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In the beginning, there was Nothing. Good Christians know the story of Creation: how the Divine Will parted the molten Abyss in the Nothing. It spoke Light into existence, and Darkness along with it. With light came Form and Colour. Divine Hands shaped the faint Light to form Stars, one of which was the golden Sun. Out of the Stars’ impurities, they moulded the silver Moon. Out of more impurities they had formed surfaces also, on which reigned Water and Earth, and with it, Life. With this Life on Water and Earth came dimensions we call Space, and the change in Life we call Time. From the jumbled Nothing came the Ultimate Order: measurement.
But this is not the story of Life, for the Divine Will had left pockets of the Abyss, which have no Space, nor Time. Order spirals into the Nothing that we began with, an unquantifiable infinity.
However, should you choose to penetrate the depths of this Nothing, you will find a simulacrum of Life. Six transparent walls enclose it, but you cannot see within. Behind them is what would have been called a room, a concept of space created by the Living. Closest to the sealed oak doors are a small sofa and four chairs for receiving guests that will never arrive, though two cups and a carafe of liquor wait on a low table to slake their thirst. A bronze clock sits by the nearest wall, the clock-face bulging from the longcase like a wrapped end of a torch. Shelves surround the rest of the walls, books protruding and indented in worn leather rows, a continuum of tubes and slats that reach the ceiling.
To the end, translucent drapes frame two large windows. Beneath them is a walnut table, its extensions hanging loose. A man sits by the table in an armchair. His hair has turned white, though filaments of ivory shine through, a testament to a blonder age in his youth. His brows droop from the vicissitudes of a hard life, and his bloated limbs—and waistline—have seen better days. Documents pile beneath his outstretched palm. He stares at a candle that lights up the table, still tall and proud. The only part of his discernable emotion lies in his unblinking eyes. They may have been blue, once. Now, they are clouded and watery.
A newspaper is askew on the desk next to the man’s inkwells and pounce box. A chalky line encircles the date December 7 in a tight noose. It was December 7 yesterday, just as it will be December 7 tomorrow, just as it is today.
If the man glances out of the window, as he sometimes does, he sees a street from a place called Paris, or a pruned Earth called a park. Sometimes, light snow falls, though dim Stars always glitter through them. The man always ends up looking away, his head bowed against that flickering candle.
This is how Claude Perrin, Marshal Victor, duc de Bellune, spends his Unlife, though he hardly knows it. He has been dead since 1841, and—though time is a strange concept in a room suspended in Nothing—there is no sign of that changing soon.
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{Hello! This is an RP blog for Claude-Victor Perrin, half joke, half cringe. There is approximately one Victor-dissection enthusiast in the Napoleonic Tumblr circle, so I think we all know who runs this, and if I’ve hidden my fixation well enough, you’ll probably find out soon anyway.
Victor (see Wikipedia) was one of the twenty-six marshals appointed by Napoleon and the first to win a baton after the original fourteen marshals. His sole claim to fame in Napoleonic non-military discourse is having voted for the death of Marshal Ney, then “persecuting non-Royalists” and Bonapartists as an “arch-Royalist zealot”, ie. an Ultra. Allegedly, he regretted the former, and spent every following anniversary of Ney’s death—which was Victor’s birthday—in penitence, as he (or a fragment of him) continues to do so in this rendition of his afterlife.
Currently, there are a few rules to communicate with Victor (to ease myself into doing Tumblr RP.) He will be able to receive your asks as letters. In person interactions will be much harder, given the supernatural nature of the void and the room—no one comes in, and no one goes out. Break-in attempts and magic anons are welcomed, though the room may distort its contents…! DM to discuss more complicated in-person interactions.
Housekeeping: There will be mentions of Catholicism and Victor’s controversial actions on this blog. I strive for as much historical accuracy as possible with facts, but there will be bias in my historical perspective—after all, the root of this blog bases its portrayal of Victor off of his hypothetical regret over Ney’s execution. I do not condone any actions of the historical Claude-Victor Perrin, nor is this a replica of him.
In the meantime, feel free to send asks to Victor, yell at him for his “crimes”, and make him squirm. Being nice is an option too, of course.}
{Source for video sound: https://freesound.org/s/376304/}
