More Writing
Two more exerpts from the little shorts I did in my last post. And of course the muse takes a vacation right in the middle of another project. DX
The Human Uprising
- as told by High Songmaster Torin Rishael, former High King of the Human Empire
The elves believe we are nothing more than animals that speak. Humans serve no greater purpose in their eyes than to mindlessly toil the earth to their needs. But this animal has risen beyond elven control, and for that, they fear us.
The elves have given a very human response to that fear. They seek to kill us.
I fought in the wars during the rise of the Human age, a mere soldier at the beginning of my life. But I was bred for war, through a parentage that was a mystery to me for many years. And I knew that mere force of arms wasn’t going to win us this war.
For a long time I prayed - yes, I prayed - for an answer that would give us an edge. Elves and humans were equally matched in number and arms, but they still had magic that would burn through our troops as if we were parchment.
My prayers were answered by an unlikely spirit - the late Queen of the Elves herself, who once forced humans into the realms of Anthera. She now took me as her chosen, directing me to the wild spirits of magic to claim their power and the means by which we would win this war.
I often wondered why an elf - even a dead one - would choose a human. She could very well have chosen one of her own kind and put a quick end to our threat. She has never given me a straight answer either, only alluding to another lifetime when we both had been together in the flesh. I don’t quite believe her story, but she does not seem to mind.
For now, her desires and my own are the same, and that’s all that matters. And with her aid and the wild magic at my command, my armies destroyed all resistance.
There were few I would keep close, those who could organize the humans remaining and begin a lasting empire, permanent cities! - a luxury given that most settlements didn’t become larger than small villages before elves became nervous and stomped on it. I learned too, after living well beyond many of my advisors that something else had happened to me, though whether by Lillith’s presence or the new magic in my blood, I am unsure. What I was sure of was that I had stopped aging. Oh, I could still be injured and probably die to an illness or a wound. But I never grew older than the time my mistress sent me to find the creatures.
There aren’t many rulers who can oversee their kingdom for as long as I - unless you’re an elf. I saw my kind prosper for the first time in history - until the elves returned en force with their new weapon - the Dragons.
In a single attack they leveled our capitol city, killed our kings and left us floundering in chaos. We had no idea they would - or even could - garner the allegiance of the otherwise-thought untamed creatures. They took us by surprise when we’d thought the elves were fading into twilight.
They thought all the kings dead after that attack. But it’s difficult to account for bodies when everything is scorched and melted by dragonfire. At least one of us escaped that attack; whether any other of my former colleagues survived, I don’t know and frankly don’t care. They have most likely succumbed to time by now, four hundred years later.
Time has not been on my side either. The elves have not been idle, and have rebuilt their proud cities on the western islands and to the south. I myself have attempted to unite the small human lordlings that have dared to claim the land again, but it is a slow process. The madness brought by the creatures who lent me my gift - and the pandemonium that ensued after the elves broke my iron rule over my chaotic brethren - does not allow me to take direct control over the humans who cling to those memories. Luckily, neither do they suspect that the fallen High King and myself could in any way be one and the same person, or there would be far more of these lordlings paying hunters to end my life.
Slowly they are coming together, these lords, under one banner of the lord with whom I hold favor. And I am allowed to train my generals for the time when we will either subdue them or wrest their control out from under them. By then, the lords will not see it happening, and the people will be too busy with the next Elven wars to notice until it’s too late. By then I should have also taken control of the denizens of Anthera, enough warriors to serve as a buffer between us and the Elves while the gifted handle their magics, and if they choose to bring them, the dragons as well.
Landry and Quentyn have been quiet for the time of their rule, but the peace they’ve garnished will last only as long as they’re alive, and I plan to be ready when the inevitable happens again.
The Nakiir
- as told by ShaLeyna Krystyl Rage, Windspeaker of the Rage pack
Listen. Do you hear them? The winds speak to those who know how to hear their voices. And they say that change is nigh.
The winds are the masters of change; from warm to cold, gentle to destructive. Our people, the nakiir; we know change. We are the embodiment of change, living in two worlds but part of neither. Possibly the only ones of us who have truly become part of one of those two worlds again are the Ferals, who have abandoned their other half for that of instinct, becoming wholly the animal within.
The two-leggers, they do not know change. They continue their wars for a time that has spanned every generation known to us. They do not seek to change, to co-exist with each other. Rivers run red with their blood, and still they do not seek to change.
If they do not change, they will all surely die.
We hunted them once, mindlessly killing for no other reason than they were there. Then the winds, they told us to stop. We killed for another, they said. If we were to kill, better to kill to protect ourselves than to have the two-leggers’ blood on our paws in a war not our own.
Most of us kill only to protect ourselves and our territories now. The winds are angry no longer, and have led our packs to places where we will flourish. Two-leggers continue to war, but we will no longer kill for their cause.
The Human Uprising
- as told by High Songmaster Torin Rishael, former High King of the Human Empire
The elves believe we are nothing more than animals that speak. Humans serve no greater purpose in their eyes than to mindlessly toil the earth to their needs. But this animal has risen beyond elven control, and for that, they fear us.
The elves have given a very human response to that fear. They seek to kill us.
I fought in the wars during the rise of the Human age, a mere soldier at the beginning of my life. But I was bred for war, through a parentage that was a mystery to me for many years. And I knew that mere force of arms wasn’t going to win us this war.
For a long time I prayed - yes, I prayed - for an answer that would give us an edge. Elves and humans were equally matched in number and arms, but they still had magic that would burn through our troops as if we were parchment.
My prayers were answered by an unlikely spirit - the late Queen of the Elves herself, who once forced humans into the realms of Anthera. She now took me as her chosen, directing me to the wild spirits of magic to claim their power and the means by which we would win this war.
I often wondered why an elf - even a dead one - would choose a human. She could very well have chosen one of her own kind and put a quick end to our threat. She has never given me a straight answer either, only alluding to another lifetime when we both had been together in the flesh. I don’t quite believe her story, but she does not seem to mind.
For now, her desires and my own are the same, and that’s all that matters. And with her aid and the wild magic at my command, my armies destroyed all resistance.
There were few I would keep close, those who could organize the humans remaining and begin a lasting empire, permanent cities! - a luxury given that most settlements didn’t become larger than small villages before elves became nervous and stomped on it. I learned too, after living well beyond many of my advisors that something else had happened to me, though whether by Lillith’s presence or the new magic in my blood, I am unsure. What I was sure of was that I had stopped aging. Oh, I could still be injured and probably die to an illness or a wound. But I never grew older than the time my mistress sent me to find the creatures.
There aren’t many rulers who can oversee their kingdom for as long as I - unless you’re an elf. I saw my kind prosper for the first time in history - until the elves returned en force with their new weapon - the Dragons.
In a single attack they leveled our capitol city, killed our kings and left us floundering in chaos. We had no idea they would - or even could - garner the allegiance of the otherwise-thought untamed creatures. They took us by surprise when we’d thought the elves were fading into twilight.
They thought all the kings dead after that attack. But it’s difficult to account for bodies when everything is scorched and melted by dragonfire. At least one of us escaped that attack; whether any other of my former colleagues survived, I don’t know and frankly don’t care. They have most likely succumbed to time by now, four hundred years later.
Time has not been on my side either. The elves have not been idle, and have rebuilt their proud cities on the western islands and to the south. I myself have attempted to unite the small human lordlings that have dared to claim the land again, but it is a slow process. The madness brought by the creatures who lent me my gift - and the pandemonium that ensued after the elves broke my iron rule over my chaotic brethren - does not allow me to take direct control over the humans who cling to those memories. Luckily, neither do they suspect that the fallen High King and myself could in any way be one and the same person, or there would be far more of these lordlings paying hunters to end my life.
Slowly they are coming together, these lords, under one banner of the lord with whom I hold favor. And I am allowed to train my generals for the time when we will either subdue them or wrest their control out from under them. By then, the lords will not see it happening, and the people will be too busy with the next Elven wars to notice until it’s too late. By then I should have also taken control of the denizens of Anthera, enough warriors to serve as a buffer between us and the Elves while the gifted handle their magics, and if they choose to bring them, the dragons as well.
Landry and Quentyn have been quiet for the time of their rule, but the peace they’ve garnished will last only as long as they’re alive, and I plan to be ready when the inevitable happens again.
The Nakiir
- as told by ShaLeyna Krystyl Rage, Windspeaker of the Rage pack
Listen. Do you hear them? The winds speak to those who know how to hear their voices. And they say that change is nigh.
The winds are the masters of change; from warm to cold, gentle to destructive. Our people, the nakiir; we know change. We are the embodiment of change, living in two worlds but part of neither. Possibly the only ones of us who have truly become part of one of those two worlds again are the Ferals, who have abandoned their other half for that of instinct, becoming wholly the animal within.
The two-leggers, they do not know change. They continue their wars for a time that has spanned every generation known to us. They do not seek to change, to co-exist with each other. Rivers run red with their blood, and still they do not seek to change.
If they do not change, they will all surely die.
We hunted them once, mindlessly killing for no other reason than they were there. Then the winds, they told us to stop. We killed for another, they said. If we were to kill, better to kill to protect ourselves than to have the two-leggers’ blood on our paws in a war not our own.
Most of us kill only to protect ourselves and our territories now. The winds are angry no longer, and have led our packs to places where we will flourish. Two-leggers continue to war, but we will no longer kill for their cause.