The Fire In Our Blood - Prologue
Title: The Fire In Our Blood
Author: tastykaromel
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Kurt/Dave, side pairing Sam/Puck, Mike/Tina, Brittany
Warnings: Minor character death, some violence, explicit sex
Summary: Centuries ago a young man named Dave dreamed of being something greater.
A/N: So here is my latest chaptered Karomel story. It's all finished and just needs some minor editing, so you don't have to worry about another crazy 8-month WIP like my Kitten!fic. Updates will be every Tuesday. This chapter's a little on the short side because it's mostly just setting up this incredibly AU setting. Future chapters will be longer. Enjoy!
Nowadays, with advanced technology and science to run the world, people tend to forget how the world used to be. They are focused on their lives and their struggles and can’t comprehend how people hundreds of years ago could have lived. They know in an abstract way about the difficulty of life back then, but they do not truly comprehend it. The people of today sometimes talk about the importance of history, how it is necessary to understand the mistakes of the past so that they are not made again, but over time the historians have become selective with what is remembered, and what is not. The victors write the history books after all.
So because of a single battle, centuries ago, the people of today have no knowledge of the dragons that used to rule the sky and the riders that used to protect the land. No, people today pass by each other on the street without acknowledgment of the trials they might share as they try to get by in the vast steel jungles that now make up the world. It is possible that even if the fearsome dragons of days gone by did still fly, they could go on unnoticed, hidden from view by the skyscrapers.
But our story does not take place in the world of today, but rather in a world of many yesterdays ago. In a small village that consisted of little more than a few buildings and people. This village was surrounded by farms, as most villages are, and residing in one of these farms lived the Karofsky family.
Sire and Dam Karofsky were sensible folk, working hard their whole life to put food on the table. Their son Dave Karofsky, however, was a dreamer. There was many a day when Dave would be working in the fields and would stop and stare at nothing in particular for long passages of time. He looked rather simple while doing this, so the people of village and sometimes even his parents often teased him about not having the brains to complete a simple task without stopping in the middle to puzzle out what needed to be done next.
Dave let the others have their fun, simply because he thought he would be teased more if they knew the whole truth, that when Dave was standing in the field, staring at nothing, his mind was actually working away at full speed, concocting story after story about life outside the village and the small farm that made up his whole world.
These stories usually featured him in a role outside of his farmer’s son life. Sometimes he was a sorcerer’s apprentice, learning and mastering complex spells and potions. Sometimes he imagined he had been captured by an evil witch and was forced to figure out how to escape or end up dying. However, most of his stories involved the Dragon Warriors in some way.
Before she had died, Dave’s grandmother had told him stories about the Dragon Warriors who protected the land from the witches and Dark Elves in the south and the giants to the north. They were often from the elite class because the training necessary was too expensive for the common man. When they were very young, nearly every child who’s parents could afford it were sent to the Dragon Academy, where they learned how to care for and fly a Dragon in addition to reading and writing. However, only a select few were allowed to stay in the Academy after the age of 12. At that time, if the child hadn’t shown signs of being able to bond with a dragon then they had to leave the Academy and find some other form of occupation.
But for the ones who did bond, for those select few, a whole new world opened up for them. From that point on, instead of being students, only allowed to observe the dragons from a distance and to learn what they could from books, they became trainees, where the curriculum became decidedly more hands on. Usually by the time the trainees had become 16, they had acquired a dragon of their own and for the next two years would spend as much time as possible bonding with that dragon until their minds and souls had melded to the other. When the trainee turned 18 they were inducted into the Warrior Guild.
Once a Warrior received their diploma, they were placed in groups of 4-8 Warrior/dragon pairs and each group was assigned an area of the land that they were in charge of protecting. It was a dangerous occupation, but the life expectancy of a Dragon Warrior was still often longer than the average man.
Dave’s grandmother used to tell him about how no one really knew for sure why this was. Some speculated that Warriors were able to gain extra years through the bond that they had with their dragon. Some thought that Warriors were privy to complicated healing spells that were only taught during the advanced years at the Academy. Obviously, these theories are both ridiculous and the only reason Dave’s grandmother had told them was because she felt Dave was too young to know the truth. There are some things children just don’t need to be aware of after all.
When he grew older, many years after his grandmother had passed on, Dave learned the truth about the Dragon Warriors special abilities. It is, of course, common knowledge to all who listen that they reason Warriors can heal themselves from wounds that would kill the average man instantly is the same reason that sets them apart from other children by the age of 12; what gives them the ability to bond with dragons.
The answer is at once very complex and very simplistic; the blood of a Warrior is not the same as that of a normal human. To the naked eye, it looks the same, but if you take a measure of Warrior blood and heat it over a flame, it will change color from red to a brilliant, glowing silver; the same color as dragon’s blood.
So the simple answer is that Warrior’s possess blood that allows them to heal, like the dragons so they have a longer lifespan. However, no one has been able to discover why the blood was like that. At the beginning of time there was a mass genocide of non-Warriors. It was believed that Warriors were in fact a more superior species to humans. But after a few generations, it became clear that even when two Dragon Warriors reproduced, it did not guarantee a Warrior child. No matter how concentrated they kept the population, the percentage of children who became Warriors did not rise.
Not long after this failed experiment, another was attempted with disastrous results. It became a practice to have the blood of each child tested not long after they were born to see if it would turn silver when heated, indicating a Warrior. However, it seemed that none of the children born were Warriors. The people went into a panic, thinking that the Warriors had died out and eventually there would be no more left to protect the land. It wasn’t until a few years later that it became known that a person who had Warrior abilities wouldn’t possess the different blood until they were in their mid-teens, right around the time when they first bonded with a dragon.
Over the years, mages and priests had attempted to figure out the mystery of this change and how a person was selected to be a Warrior, but no one ever came up with a satisfactory answer. Eventually, most people stopped caring, and chalked it up to just another level of the fantastic that surrounded the Dragon Warriors and the Guild they belonged to.
You may wonder why this knowledge, vague as it is, should be deemed inappropriate for a child and you would be right in thinking that, as it is, there is nothing too shocking in its telling. But once that small piece of information is acquired, it is only natural to try and figure out the circumstances that surround it. Dave’s grandmother knew that her grandson was an exceptionally curious boy and with the knowledge of the Warrior blood, would begin to ask as many questions as possible about it.
If he’s grandmother refused to answer a question, then he would simply ask somebody else until he was satisfied. And when little boys start asking questions, they eventually find someone who is willing to answer them, even if it is just another child who believes themselves so worldly for knowing the answer. Eventually, Dave would have learned about how Warriors were said to have “Fire Blood,” partly because of how it was transformed, but mostly because Warriors were said to be, not only the most passionate in the battlefield, but also in the bedchambers and it was often rumored that it was intense passion that was behind a Warrior’s ability to heal themselves.
It was believed that Warriors were able to heal themselves only when their blood was heated and turned silver like a dragon’s. And what better way to set one’s blood on fire than with a couple rolls in the hay, if you’ll pardon the expression. Pubs stories were told about Warriors who would select commoners during a land-leave from the fighting and would take them to bed. Warriors rarely stayed in a single place for very long, but when they moved on, their companions were said to have been ruined for any other partner. Because of these rumors, whenever a band of Warriors past through a village, it was considered something of a challenge among the unattached men and women to see who was able to catch a Warriors eye.
Many a hormonally-charged youngster would freely admit to daydreaming about such lustful imaginings and you may think that these were the thoughts that Dave fell prey to when he was standing in the field, but you would be wrong. For Dave, the appeal of the Warriors was their ability to fly. He would spend long stretches of time staring up at the skies and imagine what it would be like to soar among the clouds with the wind whistling in his ears and the strong thrum of a dragon beneath him.
If he were an elite, Dave was sure he would have been a Warrior. If only he’d had the opportunity to attend the Academy, he would have been one of the few to bond with a dragon. And oh, the bond they would have had. The mind-meld they would have would give them a great advantage over any opponent they came across and would allow them to become the greatest Pair that ever flew. Ballads would be composed in their honor of how they protected the weak and were the most just and righteous and the most beautiful young men would look at Dave like he was the answer to all their problems and -
“Oi, Dave! Are you still doing chores? You’re going to make us late!”
Dave startled at the interruption into his fantasies and lost the hold he had on the hoe. He fumbled awkwardly with it for a few seconds, trying to regain his control, before gravity won out and it fell to the ground. In the process, the hoe smacked him sharply on the shin and Dave gave a small cry of pain, stumbling backward. This caused his right leg to get tangled in the vines of one of the squash plants he was weeding and he promptly fell backwards on his ass, hitting his head on a gourd.
Dave groaned in pain, but didn’t try to get up. He’d probably only do himself more damage. Yes, it was better for everyone involved if he just stayed lying on the ground.
Author: tastykaromel
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Kurt/Dave, side pairing Sam/Puck, Mike/Tina, Brittany
Warnings: Minor character death, some violence, explicit sex
Summary: Centuries ago a young man named Dave dreamed of being something greater.
A/N: So here is my latest chaptered Karomel story. It's all finished and just needs some minor editing, so you don't have to worry about another crazy 8-month WIP like my Kitten!fic. Updates will be every Tuesday. This chapter's a little on the short side because it's mostly just setting up this incredibly AU setting. Future chapters will be longer. Enjoy!
Nowadays, with advanced technology and science to run the world, people tend to forget how the world used to be. They are focused on their lives and their struggles and can’t comprehend how people hundreds of years ago could have lived. They know in an abstract way about the difficulty of life back then, but they do not truly comprehend it. The people of today sometimes talk about the importance of history, how it is necessary to understand the mistakes of the past so that they are not made again, but over time the historians have become selective with what is remembered, and what is not. The victors write the history books after all.
So because of a single battle, centuries ago, the people of today have no knowledge of the dragons that used to rule the sky and the riders that used to protect the land. No, people today pass by each other on the street without acknowledgment of the trials they might share as they try to get by in the vast steel jungles that now make up the world. It is possible that even if the fearsome dragons of days gone by did still fly, they could go on unnoticed, hidden from view by the skyscrapers.
But our story does not take place in the world of today, but rather in a world of many yesterdays ago. In a small village that consisted of little more than a few buildings and people. This village was surrounded by farms, as most villages are, and residing in one of these farms lived the Karofsky family.
Sire and Dam Karofsky were sensible folk, working hard their whole life to put food on the table. Their son Dave Karofsky, however, was a dreamer. There was many a day when Dave would be working in the fields and would stop and stare at nothing in particular for long passages of time. He looked rather simple while doing this, so the people of village and sometimes even his parents often teased him about not having the brains to complete a simple task without stopping in the middle to puzzle out what needed to be done next.
Dave let the others have their fun, simply because he thought he would be teased more if they knew the whole truth, that when Dave was standing in the field, staring at nothing, his mind was actually working away at full speed, concocting story after story about life outside the village and the small farm that made up his whole world.
These stories usually featured him in a role outside of his farmer’s son life. Sometimes he was a sorcerer’s apprentice, learning and mastering complex spells and potions. Sometimes he imagined he had been captured by an evil witch and was forced to figure out how to escape or end up dying. However, most of his stories involved the Dragon Warriors in some way.
Before she had died, Dave’s grandmother had told him stories about the Dragon Warriors who protected the land from the witches and Dark Elves in the south and the giants to the north. They were often from the elite class because the training necessary was too expensive for the common man. When they were very young, nearly every child who’s parents could afford it were sent to the Dragon Academy, where they learned how to care for and fly a Dragon in addition to reading and writing. However, only a select few were allowed to stay in the Academy after the age of 12. At that time, if the child hadn’t shown signs of being able to bond with a dragon then they had to leave the Academy and find some other form of occupation.
But for the ones who did bond, for those select few, a whole new world opened up for them. From that point on, instead of being students, only allowed to observe the dragons from a distance and to learn what they could from books, they became trainees, where the curriculum became decidedly more hands on. Usually by the time the trainees had become 16, they had acquired a dragon of their own and for the next two years would spend as much time as possible bonding with that dragon until their minds and souls had melded to the other. When the trainee turned 18 they were inducted into the Warrior Guild.
Once a Warrior received their diploma, they were placed in groups of 4-8 Warrior/dragon pairs and each group was assigned an area of the land that they were in charge of protecting. It was a dangerous occupation, but the life expectancy of a Dragon Warrior was still often longer than the average man.
Dave’s grandmother used to tell him about how no one really knew for sure why this was. Some speculated that Warriors were able to gain extra years through the bond that they had with their dragon. Some thought that Warriors were privy to complicated healing spells that were only taught during the advanced years at the Academy. Obviously, these theories are both ridiculous and the only reason Dave’s grandmother had told them was because she felt Dave was too young to know the truth. There are some things children just don’t need to be aware of after all.
When he grew older, many years after his grandmother had passed on, Dave learned the truth about the Dragon Warriors special abilities. It is, of course, common knowledge to all who listen that they reason Warriors can heal themselves from wounds that would kill the average man instantly is the same reason that sets them apart from other children by the age of 12; what gives them the ability to bond with dragons.
The answer is at once very complex and very simplistic; the blood of a Warrior is not the same as that of a normal human. To the naked eye, it looks the same, but if you take a measure of Warrior blood and heat it over a flame, it will change color from red to a brilliant, glowing silver; the same color as dragon’s blood.
So the simple answer is that Warrior’s possess blood that allows them to heal, like the dragons so they have a longer lifespan. However, no one has been able to discover why the blood was like that. At the beginning of time there was a mass genocide of non-Warriors. It was believed that Warriors were in fact a more superior species to humans. But after a few generations, it became clear that even when two Dragon Warriors reproduced, it did not guarantee a Warrior child. No matter how concentrated they kept the population, the percentage of children who became Warriors did not rise.
Not long after this failed experiment, another was attempted with disastrous results. It became a practice to have the blood of each child tested not long after they were born to see if it would turn silver when heated, indicating a Warrior. However, it seemed that none of the children born were Warriors. The people went into a panic, thinking that the Warriors had died out and eventually there would be no more left to protect the land. It wasn’t until a few years later that it became known that a person who had Warrior abilities wouldn’t possess the different blood until they were in their mid-teens, right around the time when they first bonded with a dragon.
Over the years, mages and priests had attempted to figure out the mystery of this change and how a person was selected to be a Warrior, but no one ever came up with a satisfactory answer. Eventually, most people stopped caring, and chalked it up to just another level of the fantastic that surrounded the Dragon Warriors and the Guild they belonged to.
You may wonder why this knowledge, vague as it is, should be deemed inappropriate for a child and you would be right in thinking that, as it is, there is nothing too shocking in its telling. But once that small piece of information is acquired, it is only natural to try and figure out the circumstances that surround it. Dave’s grandmother knew that her grandson was an exceptionally curious boy and with the knowledge of the Warrior blood, would begin to ask as many questions as possible about it.
If he’s grandmother refused to answer a question, then he would simply ask somebody else until he was satisfied. And when little boys start asking questions, they eventually find someone who is willing to answer them, even if it is just another child who believes themselves so worldly for knowing the answer. Eventually, Dave would have learned about how Warriors were said to have “Fire Blood,” partly because of how it was transformed, but mostly because Warriors were said to be, not only the most passionate in the battlefield, but also in the bedchambers and it was often rumored that it was intense passion that was behind a Warrior’s ability to heal themselves.
It was believed that Warriors were able to heal themselves only when their blood was heated and turned silver like a dragon’s. And what better way to set one’s blood on fire than with a couple rolls in the hay, if you’ll pardon the expression. Pubs stories were told about Warriors who would select commoners during a land-leave from the fighting and would take them to bed. Warriors rarely stayed in a single place for very long, but when they moved on, their companions were said to have been ruined for any other partner. Because of these rumors, whenever a band of Warriors past through a village, it was considered something of a challenge among the unattached men and women to see who was able to catch a Warriors eye.
Many a hormonally-charged youngster would freely admit to daydreaming about such lustful imaginings and you may think that these were the thoughts that Dave fell prey to when he was standing in the field, but you would be wrong. For Dave, the appeal of the Warriors was their ability to fly. He would spend long stretches of time staring up at the skies and imagine what it would be like to soar among the clouds with the wind whistling in his ears and the strong thrum of a dragon beneath him.
If he were an elite, Dave was sure he would have been a Warrior. If only he’d had the opportunity to attend the Academy, he would have been one of the few to bond with a dragon. And oh, the bond they would have had. The mind-meld they would have would give them a great advantage over any opponent they came across and would allow them to become the greatest Pair that ever flew. Ballads would be composed in their honor of how they protected the weak and were the most just and righteous and the most beautiful young men would look at Dave like he was the answer to all their problems and -
“Oi, Dave! Are you still doing chores? You’re going to make us late!”
Dave startled at the interruption into his fantasies and lost the hold he had on the hoe. He fumbled awkwardly with it for a few seconds, trying to regain his control, before gravity won out and it fell to the ground. In the process, the hoe smacked him sharply on the shin and Dave gave a small cry of pain, stumbling backward. This caused his right leg to get tangled in the vines of one of the squash plants he was weeding and he promptly fell backwards on his ass, hitting his head on a gourd.
Dave groaned in pain, but didn’t try to get up. He’d probably only do himself more damage. Yes, it was better for everyone involved if he just stayed lying on the ground.