Man had become the most brutish creation surpassing that of the oldest, strongest of my kind.
It began as all things do with the passage of time. Seasons changed as the wont to do as did the very nature of humankind. What started as a balanced cohabitation of all of Gaia's creations, quickly gave birth to greed and barren wastelands where life used to thrive for all.
Humans evolved from the simple, nomadic species they were to a force that threatened the whole of the delicate scales of the living. They found a magic that was just as awesome and powerful of any of the incantations that my people could weld and profoundly more treacherous.
They called it technology.
With its invention, great oceans dried up, prairies became dust, and great forest were uprooted and burned away to nothing. In the place of these once majestic places that once was, a large metallic, dark city loomed called Midgar. There, the humans had sent forth several metallic creatures that would level and kill along the way. They didn't know of those they displaced with their practices…those they killed for the sake of forever spreading out like a blacken blight like the soil that surrounded their capital from its taint and pollution of once green and lush land.
It seemed to pull life from the Planet herself, something that greatly affected our race as time went along as we were very much one with the Planet.
To be certain, this was not the only human institution that had be established, but each had a different feel to it. While the humans would hunt the lesser beast of our realm, that was allowed as it was proven it was for their survival: food, clothing, and even shelter from the larger beasts hide to make makeshift homes from the blistering heat to the dropping temperatures that brought with it snow's first fall.
There used to be reverence in the prayers that the humans would often send up to the Gods and Goddesses of the World for their blessings. Some of their elderly still did this practice while their young became brash and unthankful.
With the improper respect of what was being given in water, fruit from bearing trees, and the wildlife that was sacrificed came the beginning of hunting for sport and deforestation though we did not know the terminology, just the desecration after the process. It was a damnable thing, to take a soul for granted. Whether it was a freshly hunted rabbit to a long-standing tree that became firewood or a home for someone. Because we were born of the Planet and felt the connection acutely, it was painful when this sort of sickening practice began.
My father and uncle are the Gods of Creation and Destruction, Life and Rebirth. Vincent and Chaos. They are very old and very wise and had saw these changes in a blink of an eye come upon them.
While there are several types of Fae, my brothers and I were the strongest due to our pedigree. Our mother is the Queen of all Fay, encompassing and having in subjection water, wind, earth, and fire.
Our father and uncle would always warn us not to stray when we were younger though they knew we were indeed strong and noble due to our rearing and more than able to fend for ourselves if need be. My mother had always been strong as well but with the changes in the land, it was found it weakened her. She was a direct scion for Minerva, Goddess of the Planet and she could feel the Planet's pain acutely.
It was the same for my father and my uncle. With the constant influx in souls taken versus being born, this too left a chasm.
Nothing compared to the day the in which I lost my brothers.
The humans had sent forth several metallic creatures that would level all in its way and would kill any that stood against it. They didn't know of those they displaced with their practices, those they killed all for the sake of forever spreading out like a blacken blight like the soil around it from its taint and pollution of once green and lush land.
They besieged our home, our beautiful forest kingdom of Ajitrune. There were five of us, with our mother tending our newest and youngest brother just born. There had already been a great battle some centuries back before the dawn of this technology, those that showed their greed and were sent away. This was nothing like that battle of old.
This time the one that they had made their king or leader, Theodore Shinra, came with more men and more weapons and a slew of metallic creatures mowing everything in their path. We, too, could wield weapons of our own in our elfin forms. My father and uncle proved to be the best marksmen with bows as well as hand to hand combat. I, being the crowned prince was still considered what the humans would think to be a preteen of about 12 summers when I was closer to 500, took to the sword and was an expert with it. My mother was a great Cleric and Mage, having near unlimited power from the Planet itself. The middle boys were younger still being around nine, seven, and five summers in human calculations had not come fully into their own powers yet.
I was tasked to protect my brothers as my mother protected our infant brother. Our father and uncle fought along the leader of the wolf Fae, Cid and his sons Cloud and Zachary with their own weapons of choice of javelin and broadswords as his own mate tried to do the same as my own mother and protect the remaining girl child they had.
Though I tried with my preternatural strength to stave off the wave of men, I screamed for Loz and Kadaj not panic, not to be afraid in their hiding spot I placed them.
They were young, and so was I.
I fought harder than I had ever in my life to save my brothers, but it wasn't to be. The men had spotted us and thought us fair game since we looked to be normal children, that is if normal children had a headful of hair silvery-white and they owned seafoam green cat pupiled eyes.
I was batting away several men from where I had hidden my brothers. I simply turned my head for but a moment…
Both Loz and Kadaj, being the smallest of us were plucked up, their cries for help echoing throughout the forest. Once the men looked upon what they assumed to be normal children, they flinched back at looking upon our unique features.
My father heard them even over the cacophony of guns firing, screams of the enemies…and allies falling to the fight, and the strange whirring of the metallic monsters as they carved great gouges in the land around us. He couldn't get to us fast enough through the throng of people and machines that ruined the only home we'd ever known, and I found I indeed was not strong enough.
My mother howled knowing what was to come but could do nothing, protecting the babe she had in her hands.
With two well-placed cuts to each of my brother's throats, I watched in horror and deep guilt as they knew no more.
Both were dropped before me at my feet as the man with some sort of facial hair and a scar upon his face left. I was numbed. I remember going to my remaining brother, his frame shaking from the scene before him, and him crying silently.
Father and uncle Chaos had come and had reaped vengeance on the one that caused their murders. Despite my father's and uncle's great strength and my own, my father had severely wounded his arm in the skirmish. My mother healed the wounded even as she grieved, including my beloved father. Since that day, he was fitted with a golden gauntlet bound around his left arm, its fingers wickedly sharp talons, all covering his shame of his injury and the failure he felt over his lost sons.
Once it was over and we had pushed back the enemy, nothing remained of our home as we once knew it nor did our lives hold that same peace anymore.
I'd lost my innocence on the day I lost my brothers. I clung to the ideal as it was all I had that I did save Yazoo, my second born brother, and that my mother and infant brother Noctis were safe…but at what cost.
We would have to move on. There was nothing of our lives here anymore, not even comforts of home. My father and Cid of the wolf pack agreed that we should move, to find another forest to reside in and that is what we did. It was long and grim, but we eventually migrated to Nibelheim's forested area and that became our domain going forward.
My father and mother were heartbroken though they never blamed me for my brothers lost lives; I blamed myself. I swore I would get this 'Shinra' back if were the last thing I was to do.
My mother took very hard and was ill from her heartbreak for a time. My father and uncle continued to raise my brother and I and rear Noctis until he grew older. In time, mother did recover from her loss as best as she could. Neither of my parents were ever the same again.
My father's carefree smiles were few and far in between making him more solemn and more serious unless with my mother or uncle where some of his old personality would peak through. My uncle's neutral stance on humans grew to a tempered rage below the surface of all things human. My father and mother would not wage an all-out war though they knew they could and it would be in their right, but they never blamed all of mankind. They knew they could call the Fae of the world and other Gods to their aid in a fight, but they let the matter lie.
I had a hard time with this concept as I had saw all their personalities changed by losing their birth home and their children. When I was roughly 20 summers in human terms, my father stepped down and made me the new King of the Nibel forest. I hated the humans and with my mother nurturing Noctis' natural magical abilities as he was the same age as Loz was when we lost him and with the new responsibilities of being a King, I was wary of all humans close or far. I still would have my retribution from Shinra, especially since the leader also had a son who sought to be as foolish as his father.
While we didn't mingle with the humans, my mother could read minds and current of the Lifestream from which all things came. It kept us all abreast of how the world had changed around us again. We prefer to remain in our animal forms as we roamed about our new kingdom for comfort and for concealing ourselves from humans or hidden within our spelled castle Mahkoreed.
Though in normal terms Zachary and I would be natural enemies given I was a deer spirit and he a wolf, we'd been friends since childhood. Though Zachary was 18 summers, we got along just fine though Cloud and I's relationship was always strained and I am not certain what his issue was. I never did understand Zachary's nature to throw caution to the wind despite his strength and true nature. I contributed it to the fact we both we not socializers, that was all Zachary. The dark haired, violet eyed man always had a smile despite my severe personality at times. I took after father but had the festering anger from my uncle.
When Zachary stated he'd had "befriended" a human, I thought to throttle him within an inch of his life. Did he not remember what had brought us to this new and foreign forest in the first place? He spoke of the man and stated that he was a kind and simple hunter. I had known for months some had been in my forest.
My pupils turned to severe slits at the word 'hunter' as I was in my elfin form, my now long silvery white hair flowing to my knees, seafoam eyes burning a hole into my treacherous friend's face. Zachary knew he'd used the wrong terminology around me. He was fortunate it was not my uncle Chaos or my father that he'd mention this to. The human would be dead despite pleas that this man was like humans were before technology. I simply snorted inelegantly and looked down. I was now the King and it was my duty to protect my brethren from another siege until we were ready, if I were ever to be ready to put my family and allies in harm's way again.
Zachary begged me to just observe the man. I considered this insane request seriously. Maybe he was correct, that this human did practice the ways of old. Maybe, I should have just struck the man down with my Masamune and be done with it. Zachary had been going to the man in his larger than normal Nibel wolf form and the man treated him as a friend and consort. Zachary always seemed to see my thoughts and again begged amnesty for the man and for me to just observe him before acting.
I could say it was all for safety, for my kingdom alone, but I did adopt more than my mien from my mother: her curiosity would be the death of me. I was determined to monitor the man without him even knowing.
This is how I found myself staring out through the dead leafed and snow-covered trees at the large human male that was walking a well-worn path daily without him knowing the wiser.
