Editing Sirokos (section)

==New Life and New Tragedy in a New Age==

Sirokos was born to Sesus Mugen Durandal, known simply by his wife and farm-hands as Mugen, and Menolie Rathington, a simple farm girl living on her family's ancestral estate surrounding an oasis many leagues east of Gem.  Sirokos was the eldest child, followed by two brothers (Menos and Theron) and two sisters (Lucretia and Ellhaym).  Despite being the eldest, Sirokos was often the instigator of many misadventures among his siblings.  His father and mother may have been more stern with him were it not for the fact that his antics helped keep life interesting in an otherwise remote and desolate area of the South.  Regardless of the consequences of his own actions, however, Sirokos often felt responsible for the well-being of his younger siblings and would defend them fiercely.  Meanwhile, the farmhands would just chuckle and place bets on the outcome of his latest misadventures.

The day the mountain fell on their home began like any other sweltering summer's day.  Nothing seemed out of place until the animals began to become inexplicably spooked, straining in their pens to escape.  The first real sign that something was not right came when first small pebbles then large stones began to pelt the main house and outlying buildings, early outriders of the main mass to come.  The sky seemed inexplicably darker when the family looked out there windows from their afternoon siesta, yet not a cloud could be seen for miles.  When windows started breaking and the roof started to become perforate by debris Sirokos' father finally thought to look outside more thoroughly, taking a heavy bronze shield to protect him from the unnatural rain.  When he could see the color drain from his father's face Sirokos suddenly understood something was very wrong...

Mugen raced back into the home, offering no explanation as he rushed the whole family into the root-cellar.  There, they huddled under a heavy steel work-table and piled heavy sacks of grain around themselves.  The frantic Sirokos' father worked at to secure them left no room for questions, though the ground was palpably shaking as if from something massive or several massive somethings thudding into it, like a stampede.  Inexplicably, his father did not shelter himself, instead running up the stairs and disappearing from view.

Then the whole cellar collapsed around them from one last, massive quake.

When Sirokos came to what must have been hours later he was pressed into a small space, dust and grain covering him and the weight of the bent worktable directly overhead.  His mother, Menos, Theron and Lucretia were clearing a tunnel through the rubble ahead (had Ellhaym chased out after father at the last moment?).  Sirokos slowly rose to aid them, every bone aching and his teeth sore from the force of the impact.  As they picked their way slowly through heavy stones and massive timbers that must have been part of the house originally, they could feel the sheer weight of -something- looming over them.  Hours passed in that dusty silence, the only light being from a small stone his mother always kept that was supposed to be "magic".  It got harder to breath and just when it seemed they might choke to death in their gritty coffin they found a gap ahead.  Rubble and larger stones slid around them when they, as a family, pushed their way out and at last into open air...and the side of a literal mountain of stone that hadn't been there before.  They had little time to take in the enormity of their surroundings, however.  Harsh voices called out orders.  Terrestrial voices.  Realm soldiers surrounded them as if they had been waiting for all this to happen.

As they made move to separate the family Sirokos' mother tried to resist.  Sirokos' almost felt outside himself, like the whole situation wasn't really happening, as he watched an officer calmly put a crossbow to her temple and pull the trigger without second thought.  He could do nothing but watch in shock, and couldn't even react as Menos yelled and attacked a soldier, Theron and Lucretia reflexively making a break for the open desert.  Menos' blood splattered hotly on his face as the point of a blade pushed its way out his back, startling him out of his shock.  The sound of Lucretia yelling as she was shot in the shoulder, Theron hauling her over a shoulder and continuing to run, was what finally broke Sirokos out of his fugue.

With a shout Sirokos put all his weight behind the swordarm of Menos' killer, pushing the point of his sword and Menos' limp body deep into the abdomen of the crossbowman who shot his mother.  The scream of the man rang on the dusty air and brought an unhealthy smile to the blood-crazed boy's lips.  He swiftly removed the crossbow from the man's already stiffening grasp and a quarrel from the pouch at his side, calmly loading it as the remaining soldier stared in shock at the comrade he'd inadvertently skewered.  That soldier didn't even blink when Sirokos showed him the same kindness that had been shown his mother.

Sirokos quickly ducked under the bodies of the two slain soldiers and his own brother, feeling the quarrels fired by the six remaining men thud heavily into corpses.  Hot rage pumping through his veins, Sirokos emptied the quarrel pouch in rapid succession and six men, six 'Terrestrials' fell dead...to a 9 year old.  Sirokos strapped the quarrel pouches of the fallen around his waist and held a crossbow in each hand, rage giving him the speed and coordination to reload them as he ran towards what looked like a commander's tent off in the distance, a burning sensation on his forehead.

Sirokos had never heard the word Anathema before, but he didn't care for the tone of the lesser men that stood before him.  He fired into any who got in his way and reloaded in almost the blink of an eye, a gut instinct tugging him towards the tent.  As he slipped through the flaps of the tent door he instinctively ducked and a heavy jade axe whistled overhead, tearing at the tent walls.  With a grin, Sirokos fired both crossbows into the armpit exposed above him.  The Terrestrial barely knew he was dead before he hit the floor...and when Sirokos saw what had happened to his sister Ellhaym he realized he had been too merciful.

The state Sirokos found his sister in he promised himself he would tell nobody.  It was the kind of horror that, even what he'd already seen that day, shook him to his very core and made him retch on the dirt floor.  To say what he did next put Ellhaym out of her misery would be a gross understatement, and it was with feet of lead that Sirokos carried himself out of that abattoir of horror.  Woodenly, reflexively, Sirokos set the tent to fire with one of the firewands at the Commander's waste, the pooled blood dripping from its pommel.  He tossed the sullied firearm aside and walked away.

All Sirokos could think of was crawling into a hole to die after what he'd seen, but Creation was not so kind.  As he re-entered the crude tunnel his family had made out from under the crushed mountain that had landed on their farm, Sirokos noted that it was not darkness that engulfed him inside but light.  The light shone from him like he was a firefly, and he shuddered to think of what he was.  Was Anathema some kind of devil?  Had killing those men made him a demon?  He did not understand...and mechanically pressed forward.

When Sirokos reached the place his family had hidden, it looked as if some recent disturbance had created a new path...one towards a faintly glowing light source that was not his own body.  Sirokos stumbled upwards toward it through the rubble as if guided by outside forces.  The path smoothed quickly into something...not quite manufactured but like it had been shaped intentionally by hands capable of molding stone like clay.  Large shattered crystals lined the walls where stones from above had crushed them, a strange ichorous substance leaking out from the cracks.  At the far end of this crystal lined chamber a bulky form lay pinned under a boulder, barely cognizant.  It was a heavily muscled reptile of humanoid form...more or less.  It was like the really old stories his father had told him about the Dragon Kings.  As Sirokos approached its reptilian eyes snapped open, slitted pupils regarding him warily.  An instant of rage in those eyes slowly gave way to an unfathomable expression, and the creature's heavy muscles relaxed an iota.  With a heavy rasping grunt it then heaved at the stone pinning it, revealing a shattered leg where the stone had fallen.

"You..Solar?!" its strange raspy voice asked huskily in a very strange dialect of Firetongue, something like you'd read in the ancient book of stories his father kept that was supposed to be centuries old.

As if a flood gate had been opened, Sirokos collapsed to his knees and tearfully related all that had happened to this utterly strange creature.  He eerily felt like he knew this thing, and that he could trust it.  The creature calmly listened on before tousling his hair (such a strange gesture from so massive a creature).  Then a grim look set upon its scaly face as it surveyed the damage of the room.  With a guttural grunt it led Sirokos into the depths of the demesne...

Sirokos spent the next several years living with [[Knopsen Dhul'tek]], the now crippled warrior and mystic of the Anklok Dragon Kings.  Knopsen taught him his ancient tongue, which came curiously easy to Sirokos, and about what the glowing meant.  Sirokos was a Solar Exalted, a Dawn Caste warrior of the Unconquered Sun...and so would be hated by many.  As Sirokos came of age Knopsen, seemingly entranced, led him to a deeper chamber of the demesne and bid him dig.  Within the rubble was an ornate box with a strange mechanical latch that opened at his touch, a pair of curious and highly ornate guns nestled in red velvet within...and on touching them Sirokos knew.  He suddenly knew who he was, what he was...all the things Knopsen couldn't explain he no longer needed to.  And most importantly, Sirokos knew how to use these weapons.  They were his after all, cared for lovingly by his closest ally Knopsen since the First Age.

Some while later, Sirokos stood at the threshold of [[The Dream of the Sun-Baked Young]], [[The Incandescent Arbiters as They Sit Upon an Earthen Throne]] nestled comfortably in their holsters around his waist.  Gruffly bidding his young charge farewell, Knopsen showed a rare sentiment of warmth.  The elder mystic tousled Sirokos' shaggy head as he handed him the Hearthstone to the Manse, saying as they parted in the High Holy Speech:

"Bring fire unto them, my friend of old, and make them quake before The Corundum Drake of old as they once knew how.  Bring your Vengeance and Justice upon them, and do not let those soft dragon-ilk be spared your wrath.  Strike at them my friend, my kindred, and sweep the path to the future clean with your flames."