We are born sons and daughters, we die patrons and matrons. All of live, every moment, every blade hefted, battle won, kiss stolen and loss endured is a but a single stroke of the brush of life on the canvas of family. Family is the beginning, family is the end, we are merely breaths between.
We were weak when the end came. Unprepared for this world. As the planet which birthed us writhed in it death throes we abandoned her. Cowards and fools, we ran. We had fallen under the sway of that bastard lie, the lie of Imperium unity. We forsook out families, placed emperor above mother, senator above father. It was only by the basest of circumstance, luck, that we endured. Our ancestors were cosmopolitan, the residents of some great city long since exercised from memory. That city had grown up around a curious stone circle which it's residents had likely believed some sacred symbol of the Great Spirits. It was their dim ancestors superstitions which saved them from their own dim calamity. They fled through that great ring in hordes, trampling and stomping each other into the dirt, churning the ground to mud with blood of their neighbors, their family. A final sin for a sinful people.
We do not honor their memory. We do not glorify their struggle, speaking of it in reverent tones with soft tongues. No, for they were their own tragedy, and we scorn them, we remember them, their indolence and selfishness. They deserved what came their way. We will be better. We are better.
This world is not soft. It is not gentle. We do not sew grain and laze under the sun till harvest. No, we battle the land its self and rip from it every single sheaf that is ours. We water the furrows and warm the ground with the blood of our hands and our enemies. We do not sculpt fine homes and lavish apartments, we erect fortresses, brutal testaments to our glory - our conquest of this world. Life is struggle, life is war, and the individual is merely the weapon wielded by the hand of family.
Untold thousands stumbled through that portal, those generations ago - an entire city. There were no farms, game was sparse and dangerous. Untold thousands perished, to the pit in their stomachs, the cold of allwinter, the talons of skyterrors or the hands of their neighbors. They were children: wild, undisciplined and petty. If the Patrons and Matrons has not brought order to the whelps, this world would have been nothing more than a distant graveyard for that forgotten city. But they did. From those ragged bands our great families rose up - we traveled the breadth of this world, slaying those beasts which stood before us. We claimed the fertile fields warmed by thermal vents, the clear streams and high, bitter peaks. We tamed the skyterrors and built our castles upon the ruins of their nests. We grew strong, and we went to war.
Hundreds of noble families had sprung up in those centuries between, and again resources grew sparse. The weak will speak of peace, but the wise of war. Is it better for a woman to starve in her bed, surrounded by her seven children as they waste away with her or for her to sharpen herself on the whetstone of battle? Is it better for all of her children to perish, the strong daughter for the weak brother? Or for him to feed the fields his blood so she might sup on the bread of his body? We do not honor the dead, we eat them. We exercise the weakness of our familial body in the tribulations of war, and we take back the dead within out bodies, to be reborn stronger from our loins. Our children carry the names and spirit of the dead.
Some will call the Blood Legacy a curse, but those it visits know it to be a boon. The light is boisterous and warm, full of bravado and falsity. It chases away the dark not because it is stronger but because it fears what it cannot see, what it cannot understand. There is no balance. Light is fear of the dark, it is weak. They parting of day is no loss when the night offers such majesty, in all the world, it is only night which is gentle. So those of us who are visited by The Legacy embrace it, as we embrace our lovers, as we drink them in - it is a love, a passion, too few will ever know. In this we do not scorn them, all are eventually reborn into The Blood Legacy once their weakness is purged.
We survey this land, this home, from out lofty edifices and gaze out upon a better world. Wrapped in the loving cloaks our families we watch Spira rise each morning - knowing that soon we will redeem the vulgarity of our ancestors existences, we will bring war, fire and blood to it. We will bring Icconu to Spira.
Notes:
ReplyDeleteNighterrors are a hyper adaptive parasitic organism and apex predator. The original ones encountered by the refugee population were the result of adults who underwent their larval states in large, apex predators. The microbial parasites are present in almost all animal life, but adapt to their hosts - very few survive transmission between species. Metamorphosis, however, requires an extremely large concentration of the parasites. Within large beasts, the requires amount of microbes is fairly easy to reach due to their large size, exclusively carnivorous diets and apatite. Smaller creatures, such as humans, would likely not accumulate a large enough concentration of these parasites to undergo metaporphisis, though they might take on minor nighterror traits if they consumed large quantities of meat. However, with the introduction of cannibalism and blood drinking in the human population nighterror metamorphism has become fairly common in the noble classes, though very few survive long enough to reach full metamorphosis.
Nighterror metamorphism begins with increased hunger, sharpening of the senses and photosensitivity. It then progresses to minor physical alterations, lengthening/sharpening of the teeth, the ability to see invisibility and to track the scent of fresh blood. Later stages, which are uncommon, cause the host body to become more adaptive - gaining resistance to damage, the ability to transform hands into talons, increased movement and agility. At each stage photosensitivity increases, until even the weak, invisible sunlight that leaks through walls reduces the ability of the body to repair its self.
The only known way to avoid this reduction in healing is to sleep in parasite heavy dirt produced through the compost of highly saturated meat and nighterror dung.
The final form of a nighterror is always pale and cold, with hard skin. Internal organs no longer function, energy is directly absorbed through blood consumption and pumped through the body, as it cools the nighterror becomes more and more lethargic - thus they must feed nightly or risk falling into a deathly torpor. While the rough anatomical structure of the host species is maintained, features become more savage, claws extend and become razor sharp, teeth become sharper and large, dragonlike wings sprout from the creature's back. It gains increased control of its form, able to mimic its base species - save the tell tale sign of hard, cold skin and swiftly cooling blood, leaving the body often cool to the touch.
Original nighterrors often arose from a large wingless, reptilian like species similar to drakes, great bear-feline hybrids called Hushers and a dire wolves. However, since the rise of the Iconnu families, most of these species are heavily hunted and culled before metamorphosis can occur - those that are allowed to undergo the tranformation are often tamed by magic, or kept as curiosities which produce useful, parasite rich dung and blood.