Character History
” Your promises They look like lies Your honesty’s Like a back that hides a knife I promise you I promise you I am finally free”
The one who would come to be, She Who Rends the Night, Astoiredea, Render for short, was born only a decade ago in the lands of Cyphrus. Her life was unspectacular the colony of which she lived within was ‘civilized’ as in they did not eat every captured being they brought to the compound. Many were brought to work. They were strange to others, those further from the cities, they took care of those that were their prey, allowed them to live and reproduce, if only to make more slaves to be used. Allowed them to speak to their young ones.
Astoiredea held fascination in hearing the slaves speak, and eventrually from them she learned their common tongue and could then understand their words and with them, their stories.only one slave would talk to the young one,speak to her an older man who spoke kindly with no muttering or harsh tones of people so many different kinds of people, and how they were different yet the same.
When the child made mention of this to her family, their curiosity was sated with a comparison buffet. Sadly no, the flavors of a Myrian and Benshira are only subtly different, hardly at all by most standards but an Isur or Akalak, delectable.
Time passed and the stories continued until sadly the old man passed leaving his rapt audience with no where to turn and a strange sensation of unfulfillment. Yet that changed with her first hunt.
A right of passage for most, children allowed to finally hunt with their fathers and brothers, to hunt their first hunt, kill their first kill was the passage from child to adult. This hunt was special, it was close to the colony, and so ensured even greater numbers for the night. The night was well, the colony in all their strength decended upon a single camp, and from the camp as if waiting for her, she found her prey. A male that looked her age and unarmed. The flight home had been glorious, praise was given, for her keen eye, her prey was special, would be a good worker, or even better meal. But already the child had plans for the boy she carried through the air. He would fill that place the old slave had left like a gaping wound, she would have him, and the others like him. They would be thankful and heap upon her the stories she longed for.
Ah but the dreams of a child rarely stand to the light of the flames at night. The two like the boy she brought were upset by some matter of another, they fought, too fiercely to be kept, too dangerous within the stone walls, so they had to be killed. It was sad truly, her lovely plans and thoughts crumbling before her eyes with the swing of a club and splashs of crimson.
Quickly she scrawled her sign upon her prey, the need, the urge to join, to fall into the blood lust, the feeding was moving, and violence was promised, but he, was hers and voice and sign proclaimed.
Truly it was a foolish move. But one she made all the same. For the first weeks, she was scolded, but allowed to be, if she had not the strength to protect what she claimed she had not business to claim what she did. Yet for the first few weeks how she envisioned things were well according to plan, the boy, a Kelvic at that rushed to her side, spoke as she asked when not saddened, and even named her. He became a companion most constant, her Kadarus. Yet still one could not keep what they could not hold. If she had not the strength to enforce her will, he would be taken, slaughtered, to rid of the weakness. So she grew stronger, more cunning, and all the while closer to one who would be her pet, her servant, her mate. Despite the attention and jealousy of a number of lovers.
Yet time passed and despite all things, the boy now a man grew apart from his Render. Rejected her, refused her. The confusion, was lasting, and beyond very well what the Zith could handle to think to comprehend. The slave lover was treated like any other Zith by the female, rage turned to passion, passion to rage, to passion again. She knew her male and his body well a life time of knowledge of him at her disposal. While his rage would mimic her passion, almost as swift it returned. The rejections were different than a denial easily swayed with passion, they sliced more deeply than any claw and the skies between the pair opened.
In her anger and unsettling confusion she lashed out against the male time and time. Yet never did she allow one to harm what was hers.
It was a day Astoiredea would not forget, the day the bright sun was blocked from the sky for hours past lightening. She returned to find Kadarus gone, and those who went hunting, returning empty handed. The Zith took out her rage upon the guard that was to be watching the caves in their absence before stalking away. She inspected the quarters where her mate had resided. Prefering the squalor of the pens to her bed, just the memory sealed the Kelvic fate, were it not for a glint of metal. It was twisted and beaten so it was smooth to touch and connected. It was a strange thing to have.
“What is this?” The rage was not mistaken in the voice that spoke to her. Neverous hands looked up from the ground to which she had quickly looked to at the appearance of the Render. Her slave was the one who got away. Who ran away to freedom. It was a hopeful despairing thing. That there was a way out of the tunnels, ad that it would soon be sealed and all they who remained would most likely suffer for it.
Yet the girl blinked looking at what the Zith held. “It is, a ring.”
“What is ‘a ring’?” The voice had softened, the rage lessening for the sound of curiosity and honestly the slave was curious herself, she wrung her hands looking at them before softly speaking again.
“It is something humans exchange with their mates. A sign of belonging to someone for always.”
For three days Astoiredea searched for her mate waiting for the night to fall and flying out as far as she dared before turning back to race the sunrise to the safety of the cavern. Upon the third day did Render not beat the sun home before it lit the sky. The light was so bright it blinded eyes made for night. She made it to the lip of the cavern to enter when another struck out.
Astroiredea struck out blindly at the figure that attacked her and managed to hold her own well enough for her vision to clear long enough to recognize her attacker, the guard from days before before the male slipped past her guard by the luck of a slipped footing and glaring sun. The pain, of claws within her flesh pulling tearing was excruciating she howled yet they did not stop there was the feeling the wrong feeling before the jerk, the tearing, the sound of her flesh and muscles pulled until they broke, ripping and the gushing splash of blood upon stone, the scent filling the air, but beyond that, beyond all that, there was the pain.
Down the cliff face Astroiredea fell, her blood a wound upon the rock face. Bones were broken, shattered, yet for a few hours while the sun was high, she was blissfully unaware. |