Of immortality

I like the concept of immortality in a story. Not as a way of making a character over powered, or allowing them to live through anything that comes their way without having to make excuses for how they miraculously got by. Rather, I like the idea of a character having to face the consequences of attaining immortality. Sure, it is helpful in the here and now, but immortality is not simply being able to live through a fight. It is being able to live through anything and everything. To have to constantly say goodbye to the world as you know it, and let a new world be ushered in. To watch the ebb and flow of time, and be forced to bend with it, else be left in the dust.

I've wanted to tell the story of an immortal man for some time. A man who was fond of the middle ages, but now lives in the modern world, surrounded by new and evolving technologies, where the magic that once gave him everlasting life is now nothing more than the stuff of myths and legends, and where he has to hide his true identity, else be captured by the government to be experimented on, so as to learn the secrets of his undying nature. A man like that would be dreadfully alone, whether he likes it or not, and it would be difficult to say whether he was a good or bad man.

Would he have participated in history? Would he have served in the wars that passed, or stayed on the sidelines? If he served, would he be a soldier, or a general? Would he try to hold on to his ways, or would he grow weary of repetition and find new things to do? Would he fall in love? Could he? And if he did, would he marry his lover, knowing that one day they would grow old and fade away into the annals of time, while he persisted as though not a day had passed? And if he had once loved, how long would it stain his heart? Would he ever be willing to take another lover for the rest of time?

That, to me, is a fascinating story. But, how would you go about exploring it? My idea is to do it through another person. A young girl who stumbles across this man on accident. Perhaps she is alone in the world, without parents or friends or loved ones, and she latches onto the man who is much older than he appears. And, in a moment of weakness, he agrees to take her in and care for her. He has more than enough money, gathering from the many lives he has lived, and is able to give her good shelter and food. And, with time, they become friends, and he learns to trust her and lets her in on the truth of who he is.

And what becomes of her when she knows this truth? That, at least in one point in history, there was such a thing as magic, and it resulted in a man immune to death. A man who had seen history first hand, who had played a part in it, and still held onto the souvenirs of his life.

I don't want their relationship to be one of love, however. Which is strange for me, because I love to love. Perhaps she would find love elsewhere, and he would help to guide her.

But one scene is very vivid in my mind above all others, and that is the last scene. The scene in which she is lying in her death bed, late at night, when all the others have gone to sleep, but her immortal friend sits beside her in her final moments so they can talk about the life they have lived together. And as he watches her pass away, for the first time in his life, he can smile, knowing that her life was happy and full.