#also side note: thinking abt how london got stolen in the middle of the american civil war

[calamity-calliope]

So, writing a little bit about Enoch's mental state because my man is NOT okay.

(Meat & potatoes under cut bc this turned out way longer than I expected)

TL;DR: cringefail cowboy loses his family, joins the Civil War accidentally, gets shot, becomes a cowboy, quits his job, gets a brother, loses brother, goes vengeance mode, gets flashbanged and joins cult.

Let's start from the beginning. Set scene: The Moffetts in Kentucky. Young Enoch is watching his dad bury his mother. And, well, this is his first trauma. She'd been sick for a while. He knew that. Pa knew that. But the passing was still sudden and neither of them were prepared for it. Enoch didn't know what to do, because he'd never seen anyone die before. Pa wasn't much help. The old man became distant and moody, and soon after the death announced to Enoch that they would be traveling for a while.

They went East. This was at a point where the West was still "untamed" and only the braver folk were willing to take the dangerous trek across the continent. And Mr. Moffett was admittedly a coward. He took Enoch to the East to try and find work, offering his skill as a blacksmith where applicable. They lived in Virginia for a few months, before Pa, too, began to fall ill. Enoch led the way on the long road back to Kentucky, where a few months after they returned, he buried his father. To dig the grave with his own two hands was an almost unbearable burden. But he pushed through and got the job done.

Fast-forward a few years, Enoch got a blacksmith shop of his own. He lived far out in the woods, alone. Thus the news came to him a little late (by about three years, to be exact) that war was tearing apart the country. News of it all came to him little by little, but never the whole picture. Seeking answers, he saddled up his horse and went back East, returning to Virginia.

It is here that his wild however brief, military career began. He had passed through the Shenandoah Valley and crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains. Western boundary, as he was unaware, of the partisan chief John S. Mosby's domain. Enoch's first encounter with Mosby's Rangers occurred when a scout patrol stopped him along the road and demanded to know his business. Panicking more than a little bit, Enoch stated that he was there to join the partisans.

Skeptical, the Rangers took Enoch to their rendezvous, where he was introduced to Col. Mosby. Mosby as well was not too wholly convinced of Enoch's story, but still offered him the chance to prove himself. He was given two "navy-sixes" and told to act accordingly at the next raid the Rangers undertook. But that was another day. In the meantime, Enoch was invited to stay with the Hatcher brothers, who taught him how to use his guns.

Enoch was still very much scared at this point. He had seen death twice in his lifetime up to that point, but to now be a bringer of such a misfortune weighed heavily on him. He did, however, find comfort in the friendly nature of the Hatchers. The two brothers, Harry and Welt, became good friends of his.

During the next Ranger rendezvous, Mosby outlined an attack on a picket post. There were maybe forty-five men present for the job, Enoch being one of them. The leadup to the initial strike was, of course, to be in complete and utter silence. Silent woods were always a great fear of Enoch's. Because when the woods were quiet, something was wrong. It was no reassurance that he himself was the danger in this case. As the group got closer to its target, his anxiety began to spike again. Complete and utter quiet. Then, Mosby blew his whistle. Enoch reacted immediately to the sound and spurred his horse forward, with the rebels alongside him briefly stunned before following his lead.

On his almost-out-of-control horse, Enoch drew his pistols and aimed for the first humanoid figure that loomed out of the darkness. He pulled the trigger of one of his guns, and it did its deadly work. He could not help but gasp after the fact, after hearing the body hit the ground, because he had killed. It was something he had not done before, and, a year ago he had never planned on doing. Still, in the lead and surrounded, he continued to mete out death as a matter of survival.

In the end, Enoch was accepted as a Ranger and assigned to Company F. After the skirmish, Mosby presented him with a fine black thoroughbred named Apostle, as a reward for his good work during the skirmish. From there Enoch accepted his position. He fought whenever he was called upon, and even answered rendezvous when his company didn't. Death had lost the shock it had held when he first pulled the trigger. Killing seemed more of a duty. That didn't stop the idea of it from creeping into his mind at night and keeping him awake with the guilt of murder.

Then came the Second Battle of Dranesville. It was this battle that would set the rest of Enoch's life into motion. He was in the thick of the fight, as always. One of the forces that the Union fielded during that day was the feared and respected California Battalion (imagine a bunch of imported Californians, pissed off after being on a boat for several months). It was coming to the latter half of the battle, and the boys in blue were beginning to pull back. The Californians defined their escape route and went for it. As they left, one man raised his carbine and squeezed off a carefully-aimed shot, which hit Enoch in the knee. The two of them locked eyes for a moment before the Californian spurred off. Shortly after, Enoch fell from his horse from loss of blood.

After being tended to by Dr. Montiero, Enoch began he recovery period, which would last quite a while. Over that time he changed. The weight of the war, the pain of the injury, every repressed emotion, all hit him at once. He was a wreck, laying tired and weeping in the bed of a stranger, some days being to weak to even eat. His leg bothered him constantly. Still, he found the strength to haul himself to his feet once more and rejoin his comrades-in-arms. His heart was never quite as much in his fighting anymore, though. And so the war dragged on. Enoch was with the Rangers through their triumphs and their hardships. And then it was over.

While many of the Rangers went off to become clergymen and practitioners of law, Enoch wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He hadn't seen much of a future for himself beyond blacksmithing and soldiering. The postwar allure of the West caught him though, and he felt himself being dragged in that direction. He caught a train, leaving the world he had always known behind.

At first, looking for work was hard, because everyone was looking for work. Enoch especially had a rough time, as his wartime injury limited his physical capabilities somewhat. He was eventually picked up by an aging Mexican-American War veteran, a shady figure by all definitions, who had no problems whatsoever with hiring him. Enoch would be added to the payroll as a ranchhand.

Mr. Willis's ranch wasn't big, as the old man was just beginning to dabble into ranching. There were a couple of men already hired as hands on the range, and Enoch was introduced to them right off the bat. One of them was Hezekiah, a freedman who had been in the West since before the war, and considered one of the best ropers on the range. The other Enoch recognized immediately.

He was Clade Merrow, a veteran of the California Battalion. When Enoch saw him, he was at first angry. Merrow recognized him too, and they said nothing to each other. Enoch still carried his navy-sixes, and Merrow his carbine. There was a moment where they both reached for their weapons. Hezekiah managed to deescalate the situation by noting that they "wouldn't get paid if they kill each other." That was the end of that.

Work on the ranch was tough. The days were long and hot, the work tedious and often boring, and sometimes Mr. WIllis was frugal with the pay, but compensation came in other ways. As Enoch would remember, some of the best nights of his life were spent by firelight, looking up into the big Western sky, which was filled with stars. That, he assumed, was the universe's comforting word. It was easy to forget the past then. It was those nights that Enoch also talked with his coworkers.

He learned that everyone wanted to get off the range and be somewhere else. Hezekiah wanted to go somewhere where his talents would be recognized, and where the pay would be better. In particular, he expressed his desire to be a rodeo star. Merrow's wish was to become a bountry-hunter. It was a life, he stated, that was more exciting and fast-paced than being a cowboy. Enoch found himself agreeing with Merrow, and a friendship formed between the two. They never really brought up the war.

After a while, the three of them put their "retirement plan" into action. they resigned their service with Mr. Willis and went their separate ways. Enoch and Merrow went off together, and bid Hezekiah goodbye and wished up luck on his dream.

Things went well for Enoch and Merrow. They found good work with their frontier justice and brought in a fair number of minor criminals and outlaws. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, not having a single base of operations but moving wherever they were needed. They would have more heart-to-heart moments over these times. They got around to talking about the war. Neither of them looked upon those days fondly. Both had come from quiet gentle lifestyles and were not prepared for the toll of war, having suffered, physically and psychologically, and they agreed that they were quite done with war, forever. And one night, they made the agreement to become brothers, solidified by blood oath.

For Enoch, he had mixed emotions about it. Mainly, he has happy to have a brother at last. Someone he could confide in. Someone to keep him company so that he wouldn't have to be alone. But at the same time, he was scared. Not of having a brother, but losing that brother. He had noticed his pattern of losing loved ones, and the thought of losing Merrow was something that terrified him. ( >:) )

Then the big catch came. It was a bounty that would have set the two veterans up for life. So of course they took it. They one thing that they found interesting was that the last reported location of this particular criminal happened to be a place called the Neath. Neither Enoch nor Merrow really knew anything about the Neath. They'd heard that something weird had happened to London around 1862-ish but never really bothered to look into it. After a lot of asking around and following confusing and convoluted directions, they made their descent.

The Neath fascinated them. There was so much going on, so many interesting people to meet, so many wonders, that they were almost distracted from their goal. They tracked their target to Spite, where they employed their tried-and-true tactic of "divide and conquer." Enoch took his revolvers and went one way, and Merrow took his carbine and went another. It was going the way it always went. At first.

Enoch heard sounds that weren't normal. Sounds of a struggle. And then- the loud report of a carbine. He immediately stopped what he was doing and ran to the source of the noise. There, all he found was Clade Merrow, dead on the ground. And he stopped for a moment, forgetting how to think. Dropped to his knees and took his brother's head in his lap. He had died with his eyes closed, thankfully. All Enoch could do was sit there and cry. And he did cry. Harder than he ever had in his life, and he pressed his forehead to Merrow's and whispered I'm sorry over and over again.

After a while he got to his feet again, shakily, and he took Merrow and gave him a dignified burial at a place with a nice view of the zee. It somehow felt right. He laid at the grave a while, wishing he could be buried right there with Merrow. There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to die.

The first thing he did after pulling himself together again was to head right back to Spite, guns out and ready for anything. He let off a couple of "warning shots" which, expectedly, caused a huge commotion. As Enoch made his challenge for his brother's killer to come out and face him, he was hit hard over the head and knocked out.

He woke up in an unfamiliar environment, a locked room inside of a ship. He didn't know where he was, and he was scared, confused, and angry. He was vocally expressing his problem to whoever would have been listening, making threats and vows and swearing oaths of justice against the perpetrators. His rant was cut short when all of a sudden it became very, very bright, (@zeebreezin congrats on the KO) and he forgot himself.

Thus, we come to current Enoch. He lives at the Grand Geode, he travels to London every once in a while, he gets a paycheck, and he's happy. Almost.

See, one of the things about Enoch is that everything he's been through, all his ups and downs in life, have made him who he is. It's the lived experiences that have built him into his individual self, whether it be dashing through the woods riding side-saddle with his fellow Rangers or learning rope tricks from Hezekiah, or even standing beside his father at the anvil, it's other people who made Enoch, Enoch. Those were moments where he felt genuine happiness. But he doesn't have that anymore.

He's not himself. He's the extension of one mean machine. He walks around smiling, but it's an applied exhilaration. Something that hides buried traumas and burned-away memories. Those golden eyes of his unable to reflect the starry night sky of the open range. Sure, the desire for vengeance against the one who took his brother from him still dominates his thoughts, but it's been carefully structured to feed into a greater agenda. Enoch, for the most part, is gone.