Day 1 - A main protagonist, their bio.
(Edit: In actuality Corinn is the main character, but Nathan is my favorite out of the protagonists so she’ll be under love interest. I’m excluding most of what happens in the actual story, so the bio is only up to the story starting point. Also: yes he’s the one that turns into a vampire at the end of the story.)
Name: Nathan Keane
Age: 23
Location: In the Realm he lives in Capital City in the Castle complex. In the real world he lives in New York City
Occupation: In The Realm he is currently a Master of Motion and the only professor at the Academy for that discipline. He is on commission with the Queen to take care of any monsters that become too powerful and need a quick dispatching, but is only called on for dire emergencies anymore. In the real world he is part of the full time faculty at a public junior high school teaching reading and remedial subjects.
Appearance: “He probably wasn’t any older than 25 really, but he had the presence and authority of someone much older. His dirty blonde hair was scruffy, as if he hadn’t bothered with a haircut recently, but his face was clean-shaven and baby smooth as far as she could tell. His eyes were Asiatic, a piercing blue-green, and his skin was milky white and pale, yet distinctly lacking the freckles so often associated with such complexions… Despite his powerful presence he was strangely thin, like a runway model, under-fed.” - Corinn, first chapter.
Nathan is a little under 6 foot (5’8~) and weighs about 130 lbs. He looks similar in The Realm as he does in the real world, but with less self confidence he looks more meek than sleek. Also, he wears reading glasses in the real world that are perpetually broken, cracked, or chipped. He has a tattoo of Reizka’s eternity symbol on his left side at about hip-bone height.
Hobbies: In The Realm his main hobbies are taking care of things these days. He is grounds master for The Castle, a professor at The Academy, and volunteers most of his free time watching the Capital City viewing pool for new arrivals. He likes to grow roses in the gardens surrounding his home and The Castle. He also makes a hobby of writing a weekly letter to Naomi that he will never send. In the real world he doesn’t have much time for hobbies, but he does like to collect bright colored objects.
Attitude/Personality Traits: Casual. He tends to be outwardly cheerful and kind towards others. He is helpful and positive, hiding a deeper layer of guilt and self-loathing. Nathan in the real world feels inhuman because of the way his family treated him as a child and his mother continues to treat him. He is a brilliant actor but is actually extremely depressed. In the realm he feels guilty for things he’s done and tends to be humble to apologetic to make up for them (not fooling anyone). He is a jealous person, and has a deep streak of greed that sometimes provokes him to do crazy things. He’s ambitious to a fault but naïve and willing to believe almost anything a higher influence tells him so he can avoid making the mistakes he has in the past. He resents his family and is terrified of vampires. He has a tendency to keep secrets rather than let someone down and internalizes negative feelings.
Relationships of Note: His parents in the real world are Maiko and Jaime Keane. Maiko is obviously clinically insane and usually doesn’t remember things from day to day. Nathan continues to care for her though in her insanity she constantly hurts him mentally and physically. Jamie works in the stock market oil trade and is not with the family often, but Nathan resents him because he is he main advocate for their vampire lifestyle and he blames his father for driving Maiko and his brother crazy. Jamie blames Nathan for Maiko’s mental illness and has always punished him harshly. He has a younger identical twin brother named Naomi. Nathan was the favorite child when they were little, but when he refused to join the cult Naomi took his place. Nathan now feels sad for Naomi for being dragged into the cult when he was young and naïve, but also resents him for helping their parents abuse him throughout his life just so he could please Jamie. In the real world and in The Realm Naomi and Nathan are no longer on speaking terms, but Nathan wishes they could be close. Nathan once had a romantic and sexual relationship with Reizka, the Queen of The Realm, resulting in their now eight year old daughter Kunizka. Reizka told Nathan that Kunizka is her cousin, and he’s still ignorant to the fact she’s his daughter. He and Reizka now only have a professional relationship since he gave up the title of King Consort, and he has only met Kunizka a handful of times. Matteo is a former classmate and rival of Nathan’s who now also teaches at the Academy with him. Matteo was better in school, so Nathan committed an unspeakable crime to get ahead. They still hate each other to this day, but are now content to do so at a distance rather than fighting. Corinn is Nathan’s student in The Realm and current love interest.
Abilities/Powers/Weapons: In the Realm Nathan created his own discipline and became a master in it. Basically it is modified supernatural speed and force. He is currently the only Master in it, but he has recently started teaching it to the students since he has retired from the battlefield. His original weapon was a golden whip given to him by Reizka which he could move so quickly it could cut through literally anything. Now he has traded it in for a single 6 foot silk ribbon which he can move at such high speeds it too can cut through anything without being damaged. He only uses his powers rarely these days.
Backstory:
· The real world: His family have long been kingpins of a secretive vampiric cult that practices dark arts, follows a satanic belief system, and practices ritual sacrifice as well as drinking blood. His mother’s side is Japanese and his father’s side is European. As a child he was the favorite because he was the oldest and smartest between he and Naomi. When the boys turned six though, Nathan refused to join the cult by drinking a cup of blood from the other members in the ceremony. Naomi then became the favorite because he did join. Around that time his mother started going crazy, when before she was always just distant. She would go into wild fits where she would attack her sons, usually Nathan more so than Naomi, with a knife or other sharp object. She often ended up beating herself unconscious on walls or otherwise injuring herself in the process, after which Naomi would cry and Nathan, although he was usually badly hurt himself, had to take care of her. Jaime blamed Nathan for Maiko going mad and isolated him most of the time in a lonely attic room. They barely fed him and he was only given Naomi’s hand-me-downs when he needed something. Maiko became more and more violent towards him, and in turn Jaime and Naomi became abusive towards him as well. Eventually they would involve him in their rituals where his family and random cult members would drink his blood, leading him to become severely anemic as he got older. Nathan blamed Naomi most of all, because he had never liked his father and he knew Maiko was mentally ill, but Naomi was only doing it for attention. When he was 13 Nathan was sent to the hospital on the verge of death after being drained of too much blood carelessly by Naomi and Maiko and losing consciousness. Jaime arrived home to notice and called an ambulance saying that Nathan had attempted suicide to explain his cut wrists and neck. While he was in the hospital Nathan woke up once and tried to tell his story to a night nurse, but Jaime and Naomi had already convinced everyone Nathan was lying because he was depressed and suicidal. He had a dream after passing out again and in it he saw the symbol and Reizka pleading with him to follow her. When he touched her hand in the dream was when he was first taken into The Realm. He was in the hospital for a week, getting blood transfusions and seeing a psychologist who prescribed him medications. His family was a bit more careful after that, taking his blood with syringes instead of cutting him usually, but Maiko still attacked him in her fits and Naomi abused him more and more frequently for her approval. Nathan went to the realm every night and any time he could and was quickly gaining power there. During this time he stole money from Jaime to get the symbol tattooed to his skin so that he could go to The Realm any time. He knew how that world opened up now, so he waited until Naomi failed the eighth grade and was shamed by Jaime, a night he knew Naomi would be feeling negative emotions that could open the portal, and in the middle of the night snuck into his room and carved the symbol into his brother’s chest so that he would be bound to the realm forever in his sleep. Throughout high school Nathan was in and out of the hospital for severe anemia which he was ashamed and afraid to explain the truth about for fear he would be killed. When he graduated at 18 he moved out and refused to give his family his new address. He worked various jobs to pay for school out of pocket so that his family wouldn’t have an easy time of tracing him. He got a teaching degree and began substitute teaching, but was asked to stay full time the second year because the students he tutored had done exceptionally well. He continued to return home when he knew nobody else would be there so that he could check on Maiko, who still abused him and often forgot who he was, mistaking him for some dead uncle of his. He hasn’t spoken to Naomi or Jaime since he left home. Now he is a teacher in both worlds which takes up most of his time, but he also sees a therapist twice a month.
· The Realm: When Nathan first got to The Realm he was thrown into the viewing pool like anyone else, but instead of being one of the usual volunteers, Reizka greeted him herself. He didn’t know how significant this was until he moved into a small apartment in the Academic Complex and started talking to other people. He found out that the Queen never showed herself to anyone, ever since the world’s creation. He was intrigued by her, and visited her in the castle boldly, which she allowed. When they were together she would tell him secrets and stories about her world. She told him about her own past (an abbreviated version of course) and compelled him to write her history for the people to read. At first Reizka soothed his rages and helped reassure him that he was far from worthless, like he felt in the human world. Nathan came to two realizations, that he was in love with Reizka and that because they loved each other he had the ability to do as he pleased in this world, which was a stark contrast to the real world where he was powerless. He began to abuse the power she’d given him. His first request was a unique ability, a discipline that had never been used before so that he could stand out during the moon ceremonies. This was primarily because he desperately wanted to be the best and outclass his rival Matteo. Because Matteo was better than him in classes, and the one predicted to win first moon by all the professors, Nathan used Reizka’s influence to cheat. She gave him a golden whip and allowed him to create Motion as his own discipline. Nathan won first moon after a bitter struggle for the finish with Matteo, at 14. Then he moved on to win second moon as well in a similar manner. At third moon he and Matteo would be fighting a battle only one could win, so he knew he needed something big to happen that would give him the advantage. In the mean time, even though he hadn’t passed his moon ceremonies, he was quickly gaining a reputation as the Queen’s favorite and a dangerous fighter. He destroyed monsters easily, without any of the side effects that came with using the traditional disciplines. He was also unique in the fact he never created monsters of his own, which people thought was Reizka’s doing. Citizens of the higher class respected or feared his power and gave him bribes in exchange for talking to Reizka about their concerns, or hired him to deal with monsters that had gotten out of hand. Nathan and Reizka began sleeping together when he was 15, and he was officially given the title of King Consort. However, even with the title he insisted on completing the moon ceremony, but when it was becoming clear that Matteo would be difficult to beat in his own right Nathan committed a horrible crime. Matteo’s 8 year old sister Gia was his weakness, and shortly before the ceremonies Nathan tied her to a tree and executed her with his whip, getting blood on it for the first time because his hands were shaking. When Matteo found out about her death he naturally dropped out of the event, and Nathan won almost by default. Unfortunately, what Nathan found out later when he talked about it to Reizka was that when someone is killed in The Realm, they die in the real world (what she didn’t tell him was that it’s a side effect of her deal with Hebe and so those who die there actually get sent to hell). So he was now a real murderer. It didn’t bother him at the time though because he was high off his power and still felt the world owed him something. Therefore, he asked Reizka how it could be done, and when she allowed it he brought Naomi into The Realm and arranged to sell him as a slave to the King of Shyrika, a lesser country of vampiric chimera people to the south. Nathan was now a Master (the youngest ever) in his unique discipline, the most powerful person in Rakuin other than the Queen, and he’d gotten his revenge on his brother. Matteo stopped coming to The Realm because of Gia’s death for a long time, so that was out of the way too, but he continued wanting more. He would have Reizka create dangerous monsters for him to show off fighting, was granted a sort of diplomatic immunity and the power to dictate to rulers of the lesser countries. Nathan was starting to see the world as a place where he could take his revenge on the real world that betrayed him, rather than being satisfied with fighting his own monsters like the others. Now that he was a Master, he was granted the privilege of operating the Arena, and because he was such a superstar at that point the turnout for that year’s moon ceremony was extreme. However, Reizka had become worried for him, and Hebe had mentioned being interested in making a deal with Nathan. Out of concern for his soul she told Master Hojgaard to give him a higher dose of the hallucinogen while he was connected to the Arena. The result was catastrophic and the intense monsters he produced were too powerful for the students, resulting in four deaths before the other Masters could take care of it. What happened in his mind was good for Nathan though in the sense that he had finally seen the effect his actions had on others. In the wave of guilt that followed he gave up all of his titles, cut off his relationship with Reizka, and locked himself away in the groundskeeper’s cottage at the far end of the Castle Complex. He gave up fighting altogether until finally Reizka and Momo convinced him to fight in extreme emergencies. Then he decided to focus on rectifying his mistakes in a small way by donating all his time to teaching Motion students and volunteering as a guide at the viewing pool, humbly denying his past whenever it is brought up. To this day the majority of the people hate, fear, or at least distrust him, but few see that he is deeply sorry and trying to make up for it.
