Leonyd has a very in-depth personality, in life there is a reason for everything and bit by bit his identity has been overcome by the shaping of events that has lead him down his current path and has resulted in his current state of being, from killing a beggar in medieval England to helping an elderly lady across the street in the fifties. Although a vampire stops aging when they are turned, that doesn't mean they never stop growing.
Leonyd tends to keep to himself, draws upon the kindness of humanity by trying to be a tame creature of the night. He might not indulge in the drinking of animal blood, but he at least keeps himself from killing others by both drinking in moderation from the willing, and drinking from donated blood at the hospital. This keeps him sane as he's tried to go vegan before, it however always ends up in bloodshed. It might work at first but eventually someone can only will themselves from drinking the delicacy of humans for so long until they crave it, and it's all they see. It's because of this he can scent human blood and be around it without going off the deep end and killing an entire buildings worth of innocent people.
Leonyd isn't above the murder of humans, when the Mark of Cain was relevant and the enforcers of the order dealt out justice they would drink and kill the guilty and the damned. Although the Enforcers of Cain have been long since dissolved, Leonyd isn't past draining dry someone who deserves to be drained dry. Hunters and other creatures are no different and even so their motives are more clouded by rage, revenge, and the simple want and need to kill where as his motive derives from the hunger, and need of nourishment with a side order and sense that despite his curse, justice is being dealt.
His solitary life creates a social gap between him and others, although he is not percieved as awkward he tends to feel a bit uncomfortable around large groups and despite this recently he's been trying to become more involved in the lives around him-- while he has none of his own, he believes a vicarious lifestyle can be rewarding given he knows the right people, and the right people know him. Despite being a solitary creature, he hasn't become ignorant of technology, behaviour, and social norms it's the execution of each of those things that give off that "uncomfortable" vibe.
The relationships he keeps are far and few between, if they are friends or romantic entanglements, for someone who has lived so long their deaths seem to be just another numb sensation he must go through. He often compares the death of a human to him, as a death of a goldfish to a human-- it's sad but a goldfish is a goldfish, he doesn't hate goldfish and he admires them but if he mourned for every dead goldfish than his un-life would be a rather miserable one.
He isn't beyond loving, in fact despite being a silent creature of the night he's rather compassionate. It's finding the right one, and one can only have so many "true loves" before they stop and wonder if anything in this world is truly true. Leonyd can be called to the table as being picky, but he also is one who stays until the bitter end; meaning he'll go as far as taking care of a weak, feeble, and wrinkly human who used to be such a vibrant beauty decades ago because despite their apperance he had loved them, and they had loved him back.
Discrimination between the sexes blurred after the first thousand years of life, he was a heterosexual male turned vampire only to find that old age has caused him to become more of a pansexual creature, he doesn't see gender as a vice to determine if they are worthy of his love or not but their heart, willingness of course, and if you want to get really in-depth, their soul. He isn't beyond the shallow human norms which tend to draw him closer to the female gender than the male gender in terms of beauty and grace.
There is a lot of dark history surrounding Leonyd, he wasn't always this person but the things he has done, crimes he had committed, they all lead to him being this person. When he was branded by the Mark of Cain, and the Enforcers of Cain were formed he was a vicious creature, filled with malice and lack of mercy, which was shrouded up by very feign and weak attempts at faking it. Later he came to regret these acts, starved himself of human blood and fed only on the wildlings that nature provided-- this worked for a hundred years or so, eventually he would smell or get too close to human blood and he'd tear up entire villages and suck on every single pulsating jugular until the last drop of blood past his lips. Even sinking himself to the bottom of the ocean only lasted for so long until he resurfaced in the dawn of the Roman Empire, and devoured an entire troop and continued to kill for an entire decade, eluding capture from Hunters until he finally regained his sanity, and once again attempted seclusion but this time on a regular human diet.
Countless more accounts in his history can determine why he is the way he is, little events in time that could change a perspective here, and shape his entire core personality there. He isn't above death, just lucky or unlucky to have eluded it for so long that it has come to the point where he isn't sure he can truly be granted a peaceful death-- for all vampires it ends ugly or it just doesn't end at all.
3534 BCE - 3507 BCE
Leonyd was born to a Fedir and Halyna Fedorchak, middle child of three, Dariya his older sister and Dmytro his younger brother-- he also had a stillborn younger sister named Lyuba whom he never got to meet but often thinks fondly of how she'd be and how if she were alive how he and his siblings would raise to occasion to protect her. His family lived in Village of Seredny Stih on the island of Khortytsia in the Ukraine, his father created pottery which was traded for food his skills were of some renown, his mother a beauty in which all males were in want for. His sister was quick to marry and bare children at fifteen, he and his younger brother would in turn take to becoming hunters and part time pottery makers like their father-- although Leonyd was never quite fond of clay, it proved to be a very difficult creature to tame.
In later years to come his people would be known as the Serdny Stog, but as they migrated and became nomadic they would be considered part of the Yamna culture. During this period Leonyd lost his mother to illness, and his father to conflict. He'd never see his sister again who with her mate migrated in a different direction, which only left he and his younger brother Dmytro. They followed their chief into many great battles, they made a name for themselves and the Hunters of Seredny village would be known as Warriors of the Plains.
Leonyd claimed no mate; bore no children, unlike his younger brother, when asked he simply told his brother that his mate was somewhere lost in the endless oceans because he forgot to fish her out one morning. It caused a chuckle at first, but eventually his younger brother grew tiresome and worried of his jests, and simply the matter was left alone-- unfortunately Leonyd would grow to learn that he should have lived life to the fullest when he had the chance.
During their trek through one of the many deserts, late at night they came across a group of wandering men, they looked starved and seemed to have no possessions. Their chief grew wary of them, and told the tribe to stay clear as he had heard some stories about the fabled and cursed Cain who wandered aimlessly though this lands for decades. Unfortunately their berth was not wide enough, and before they knew it they were jumped by the men who didn't seem fit enough to carry their own weight as they were suddenly tossing men across dunes like they were nothing.
Leonyd woke the next morning only to be greeted by the pain of fine sand in his eyes and mouth, choking his way into the burning and glaring sun he was pulled up from the desert only to stand before the men who had attacked the previous night. His brother missing, having retreated with the survivors, the fallen however seemed to be completely fine and just as confused as Leonyd was. The sun was hot, almost burning to the flesh and was thankful that a dark skinned stranger was kind enough to provide wrappings to cover his body, flesh and face.
The dark skinned man explained that his name was Enoch, son of the fabled and cursed Cain his chief was so frighten of, and that now Leonyd like he, the wanderers like Enoch, and his companion tribesmen would all bare Cain's Curse. Leonyd didn't know what that meant at the time but in the short days coming he knew what he had become-- an immortal monster that fed off the life force of men, their blood. Leonyd would later be called a vampire.
3507 BCE - 2578 BCE
Leonyd would never see his brother again, but he'd come to know that he lived a full life without him. His tribe would flourish, fall, join others and throughout the centuries become lost in the sea of an ever changing world. He's been a vampire now far longer than he has lived, and his brethern were his fellow cursed souls tattooed with the Mark of Cain " אות" which meant 'Oth' which was a warning sign or a sign of remembrance so not only would they know who they were, but others would too.
In Christianity and Judaism, the curse of Cain and the mark of Cain refer to the passages in the Biblical Book of Genesis where God declared that Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, was cursed for murdering his brother, and placed a mark upon him to warn others that killing Cain would provoke the vengeance of God. An alternate interpretation of the text sees the "mark" rather as a sign, one which would not have actually been a physical marking of Cain, himself. Enoch explained to Leonyd that the true meaning behind the mark was immortality, it was to warn others that you would provoke Cain and not God if you attempted to kill him. They all wore the omen as a sense of pride, bragging rights so to speak, they liked instilling fear into others and the Mark of Cain helps convey that.
Leonyd would come into his own during this time, they drank from the rivers of human blood they would create and use their strength and speed to influence cultures and wars. The rise of Egyptian culture during this time gave them a place to indulge themselves in, and in order to avoid conflict and avoid having to wander any longer they created the Enforcers of Cain which a group of them would be in charge of apprehending the guilty or the criminal and drink from them-- no one would miss them, and wouldn't think twice to investigating into the manner, as Leonyd would learn they weren't completely immortal, severing the head of one of their own brought about a true death.
Leonyd would look back at this time and claim that it was a much simpler time to live in, everything was so cut and dry, black and white. The Mark of Cain and its followers were his family, and they painted the world red as they saw fit and exacted their sick twisted version of justice with a terrifying kind of grace that made Leonyd himself somewhat renowned, enough to nickname him the Darkness when he arrived in a small township in the dead of night.
When Khufu rose to power after ascending to the throne there was much debate amongst the Mark of Cain about removing him completely. A lot found him ruthless and a much hindrance to their new found enjoyment in Egypt and others found his way of rule quite amusing and insisted in the grand scheme of things his existence was just a speck, though Enoch who sided with the aforementioned pushed the fact that despite him being a speck in their existence, he was a speck who ruled a vast empire all with weapons that can sever heads.
The Mark for the first time in hundreds of years was divided, and in 2566 BCE Enoch and his supporters assassinated Khufu which in turn caused the Mark of Cain to disband, afterwards the vampires who left the Mark went on to create more vampires without branding them with the Mark of Cain-- the remaining members like Leonyd and Enoch would simply call themselves the Enforcers of Cain rather than the Mark, not to sully any memories of their former glory by keeping the same name.
2578 BCE - 1500 BCE
Leonyd would spend the next couple of centuries with Enoch and the Enforcers of Cain feeding on the guilty, criminal, and shameless making an example of a few in each township within Eastern Europe as to create fear and anguish within the people-- however it came to the point where there was so much fear the blood tasted sour, and their presence was actually beneficial to the whole aspect of law enforcement that feeding on people who were as simple as petty theives seemed, well, petty. Leonyd would leave his maker in 2432 BCE and the two would never cross paths again, to this day Leonyd is quite unsure what had become of Enoch only to believe that he had met his fate somewhere down the road and news of his death simply didn't reach his ears.
The Enforcers of Cain dwindled into nothing, and their scratch on history was as simple as a bleak misinterpreted reference in the bible. Leonyd would continue feeding on humans, non-discriminating this time and continue with a nomad existence the Mark and Enforcers were fond of millennia before. His ruthless and merciless behaviour only seemed to increase, and he was not only feared this time around but hunted as well which made it all the more interesting.
It was around this time he made his way to Athens, the founding of which is still up for debate this day but to his understanding the first king and founder Cecrops not only judged a contest between Poseidon and Athena to determine who the patron god of the city would be, but was somewhat rumoured to be a Naga in disguise. Of course, politics weren't really Leonyd's strong suit, especially when it came to kings and gods, so he opted out in trying to solve such trivial mysteries. It was here he reflected on his misdeeds, seeing such a city prosper and grow it turned on him when he couldn't come to grips in snuffing any life out here. His hunger was so grave, and his thirst unquenched, at the time he blamed the Gods for cursing him with such guilt that he fled the city and headed further East until he reached Tibet, climbed the mountains and only fed on the wild.
1605 BCE in midsummer he woke up back in Athens, having been halfway across the continent seemingly the night before lost an entire two months of his life only to discover the slaughter before him. Apparently he starved himself of human blood for so long, that once a faint whiff of it caught his nose in the air he went berserk to the point where he blacked out for nearly sixty days and awoken only when his hunger was quenched. He was distraught at this outburst of terror and horror that he felt like there was only one solution, death-- and in 1500 BCE he decided that he figured out how to do it.
1500 BCE - 67 AD
His solution was simple, yet at the same time filled with such hesitance that he wasn't entirely sure what to make of himself and his decision making abilities. He feared death, with all of his misdeeds he feared what the preachers preached about the afterlife-- would he discover himself in eternal flame? He was an immortal creature, and he already had an idea of what "too long" was, neither blood nor sex could ever make eternity go by quicker so the idea of an eternal hell didn't seem too pleasant.
His overpowering guilt yet immense fear of eternal punishment drove him to the conclusion that he must trap himself within a sealed metal box and drop himself to the bottom of the ocean to live out the remainder of his existence in a starved sleep where he wouldn't and couldn't harm another creature, and his hell was of his own design. 1478 BCE his "coffin" was forged, fitted, and with a team of several baffled yet well paid humans he was dropped at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, only to resurface a sixteen-hundred years later in the midst of the Roman Empire, between the tides and shifting of plates due to earthquakes in the area his coffin washed on a rocky island off the coast of Yemen in the Arabian sea, it was later brought to Jerusalem as a gift to Josephus. When awaken by the noise and blood of Roman's during the Siege of Jotapata, Leonyd broke free and fed off of the bleeding yet able bodies of Roman soldiers until he was nearly felled by a blade, and chased off the battle field.
Ancient Hunters during that time chased him down, seeking to end his life but Leonyd eluded capture-- driven mad by the lack of food in his system and the endless nothing of the past millennium he continued his spout of violence and mayhem.
67 AD - 1880 AD
During the next couple hundred years Leonyd would lose himself in the blood until the colonization of the Americas, he figured that he could get a new chance at life on the fresh soil of a new land, moderate himself and learn to control the hunger within instead of simply ignoring it. He fought for America in the American Revolution yet when he migrated north to what is now Canada, he fought with the Canadian-British army in the war of 1812. In both long wars he controlled himself, fed when he was in control and didn't draw much attention to himself-- in battle a lot of blood was spilt, the blood of his enemies he didn't allow to go to waste.
Love was gained, love was lost, yet one thing Leonyd kept in mind was control, it was all he wanted and all he needed. He would come to grips that he could never find someone like himself, never find companionship that would accompany him through eternity, but when he did find love no matter how short term it was, he always deemed it was worth it. Throughout the hundreds if not thousands of years, love was blurred between the lines of gender grouping that if they pleased him, male or female sufficed his heart if they so humbly plucked it's strings. Control was his mistress however, and he'd always obey and it came before everything-- even his heart.
Learning medicine, how to heal and everything inbetween became somewhat of an ironic hobby for him. If he was a creature that took and fed on life, it seemed only prudent for his guilty mind to seek a way to also nurture and save life. When he recieved his pHD he practiced for the first decade, finding it hard to explain his agelessness after a while, he deemed it easier to become a nurse and travel from hospital to hospital, state to state, province to province, whenever he was beginning to show no signs of age to others he just moved on and under a new name, and a new hospital roof he'd continue his work. This continues to occur even now; he claims it to be his un-life’s work and lively hood and couldn't find anything more fulfilling to do with his time.
1880 AD - 1900 AD
All memories and record of the twenty years between 1880 and 1900 were wiped completely from his mind, although in the grand scheme of things its mere minutes of his life no matter how hard he tries to recall them he can't. At first when he noticed it in the 1950s he sought magic means to replenish what was lost, though no witch or warlock could provide him any answers. It should ever remain a mystery to Leonyd, he tries not to worry about it too much or let it bother him.
1900 AD - 1970 AD
During the 19th century he lead a rather civilian sort of life, continuing to travel from state to state within America practicing as a nurse he tended to the wounded soldiers sent back during the World Wars which he sadly regrets now not having a more active role in. Though it was during this time he fell in love with his most influential mate, Helen Lovelace.
Helen was the sort of woman you write novels about, create moving pictures about, and she was in love with him and he her. Twilight, Buffy, True Blood, they all had it wrong. The pain isn't the turmoil or the trials and tribulations that try and keep you apart, the pain is when you watch the love of your life wither away like all the rest refusing to become immortal like you-- Helen Lovelace was the only female human he adored enough to offer her eternal life, for he feared living a life without her.
Helen and Leonyd married, she became Helen Fedorchak and they purchased a house in New York. Although they couldn't have kids during the time they were together they raised four cats and three dogs all of which Leonyd enjoyed immensely, especially the dogs who seemed oddly obedient and more sentient the your every day average dog (And no, they were no skinwalkers.) Perhaps it was something in his voice, or his eyes, or the fact they could tell he was an old soul but he enjoyed their company rather immensely.
Helen despite not being able to mother any children loved Leonyd and didn't hate him for that, she was content in living the life she accepted as her own and even when she greyed and wrinkled Leonyd still looked at her with undying and loyal admiration and love.
1970 AD - Present
Leonyd and Helen moved once more before Helen's passing, this time to Lincoln, Nebraska where Leonyd would work as a full time nurse caring for Helen using that as an excuse as to why he was living with her-- it was much better than telling people that she was his mother.
As Helen's time drew to a close, the end of the world was echoing through the mouths of the Supernatural. Leonyd hasn't concerned himself with the remergance of the angels, and the battle between heaven and hell thus far, his only concern being Helen. When her last day came to a close, she told Leonyd he needed to fight for the lives of everyone on the planet and knew of his pain and regret throughout the thousands of years he's been on this planet. She wanted to make sure that even though she didn't bare any children, that other people's children could live on in a peaceful much sought after world and that Leonyd although not a father could help provide that. Leonyd knew she was proposing a chance at true redemption, and although he feels like there isn't really any suitable way to make up for what he has done admits that it's a start.
With Helen's last breath Leonyd took his leave of Lincoln Nebraska to travel the Americas as a nomadic vampire once more, though instead of an Enforcer, or killer, he seeks to be a warrior of free will and help push back the evil and tides of darkness with the immortal gifts that he's been cursed with.
In Leonyd's search for the vampire who turned him, his maker, he has only met one individual who seems to share a passion for research who was ironically looking for a book with his maker's namesake. During the times thereafter his small chance encounter the apocalypse drew to his close, despite not having any involvement in the grand scheme of things he kept his promise to his late wife- at least one of them.
His search for his maker continues, all the while hearing rumours of the Alpha's he curious to see if he can meet the Alpha vampire- if he has any sort of directions for Leonyd, he'd be more inclined to listen to someone so powerful and wise.
The last wish for his late wife aside from helping out with saving the world from the apocalypse was to move on, finding it hard to even stomach himself in the morning and feeling the loss of all three of his former mates. He tries to help and save as many people as he can, he is no Hunter but he won't stand to see someone hurt, if it be from a monster or a human.
The search continued as Leonyd hit another dead end; ever since his wife died he promised to make the world a better place for the children of this era. Helen was a human, his wife—died of old age by Leonyd’s side. They could never have children for obvious reasons, Helen always said it was okay to Leonyd but he knew deep down that she was a mother at heart, which was why she cared deeply for the children she couldn’t have. She never resented Leonyd for him being him, it was the fact that he was a vampire that brought him to her, without that he would have died long ago and the two lovers would have never met. He was always trying to make life better for Helen, at the beginning he left her a few times in hopes that she would find someone else, fall in love, and start the family she always wanted. However, every time Leonyd would check up on her, maybe a couple of months or a year after she would always be there sitting, waiting for him. Eventually he gave up and accepted the fact that she accepted who she loved, and that it was him. Because of that, because of her, he found a deep connection—remained by her side till the bitter end, even when her looks faded and she was nothing but a prune on life support Leonyd loved her and stayed by her side.
Tragic end of a story, like all the tragic stories before Helen the unfortunate truth was the credits never rolled for Leonyd nor will they ever. People don’t understand what happens at the end of a vampire – human romance nor will they ever get it because of horrific tales like Twilight and True Blood. Which only focus on the sappy romance or the over-the-top grunting and blood lustful sex. They don’t understand what happens to them when they age, or when the vampire has to watch the one they love die, they don’t understand what happens in the years to come in that vampire’s life if they so choose to get over the fact that their love—their mate—died and they still live on and on, and on. Leonyd knows all too well, he might have had relationships with both women and men over the years but he’s only ever been in love three times, and each time he’s tried to take his own life and every morning if for a brief second he re-lives that pain, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for a whole day—depends.
After Helen had passed on Leonyd had sought to end his life by laying his neck down on the train tracks hoping, praying, for the whistle and the rumble of the giant locomotive on the steel tracks but it never came. Sun rose on the horizon and his skin felt that familiar yet uncomfortable tingle. No train came, no train would come down those tracks for three days, and Leonyd thought it for the best for he made a promise to the one he loved that he would seek a way to end this apocalypse and make it safe for humanity once again. For the children they could never have.
The only way Leonyd knew how to exact justice was the way he was taught, the way he was raised as a vampire and that was with The Mark of Cain. Leonyd spent his time seeking his sire—the self-proclaimed son of the original vampire Cain. Enoch stood out back then; his black skin glistened in the desert heat underneath the cloth and reflected fluidly when it was bore against the moon. He was one in a million, and still is to this day but there are no rumours or whispers of his death in history since Leonyd has walked this earth a free man from the Mark. No one in their right mind would oppose them back then, no one in their right mind would dare to keep track of one of them, and they like everything else in history ceased to be relevant in this new world. They used to be feared by both human and vampire alike, and now you tell a vampire who you are and they merely laugh in ignorance just because they are too young to understand or comprehend that vampires meant something once upon-a-time and weren’t thought of as a mockery or a joke by the humans who’s go to joke now is that they sparkle and glitter in the sunlight. First it was garlic and now this, Leonyd really wished the whole garlic thing came back into style.
Throughout the years vampires especially one’s as old as Leonyd, Enoch, and the rest, would find clever ways of hiding that they ever existed. Aliases, living off of cash, never purchasing property, but the one thing vampires tend to leave behind that they do as a token of their presence is what is left in books—they are the one medium that vampires can always count on, if they be printed or digitized leaving behind records of their existence through little message written in both personal or library books meant that they are real, they do mean something, and although their mark on the world is small it is still there. Leonyd himself has done as such, even found messages he left behind centuries later in a library in a totally different country from where he actually scribed said message. Believe – L.F.
If Leonyd wanted to find Enoch then it could very well be hidden in the words he left behind in a book. Leonyd wasn’t attempting to go to every library known to man, but several here and there in America that he had a feeling if Enoch did ever come to the land of the Free he would very well stop by. Libraries that had character, maybe a delicious snack of a librarian—then it was a matter of seeking out the literature he picked up which would be difficult providing taste changes over time so going through library check out records were the best he could do—picking out the suspicious and obvious names—like stated before books were a way of communicating for those as old as Leonyd, it was secretive enough and rather poetic that Hunters would never even think of checking out such a ridiculous concept.
Thumbing through records late at night at Guildhall public library in Guildhall, Vermont, he found himself picking out a few old library cards trying to find a lead on his sire. He searched the lines of shelves for the books in question, plucking them gingerly on the shelf and then he resided in a seat far off nestled in the corner, a dimly lit lamp nestled in front of him shining on the words that were printed on the old and yellowed pages. Leonyd carefully went through each and every single book, it was labour intensive on the mind but the more he thought about doing this without some direction aside from “save the children” made him insane.
Leonyd wasn’t a jumpy individual. However when he heard a noise from beyond the stacks and shelves of books it peaked his interest enough that he sat up right, and his eyes lingered on the darkness that was created by the ever looming mahogany. He stood from his desk and proceeded to venture out back towards the shelves, this late at night he was pretty sure the only people who were here were himself and the bitty librarian at the counter clocking in some over-time. Leonyd swore no one was here when he was searching through the stacks, unless someone was watching him.
He began tracing his fingers along the book bindings, pretending to look for something in particular all the while keeping his ears in tune and his eyes clear for any movement. When a shadow caught his eye on the other side of the bookshelf he sprang into action, running to the end of the shelve to venture down the aisle next to him, using his vampiric speed to appear behind the figure who was making the noise, suspecting them of spying or following him—even though their presence here could be merely coincidental he had to be certain of it. He tapped their shoulder in hopes of getting them to turn around.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
LEONYD FEDORCHAK
