, given the canon as a whole) she was not the only person involved in the ongoing Ripper murders and another person (or persons) is committing the murders under the auspices of DELILAH and their ongoing medical research, and these murders are being blamed on the unknown Jack the Ripper figure.
And so Cain buried the third of his three great loves (Suzette, Emmaline, and Meridiana) and carried on in his quest to destroy his father's wicked secret organization.
His most recent tangle with one of the arms of this shadowy organization is not so far behind him. Of late he was invited to spend a few days at the home of Duke Gladstone (not to be confused with the prime minister, who does not appear in Cain's world) and to ostensibly celebrate the opening of the new Crimone Gardens, the construction of which the duke had sponsored. The gardens were, in fact, chosen as a site of sacrifice as part of the elaborate rituals carried out by DELILAH: the gardens occupy a particular position within the city which, when mapped with other locations of fire and bloodshed carried out by DELILAH's agents, begin to form a pattern similar to that of Stonehenge. In essence, DELILAH is working to create a kind of sacred space for its black magic and dark rituals that occupies the whole of London. So the gardens were rigged with explosives set up by a local gang in the duke's pay which were designed to go off during a fireworks display. The idea was, quite simply, to kill as many people as possible and thereby "sanctify" the ground with their blood.
Cain's invitation to the duke's house was somewhat secondary to the actual bloodletting, but it evolved out of a confluence of events, including an accidental meeting between Cain and a mute young lady taken into Gladstone's care (and Cain's first encounter with Gladstone's hypnosis trick), and Jezebel (Cain's half-brother) visiting with Gladstone and the two of them entering into a bet as to whether or not the duke would succeed in hypnotizing and capturing Cain (Gladstone was quite convinced he would be able, Jezebel doubted it and reminded Gladstone that Cain was technically off-limits, as per Alexis's orders).
The whole affair was a bit complicated. Cain consulted with Crehador, a suspicious "medium" whom he of late had had on retainer for advice on the occult, as to what could be done to ward off Gladstone's hypnosis and was armed with a kind of "smelling salts." Cain and his butler (he's more like a valet, but let's not split hairs) set off for Gladstone's manor in town. Gladstone made his move, Cain feigned being hypnotized, there were attempts on his life and on Riff's life, the bombs went off, there was panic and violence, there was more than a little trickery, and the mute young lady was revealed to be a normally-speaking young man held as prisoner by means of addictive drugs (no, seriously, I don't know what this canon is either).
There was little to be done for the dead and dying in the violence of the gardens. But, with the help of the young man, Cain revealed Gladstone's dealings with the infamous gang to the public (he literally had the letters organizing the bombings rain down on the attendees of an opera performance). Gladstone obviously lost the bet and lost his life (I'll leave it at that). Cain had Leticia-now-Leroy taken to a hospital to be cared for until he could overcome the addiction forced on him (his ending is more tragic than that sounds, but...). And Cain returned home, frustrated at once again being unable to completely prevent the tragedies he knew DELILAH to be planning.
Given that this much bloodshed, fire, and violence would certainly be newsworthy, and anyone within the aristocracy would be known by others of his class (especially a duke), this affair could be shrunk to a single murder or a set of murders in the gardens. The gang responsible for the murders would stay the same, but the man at the top of that tower could be more at a wealthy industrial magnate rather than a nobleman--therefore a commoner and therefore suspect. (And this same concept can be applied to any situation in which the events of the story would have made for more news and would therefore unduly intrude on the story of the game. The events would be shrunk but remain relatively similar.)
So, after having undone the wickedness of Mr. Gladstone and his orchestration of murder, Cain returned home. He was yet still frustrated at being unable to completely prevent the tragedies he knew DELILAH to be planning.
A few days after the ordeal, he received a letter from the Valdemar household. So far as he could recall, the Hargreaves family and the Valdemar family were either distantly related--something like cousins, though the actual connection was buried somewhere among some mother's sister's cousins--or old family friends. In any event, the letter invited him to pay a visit for some time. Cain was initially suspicious of such an offer--after all, it hadn't been so long ago that his relative, Lord Cromwell (again, not that Cromwell), had had a letter written in his name which invited Cain and Merryweather alike to his house. And Cain remembered well what had transpired there. At the same time, he doubted if DELILAH would be so stupid as to try the same trick twice.
Still--if it was because of DELILAH's doings, he would do well to investigate it. He wasn't inclined to throw himself headfirst into danger, but he had to admit that his curiosity was piqued. But this time he would be certain to go alone. Loath as he was to leave Riff behind, it would be best for him to watch over Merry and the household. Merry would not be pleased with his going, especially after this most recent ordeal, though he felt that she knew it wasn't unusual for him at all to vanish for a few days. He would go alone and he replied to the letter thanking them for the invitation and accepting it gratefully.
He would leave in a few days time for the Valdemar house in St. Erasmus.
Unfortunately, once he gets there, his memories of DELILAH and its acts and his intentions of revenge will become clouded. He'll recall great animosity towards his father and his father's cruelty towards him, but the details will become more quietly personal and less entangled in the fate of London and the country at large. In other words, he'll retain his air of being mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but the danger of his family connections (to murderers and madmen) will be somewhat lessened. Perhaps there are rumors, certainly he is still an eccentric who collects poisons for his hobby, and he still manages to get himself involved in things that he really shouldn't. In short, he'll be more like he was early on in his canon: solving mysterious crimes, the son of a dark and haunted family, with a father who leaped to his death in front of his son's eyes, still followed by rumors and stories, but not yet embroiled in supernatural affairs and the murder of thousands of innocent Londoners.
His personality is the same, his early life is unchanged, but the vastness of the story he finds himself involved in in his canon becomes smaller and more personal and, indeed, he puts a great deal of it out of his mind during this visit.
Cain gave the letter a cursory reading. Another invitation--and so soon. The Valdemars. The name rang a bell, he thought. Old friends, perhaps even friends of his father, or perhaps distant relatives again. There were scores of those.
He considered the letter--certainly, such an unexpected invitation did remind him of that fateful invitation to visit the Cromwell house, the so-called "Butterfly Mansion." Others might wonder more often about the fate of the daughter of that house, Lucia, and her haunted obsidian eyes. Poor creature, poor caged bird. She had been more used than anything, more sinned against than sinning. Even her ostensible madness had been hypnosis--more smoke and mirrors, as ever, and little wonder that that suspicious medium had been in the midst of it.
Well, it had been a surprise at the time. But, in point of fact, that chance encounter with the ostensibly powerful Dominic Crehador had turned out to be rather useful. That medium could be had for a price. And, as Crehador himself had said, to understand the superstitious, one must think superstitiously. A charlatan like the others, Cain was pleased to observe, but one with something of an honest bent. He would own up to his tricks, and he could be had for a price. No, he was valuable enough. He had information that would otherwise be hidden and his loyalty could be bought.
But that morning in the garden, that power (was it a power?), that moment when it seemed that, at a touch, Crehador could look into the darkest corners of Cain's own soul--was that a power? Or was that more hypnosis and smoke and mirrors? It couldn't be magic. That was nonsense.
Anyway--to be sure, the image of Lucia's face surfaced in his mind from time to time, the fear and desperation and sometimes madness in those dark eyes. But she was a passing shadow and he found himself more haunted by her brother, Emile.
Brother? Perhaps. They were step-siblings, in truth, as she had been the daughter of her father's late Japanese wife, and he had since remarried. But Lucia had loved her stepmother's son to the end, and he had loved her her. It mattered little when she rushed to hold his broken body there at the foundations of their own house. And the butterflies, for the place was named honestly, began a magnificent midnight funeral procession. Yes, he had been her brother. There was no doubt. After all, hadn't he fallen for her sake? Hadn't he said it was a sacrifice for her? Hadn't he--?
He hadn't needed to. That was the raw center of it all. He had taken the step from the edge of the roof himself, but he had as good as been pushed. And by Cain's own father. He knew that now. He knew that was the center on which it all had turned.
There was always one like Emile tangled in the midst of these things. If not Emile, who threw himself to his own death (and Cain could hardly think of that moment without remembering that laugh, that nightmarish laugh, that swept over the whole of the house; a laugh he knew instantly to be his father's and even now it chilled him), then Leroy, Duke Gladstone's prisoner of late.
Was it possible for someone like them, someone so like him, who has looked so deeply into the darkness, to find their way back to the light?
He, too, had been lost in that labyrinth for so many years. It had been Riff who had pulled him from those depths.
It had been Riff, too, who told him that Leroy had escaped the hospital to which they had taken him. It was by none of his own fault that Leroy was so shattered and wounded--in more ways than one. The world he fell in was far too vile for a boy so young to endure. He was another victim in DELILAH's great web, another prisoner in that same set of traps. Again, it was his father's will that dragged so many down into torment and agony.
But that they found themselves so close to him, or he to them-- How did it work? What was the pattern of it?
Perhaps the poison of Cain's own shadow stretched so far as that, to encompass even those met almost by chance, with only the most tenuous connection--a would-be pickpocket proven to be an old acquaintance of his sister. And that cheerful boy was swallowed up by the same darkness that threatened to consume everything.
Cain would say himself that he was cursed. He had warned Merry against the same. He was cursed. His father had cursed him with his name and--
He let the letter fall to the floor and sighed. Riff passed by then and, patient as ever, set the letter on a table nearby. A small gesture, a commonplace gesture, an expected gesture--to pick up dropped things and set them to rights. But that, Cain thought, was Riff. And he knew in these moments how fortunate he was to have had someone to pull him out of the darkness. Hadn't that been his own feverish dream not so long ago? Feverish or poisoned, more like. Another plot, as ever, but that one had failed--but still at the cost of another pair of siblings. Forever these others being drawn into the dark, even as Riff managed to pull him out endlessly. The machinations of his father's dark enterprises turned around him and crushed those near to him even as that same nightmare machinery passed him by.
Cain reached for Riff's sleeve--for no other reason than for the assurance of Riff's reality, of his existence. And he was real.
"Lord Cain? Do you plan to accept this invitation?"
Cain's grip held.
There was no rest nor peace--not now nor ever until either his or his father's blood baptized the very ground. And so be it. He was prepared for war, if war it would be. And if this was another trap or trick, so be it. He would go into it with his eyes open and he would be ready. And if it was not a trap or trick, if it was simply an invitation from a forgotten connection, then he would pay this visit and in so doing laugh in the face of those who would disrupt his life. The same way he courted dozens of ladies, was forced to refuse invitations only because he had too many, went to parties or balls every night, traveled, made his face known, made his reputation known, reveled in the rumors that Society carried about (which were but the palest shadows of the truth, but dark enough for most of them)--he would not be chained as he once was, that much was certain.
"I do, Riff. It would be outright disgraceful if my father's organisation tried the same trick on me twice, inviting me to pay a visit to witness more of their cruelties. I can't imagine they'd try the same thing twice." He caught Riff's eye, though, and held it. "But I shan't be taking Merry along this time. Look after her, Riff. I'll only be gone a few days. I expect it'll be a tedious time. But I hear there might be a curiosity shop in town that could be of some interest to me."
AU History (revised): It's quite simple, really: now the internal matches the external.
The life that Cain has seemed to live to those who don't know him so well (and that's most people, to be fair) will be the actuality of his life. He will seem to be another nobleman, although with something of a bad reputation for breaking the hearts of hopeful young ladies and with more than his fair share of death in his life. No wonder he's so inclined to be cutting.
The son of Lord Alexis Hargreaves and Lady Augusta (Lord Hargreaves's cousin; it was an arranged family match), Cain was somewhat frail as a child and lived most of his young life in the countryside.
Unfortunately, his mother took ill and died when he was quite young. The household was, of course, plunged into mourning.
His father, now a widower, did his best to have Cain brought up under the proper circumstances. But it was difficult, as Alexis had always been somewhat distant and cold and now he was still grieving for his dead wife (whom Cain resembled more than a little).
Still more unfortunately, Alexis took his own life when Cain was 10 years old. The household held that he had finally given himself over to his grief over the Lady Augusta's death; he could bear it no more. He leaped onto the seaside cliffs below the family house (although the church was considerate about the whole ordeal and kindly avoided the word "suicide" and suggested instead that he slipped while walking or was perhaps thrown from his horse--his body was never found).
Cain, not even yet 11 years old, was formally given the family title: Earl of Hargeaves. And he was given over into the guardianship of his uncle Neil (family rumor suggested that Neil was inordinately fond of Augusta and would have married her himself if she had not chosen Alexis over him) until he would reach his majority.
Neil did his best for the young earl, bringing him to London, setting him up with the best tutors, introducing him to the families close to the Hargreaves family, teaching him the ways of polite society, encouraging him in his obvious intelligence, &c. And Cain did well in London.
But having endured so much death already, to have been orphaned in such a fashion, and to have lived so long in his father's cold shadow, Cain was already a notedly melancholy child. And this melancholy was tempered with a kind of wildness or fierceness that Neil put down to the boy's having lived in the hills and moors and cliffs of Cornwall for a time on some of the family's property. The look in his eyes seemed so much older than the boy himself was. And he had a way of smiling that suggested that he knew more than he was letting on, and perhaps that he could see right through any story or lie or half-truth.
Still, it was agreed by all callers to the house that the young earl was quite charming and reminded everyone of his father in a most striking way. He could be a little petulant and a little difficult, sometimes outright demanding (as the servants could attest), but he was obviously clever and witty, if somewhat dark in his humor.
At about this time, Cain was besotted with his cousin, Suzette. A few remarked that the two seemed so like Cain's own parents that it would be almost haunting to have such a similar match come about again. They were only 13 or 14 at the time, certainly no more. And they were as shameless in some regards as any young lovers are.
Suzette, unfortunately, threw Cain over for another young man much older than her. Compounding the tragedy, this young man threw Suzette over for another young woman (with the added cruelty of taking back a ring from Suzette and giving it to his new lover). Suzette heard news of their wedding, took ill, and died that same night.
Most said she died of a broken heart, but a few remarked on her immense fondness for the play Romeo and Juliet and said that they wouldn't be surprised if she had perhaps drunk poison.
Cain, naturally, was distraught and the memories of his affection for his cousin haunt him to this very day. He still dreams of her and fancies that he sees her in crowded places sometimes.
Little wonder that he would grow to be a little cynical on the subject of love.
Some time later, Neil arranged for Cain to meet the daughter of the Lauderdale family, a family that had long been close to the Hargreaves. Indeed, it was intended that Cain should marry her. And, certainly, he did recall her from years ago. The match, however, was not ideal and the couple could not exactly be called "happy." It was more out of duty than out of love that they were engaged.
Again, death touched the household as Emmeline was killed in a carriage accident not so very long before the intended wedding.
But the complexity therein was that Cain had, while engaged to Emmeline, encountered a mysterious and delicate young lady at a party (alone; Emmeline had been indisposed that evening). She was said to be a fortune-teller (something that Cain scoffed at endlessly--smoke, mirrors, piano wire, and cold readings). Still, he could hardly deny his attraction to her. Her name, it was said, was Meridiana.
She was under the close watch of her brother (who, it could be said, was very carefully manufacturing her reputation as a medium and fortune-teller; the two rode the party circuits of London society and were certainly the subject of great conversation and speculation). So the two new lovers were obliged to see one another only in secret.
It was in the midst of this affair that Emmeline was killed in the carriage accident--and, certainly, Cain did feel some kind of confused guilt regarding the death of his "thorny princess." He did feel some kind of affection for her, even if it was not precisely love.
Meridiana, however, was severely consumptive (perhaps this was part of her charm or part of how she appeared so frail). She kept this secret from Cain as best she could until the illness became to great for her to bear. There was no shortage of desperation on the part of both of them to see one another one last time, no matter how her brother might resist. And Meridiana did die, but Cain was grateful that he could be with her when she did.
It can't be a wonder that he's turned out, now at only 17, so sharp and so cold, after having lost so many close to him. He dislikes most of his family: they're prone to gossip, they're inclined to grapple for power, some outright resent him. But he's immensely fond of and protective of his uncle. He'll forever defend his uncle, even if he knows he's the source of more than a few of his uncle's troubles. He'll only smile at that--but not cruelly.
And so, he lives his life as something of a Byronic hero: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He's dark and darkly charming. He knows the social graces and sometimes chooses to ignore them. He's certainly quite popular in his particular social circle--or, at least, he appears to be. He certainly receives more than his fair share of invitations to this house or that ball or some other party (probably because of his title and his fortune). And he goes to most all of them and more, though he finds a good deal of it all rather dull. He goes to play games and to watch the claws come out and to listen to the delicate sorts of battles that go on even in a social set said to be above such things. Far from it. And that would be why he would accept an invitation to the Valdemar's house: to see what there is to see, to watch the household's internal workings play out, to see what sorts of secret struggles there might be hidden behind pleasant faces and a careful veneer.
He's very trying for his uncle, as he's old enough now to get into trouble but still his uncle's responsibility (Cain can't wait to be old enough to truly be his own master). He's still a bit wild, but in that same polished way he's always had. He has a few coarse friends and a few questionable acquaintances (but, fortunately, he's managed to keep himself out of both debt and the opium dens, even if he has been seen in a few other dangerous situations). He'll start up romances and love affairs with one lady after another and never allow the affair to become anything but an amusement to him (wasting the lady's infinitely precious time). He has a reputation as something of a heartbreaker. But that seems as attractive as anything to some. He'll make enemies, though not serious ones. He'll fairly take apart those who annoy him. He's just clever enough and just enough at loose ends to be dangerous. Neil will sometimes wonder when he'll hear of Cain being connected to a murder (though he usually thinks better of saying such a thing; if anything, Cain might be the one investigating the murder and putting the police to shame with how deft he'd be at unraveling it all).
In short: Cain will have forgotten the whole of the truth of his parentage, his father's malicious secret organization, the death and destruction for which that organization is responsible, the instances of murder he has investigated, the attacks on his own life, his poison collection [which he refers to as his "children" sometimes], and even Riff and Merry. To be quite honest, to have forgotten such important people as Riff and Merry and important things as his own vows of vengeance will be nothing short of a shock when he does remember.
He'll essentially be an ordinary Victorian lord, though a bit more dashing and romantic than is historically accurate. In that way, his personality can still stay intact: the kind of dark charm he has in canon, together with no small measure of intelligence. But he'll have forgotten why it is that he is the way he is and what urges him on (since he's so driven by his vengeance against his father). If anything, he'll be more like he is in the very earliest stories of his canon (the Cain Saga half) before he knows the whole truth about DELILAH and before the reader knows the truth of his past (and with less murder and poison, too).
He'll end up as a rather darkly romantic but distinctly commonplace Victorian nobleman.