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Wrenmae Sek
A copper for your story?
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About
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APPEARANCE
A master morpher often forgets details of themselves in the transitions between shapes. What can always be said of Wren is that he remembers (and most often is) a man of 5 feet and ten inches, lithely built for speed and flexibility but not in raw force or muscle. A scar crosses his face from eyebrow across his nose, faded now but a decisive line...split with a dagger in punishment. Smaller marks cling to his hands, cheek, and chin, small incidental scars of his journeying and he often carries the shadow of a mustache and beard along his skin. He most often has brown eyes, the doleful soft of dark wood and his hair is often managed at a shaggy shorter length, lank across his brow. There is an almost eerie allure to him, a certain glow of health and vitality that is not easily matched by those around him. Often smiling his nose shows the barest crook to the right, where he once broke it in a bar fight.
Often he wears a bandage across his neck, hiding the mark of Rhysol, an angry red thumprint across his throat. His body is a map of purposeful scars too designed to be anything but torture and various other marks where his body was marred with blade or magic. On his right shoulder and breast lie the angry black waves of Laviku's curse mark, always seeming to shift and move. On the inside of his left arm, a spiral, Sagallius' mark and there are two black diamonds...one at the base of his spine and the other on the back of his skull.
Wren often carries himself confidently, but with the guarded caution of a man who has been in many battles.
Often he wears a bandage across his neck, hiding the mark of Rhysol, an angry red thumprint across his throat. His body is a map of purposeful scars too designed to be anything but torture and various other marks where his body was marred with blade or magic. On his right shoulder and breast lie the angry black waves of Laviku's curse mark, always seeming to shift and move. On the inside of his left arm, a spiral, Sagallius' mark and there are two black diamonds...one at the base of his spine and the other on the back of his skull.
Wren often carries himself confidently, but with the guarded caution of a man who has been in many battles.
PERSONALITY
A personality? Hmm. I’m never usually entreated to describe a character so thoroughly. Very well, the boy. Let us begin with the boy. Curious by all accounts he had a love of words transcending even the innate love we have of it now. He basked in hard consonants or marveled at the lull between letters. There is power in story, in spoken word, in tales. There is the moment of concentration, the outpouring of knowledge, the understanding, the smiles. Spread too thin, too few, the sentient of the world limit themselves with different words. But from these lands, these people, there comes tale and stories and history unwritten. So yes, the child was a bit loquacious…one could scarce expect a storyteller to begin meek, unless that would imply the practice of listening. Of course, of course he had that…but forgot himself so oft one may consider he hadn’t learned it at all.
But men are so much more than their desires are they not? He lived and breathed as we all do, easy smiles and easier friends to follow. Hardworking, caring, a bit naïve perhaps…but weren’t we all? There was a spark about him, a charm. I suppose that’s how we would all like to be remembered, charming and full of promise.
Did he have his flaws? Of course. Sticky fingers and stickier trouble seemed to follow him like gnats. He was never one for patience, not in the days after he was civilized. The more suspicious folk found ways to dislike him, mannerisms strange to the hardy folk of village life. His eyes always seemed to linger on people too long, sizing them up perhaps, maybe he was getting his fill of the people gone from his wilder days. Cats and dogs went missing sometimes, never could lay a finger on the boy, but there were whispers. Never any formal accusations, never any trials…even after that little girl vanished beyond the edge of the woods after dark. No one fathomed a child capable of killing, even one raised by root and thorn beyond the ken of society. Sure, no one perfect in all of Mizahar, Wrenmae among them…but what kind of hero has no flaws?
What kind of hero isn’t a little dark?
What kind of hero isn't a little twisted? And by Hypnotism and heavy handed torture, four distinct selves have risen from the shattered remains of his mind. The first is himself, largely unchanged, the second Shroud, a ruthless killer and devoted to Vayt's principles of power through strength. Weaver, an erratic storyteller obsessed with narrative form. He is perhaps most dangerous and finally Egyptus, a child left in the mountain, innocent, alone, frightened, and unbearably wise. The triggers to them are few, but dramatic in effect.
And What kind of a Hero does not seek Redemption? By the power of a magical manacle given to him by Rhysol, his personalities were pulled together into one again, setting him to a great task for the god sometime in the future. This Wrenmae is a bit more ruthless than the last, amiable, but with an ever-present hint of powerful menace.
But men are so much more than their desires are they not? He lived and breathed as we all do, easy smiles and easier friends to follow. Hardworking, caring, a bit naïve perhaps…but weren’t we all? There was a spark about him, a charm. I suppose that’s how we would all like to be remembered, charming and full of promise.
Did he have his flaws? Of course. Sticky fingers and stickier trouble seemed to follow him like gnats. He was never one for patience, not in the days after he was civilized. The more suspicious folk found ways to dislike him, mannerisms strange to the hardy folk of village life. His eyes always seemed to linger on people too long, sizing them up perhaps, maybe he was getting his fill of the people gone from his wilder days. Cats and dogs went missing sometimes, never could lay a finger on the boy, but there were whispers. Never any formal accusations, never any trials…even after that little girl vanished beyond the edge of the woods after dark. No one fathomed a child capable of killing, even one raised by root and thorn beyond the ken of society. Sure, no one perfect in all of Mizahar, Wrenmae among them…but what kind of hero has no flaws?
What kind of hero isn’t a little dark?
What kind of hero isn't a little twisted? And by Hypnotism and heavy handed torture, four distinct selves have risen from the shattered remains of his mind. The first is himself, largely unchanged, the second Shroud, a ruthless killer and devoted to Vayt's principles of power through strength. Weaver, an erratic storyteller obsessed with narrative form. He is perhaps most dangerous and finally Egyptus, a child left in the mountain, innocent, alone, frightened, and unbearably wise. The triggers to them are few, but dramatic in effect.
And What kind of a Hero does not seek Redemption? By the power of a magical manacle given to him by Rhysol, his personalities were pulled together into one again, setting him to a great task for the god sometime in the future. This Wrenmae is a bit more ruthless than the last, amiable, but with an ever-present hint of powerful menace.
BELIEFS
Wren believes in the laws of the wild. The strong live and the weak die. He's adapted that Vayt belief to be his mantra. He does not mourn the fallen, not truly, instead he laments that they had not the stamina or ability to continue living in the harsh world around them. He grows close to few and tries to purge weakness from his being. Beneath that, Wren seeks family. He has few who can get close to him and so the ones who do are all the more dear to him. Wren believes that humanity, as it is, is flawed. The way the city states refuse to join only separates the ability to rejoin in an empire. Wren believes the gods are for the best of humanity, but that they are out of touch with the human existence. So it is that the gods should be worshiped, but their servants should be given tantamount respect for being the bridge between their divine nature and the mortal nature that they seem so vested in.
INJURIES
Wren has been marked during his hard journey. His chest is a network of torture scars, he has two scars on his face, one that swoops down from his forehead toward his lip, and a harsh scar on his left arm.
Wren has ten distinct marks across his chest, as if sharp fingers tore them.
Wren's voice has a permanent rasp, raising his voice too high will cause him to cough. A third marked healer of Rak'keli can heal this.
Wren's right eye is a blank milky white, with no other feature
Wren has ten distinct marks across his chest, as if sharp fingers tore them.
Wren's voice has a permanent rasp, raising his voice too high will cause him to cough. A third marked healer of Rak'keli can heal this.
Wren's right eye is a blank milky white, with no other feature
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General
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| Alternative Name | Egyptus, Murdock, Hound |
| Race | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 22 years |
| Birth date | 15th Summer 491 AV |
| Birth Place | Syliras |
| Height | Varies |
| Weight | Varies |
| Profession | Mercenary |
| Location | Sylira |
| Beliefs | Vayt, Sagallius, Rhysol, |
| Likes | The Strong, Ambition, Confidence, Humans |
| Dislikes | Zith, Kelvics, Dhani, Symenestra, The Weak, The Stupid |
| Aspirations | To build a new Alahea |
| Fluent Language | Common |
| Basic Language | Nader Canoch |
| Poor Language | Fravata |
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Principles
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- The Strong Live. The Weak Die
- Magic is a muscle. Overuse it and you will die. Train it, and you will command others
- Rely on yourself first, it's the only thing you can truly count on
- Live vibrantly, Survive, and Make something of your life
- It takes little effort to kill a disarmed enemy, it takes a mixture of competence, arrogance, and courage to leave that enemy alive.
- Those who allow themselves to be enslaved deserve to be slaves
- Protect what you hold dear with your life. If it is taken from you, you never meant to have it
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HISTORY
Fit for remembrance.
tiny filler wordsFit for remembrance.
In the past
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Act One
Stories oft begin with a protagonist, some plucky hero to web the story from a listener’s heart. Some prefer the burly men of legend, cutting aside tyranny and evil or beasts as legendary as they. But those men rarely show weakness, rarely stumble, rarely live in the true sense that people do. Others prefer the romantic and caring hero, sword in one hand and flower in the other it is a hero to pluck the heart like a lute and smile with the dazzle of suns. But those characters are shallow, blinded by single goals and petty romances turned sour and dusty. Few prefer the child, cold and alone in a wild world with nothing but a knife to guard him from the night. People do not seek weakness in their heroes, only the man beyond it. There is little call for the knight errant with dreams of grandeur or the curious woodland girl before she becomes master of forest and air. Save for the lowest echelon of entertainment, comedy, rare few favor the bungling wizard with backfiring spells. But every story has a beginning, and it begins with fire and glory. It begins, as most stories do, with light…either the burning of candlelight over the moans of a tired mother or the bright glancing fire of the sun as it touches iris for the first time. All stories come down to light and darkness, beginning and ending. But no one wants to hear the beginning…
Frightening, to die in the cold. One is capable of terrible things in such cases. A child may be brought to sell out a sibling, a parent, those who they hold close for a chance to live. Vayt, that scoundrel of a defiler, he hears those calls and responds to them. He promises life, but at a terrible cost. Two lives were lost among the snow, two lives that needn't be.
Frightening, to die in the cold. One is capable of terrible things in such cases. A child may be brought to sell out a sibling, a parent, those who they hold close for a chance to live. Vayt, that scoundrel of a defiler, he hears those calls and responds to them. He promises life, but at a terrible cost. Two lives were lost among the snow, two lives that needn't be.
But few wish to hear about that...
Act Two
The haunting allure of the Unforgiving is a siren’s call of deadly efficiency. The brave and foolish perish beyond the protection of stone walls, leaving their stories unfinished in the belly of some beast. But it was from the jagged peaks he came, rusty weapon and tattered clothes to meet the unfiltered dawn with suspicious eyes...to the city of Alvadas. There was no family then, no sign of lineage nor origin. Mystery was the only language he spoke. A strangely coincidental fit for the City of Illusions. Shown kindness by an elderly couple, far too aged to create a son of their own, they brought this boy into their hearts, their home, their lives. At first it was met with resistance, savage manners and mistrustful eyes…but with like most things, it was Time that invisible river, which wore away the bedrock of the forest and fostered care in return.
He held a fondness for stories, tales, lore, the imaginings of minds across the nation. His lilting tongue was persuasive, casting family and strange to silence with equal magnitude. It was simple. He talked, they listened. There was no harm in hearing the imagined tales of a child, nor that of a young adult. As he called upon his tongue more often, they began to pay him.
But few want to hear of those times.
He held a fondness for stories, tales, lore, the imaginings of minds across the nation. His lilting tongue was persuasive, casting family and strange to silence with equal magnitude. It was simple. He talked, they listened. There was no harm in hearing the imagined tales of a child, nor that of a young adult. As he called upon his tongue more often, they began to pay him.
But few want to hear of those times.
Act Three
Misfortune followed him, like a plague or horde of flies. Beginning before he could remember, it relented only in his deliverance to the city...his adoption by a kindly couple. But there was plague upon him then, as there is now. Since they took him into their home, fate itself seemed to spoil and rot around them. First came their respective jobs, replaced by younger, brighter souls. Next came the death or distance of friends and family, as though they were being pulled apart. Could they have blamed the child? Never. His smiles were all they needed to assure themselves that life went on, that no one could know the face of fate. But then health began to fail, a wasting unlike any sickness seen before by the doctor, the man who attended them. Their bodies simply stopped feeling, stopped taking nutrients and vitality. It wasted away. Chance? Perhaps. Who could blame a mere child for their troubles. Certainly he, growing up in the winding streets of Alvadas, had no notion of trouble. So maybe it was all coincidence, a cruel flip of coin from some omnipotent hand. They passed away close to each other, the wife cursing the adopted son on her deathbed...cursing him for existing, for bringing ruin on their heads. The boy, shocked by such admissions, endeavored to leave the city shortly after...despite being comforted by the doctor, assured the woman was mad with fever and not knowing what was said. Still, the die had been cast, and his path would take him from the city gates.
The tale truly begins when he leaves the city, scarcely a man but no more a boy than he began. A story always has a beginning, but it is rare that a tale begins with the true beginning. So en medias res we shall begin, the middle of, the center…or perhaps just before the center. Past obscured, present unfolding, future only written at the edge of the present’s page, we will follow his story (In the way some tavern dwellers often do) and find if this is a tale fit for entertainment.
But few want to hear of that time.
The tale truly begins when he leaves the city, scarcely a man but no more a boy than he began. A story always has a beginning, but it is rare that a tale begins with the true beginning. So en medias res we shall begin, the middle of, the center…or perhaps just before the center. Past obscured, present unfolding, future only written at the edge of the present’s page, we will follow his story (In the way some tavern dwellers often do) and find if this is a tale fit for entertainment.
Fit for remembrance.
It begins…or rather…it continues.
It begins…or rather…it continues.
Gnosis
To awake without feeling is a curious sensation. Sight was unhampered, nose sought the cool draft of winter air, sharp in the new morning light, the sound of wind passing over the covered wagon was haunting, as though a chorus of voices singing hauntingly of nothing. But there was no feeling, no sense of warmth or sensation in his arms or body. Looking up, craning his thin neck, the Boy tried to assess where he was, what was going on.
The details.
The memories.
He was swaddled in blankets, a small nub of face in an otherwise wild chaos of fabric and color. Even five blankets had not adequately warded the chill of the Kalea ranges, or perhaps it was simply that his body could not produce enough heat. He had always been a thin boy, worrying his father with his sickly exterior. It wasn’t until around four that he began putting on the hints of weight, a godsend for the small family. Of these early times, the Boy knew little. He knew he had a name, Gyptus, but the last name eluded him…now more than ever with a chorus of ghosts singing nonsense into his ears. Clasping both unfeeling hands to the side of his head, the child willed the voices to stop, the cold to stop, the world to stop where it was and turn back to where he’d been safer, warmer, happier. There were memories of these, a field of waving green grass, the feeling of leaf blades between his feet. He had run then, different from now as the frigid touch of ice had crawled up his bony legs and froze them in place. But when he did run, oh how free he’d felt. The world itself was lifted from the rigid landscape and sent tumbling across his feet like the back of some emerald beast galloping toward the horizon.
It was warmer then
Keeping the blankets close to him, a sort of makeshift shelter against a chill he could scarcely feel, Gyptus crawled from the back of the covered wagon. The wind had begun to die when he looked out, an icy world of crystalline beauty awaiting his wide eyes. Ice had formed off the walls of the canyons, the cliffs, and the plateau tops. In the space of an evening the mountains of the Unforgiving had been spirited away and replaced with ice-made replicas, like diamonds. He was drawn from the vision by a sense of movement, his body tipping forward on unsteady legs such that his entire body pitched out of the back. Hung briefly in nothingness, he imagined he was flying.
The earth firmly brought him to his senses.
Cold, the first sensation to return to his body was the overwhelming sense of cold. His teeth chattered a wild rebellion and his body wouldn’t obey his thought commands. All he seemed capable of was laying there, likely dying. What, then, did death feel like? Was it this cold? Would Dira come to take him away and leave his body to lay pitifully where it fell? Death had always been something told to him with honor, glory. Death was a word laughed at, spoken about haughtily around an oaken table laden with food. His Inartan father, Vord, always sat at the head, his own bearded maw the brightest color in the room, a fiery red ‘blessed by fire’ so he said, ‘Because my family has fire in their blood!”. He’d clapped along to this then, only slightly quieter than his brother and sister, both as bright headed as their dad. Gyptus, the outcast, took after a mother he never saw…never knew. But those days were not days of loss, but gain. Business…trading, yes, the art of trading objects father made for shiny coins. It wasn’t the art of a warrior, but it did his father proud and his siblings along with it. Two, elder creatures of adolescent age, comprised the rest of his small family and they were well talked about as loud and abrasive, but comical and endearing. He, the odd brown haired boy in a tassel of red heads, was only seen as the quiet ward who was quick to smile or run, but otherwise minded his manners and kept his tongue held. “Listener,” His father had called him with a hearty chuckle, slapping the slight boy on the back on summer day “You’re a listener boy, but when you’ve heard enough I doubt you’ll ever stop talkin!”
That day had not come.
The Unforgiving, desolate land of cold opportunity. Vord had decided to venture in early despite the warnings. His path was set for Alvadas, a location he had nearly made before a winter storm had penned him into a canyon. For a week he sat, impassible wind shearing along the canyon like a screeching banshee. For weeks he’d assured his progeny that no storm could last forever, that luck would hold out to the end. The horses fared the worst. Not quite used to such extreme weather, ice gently lulled them into slumber, stealing their breath as they slept and leaving their bodies cold an inert beside the wagon.
Vord, unquenchable spirit, mourned them in his own quiet way, but assured his children there was little to worry about, that they could unload their gear and buy another two horses straightaway once they reached Alvadas.
Gyptus was the first to fall sick.
He felt it now, the harrowing coughs that whooped in his lungs. He feared death, and he heard its barking commands in every shuddering expulsion of blood and wind from his mouth. The snow was hungry, tinted the color of darkness. Gyptus felt his heart beat faster, frightened by the sight of it. His mother was dead, he knew that, otherwise father would not have spoken highly of her. Even at the age of five, Wrenmae was subtly more perceptive than his elder brother and sister. It was an edge that came with his listening, his lack of words. But now it seemed like he would never share a story, not with anyone.
Struggling to his feet, he heard the muted moans his bones made, more content to remain still and freeze than move. They frightened him, it all frightened him. It was in that instant he knew he did not want to die. He did not want to cough to death here on some forsaken mountain, pawn of a larger parent with more brawn than brain. He was helpless, weak, pathetic…and the tiniest ember of hatred stirred his heart against his family…the family that now lay sick themselves, (All but two) wrapped in blankets and awaiting the return of their father. Bright bearded father with fire in his veins. He had left them yesterday, taking what supplies he could in an attempt to reach Alvadas for help. The promise had been for a return before they awoke…if they awoke. But Gyptus could hear the coughing and wheezing from the back of the wagon. His sister was ill, the coughs taking her faster than they took him. She scarcely breathed now, more a wheezing apology for life, a whistling in her throat as though some tiny creature was playing an instrument inside. She was pale and slow breathing, not longer waking, and his elder brother remained her steadfast guardian.
Although he, too, slept.
The wind howled again, carrying with it a deadly promise.
Their father would not return.
They were going to die here, alone and in sickness…all save perhaps his brother, who’s exterior held together in the face of the wind and storm. He was strong, stronger than Gyptus anyways. Of the three, he stood the most chance to live.
“Quite the frigid chill, but that’s the Unforgiving for you.” The voice was so startling, so complex in its rich and haughty tone, so unexpected that Gyptus almost dismissed it, the likely side effects of his declining health. Fantasies and mind games. There was no help coming. No one cared.
“Rude little swine, aren’t you?” the voice continued, an edge of annoyance creeping into the words “Am I to understand you always practice such amiable welcomes?” Trying to rid himself of this illusion was more troublesome than Egyptus had envisioned. He wished it would leave him alone, alone to die. He didn’t want to, would do anything not to, but he was simply not strong enough to survive. To live. To breathe.
It wasn’t the voice, in the end, that caused Gyptus to turn and accept reality. It was the cigar smoke, a rich and tantalizing smell the boy had never scented before. Too sharp and acrid to be an illusion, to new to be a memory. Turning, Gyptus stared up at a richly dressed stranger, garbed in fine furs and a traveling cloak, all a-glitter with the hint of fresh purchase. The man himself was breathtakingly handsome, a bit thin but otherwise striking. He was looking down at Gyptus with a mixture of satisfaction and contempt, the two emotions warring in his peerless visage.
“I-I’m sorry” Wrenmae offered the stranger, bending his thin knees to accommodate a rigid bow. It was custom to show men of station your back, to proffer them with your weakness to their rank. Gyptus, desperate to live, would have gladly kissed his feet. Coughing, blood stained the corners of his mouth and made his vision swim.
The stranger leaned down, mockingly concerned, “Dear me, such a frail specimen I’ve stumbled across…and do I detect the hint of pneumonia?” At once a wave of agony bloomed in the boy’s body, his throat tortured by a thousand little legs tickling his trachea. He coughed, blood steaming the quiet beauty of the ice. “A most advanced condition, poor boy.” Stepping over Gyptus, the stranger peered into the wagon. His elder brother sat quietly, a single blanket over his person but his breathing normal. His sister was pale, dun really, her skin resembling that of a corpse more than anything else. It was only by the slight rise and fall of her chest that she indicated life.
The stranger paused, staring hard at Gyptus’s elder brother before frowning. “Resilient worm, king pup of your litter, I imagine?” He directed the question at the Boy, though he never turned around.
“Y-Yessir” he spluttered, crawling toward him, “P-Please sir I-“
“Spare me your theatrics, your pandering for assistance. Lie still like a good dog and let your illness run its course, there’s no remedy I’m afraid.” More and more the stranger seemed annoyed at the elder brother. He did not cough nor show signs of weakness, slumbering quietly besides his sister. Gyptus, on the other hand, continued hacking limited to the movement of one arm in a slow inexorable crawl toward the stranger. Nonplussed by the boy’s efforts, the stranger simply stepped beyond the reach of his pale fingers, giving the child a sidelong glance, “I applaud your tenacity but little else,” pausing briefly he took another puff of his cigar, relishing in the smoke wafting around him before turning his attention back on the brother, “Why won’t you succomb?” There was tension there, the slight edge of dislike and perhaps…hatred?
“I…want…to live…” Gyptus gasped, snatching for the hem of the stranger’s traveling cloak, only succeeding in falling prey to another bout of wrenching, blood coloring his teeth the color of death.
“Yes, you all do…don’t you?” the stranger responded absently, “All your breed endeavor to do is survive, merry that you aren’t all as resilient as this creature-“ he gestured sharply into the wagon “Else your number grow and my art be tarnished.” He seemed to have had his fill, annoyed and fuming, the stranger stepped over Gyptus and strolled toward the mouth of the canyon, his eyes dark and mouth downcast. “W-wait, please, I-I’ll do anything. I w-want to l-live.”
It was with a sigh, an afterthought found lodging in his brain, that brought the stranger back. He stood over the tortured child, watching his struggle in much the same way a boy may watch the perils of a dying mouse. It was all glittering fascination there, something alien and unknowable in that handsome face, those piercing eyes. “Anything? To what lengths does your word travel, boy?” The sickness seemed to abate in him some, but the cold pressed in as hauntingly familiar as ever.
“I will do anything to live.” It was not a question, a suggestion, or a supplication. In that instant he really would do anything. His heart beat inside him, the sky, the ground, this man, the world around him…he could see and fathom it all. When he died? Nothing. Perhaps not even a ghost would remain. No, life was everything at the moment. He would do anything to preserve it.
The stranger smiled, a cocky grin of ideas and devious thought “As it so happens, child, I may be in the market for an agent of your…desperation. Tell me, and do be truthful, I abhor those who waste my time, what do you think of your condition? That of your sister?”
Gyptus was quiet a moment, finding it easier to breath now that he had the attention of the odd stranger upon him. There was something decidedly off about the man, but Gyptus was too desperate to consider consequences…not yet anyways. “She…err..We are weak.” It was an admission he had always known. But it was true. “I’m not as strong as my father or brother, I w-w-want to be but I j-just can’t-t.” He pounded his fist against the earth, punctuating his end words with rage. How dare they be stronger, how dare they survive. Was he not as important? Was he not as precious?
“Precisely dear boy, precisely.” The stranger stood and smiled, a bright and altogether uncomforting expression despite his handsome face. “Mizahar as a whole is suffused with weakness, delightful really, but not nearly enough to keep me jovial. Tell me, would you say…be willing to appropriate the health of your brother and sister to preserve your own life?”
“I…” the decision had been made, but the thought brought the child a mixture of fearful reprisals. He had known his family all his life, they had raised him and treated him as their own. Even though he did not fit with them, he was one of them.
But he also wanted to live, and that burning need to continue breathing began overtaking his sense of loyalty. A child’s greed knew no bounds, and certainly he did not think of the consequences of his approval. There was only the intangible darkness of ‘death’ a poorly understood cavern where all souls go quietly to meet their ends. It sounded much more frightening when he thought about it, especially to die here, alone.
“Yes.” He answered, biting the word from his mouth and looking up at the stranger with wide eyes.
“Of course,” Vayt grinned, “What self preserving youth would turn down such a generous offer?” He sucked in a cloud of acrid smoke and released it down onto Gyptus, bathing him in it, drowning him in it. “You will be one of mine then, spreading misfortune and plague to the deserving wherever you go…Ah but I doubt a child would have a clear mind for consequences and deals,” He shook his head, scowling, “The young are foolish.”
Reaching down, he grasped the boy roughly by his arm and yanked him up. With his touch came the sudden sense of airy floating, something incredible happening in the space of many moments. When he relinquished Gyptus, the boy was stronger now than he had been ever before. His sickness was gone, the ache from his limbs receded, and the cold curled against him with less vigor than before.
“Now,” Vayt said with an upturned eyebrow, “Fulfill your end of the bargain, sacrifice them for yourself, a choice worthy of my service.” With hesitant fingers, Gyptus touched the forehead of his sister, knowing almost instinctively how to impart the dark curse. He kissed her gently on the forehead, the edges of the imprints his lips had left flaring lightly before vanishing. She moved in her sleep, a beauty of long red hair and gentle features. Now that the deed was done, all the memories of her kindness…the little and the large things roared back into his mind. Next his brother, a larger man of no small ambition with a ready laugh and smile. They had been the only family he knew, the only pretense of home. With a kiss he sealed his fate, the tumbling beginning of a cough shuddering his body. Horrified, mortified, his entire body trembling with the weight of his decision, his actions, his unforgivable murder, Gyptus slipped out of the wagon and stared, wide-eyed at Vayt.
The god frowned, still not satisfied with the sniveling weakling, but with some practice the child may make a delightful bit of plague. “Are you crying?”
Gyptus shook his head.
“Marvelous. Now three miles past the portal to this canyon is a faint deer trail, follow it. You should arrive at the gates of Alvadas at dawn.” Gyptus nodded quietly, his eyes still wide, unseeing. He was back in the grass with his family. They were running along the galloping beast, they felt the grass beneath their feet. There was only peace.
“Before I go,” he seemed to be pondering something, as though preoccupied, “You should know me better, I think.” Taking another drag from his cigar, an item that had not diminished in the slightest since he began smoking it, “Vayt, God of Pestilence, Disease, Poison, and Drought.” the words were proud and he smiled in his curious way, the kind of bright eyed charisma sending spiders along Gyptus’s nerves “Now, care to introduce yourself? I’ve a plague to continue not far from here and all this insipid blathering has grown dull.”
“G-…” he paused. No…that name was not his anymore. That child should have died, died with his family. “Wrenmae,” he introduced, liking the way the word flowed off his tongue and honestly looking for any syllables to distance himself from what he used to be, “Wrenmae Sek.”
He was not met with approval, only the irritation of one who has spoken to a being far beneath his presence. Vayt was gone in an instant, leaving nothing but the snowy range and Unforgiving peaks behind.
Wrenmae stood there a moment, staring back at the wagon where his sister was dying and his brother would soon follow. His father had never returned and with that, the last of his worries…and his past life were gone. Already he could feel it slipping away, grief overwhelming his sensibilities in a tidal wave of mourning. He was not crying, had not been. The tears were frozen in his eyes, trapped behind a wall of betrayal and guilt.
He was leaving them to die. He, their brother.
His sister coughed, a long choking sound of too much fluid.
Biting down into his skin, keeping the sobs from alerting his brother, waking him, Wrenmae…Gyptus no longer, set out just as his god had instructed him.
Alone.
Condemned and alone.
The details.
The memories.
He was swaddled in blankets, a small nub of face in an otherwise wild chaos of fabric and color. Even five blankets had not adequately warded the chill of the Kalea ranges, or perhaps it was simply that his body could not produce enough heat. He had always been a thin boy, worrying his father with his sickly exterior. It wasn’t until around four that he began putting on the hints of weight, a godsend for the small family. Of these early times, the Boy knew little. He knew he had a name, Gyptus, but the last name eluded him…now more than ever with a chorus of ghosts singing nonsense into his ears. Clasping both unfeeling hands to the side of his head, the child willed the voices to stop, the cold to stop, the world to stop where it was and turn back to where he’d been safer, warmer, happier. There were memories of these, a field of waving green grass, the feeling of leaf blades between his feet. He had run then, different from now as the frigid touch of ice had crawled up his bony legs and froze them in place. But when he did run, oh how free he’d felt. The world itself was lifted from the rigid landscape and sent tumbling across his feet like the back of some emerald beast galloping toward the horizon.
It was warmer then
Keeping the blankets close to him, a sort of makeshift shelter against a chill he could scarcely feel, Gyptus crawled from the back of the covered wagon. The wind had begun to die when he looked out, an icy world of crystalline beauty awaiting his wide eyes. Ice had formed off the walls of the canyons, the cliffs, and the plateau tops. In the space of an evening the mountains of the Unforgiving had been spirited away and replaced with ice-made replicas, like diamonds. He was drawn from the vision by a sense of movement, his body tipping forward on unsteady legs such that his entire body pitched out of the back. Hung briefly in nothingness, he imagined he was flying.
The earth firmly brought him to his senses.
Cold, the first sensation to return to his body was the overwhelming sense of cold. His teeth chattered a wild rebellion and his body wouldn’t obey his thought commands. All he seemed capable of was laying there, likely dying. What, then, did death feel like? Was it this cold? Would Dira come to take him away and leave his body to lay pitifully where it fell? Death had always been something told to him with honor, glory. Death was a word laughed at, spoken about haughtily around an oaken table laden with food. His Inartan father, Vord, always sat at the head, his own bearded maw the brightest color in the room, a fiery red ‘blessed by fire’ so he said, ‘Because my family has fire in their blood!”. He’d clapped along to this then, only slightly quieter than his brother and sister, both as bright headed as their dad. Gyptus, the outcast, took after a mother he never saw…never knew. But those days were not days of loss, but gain. Business…trading, yes, the art of trading objects father made for shiny coins. It wasn’t the art of a warrior, but it did his father proud and his siblings along with it. Two, elder creatures of adolescent age, comprised the rest of his small family and they were well talked about as loud and abrasive, but comical and endearing. He, the odd brown haired boy in a tassel of red heads, was only seen as the quiet ward who was quick to smile or run, but otherwise minded his manners and kept his tongue held. “Listener,” His father had called him with a hearty chuckle, slapping the slight boy on the back on summer day “You’re a listener boy, but when you’ve heard enough I doubt you’ll ever stop talkin!”
That day had not come.
The Unforgiving, desolate land of cold opportunity. Vord had decided to venture in early despite the warnings. His path was set for Alvadas, a location he had nearly made before a winter storm had penned him into a canyon. For a week he sat, impassible wind shearing along the canyon like a screeching banshee. For weeks he’d assured his progeny that no storm could last forever, that luck would hold out to the end. The horses fared the worst. Not quite used to such extreme weather, ice gently lulled them into slumber, stealing their breath as they slept and leaving their bodies cold an inert beside the wagon.
Vord, unquenchable spirit, mourned them in his own quiet way, but assured his children there was little to worry about, that they could unload their gear and buy another two horses straightaway once they reached Alvadas.
Gyptus was the first to fall sick.
He felt it now, the harrowing coughs that whooped in his lungs. He feared death, and he heard its barking commands in every shuddering expulsion of blood and wind from his mouth. The snow was hungry, tinted the color of darkness. Gyptus felt his heart beat faster, frightened by the sight of it. His mother was dead, he knew that, otherwise father would not have spoken highly of her. Even at the age of five, Wrenmae was subtly more perceptive than his elder brother and sister. It was an edge that came with his listening, his lack of words. But now it seemed like he would never share a story, not with anyone.
Struggling to his feet, he heard the muted moans his bones made, more content to remain still and freeze than move. They frightened him, it all frightened him. It was in that instant he knew he did not want to die. He did not want to cough to death here on some forsaken mountain, pawn of a larger parent with more brawn than brain. He was helpless, weak, pathetic…and the tiniest ember of hatred stirred his heart against his family…the family that now lay sick themselves, (All but two) wrapped in blankets and awaiting the return of their father. Bright bearded father with fire in his veins. He had left them yesterday, taking what supplies he could in an attempt to reach Alvadas for help. The promise had been for a return before they awoke…if they awoke. But Gyptus could hear the coughing and wheezing from the back of the wagon. His sister was ill, the coughs taking her faster than they took him. She scarcely breathed now, more a wheezing apology for life, a whistling in her throat as though some tiny creature was playing an instrument inside. She was pale and slow breathing, not longer waking, and his elder brother remained her steadfast guardian.
Although he, too, slept.
The wind howled again, carrying with it a deadly promise.
Their father would not return.
They were going to die here, alone and in sickness…all save perhaps his brother, who’s exterior held together in the face of the wind and storm. He was strong, stronger than Gyptus anyways. Of the three, he stood the most chance to live.
“Quite the frigid chill, but that’s the Unforgiving for you.” The voice was so startling, so complex in its rich and haughty tone, so unexpected that Gyptus almost dismissed it, the likely side effects of his declining health. Fantasies and mind games. There was no help coming. No one cared.
“Rude little swine, aren’t you?” the voice continued, an edge of annoyance creeping into the words “Am I to understand you always practice such amiable welcomes?” Trying to rid himself of this illusion was more troublesome than Egyptus had envisioned. He wished it would leave him alone, alone to die. He didn’t want to, would do anything not to, but he was simply not strong enough to survive. To live. To breathe.
It wasn’t the voice, in the end, that caused Gyptus to turn and accept reality. It was the cigar smoke, a rich and tantalizing smell the boy had never scented before. Too sharp and acrid to be an illusion, to new to be a memory. Turning, Gyptus stared up at a richly dressed stranger, garbed in fine furs and a traveling cloak, all a-glitter with the hint of fresh purchase. The man himself was breathtakingly handsome, a bit thin but otherwise striking. He was looking down at Gyptus with a mixture of satisfaction and contempt, the two emotions warring in his peerless visage.
“I-I’m sorry” Wrenmae offered the stranger, bending his thin knees to accommodate a rigid bow. It was custom to show men of station your back, to proffer them with your weakness to their rank. Gyptus, desperate to live, would have gladly kissed his feet. Coughing, blood stained the corners of his mouth and made his vision swim.
The stranger leaned down, mockingly concerned, “Dear me, such a frail specimen I’ve stumbled across…and do I detect the hint of pneumonia?” At once a wave of agony bloomed in the boy’s body, his throat tortured by a thousand little legs tickling his trachea. He coughed, blood steaming the quiet beauty of the ice. “A most advanced condition, poor boy.” Stepping over Gyptus, the stranger peered into the wagon. His elder brother sat quietly, a single blanket over his person but his breathing normal. His sister was pale, dun really, her skin resembling that of a corpse more than anything else. It was only by the slight rise and fall of her chest that she indicated life.
The stranger paused, staring hard at Gyptus’s elder brother before frowning. “Resilient worm, king pup of your litter, I imagine?” He directed the question at the Boy, though he never turned around.
“Y-Yessir” he spluttered, crawling toward him, “P-Please sir I-“
“Spare me your theatrics, your pandering for assistance. Lie still like a good dog and let your illness run its course, there’s no remedy I’m afraid.” More and more the stranger seemed annoyed at the elder brother. He did not cough nor show signs of weakness, slumbering quietly besides his sister. Gyptus, on the other hand, continued hacking limited to the movement of one arm in a slow inexorable crawl toward the stranger. Nonplussed by the boy’s efforts, the stranger simply stepped beyond the reach of his pale fingers, giving the child a sidelong glance, “I applaud your tenacity but little else,” pausing briefly he took another puff of his cigar, relishing in the smoke wafting around him before turning his attention back on the brother, “Why won’t you succomb?” There was tension there, the slight edge of dislike and perhaps…hatred?
“I…want…to live…” Gyptus gasped, snatching for the hem of the stranger’s traveling cloak, only succeeding in falling prey to another bout of wrenching, blood coloring his teeth the color of death.
“Yes, you all do…don’t you?” the stranger responded absently, “All your breed endeavor to do is survive, merry that you aren’t all as resilient as this creature-“ he gestured sharply into the wagon “Else your number grow and my art be tarnished.” He seemed to have had his fill, annoyed and fuming, the stranger stepped over Gyptus and strolled toward the mouth of the canyon, his eyes dark and mouth downcast. “W-wait, please, I-I’ll do anything. I w-want to l-live.”
It was with a sigh, an afterthought found lodging in his brain, that brought the stranger back. He stood over the tortured child, watching his struggle in much the same way a boy may watch the perils of a dying mouse. It was all glittering fascination there, something alien and unknowable in that handsome face, those piercing eyes. “Anything? To what lengths does your word travel, boy?” The sickness seemed to abate in him some, but the cold pressed in as hauntingly familiar as ever.
“I will do anything to live.” It was not a question, a suggestion, or a supplication. In that instant he really would do anything. His heart beat inside him, the sky, the ground, this man, the world around him…he could see and fathom it all. When he died? Nothing. Perhaps not even a ghost would remain. No, life was everything at the moment. He would do anything to preserve it.
The stranger smiled, a cocky grin of ideas and devious thought “As it so happens, child, I may be in the market for an agent of your…desperation. Tell me, and do be truthful, I abhor those who waste my time, what do you think of your condition? That of your sister?”
Gyptus was quiet a moment, finding it easier to breath now that he had the attention of the odd stranger upon him. There was something decidedly off about the man, but Gyptus was too desperate to consider consequences…not yet anyways. “She…err..We are weak.” It was an admission he had always known. But it was true. “I’m not as strong as my father or brother, I w-w-want to be but I j-just can’t-t.” He pounded his fist against the earth, punctuating his end words with rage. How dare they be stronger, how dare they survive. Was he not as important? Was he not as precious?
“Precisely dear boy, precisely.” The stranger stood and smiled, a bright and altogether uncomforting expression despite his handsome face. “Mizahar as a whole is suffused with weakness, delightful really, but not nearly enough to keep me jovial. Tell me, would you say…be willing to appropriate the health of your brother and sister to preserve your own life?”
“I…” the decision had been made, but the thought brought the child a mixture of fearful reprisals. He had known his family all his life, they had raised him and treated him as their own. Even though he did not fit with them, he was one of them.
But he also wanted to live, and that burning need to continue breathing began overtaking his sense of loyalty. A child’s greed knew no bounds, and certainly he did not think of the consequences of his approval. There was only the intangible darkness of ‘death’ a poorly understood cavern where all souls go quietly to meet their ends. It sounded much more frightening when he thought about it, especially to die here, alone.
“Yes.” He answered, biting the word from his mouth and looking up at the stranger with wide eyes.
“Of course,” Vayt grinned, “What self preserving youth would turn down such a generous offer?” He sucked in a cloud of acrid smoke and released it down onto Gyptus, bathing him in it, drowning him in it. “You will be one of mine then, spreading misfortune and plague to the deserving wherever you go…Ah but I doubt a child would have a clear mind for consequences and deals,” He shook his head, scowling, “The young are foolish.”
Reaching down, he grasped the boy roughly by his arm and yanked him up. With his touch came the sudden sense of airy floating, something incredible happening in the space of many moments. When he relinquished Gyptus, the boy was stronger now than he had been ever before. His sickness was gone, the ache from his limbs receded, and the cold curled against him with less vigor than before.
“Now,” Vayt said with an upturned eyebrow, “Fulfill your end of the bargain, sacrifice them for yourself, a choice worthy of my service.” With hesitant fingers, Gyptus touched the forehead of his sister, knowing almost instinctively how to impart the dark curse. He kissed her gently on the forehead, the edges of the imprints his lips had left flaring lightly before vanishing. She moved in her sleep, a beauty of long red hair and gentle features. Now that the deed was done, all the memories of her kindness…the little and the large things roared back into his mind. Next his brother, a larger man of no small ambition with a ready laugh and smile. They had been the only family he knew, the only pretense of home. With a kiss he sealed his fate, the tumbling beginning of a cough shuddering his body. Horrified, mortified, his entire body trembling with the weight of his decision, his actions, his unforgivable murder, Gyptus slipped out of the wagon and stared, wide-eyed at Vayt.
The god frowned, still not satisfied with the sniveling weakling, but with some practice the child may make a delightful bit of plague. “Are you crying?”
Gyptus shook his head.
“Marvelous. Now three miles past the portal to this canyon is a faint deer trail, follow it. You should arrive at the gates of Alvadas at dawn.” Gyptus nodded quietly, his eyes still wide, unseeing. He was back in the grass with his family. They were running along the galloping beast, they felt the grass beneath their feet. There was only peace.
“Before I go,” he seemed to be pondering something, as though preoccupied, “You should know me better, I think.” Taking another drag from his cigar, an item that had not diminished in the slightest since he began smoking it, “Vayt, God of Pestilence, Disease, Poison, and Drought.” the words were proud and he smiled in his curious way, the kind of bright eyed charisma sending spiders along Gyptus’s nerves “Now, care to introduce yourself? I’ve a plague to continue not far from here and all this insipid blathering has grown dull.”
“G-…” he paused. No…that name was not his anymore. That child should have died, died with his family. “Wrenmae,” he introduced, liking the way the word flowed off his tongue and honestly looking for any syllables to distance himself from what he used to be, “Wrenmae Sek.”
He was not met with approval, only the irritation of one who has spoken to a being far beneath his presence. Vayt was gone in an instant, leaving nothing but the snowy range and Unforgiving peaks behind.
Wrenmae stood there a moment, staring back at the wagon where his sister was dying and his brother would soon follow. His father had never returned and with that, the last of his worries…and his past life were gone. Already he could feel it slipping away, grief overwhelming his sensibilities in a tidal wave of mourning. He was not crying, had not been. The tears were frozen in his eyes, trapped behind a wall of betrayal and guilt.
He was leaving them to die. He, their brother.
His sister coughed, a long choking sound of too much fluid.
Biting down into his skin, keeping the sobs from alerting his brother, waking him, Wrenmae…Gyptus no longer, set out just as his god had instructed him.
Alone.
Condemned and alone.
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In the present
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FIRST
With his sister traveling beside him, Wrenmae has left Syliras for Sunberth. Here he intends to create a gang and an organization called the Scars or Dalat Radjud (To Fix that which is Broken). He has new purpose, strength of will, and intends to earn the wish that the Keeper of the Vault in Sahova promised him should he effect change on Mizahar.
SECOND
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THIRD
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
FORTH
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
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