Naphtali

In the year three hundred and fifty-two AD the uncountable people of the Magors appeared. They came from the area north of Tibet and descended on the plains of Astrakan, here they split into two branches, one of which went north east to live along the River Volga. The other branch went further west and also founded the city of Madjar, between the Caspian and Black Sea. This land is what is now known as Armenia. It is north of present day Iraq, south of present day Russia and west of Greece. Two children were born into this second branch the day after they reached this land. The boy he was given the name Naphtali, which means 'My struggle is over' for these people believed this land would remain theirs.

It was not to be, the Hun tidal wave, led by Ruas The Hun, caught up with the nomads and they were engulfed in the new Hun empires. Aware they could not outrun the oncoming slaughter, Naphtali's mother and father gave the boy, who was only a small child at the time, to a young maiden who took flight through the woods and to the Black Sea. His twin sister was given to an older daughter and told to run in another direction. The maiden hid with the boy and managed to survive the take over. Within a few years, however, she realized she was unable to care for the child any longer in hiding. Food was scarce and funds were nonexistent. Instead, she journeyed across the lands, to Rome, where she left the child on a doorstep of a wealthy family. By the time the family discovered him, the woman was long gone, never to be seen again. The family took him in, raised him to serve as their servant and renamed him Theodorus.

By the time Naphtali, or Theodorus, was thirty-five, he was well educated and spoke several languages. However, his mind still wandered back to the tribe he had left so long ago. He recalled his parent's voices, but not their faces. He remembered another child... but the memories were too vague to decipher his history. It was time to set out and search for them much to his Roman parents' disappointment. He returned to the land, known as Armenia in present day, only to find his parents gone...... Tales that they had been sold as slaves to a distant land led Theodorus to journey across what is now Iran and Pakistan to reach India. He set out by horse, but lost the animal to the cruel desert. He was unprepared for the sand storms and lack of water and soon, succumbed to the desert himself.

Awaking soon after, having no idea he had even died, Theodorus, renew his conviction and walked the remainder of the way. In India, nearly five years later, he had still found no sign of his parents, but did manage to further his education and learn something about himself that would change everything.

A man, a warrior in India, appeared to Theodorus and explained to him that both of them were of an undying race of an unknown origin. Remaining with this stranger for nearly three years, Theodorus, learned how to fight by the blade and to speak not only Hindi, but Hungarian for he realized he would have to return to that land in order to find his parents and if, by misfortune, they were dead, Theodorus had a plan..... Before going, his teacher, Methos, gave him a new name, Ansari, which meant 'he that searches'. He set off once more, bound east, but this time he journeyed on foot. How many deaths he died through that following year was only for the desert and him to know. He reached his destination over a year later - immortal and reborn with strength and will to survive.

In the land of his youth, instead of finding his parents, Ansari found out the truth. A tale was told to him by a survivor of the battle that both his parents were killed by the Huns in the raid led by Ruas. Returning to the East, Ansari wandered for another thirty years, learning more and more of the history of the lands and the ways of war. During this time, he meant Cassius Aurelius, an immortal, although older than him, who did not yet know what he was. Naphtali passed on the lessons Methos had taught to him.

Nearly one hundred years passed before Ansari found himself once more near the land of his youth. The call of another immortal brought him there. The whispers of a quickening were faint and reaching the source explained why. The quickening belonged to a child who yet remained mortal. He was the firstborn son of Oszkar, leader of the Sebestyen tribe. They were Huns, but not those of Ruas. In fact, the rather large clan was a threat to Ruas' power. A rather small threat at present, but with an immortal leader, things could change. Ansari approached Oszkar about training his son and, much to Ansari's dislike, the man was all too ready to hand over his child for a price. Hell bent on revenge upon Ruas the Hun, Ansari paid the price and took the child, Demetrius, away.

For many years he trained the boy, keeping him a pre-immortal all the while. The child was strong for his age and intelligent, despite his primitive ways of thinking, but if he grew older, he'd be twice as dangerous. Ansari educated him by teaching him the tongues of the Romans and Greeks so that this child, when he became a man, could use Rome and Greece against Ruas and claim all of Hungary as his own. Ansari saw it as revenge for his parents' death and more than that, it would place an immortal in power. Things would change and immortals and mortal could perhaps live free among each other and no longer have to hide.

When Demetrius turned 19 years of age, Ansari returned him to his people. Unfortunately, things had changed. The second eldest brother had made it clear right away that he had not counted on his elder sibling ever returning and cries of jealousy ensued.

Clan battles came and went and none sparked Ansari's interest other than his pleasure at seeing the clan's army grow. On the day Oszkar died in battle, so did his son Demetrius. This all left Demetrius, newly immortal, in control of the clan. The tribe began to fear him and everything was perfectly falling into place. Soon this clan, which was growing by the week, would be able to take on and slaughter Ruas' tribe with ease as Ruas had slathered Ansari's so long ago. However, word came, carried by slaves and wanderers that Ruas had died and his grandson, Attila, had taken over the main clan of the Huns.

This was one thing Ansari had not counted on, but his anger remained for the unjustified death of his parents and his plan to push his student, Demetrius, into power remained in place. As expected, Laurentius made several power plays, all skillfully ignored by Demetrius until the immortal leader made a foolish move and fell in love, taking the woman who took his heart as a wife. It was not to be, for Laurentius, ruled by jealousy and anger, convinced the fair new bride to kill herself and, by doing so, brought the promising leader to the act of cold blooded murder.

Marietta and Laurentius lay dead and the sudden cold empty look that claimed Demetrius changed Ansari's life forever. It made the elder immortal realize revenge would solve nothing, but only fuel his own hatred until he became as wicked as Laurentius had been.

Realizing the error of his ways, Ansari begged Demetrius to stop the battles and to find a way to protect his people, not lead them to war, but what Ansari had not counted on was Demetrius' ambitions. The once child was now a man, convinced of his own powers and right to rule the world. These ideas had not formed on their own. Ansari had convinced him of this years before.

Ansari, in a last effort to show Demetrius that they were both wrong, begged the immortal man to return to Rome with him for a short while. Here Ansari thought he could show the savage Hun civilization and the other ways of the world. Demetrius, reluctantly, agreed.

Ansari's plan, however, once more backfired. Instead of seeing civilization for what it was, Demetrius was utterly disgusted with the lavish ways of the Romans and demanded to be returned to his land and his people. However, much to the distress of Ansari, word had already gotten out that one of the northern savages was among the Romans. The Roman guard issued an arrest, but instead of prison, they welcomed the Hun leader into their world and Demetrius was given a proposition of war. Rome needed aid to fight against the Greeks and they were looking for a clan to help.... Ansari pleaded with Demetrius to return to his land and ignore the offer, but the young immortal man was ambitious and proud. Too ambitious and too proud.

Not wanting to see the result of the offer, Ansari disappeared into the city. He knew, through the words of commoners, that Rome had in the end betrayed the Sebestyen tribe, ultimately leading to the downfall of Demetrius' people. Ansari also knew that all of this was due to his anger. He had taught Demetrius hate at a young age and fueled one battle too many.

In the late 400s, Attila the Hun was murdered. The news meant nothing to Ansari. He felt no better about his parents' death and realized the lesson he learned from watching the never-ending power plays between two brothers was worth more than any teacher had ever given him. Traveling the lands for years upon years, Ansari vowed never to take another student or become tangled up with any other immortals again.

Throughout the years, he remained a wanderer through the countries of southern Asia and all of Europe. He remained uninvolved in war, but on occasion would find out his one time student quite involved. He never approached Demetrius again, but Ansari kept an eye on him through records and paper work. In the early 1800s, Demetrius left Europe for the Americas and Ansari lost track of the man once and for all. It was only then that he decided it was time to forgive himself for his own hatred towards the Huns of old and for what he had done to the other immortal man, Demetrius, who remained a loner throughout the years. Ansari knew he had done wrong by Demetrius, but Ansari also knew he had seen the error of his ways and that, at any time, so could any man. It was no longer his fault Demetrius continued to blame himself for not only his wife's death but the deaths of most of his people. Ansari forgave himself and began to move on.

In his own life, Ansari took to education, both learning and being an educator. He taught at many colleges as a theater professor, but soon took on jobs to counsel students. He, going by a different name every twenty years, tried to reach mortals. Mortals had so little time on this earth, Ansari knew first hand how much of it could be wasted being angry. He taught people to let that anger go before it consumed them, a lesson he'd never given his own student. He moved from country to country to avoid detection as an immortal and eventually made his way to America in the early 1970s. In the United States, he was offered a job as grief counselor at a Funeral home in upper Connecticut. At first it was slightly unpleasant being around death and grief all the time, but it occurred to him who better for the job than one who cannot die. When the owner died in 1981, Ansari, then going by Theo Ansari, bought the funeral home himself. He remained there, despite the fact he did not age for the next twenty years. Dead people tend to not notice age and the employee turn around was enough that no one seemed to care. He hired embalmers to prepare the bodies but took on the tasks of funeral director himself.

In the very early summer of 2002, the business became quiet busy and busy soon turned into busy and understaffed. When Theo was faced with having to bury his own coworkers, he left, abandoning the business and heading north to avoid the government lock downs, the riots and the human nature that such situations often brought forth.

The dreams began as he reached the Canadian border, but Theo ignored them, not wishing to become part of a war ever again, but as the dreams of Mother Abigail and Flagg worsened, an idea occurred to him - where would his one-time student, Demetrius, go? Where was Cassius? Or Methos?

The thought passed at first, but came back to haunt him every night. He realized he needed to know and set out for Boulder, Colorado deciding if Demetrius was there, he would stay among the others there, but if Demetrius was not in Boulder, then Theo would return north once more, and forget about the war that was brewing between Vegas and Boulder.

Going once again by his birth name for the first time since his youth, Naphtali made it to Boulder and was reunited with both Methos and Demetrius. Cassius was no where to be found. A mission pulled him away. He joined Ben Cole to go to aid those trapped In Vegas. Their path led to Shiprock, where he found the missing piece to the puzzle of why his parents death plagued him so: a twin sister. His childhood memories had failed him and he'd nearly forgotten her existence, but now they were reunited.