Somebody was once pretty good, and someone had once made a mistake. The record is not clear, but the mortal nature has both the potential for great achievements as well as fatal mistakes. So begins the story of Zekuseeyros.
The eldest brother among seven siblings, Zekuseeyros always felt somewhat alienated from his parents’ love. His education was harsher and colder, his treatment loveless and brutal. Often isolated from his brothers, he quickly learned, like many Aukari, to get out of his head and into the work at hand. This was enforced on him, and harsh punishment was quickly dealt in order to suppress the burning passion of his race. For his brothers and sisters, however, Zekuseeyros was loved and respected. Growing up a farmer, blacksmith, and whatever works his parents deemed fit for him, Zekuseeyros was forced to seek perfection for no other reward than a cold shoulder.Often he questioned this, voicing his unfair treatment compared to the loving and forgiving nature of his siblings’ relationship. No answer was ever given to him. If anything, whenever he asked, the cold gleam in his parents’ gaze grew rabid with hatred.
It was shortly after his twelth arc on the land when he first saw him. The armored man came in unannounced, made himself at home in the barn and began tracking his movements, always followed by that damned cloud hovering over his height.. Zekuseeyros’ parents seemed determined to ignore this strange visitor, and his siblings, although curious, were quickly forbidden from questioning the happening. It was for the lonesome and aloof eldest that the situation gave him a sense of danger. He’d spot that multi-faced helmet and those dark slots pointing towards him as he worked, as he slept or as he bathed. The man beneath it, not once revealing his features, had made it his life’s work to observe him - at least, for the first half of the fortnight. In the second one, he was tested in combat - beaten, more like, much to his dismay and the obvious resentment grown from his parents’ permission for this to happen. There was no avail. These tests, to call them that, became torture. Whether working, eating, or sleeping, the armored giant swept him from his life and bruised both his body and his soul, then scribbling down in the gigantic tome carried on his back. No matter what he tried, not one time was he a match for the giant, and just when he was about to break, the stranger was gone.
Life was never the same. Zekuseeyros, by then, had realized not everything was what it seemed. He was growing way taller than his brothers and parents, his physique seemed unusually powerful, and his passion grew harder and harder to control. The fire within grew restless, further both by the physical changes of puberty and the isolated nature of his psychology. No answers were provided to him - yet. Three arcs passed, and the young man had learned to be independent. The scars had healed both in his body and his soul, and balance was found. Accepting the fact his presence was unwanted, he found joy in his forging apprenticeship, love in his siblings’ dependence on him, and solace in the arms of a human a few miles down the Ne’haer hills. Then again, there was something missing in him - a meaning, a purpose, a sense of having left his childhood behind and of becoming a man.
Then the knight returned.
Journey towards Fate
Suffice it to say, there was much discussion as to what he expected of him. He came like the wind and wanted to blow the young man away, to take him somewhere across the sea and to leave everything he had worked to create. Zekuseeyros fought it, albeit something deep in his soul - something beyond the fire in his chest - craved for an escape. How does one respond when a question not previously conceived was promised a full, direct answer? How does the mind react to dilemmas that rapt it outside its simple existence? Joy and purpose, perhaps, heavy laden with doubt and fear. Choosing a stranger that once abused and bruised him over the life he had built was Zekuseeyros’ most illogical decision.
It was a long journey, a big adventure he’d quickly come to regret. As the known shores left in the horizon, and the memories of his siblings was swallowed by the wavy waters, Zekuseeyros felt heartbroken - and all the solace and company he found was in the multi-faced helmet of what would be his guide. Cold at first, but slowly warming up to him, there was an undeniable bond between the two Aukari. His questions about the knight - Öcsi, he was called - gained him no answers, and the less he insisted, the more he learned to enjoy the man’s company. They’d fish, they’d talk, and they’d swap tales of the knight’s adventures versus Zekuseeyros’ domestic happenings. It took half an arc of travel, traversing the Nashaki desert until they reached what Öcsi called ‘home’.
It was a sort of temple buried in the sand, abandoned and half destroyed. Populated by armored phantoms, all donning the same multi-faced helmet, it was then Zekuseeyros realized, whatever would happen here, it was too late to turn back. What had become a relationship of friendship turned into that of mentoring. Öcsi trained the young Aukari in many ways; cleaning first, cooking second, then combat, carving… It was hazpazarous education plan, one Zekuzeeyros could not find any logic behind, albeit, given the circumstance and the lack of alternatives, one he was forced to follow. A hidden resentment grew, and finally he demanded answers.
The Cursed Lineage
Someone had once been very good, and someone had once made a mistake. That is why Faldrun himself had chosen a certain warrior to accomplish a great task, and then chose him to die when he failed. But the warrior’s death was never enough, and so Faldrun went after his children, one by one, looking amongst the lineage for the one who could deliver what was promised. It was the last child of that great warrior that bargained with the Immortal, and postponed what would be his trial once he turned thirty arcs of age, promising he’d succeed or delver another son that would succeed for him. Faldrun agreed, and so this child went out into the world to become stronger. This was almost 700 arcs ago, and the burden fell upon him now.
The truth was received as a joke, but the answers were there, and so Zekuseeyros understood what his purpose was in the world - another corpse. He questioned Öcsi, his true father, about the nature of this, about why wasn’t he told or as to why he had bothered to make children knowing they would all end as their ancestors. When Öcsi showed him the phantoms, Zekuseeyros understood.
“Tell me, then, whether you’d like these to remain here forever? Tell me, then, should you wish this room be filled with more of them? How many brothers do each of them have, and how many are ready to take onto the impossible? Your fate is not your own to decide, nor is it mine, but think of those who are not even aware of their cursed blood. One sheep to save the flock.”
It took a long time for the young man to confront what he felt. He denied it first, fought it second. He’d bow down and question Faldrun, a Father he had considered fair and yet one that did nothing but ignore him. The Fire Within now burned with both hatred and love for its Kindler. Perhaps in young ignorance, Zekuseeyros allowed himself to be guided, setting his mind blank whenever he was confronted with a reality he could not manage to process.
A painful Initiation
By the time the relationship between the two Aukari had somewhat regenerated, Öcsi became a mentor for something else. Magic was something Zekuseeyros had only heard rumors of, but his father seemed well versed. Many were the tales he told him - people becoming animals, traveling from Ne’haer to Andaris in a single break, masked men swimming on earth. It went beyond any tale a child could conceive, not a single author capable of summoning the creativity to speak of such. It posed dangers, of course, albeit the mentor was quick enough to dismiss them after a tense silence. It was an answer - an aide, like a sword or a shield.
The theory came first. The Spark, ether, brands, witchmarks… Öcsi was a man that knew how to teach, but he was no teacher. He used his own words, parables, examples and figurative speech that did get the point through, albeit based solely in subjective experience. On the best of times, Hone sounded fun and powerful. At the worst it felt like tripping on a rock.
The initiation proved all of it wrong. The runes drawn across Zekuseeyros’ body seemed vile and wicked just by being there, and when they were triggered, the boy felt life abandoning him. The nausea came first, then the seizure. He felt blood running away from its vessel, then he felt it no longer. The worst of it was the Fire Within, once bright and controlled now turning cold and almost extinguished. The Aukari felt what, to this day, he considered the worst feeling: the feeling of not feeling at all. Vague are his memories as to what happened during this process, and blurry is the word used to describe what he recalled. Only one thought remained of this initiation; death felt like that.
HIs naming rune now placed on his forehead, Zekuseeyros and Öcsi were linked in soul as well as blood. It took a while, but in time, they began to understand each other. The boy knew of his destiny, but never had he understood it as he did now, when he looked towards the faceless knight. Recovery took a great while, but father and son were once again hand-in-hand towards their own cursed fate.
Ashes
He lay there, a pile of ashes. No goodbye note, no warning. Only a charred armor and that damned helmet.
It had been almost an arc since they had taken their journey together. Zekuseeyros’ was growing up into a man, having learned much and having, in his own childish way, forgiven himself for the past. His father, although greatly responsible for his past and future pains, had instilled him with a sense of duty. Because of it, a great sense of calm had fallen upon the son. Many of the mysteries surrounding the cursed lineage were explored, discussed, bargained with and, finally, internalized. It did not drive Zekuseeyros away from his devotion towards Faldrun. Neither had Öcsi’. Every Aukari is connected to the Kindler, for it was his fire inside them. Should he choose to fuel it or extinguish it depended solely on their worth.
After studying his grimoire, which had become, like his fathers’, both a diary and a source of taking notes, Zekuseeyros went out to seek his father. And he found him there, gone. Had his holy quest from Faldrun been given to him, and yet ignored? Had he spent his last year teaching him rather than trying to break the wheel? The boy cried out, enraged, and the Fire Within burned through his chest. He was on fire, then, screaming in his tantrum, hoping the phantoms would take pity on him. He’d curse the skies, fate and Faldrun alike, then curse his father for ever bringing him to this world. He burned, that young boy, up until he grabbed that cursed helmet and slammed it on his head and took on the burden of all that had failed to carry it before it.
The day he set out onto the world, he noted what had truly angered him most. It wasn’t this burden, it wasn’t the lack of a goodbye, it wasn’t the premature death and the despair he’d have to live with from now on. It was none of that. He wrote it down in his grimoire, a note that he remembers clearly every single trial of his life.
“I only regret not once having seen my father’s face.”
And Zekuseeyros set out, set to face Faldrun and succeed so that, one day, he may face his children without the three-faced helmet.
![[Approved by Pig Boy]](.//images/icons/cs_ok.png "[Approved by Pig Boy]"){kind=icon}
