Childhood:
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The ebb and flow of reality, they say, is chaos. That all things are merely chaos and even the order within the chaos is truly chaos viewing a different aspect of itself. To look back on a life spent well lived and happy is all fine and dandy, but to love and to lose is the truest love of all. In order to understand happiness you have to understand pain, in order to learn to dance you need to look stupid, and to trip, fall, and get back up again is the story of life and creation itself. This is Njynqet's story. He starts out born to a wealthy family within a menacing merchant fleet; he was a happy baby boy with a happy twin brother. Stark black hair, brilliant sunset eyes swimming like the sea itself... mingled with the color of amber and rubies all the while twinkling with sunflower petals. For a Biqaj the newborn sons were nothing too special other than being healthy newborn baby boys ready to be raised and cared for with the most love their mother could give.
Growing up as a child Njynqet spent most of his time climbing the rigging of the extravagant merchant ship he was born on. For a Biqaj climbing the vessels rigging was much like a jungle gym. While his mother would wave him to come down, thin hand shielding her squinting eyes from the sun, she gazed at him lovingly and was proud that he was so spritely. Climbing, surely, was fun but his true passion was for racing his elders up and down the ropes. He lived for the heights while flinging himself to different rope or chains. He was quick and wiley, like a cat, making a fool out of the most experienced deckhand and deftly dodging his supposed captors when they begged for him to come down. Something about the briny air, whirling winds, and heat of the sun was so intoxicating while trapezing through the rigging. The acidic feeling of the salt while veiwing the vast ocean made his heart swell with joy. It was here, he convinced himself, in these masts, that he could spend all of his trials... just playing, diving, and spinning through the ropes of his family's vessel. With all the time spent in those heights he could wriggle out of nearly anyone's grasp, the little bastard being an expert in his own right of dodging, while grinning the whole time. This is where he found his confident spirit and pride, not man or woman on that boat was able to catch him. They would nearly always have to resort to bribery to get him to come down. No punishments were usually had and all had a good laugh about it, his family loved his free spirit. Still, as he grew older and began getting out into the cities he found the lands outside more harsh than any tongue lashing from his mother. Not all people loved the way he expressed himself, especially not the land dwellers.
Over the arcs he had taken a liking to artistic endeavors and began to carve symbols into the wood on his family's ship or painting large creations on the walls. Within the safe, familiar halls of his seafaring home his odd scrawlings were adored. It was quite the game to find a new one of his works between he and his loved ones. That being said, "out there", on land, his artwork was called graffiti leaving him often slandered. Slandered not only for his works, which he considered pieces of his soul, but also slandered for his ears, his eyes, and his very silver blood. Being branded and beaten as a thieving, rotten scoundrel at eight arcs old by a stranger, for what you considered expressing yourself, is more than enough to make your world view at least a little broader-- if not slightly bitter. He began to understand why his kin hid their ears and works of art, starting to mimic his elders more in their secretive ways. Still he would find time to scrawl his symbols out in the land dwelling world but was much more careful each time until even at home he was ferreting away his drawings.
His love for acrobatics on the rigging turned into a love for sparing as he grew older. Not quite old enough to have hair on his chin but no longer a little boy Njyn found himself wrestling his cousins or, rather, teasing his cousins relentlessly until they were resigned to afford punches to pokes. Unlike being on the rigging he lost plenty and the fat lips were many, but it could still be said that Njyn had the last laugh as he proved his agility and outwitted even his "seniorest" cousins on more than one occasion. This lust for fighting turned out to be useful when he was in his sixteenth arc visiting the Ne'haer port. He was drinking whiskey with his brother in the Crest Break Tavern and had gotten, by this time, generously warm from the booze. They were laughing about those trifle things that sixteen arc old's laugh at, hoodwinking their mother and teasing their cousins, when Njyn heard an exasperated cry.
'Would you just-- GET off of me!"
The assaulted barmaid gathered her skirts and gave a defiant, red-faced stare at the assailants who were still attempting to grope her. The three men who she was screaming at were, simply put, ugly and well past their prime. Their lumpy heads and scarred faces showed a life of hardships but not much else, it was clear in one glance that these men were not only extremely drunk but also horribly stupid. The barmaid pointed her finger in their faces and yelled obscenities at them in a mix of foreign language and common to the tune of, "everytime you ugly *$&#!% touch me it makes my %&(#(@!! skin crawl! I'm tired of you #*&$!@$ three coming in here and #*%&@!!..."
To this trial Njyn doesn't know what came over him. Maybe it was her look of terrified, defiant anger, maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was his disdain for "land-born ignorance" and the way the ugly men still wagged their tongues at the poor woman. The moment he pushed himself from the bar, face stone hard, and stamped up to them, his life changed. He face was beat red like the womans and beginning to sweat as he pushed one of them hard on the shoulder.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?"
He asked them in his native tongue with eyes glazed from the whiskey, blood boiling like fire. The woman looked slapped in the face while the bar had gone silent. She took her leave, not meeting his eyes, as did many of the patrons, their awkward shuffling finally being silenced with one final swing of the entrance door. The lumpiest one laughed in Njynqets' face, spittle flying everywhere. In broken Rakahi the lumpy ringleader told him.
"You met yer match today boy", he paused to spit foul brown liquid on the floor, "But yer funny HA HA, I buy you a drink?"
Lumpy's cronies chortled. One crony seemed to be sporting a slightly askew toupee and the other was a pale, fat, sickly looking red head. All three bastards appeared to be either sailors or dock workers, possibly both, by the images shown on their tattoos. They also all happened to be rather large and muscular, especially the fat one. The young Njyn,a boy still, was no match for these three, surely. Still he held a silence and began scanning the room for a weapon, he would give them a taste of their own medicine. They all stood up, lumpy no longer laughing, and cracked their knuckles. To make a long story short everyone, even the bar tender, fled the bar and left the poor boy on his own. He stood in front them them with a face of defiance, their hulking figures towering over him. He got thrown across the room and broke a chair. Coughing hard he leaped up brandishing a chair leg and took a few good cracks at them. He was quick, evading most of their lumbering attacks but was no match for them in the end. Before they could do any real damage though the law arrived, the bar tender had ran to get them. Njyn was banned from the bar but was afforded a small sum from the lawmen, these three men were wanted criminals. It was this moment in time where he found his calling as somewhat of a vigilante. There would be many more times like this one and quite a few more where he would win. Always for what he thought was "the right thing", even if in the grand scheme it ended up being wrong. Doing the wrong thing for what he thought was right was a hard lesson to learn and left a few colorful bruises on his heart. But those are stories for another trial.
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Njynqet has always looked up to the women in his life more-so than the men. The women in his life were strong figure heads; important people not only to the bloodline but also his community in the merchant fleet. On his mother's side his great great grandmother, his great grandmother, and his grandmother had all given birth to two sets of triplets-- all female. Njyn's mother gave birth to only him and his brother, breaking that line. He was raised in a household with mostly ladies to look up to and was passionate about his heritage. His grandmother's name was Pythera Nji'gwar. She was a renowned mage and Siera'ja priestess. While Pythera traveled a lot she would make quarterly stops to the fleet to spread the teachings of the Book of Mek'ta. Some of his most fond memories growing up are him sitting on the deck in the moonlight with his family surrounding him being led by his grandmother. The sea seemed to rock with them as they all were singing the Mek'ta shanties and honoring U'frek with song and dance. The feast his grandmother would help prepare during her visits were legendary. She was an amazing woman. Hard when she needed to be, sometimes distant, but generally fair. Her life was often an enigma to her family as she would seem to allude to being somewhat more than just a traveling priestess but denied it vehemently when directly asked.
When he turned eighteen she was in her late eighties. Pythera took him aside and explained that she needed an apprentice. Due to his honor-bound sensibility she had chosen him to take a piece of her soul. She would give him the gift of the elements.
Together on a small fishing vessel she led them through the sea. It was many trials alone together, something that had never happened before, and he reveled in the time spent with his favorite grandmother. They played music and sang raunchy shanties while drinking the dirtiest grog he's ever had, even to this trial. She told him of her relationship with the elements which he listened to keenly. Describing how each element calls to you differently and discerning their various voices is the first thing he will have to learn to do. She sounded loving and emotional as she described how they move with you, become you, and it was only then that he realized the reason why the boat always rocked so hard when she came to visit.
Finally they arrived at a small island on a day that looked fit to storm. The hulking cliffs made his head swim as they approached the nearly decrepit dock. Everything, including the cliff face, was covered in barnacles as was revealed by the waves angrily stirring in the stormy sea. Everything about this place was grey, dreary, as though if even on a clear trial the island would be menacing. Njynqet was uneasy. After docking the boat they made their way through an outcropping between the cliffs that hadn't been visible from the sea, from there they made their ascent upwards. The path was winding and treacherous, each time they made their way to a landing the winds became more ferocious. Their clothes billowed and lashed out around them, the wind fighting their every step. The storm had started to begin its assault on the island. It was nearly dark as night save for the occasional lightening strike. Our hero had asked his grandmother many questions but she would either decline to respond at all or just say, "trust me, trust the elements" in reply. He was becoming steadily more uneasy despite his grandmother's calm words. He understood that the rite could kill either of them... if the winds at this altitude didn't knock them off their feet first.
Finally after two breaks they reached their destination. They stood facing a run down temple, clothing whipping in the wind with their hair clinging to their faces in wet clumps. Njyn clung to his grandmother. Her hands were on her hips, not even flinching in the gusts of wind an rain as she looked at the temple with pride. Later in his life Njyn would find out that this was the same place Pythera had been initiated. Uneasiness wasn't something Njyn was used to feeling, and his anxiety continued to heighten as fear beget fear itself, as they made their way up to the chapel's steeple. There was a stone in his gut the size of a shoe. Looking at the temple itself it was a miracle the brick and mortar stayed together in the winds. The steeple was the only thing remained fully intact on the building and was made of the same grey stone as the island. The steeple itself had a large cone shaped roof which looked to have a room inside of it, as assumed by the opening at the base of the roof, giving the steeple more of a tower look than anything. There was a slat ladder leading up the building face connected to the steeple which, without speaking, his grandmother began to climb up towards the roof. Her grandson gulped and followed suit, trembling.
As they climbed higher and higher sconces lit behind them, ignited by his grandmother's defiance, even as it began to pour down rain. Never in all of his life had Njyn been so afraid, he was having trouble bracing himself to the storm and was breathing heavy. Thunder raged above him as lightening streaked across the sky. The earth itself seemed to shake as the tower trembled and swayed in the gale, his hands slipping o the wet wooden slats. He had stopped climbing and clung for dear life to the wooden slats, huge drops pelting him from all angles like stones. Daring a look up at his grandmother she was gone. Quickly he shielded his mortified face again. In his native tongue he cried for the elements to guide and protect him. It was only then he noticed that within the steeple's roof a fire was glowing brightly, the entrance being maybe only ten feet away from him.
Gathering his courage he trudged up into the door and was greeted by his gandmother's hand yanking him in. The room was lit by two sconces which danced brightly, grinning at him. It was warm and dry, though the wind howled like an unseen force looming over the tower. Not obvious from the ground there was a huge hole in the roof with a wooden precipice built onto it looking over a cliff face. His grandmother was following his eyes and nodded towards the edge. Gulping he pointed to himself while shaking his head wildly. He would not walk to the edge of that porch. His grandmother embraced him in a hug and in her hug he felt a sense of peace. That was all he needed to take the final few steps to the edge. The wind pulled at him in all directions while he focused hard on the rite to be preformed. Roughly against the storm his grandmother sat him down and sat with him. The wood groaned and the whole steeple shook with the ravaging winds. His grandmother moved her hands with them, not commanding them but by being one. He was transfixed by her movements and the swell of the howling storm. No longer afraid he sat there with her for a long time until finally he felt at peace with the elements.
Water was quick witted like him, each drop on the roof sounded as if it were constantly laughing.
Earth was stubborn yet gentle, set in its ancient ways.
Fire was ready for anything, leaping at every opportunity that presented itself.
Air... beautiful air... his mind drifted for an indiscriminate amount of time until finally....
The storm began to subside but the winds stayed the same, screeching and clawing their way through the warming sky. His grandmother, who still had not spoken, stood and stretched. Peace and happiness radiated off of her like the sunlight that was beginning to shine on them.
"That's it?" he asked while grinning albeit slightly uneasily, "I don't feel any different."
Pythera laughed, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and chucked him off the cliff.
He screamed on the way down but was surprised by feeling stronger every second. It was as if he were a feather, not plummeting through the air but floating down it. It was as if the air was holding him close and letting him go to be held by another of its brethren. He could feel the moisture hanging in the air like a person's presence, seeming to read its mind that it was glad to have expressed itself through the storm. His veins felt like they were turning to dirt and his vision was swimming with fire as he continued to plummet. But he was no longer scared, the elements had accepted him and he was now a part of them. He held his hands to his body and kept himself upright for the remainder of the fall. At long last the kind air gently set him at the base of the cliff where he had arrived. Pythera was waiting for him there bowled over in laughter pointing at him, with tears streaming down her face.
"What-what's so funny?"
He asked giving an unsure chuckle in return.
"Oh my GODS your face the whole time! HA HA HA HA!"
She punched him playfully in the shoulder, still cackling as the wind blew her hair playfully in every direction.
"You flinched!"
Their voyage back was even more joyous than the one there and when they arrived home he was greeted like a king! With his "mastery" of the elements he was back to his cocky, rude self in no time, always making sure to brag about how "brave" he was during his initiation. "Oh, if everyone could just be more brave and righteous like him." Despite his bragging within days he no longer felt the same strong connection as he did when initiated. The feeling of each element was something he had to tap into and wasn't second nature any longer. It was clear that he had a lot to learn.
Unfortunately only two weeks later, his grandmother died peacefully in her sleep. He felt it happen instantly like a stake through the heart, running to her room where he found her dead. He didn't stop weeping for sixteen breaks. The only thing that would comfort him was the whispering of the wind, it sounded hauntingly like Pythera and still does to this day.
Njyn found himself in the dredges of the swill more often than not after Pythera's death. They had moored onto Blackbrine for time to allow the family to grieve while letting extended family know about the death of a great matron. Word travels fast on the Blackbrine and soon there were many people coming to pay their respects. Njyn was spending most of his time by himself. There was no way he was going to let strangers come and tell stories of his grandmother as if they truly knew her. He was mortally bitter about everything that had happened. How dare she give him this gift and leave him! Now after all the bragging he had done he had nothing to show for with his new powers. Was she not supposed to teach him what she knew? The promises she made to him while sailing were nothing but trifle; she would never show him how to wield the elements, never teach him anything, the stories of her past were gone-- with only strangers left to tell them. The hole in his heart was getting larger with each day and his nights-- well... his nights were spent in cheap bars getting high and numbing the pain with wine to forget.
On one night in particular he was a few glasses away from total black out. Most of the bar was ready to take to fists to get him to quiet, he wouldn't stop going on about drunken unintelligible stories. Something along the lines of a treasure that his family owned from his great great grandmother, an artist herself and Pythera's own grandmother. "Pythera was never going to be as good as her own matrons," he told everyone, "she died with nothing to show for! Stupid bitch!" People were leaving the bar but the owner didn't have a care to kick Njyn out, he had paid a wealthy sum in his booze that night and that had made him the highest bidder.
"Another round for my friend here, your finest shot of whiskey."
A hand placed itself on Njyn's back and he spun around to see who it was. Before him was a man with dirty dreadlocks, a stubbled face, dark skin, and eyes that swam blue like the sea itself. He introduced himself as Ory while leading the irreparably drunken Njyn back to his tables. Found there were a host of other characters, mostly Biqaj like the two but also a couple Mer and humans all looking like they had a story to tell. He and the company got along fine all night and had one hell of a party, completely taking Njyn's bad mood away. He finally felt a bond with someone, Ory was a willing ear and shoulder to cry on. When word of his deeds that night reached his family they were severely disappointed in him, his mother even threatening call him Forsaken of Clan for insulting her mother. She wasn't going to stand for his bullshit and he was sick and tired of her acting like she didn't care at all about him. A broken vase and some tears later he and his mother came to terms, but a rift was made then that never fully healed even arcs into the future.
Despite the argument between his mother and he in the trials afterwards Njyn would be in Ory's company more often than not as he had made fast friends. Ory owned a ship of his own and would go on and on about how she was the best on the seas. He and his crowd were merchants of strange items. "Collectors" Ory explained. He showed Njyn his ship's quarters which were filled with exotic items, spices, textiles, and objects all of great value. People from far and wide, he said, did business with him trading their special items for his wares. Ory offered to let him stay if Njyn wanted to become a deckhand or cook. Njyn thought about the offer but made the decision to stay with his family. This ended the tour of the ship, the only time he had ever stepped foot in it, and darkened Ory's mood toward him considerably. At the time he thought nothing of it but ultimately Njyn would turn around this conversation in his head for the rest of his life. Not but two weeks later Ory and company were gone-- as was his family's prized heirloom, his great great grandmother's masterpiece. Not only that but the whole family's ship had been ransacked and stolen from. Njyn realized immediately that bastard had groomed him in order to get at his family's wealth.
Though it ended in a fist fight with his father he was able to convince his family to chase after Ory's gang. He confessed to them that he had let slip out the exact spot of the heirloom and had been too loose about the family riches. If he was given control of the ship's he would be able to return everyone's lost items by tracking that man down and making him pay. They loved him and they wanted to believed him so Njyn lead his family on a three arc chase. It was not glamorous, they didn't have fun, and at the end of it all he would lose the totality of his families respect. The more they chased Ory and his gang the more they uncovered nothing but rumors of his piracy dealings. Like selling bottles of fresh pickled Mer parts as sexual stimulants or hair growth treatment. Stealing from and killing small Biqaj merchant vessels, Ory's own people. Slavery of and entire vessel of people. Torturing and maiming his crew to get them to keep quiet. Eating live squid. Each time his family caught up to him on the sea Ory would vanish. After three arcs of chasing nothing but a rumor his family left him a small sum to continue on but refused to be a part of it any longer. He never spoke to any of them again. He bought himself a boat, paid a crew, and captained a ship for six more arcs until he went bankrupt and his crew marooned him in Volta.
By selling his ship for a good sum he was able to get on his feet again but vowed to himself still he would catch and find Ory to make him pay for what he had done even after all these years.
