Their name was Peverell. Though, it hadn't always been so. And certainly not in that appearance.
Nine-and-ten generations before a set of brothers three, there was but one son who carried the pride of his forefathers. Sole heir in name and pride of his family, he was beloved by all of them and lauded with laurels of warmth and passion.
Yet he died before his four sisters, a child robbed of adolescence and an innocent stayed with a lack of guilt. A passing dark covered his corpse as they wept and burned him to ashes, and all the family found their mourning unrelenting.
But Father Time stood patiently for none and edged the family forward. Said sisters suffered the cruelty of having been born to one of many families struck by plague; they were barred from labor and cursed to strife. Famine and disease ran rampant among the peoples; and so, all of them had wed and sacrificed their family's crest for survival.
Still, one of those sisters hoped. But more than hoped, she struck. She took the name of her husband, Pævral, willingly; undaunted by the task of playing the Grail. For a vision came to her and she spoke with it in her land of dreams; she foresaw what was to come in the years ahead, and humility struck her at how great she would be for having revived a blood almost dead.
So she married that man with ease in her heart and taught to him her ways and the ways of the clan which birthed her, a family encircled in the deepest of wits and magicks. He accepted her wholeheartedly and in truth, allowed her a strength which few would have given their wives in that day.
She educated him. And their sons and daughters. And the sons of their own daughters and the daughters of their sons and so forth.
Thus, over the years, the name began to spread, and many far, wide, and even close had come to pay homage or to apprentice themselves, curious about the family whose fame lay in writing. It was, of course, strange for any family to be so well-spoken and scarcer still for them to be versed in script.
It was not too long before a term was given to them: devils and demons. Not because the they were wittƪe or wittƪa, but because all of them spoke to some being unseen. That meant only one thing. They were pagans of the highest order; they bowed to no gods of origins known, be it the One or the many from continent or groves. But they welcomed this invisible spirit - perhaps it was one of many fae, people suggested - with open arms and delight.
They delved into their own little world, and their land was secluded and circled by woodwork and brambles. Thorns layered the ground and trees about their space, and elven-folk drifted beside them daily, gaily singing tunes or humming some strange hymn.
In the Isles, it was them whose powers brought fear and doom to their own kind. Many of those who knew little beyond their town's borders could spin tall tales about the family Peverill. And so, fear took to all the corners of the Anglo-Saxon's clout; these Peverill were but one family, they said. What of the others, then?
And so to arms they stormed and stood, stone-faced with hate and wrought with spite. Soon, to anger they took and the seed of blame was planted. It was no longer the clan of Peverel alone to be hated. It was all of their kind and all things that most could not fathom.
The unknown became the Dark and the exposed took the staunch white shield of flame and justice. Light, they said, showed them the way; that those acts with no imaginable reason were evil and untrue, though they, too, believed in as many gods and goddesses whose holy touch seemed impossibly un-mortal.
It went that wicked path; a wyrd unspoken trampled upon the masses. And chased they were, backed into the thickets strong. Poised with confusion and armed with dismay, they cried and cried. What had they done to deserve such revile? Did you not, a mere ten sun cycles ago, come to us, they asked. And what of three winters previous when we took your wives, pregnant and ill and kept them alive to birth your children? And your cousins wed - did we not minister those unions blessed?
But none of their voices were answered, only met with vitriol and spite. Any dissenters from the crowd were quickly gutted, silenced in opposition, and that was when the Peverells knew they could no longer stay. To them, death was but the next great adventure; and to them, Death was that powerful son of Time whose grip and touch lingered restlessly close, a guide and friend with songs of close.
Yet to rush into his hold paid a penalty on one's soul; one who did such was forever marred and cursed. A grandiose mockery of the cycle precious. A tortured play on mortal matters, performed with no curtains drawn or cued applause. Instead, those merciless hunters left a trail of vicious taint, a stench foul enough that Zeus would burn a mark more prouder than Cain's. Not even that Phrygian devil committed such evil.
So the family fled and departed and fled further back through their woods and into the hills and even under Earth. They laid where no men would find them and the hope of blood seemed borne thin, but whispers kept their hearts pounding. For the family vision had yet to be true.
And so, an age of men passed.
Death had all of Time's favors and never stepped hastily; he simply always was, wherever there lived Life. But none of the Peverell family knew that more than its three crowned jewels.
Notes:
Forgive my Old English, as I've not practiced it in a little over two years, and honestly, writing this in Google Docs is frustrating because I can't find the 'esh' symbol; I had to import the symbol by finding it in Word.
The Peverell name changes over the course of writing this chapter. Yes, that's intentional. Spellings were often misdocumented, misread, and mistranslated into modern speech, though Peverell could have held a number of variations such as Peverel, Peurerellus (according to Bardsley), etc.