--- HIVREN, THE YEAR 796 ---
“There was once a hero so grand that not even death could keep her. A hero so brilliant that kings fell beneath her. A hero so noble and just that even the between itself split apart at her command. A hero who could see magic, who could do almost anything.”
Alrasi watched Hivren with wide eyes just like the other kids as the man told the story of Foralen. The twins sat at the back, looking bored and annoyed.
As all things were, this tale was being warped by society, her feats inflated, her legend only growing greater now that she wasn’t around to claim it. It was much harder to keep the facts straight in things like this.
But everyone expected her to be back. In just a decade or two they always said, in just a few years like last time and the time before. She would appear out of nowhere and change the world again.
Hivren was one of those people, the ones who spread such conviction. After all, he’d been close to Fora. No matter what Aymiae said, it was just a matter of time before the little test of his sanity returned.
But the longer it took, the more Hivren was sure that it wouldn’t be in his lifetime. Even though he was still in his middle age, even if it was at the tail end of that—sparks nearly forty-seven already—it had been years now since she’d died.
Hivren finished the story, smiling at the kids as they started fighting with each other and declaring themselves to be able to see magic. Fora was still affecting people, even if she was somewhere else now.
Tibetch snuck her way over, sitting down beside him and watching the small ones slowly become more and more rowdy. Now that he thought about it, his kids hardly ever came to this class with him. He glanced at the teacher, who just seemed happy the children’s fighting was lighthearted this time.
“Yes?” He asked after a moment, clearly Tibetch wanted to talk with him about something. Maybe she was going to choose a mentor finally. He knew she’d been trying to get Steris to accept her, but from what Hivren knew, the queen had far too much on her plate for an apprentice.
“It happened again.”
Hivren paused, looking his daughter in the eye. His mind stumbled for a moment before finally recalling what she had to be talking about. “A vision?” he perked up, last time she’d seen a glimpse into the past, a memory of her mother. “What was it this time?” With the look she was giving him, serious with a dash of worry, it had to be more important.
Tibetch swallowed, and Hivren realized her hands were shaking. “I… don’t think I can describe it. I’m not even sure where it came from, but I’m sure it happened in the present this time. It was… it was only an hour ago.”
Hivren nodded and held out a hand, Tibetch obliged, taking it and sharing the memory with her other affinity.
Hivren found himself watching an alien landscape, a beast rampaging, attacking something. The monster itself was like nothing he had ever seen. In a way it was almost a dragon, but in another way it was almost a worm. It had no wings but it attacked with such ferocity, such anger.
Finally it pinned whatever it was attacking. Something that had flitted about in the air. The view itself seemed to be from the perspective of a city, hivren could see buildings from the corners of his eyes and a wall, but it was fixed in point on the rampage.
After a long moment of stillness, the beast turned toward the city, rushing forward as an arc of golden light sped past it.
Fora.
The dome of force she cast across the city was so large, so advanced, and so strong that it stopped the monster in its tracks. Hivren was left blinking as the sight of the golden shield faded from his view.
He stood up, heart beating quickly as if he’d actually been there. It was no wonder why Tibetch had seemed so shaken. After a moment he sat down again. His nerves settled back down. “Fora?” He said quietly, “That was Fora.”
Tibetch nodded. “Definitely. I was thinking we might be able to use this to find out where she ended up?”
Hivren shuddered slightly, and then nodded. “Write down a description of the scenery. The monster too. I’ll get them to Aymi.”
The young woman who always seemed so much older than Hivren imagined her nodded quickly, “And after that? What do we do if we find out where she is?”
“We get there somehow. Even if it means stealing a gate key.”
Tibetch frowned slightly, but it didn’t seem like she’d expected anything else. She glanced up as her brother approached.
Orfen always spoke with an easy authority, much like Hivren himself in a lot of ways. His eyes were slightly haunted at the moment. It was clear that Tibetch had shared the memory with him first. “So? What do you think that monster was?” Orfen was always the cautious type. Where Tibetch was a firebrand, Orfen was a calm storm.
Hivren put a hand to his forehead, “It looked like a dragon, or a pi’che. But unlike those, it didn’t have wings. It looked like it could destroy a city in minutes even without them. Not even a dragon is that big either.”
Orfen lifted his chin, “We’ve exterminated all the monsters on that level on our own world. Only the dragons still have sheer power at that lever but we can reason with them. Even if we go there, how can you be sure that the place isn’t crawling with those things? It’s not enough to just figure out how, if you want to go after Fora we’ll help you but we aren’t letting you die in the process.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Hivren sighed, “I’ll talk to my sister. Tib, are you alright with sharing that memory with her?”
Tibetch nodded, her gaze even. She was getting so much older… Why did the two of them have to grow up? Couldn’t they just stay as they’d been, innocent children who looked up to him? “I’d also like to share it with Aymi.”
Oh.
“This again, Tib? I don’t think the goddess of Justice would concern herself with our problems. Last time, Aymi said that it’s not something we should concern ourselves with. It’ll take time.”
Her eyes returned to their natural fire. “But we need Taasen! He would be perfectly willing to help, even if it isn’t on Kalteii’s orders! This is his friend we’re talking about!”
The one with all the missing memories thanks to that enormous memory spell of unknown origins. They hadn’t even realized what was going on with the Ayfel’s combat instructor until a few months ago. Hivren massaged his temples, not willing to explain that Taasen made him uncomfortable, because that wasn’t even the actual reason. “Erane is doing perfectly fine. She’s a great teacher.”
“But she barely remembers anything! Besides, Aymi didn’t say we shouldn’t concern ourselves with it, just that Kalteii wouldn’t fix it for us.”
Hivren watched his daughter as she steadily became more heated about this topic. Finally sighing. “Alright, alright, you can ask Aymi to send the message along that we have one of Taasen’s old friends here. Odds are that will get him here.” Hivren shuddered internally, still remembering when Taasen had called him a deceiver. It had been terrifying, especially when later he heard of what Taasen normally did with deceivers.
He hadn’t even lied that much…
Tibetch on the other hand grinned triumphantly, Orfen patted her on the head in congratulations, which only resulted in the two of them lightly elbowing each other for five minutes while Hivren ushered the two children—they had to still be children with such actions—from the room before the smaller children got any ideas.
--- RUNESIGHT ---
I’ve always found tales from Arendi and Arithren to be beautiful in some cases, poetic in others. In more cases than not, however, many are horrifying. Their style of stopping a story before it’s ‘finished’ in the traditional sense has always brought much thought into the words I’ve seen.
While this particular tale takes place long long after my initial arrival on Arithren, I think it highlights an important point. On Arithren, they expect things to be horrible. They expect their stories to end before the true heroes rise up and take action. They expect a lot of things.
In essence, the interesting stories are about breaking those expectations more than anything else. And so it happened, once in a time I can hardly even know, for I’ve had to hear this tale through the lips of one who wasn’t even there.
There was or will be or never has been a bloodbinder, a monster above all other monsters he was. In the years following his death the people still whispered of him to their children, for he had colored their lives with deep and bloody memories and scars. Not even time can erase him forever, I believe that even now they still speak of him in the darkness in places beyond even the sea of tears, remembering his horrible actions and terrible rule.
They called him Aeinar, death itself, as if he was the void given physical form. He was the bite of pain as a loved one passed into the beyond. He was the defilement of corpses and murder of children too young to know their own names.
The man that was death started his rule of Arithren with a single blade. Before he was sorrow incarnate he was but a simple monster like any other, corrupt, powerful, and impossible to dethrone. Hero after hero went to kill him. Hundreds of aspiring saviors met him in combat, armies and knights spread across his lands seeking his death. His legend grew as his tyranny continued.
And each of them fell.
Years later, a single hero made his way to the monster’s domain, long after the rest of the world had stopped trying. The monster still took as he wished, taxing the lands and destroying their homes, dreams, and lives.
This young hero met his blade with the monster’s own, his dreams and comrades falling before the tyrant’s might. The battle was vicious, it lasted for hours as they traded blows, danced around each other, and fought with a ferociousness that almost matched the horrors capable of a harnessed gift. The monster of a man swung his blade one last time, close enough that the young hero noticed that there was something wrong with it. The blade itself was unfinished.
It struck him in the chest, and even as the hero bled out, the blade seemed to drink it in. a weapon so powerful, forged with the blood of hundreds of heroes. The young man didn’t rise again. The whole world seemed to skip a beat of its orchestra in mourning for this vibrant soul.
The monster stood above the corpse, admiring the red glow of his blade as it was completed at last. The blade sharpened to a true point, the iron perfecting itself. Clean of blood but never free of it. The hundreds of heroes it had slain were designed to only be the beginning.
But a blade forged in blood can never run thirsty. The true bite of death was the sword itself. The true piece of the void given life. And it was hungry.
Aeinar, the blade, was found embedded in its master's own back months later. The hero who had retrieved it fell to it as well, having found it poetic to wield the blade of a monster. And so continued the cycle of blood, the blade itself always killed the master eventually until Atharian himself saw fit to remove the blade from the world.
They say he still has it, and he still waits for someone capable of controlling such a monstrous thing.
-
In the end, this story doesn’t end. The story is about the blade itself, and it still waits.
But at the same time this story is over. The possibility of Atharian returning that blade to mortal hands is much less than there ever being someone who can use the Gift of Everything properly.
And so it is different, deviant from other stories. Not just because it actually happened but because of how it happened. This, I believe, is why the people who still remember it hold it so tightly.
Every people I’ve ever met, whether human or bound to a god, has stories like this that stand out and touch their hearts. Stories that can change the world again and again simply by existing. In this case it is the Sacrifice that touches them. I believe that the right sacrifice can touch anyone’s hearts, but especially on Arithren where that’s what they as a people are.
Their stories are filled with martyrs, their myths are filled with selfless heroes who fight against impossible odds and win.