AN: It's been a hot minute since I posted anything! I'm making some slow and tentative progress on the next big story, and until then I wanted to post a few snippets of some of the main characters from The Howling Art's younger years. This one is about Evoksis, and doesn't contain any big plot spoilers for the Howling Art, and doesn't require a reading of it to understand what's going on, either-it works perfectly well as a standalone.
Hopefully sometime over the next few months I'll be up and rolling in earnest with these guys.
The very first days of Evoksis's life were spent in the wilderness. Different Houses had different ways of caring for their young, and there was even further division among troops. The one he'd been born to kept the young ones deep in the jungle, far away from the battlefields of Venus, sheltered in the ruins of some long-lost structure that had most been reclaimed by the forest. Eggs were gathered in nests in the basement, and the other young ones lived in and around the structure, occasionally tended to by visiting adults.
It was, perhaps, an unconventional cradle, but the days and nights were warm, and the land they'd chosen was largely untouched. The young ones were corralled here and there by the older juveniles for lessons necessary for survival, but most of the time they were free to simply explore the forest around them, climbing trees, wriggling into natural hollows and caves along riverbanks, and lording over the scattered ruins all around. The jungles of that tropical region was the safest place for them on the planet: Venus's dying ecosystem couldn't support any predators or prey large enough to challenge even a young eliksni. They hatched relatively capable, and a few shanks patrolled the territory for monitoring and emergency defense purposes.
On occasion, one of their parents would visit. Some were dismissive, unconcerned with their progeny, and others left with a very palpable air of regret, clearly wanting to take their child with them, but unable to, because of the dangers. Evoksis never got the sense that his mother ever wanted to take him with her, but it wasn't out of indifference. It was simply because, when they were apart, he was safe, and this mattered the most to her.
Evoksis learned early that his father had died while he was still in the shell.
He could always tell when his mother was about to visit: there was an indefinable change in the atmosphere of the forest. The days she came felt like waking up to a brand-new world, shaped like the old one, but delightfully different. She took a predictable route through the forest, so Evoksis always hurried to meet her at a particular tree, crouching on its branches, which bowed low alongside the path. He was always so excited that he'd run to his spot first thing in the morning, and sometimes, he'd have to wait for hours.
But those days, when he knew she would, she always came. The first few times, she seemed amused to find him expecting her, but the third time she regarded him with a curiously puzzled expression. "Do you come to this place every day?" she asked.
"No," he'd burbled in response, "only when you are coming to visit."
She'd looked at him oddly then, but her only response was, "Hmm."
Her name was Sekrrin, and she was a Captain of Winter. She wasn't a very warm individual, inclined to be serious, and sometimes humorless, but she spoke softly to her son, and listened with great care when he had something to say. Captain Sekrrin might not have been terribly good at expressing affection, but when he was in her presence, Evoksis always felt very strongly that he was important to her.
Once, she stayed for an entire day, and it was the single longest visit she and Evoksis ever enjoyed together. When she came to see him in the morning, he was eager to show her the ways in which he'd grown strong, scuttling up a tree as easily as if he were strolling a well-beaten trail. He sat on a branch high above her head, and she regarded her child with amusement. "Impressive, little one. You had better practice doing it with two hands instead of four."
He didn't understand why that would be necessary, but he took her advice.
She walked with him through the forest, allowing him to show her his regular haunts, quietly asking him how he spent his days, and listening with calm, perfect attention as he spoke. Later, Evoksis would come to realize that in those moments, she was silently cherishing every word, even the nonsense babbles of a borderline-feral child who had a great many things to say about nothing at all. She waited until he'd shown her everything he wanted, chattered on as long as he could, and it wasn't until he'd run out of steam that she paused to eat with him, and began to speak for herself.
"I want to tell you where you came from, Evoksis," she'd said, simply. Her son had watched her with wide, bright eyes, eager to know what secrets she must be carrying from that strange world of the distant adults, with all its danger and glory.
She told Evoksis of the traditions that had been passed down to her by her father, and his mother before him, and her mother before her—and so on. "The Great Machine brought prosperity, long ago, so long that very few left alive can remember it, but so it also brought disaster in its wake. The joy we knew in the Great Machine's embrace was matched only by the sorrow we felt in its absence." She told him the stories of the lost great Houses of their people: the seers of Rain, the warriors of Scar, unmatched in their viciousness.
She told him of the proudest lines of Winter, the noble blood that ran through the greatest warriors of their House, traced all the way back to the settling of Venus and the long, cold journey to this solar system, the survival of the Whirlwind itself, and even further, to the glory days of the long-lost Eliksni nest-world.
"And our line?" he asked, staring at the pale mantle on her shoulders.
"Ignoble, I'm afraid," she replied, but not without a touch of humor in her voice, "my line only came to Winter a handful of generations ago: refugees that were taken into the House during the journey. Our line is crossed and re-crossed with the blood of enemy Houses, and lost Houses, and ultimately common as dirt." She knelt, and nodded for Evoksis to join her, and do the same Sekrrin spread her palm over the ground. "But it is from dirt," she said, "that great things grow. Even here, in these poor and dying soils, the jungles devour the world. Trees crack the foundations of buildings, swallow ruins whole, grow strong from the flesh of the dead." She fell quiet, then, watching as her son tried to digest the metaphor.
Evoksis stared at the ground, curling his fingers in the leaf-strewn soil. He didn't say anything.
"Your father came to our House in his own lifetime, from Earth.
"Earth?" he asked, looking up.
"The nest-world of humankind," she said, "where the Great Machine currently sleeps. He was born to the House of Devils, and fought hard to prove himself worthy of being even a Dreg to Winter. Harder still to advance." Sekrrin looked away, out into the shifting dappled shadows of the forest. "I have never met someone as determined as him."
As with many things his mother told him, Evoksis didn't understand the importance of what she said to him at the time, but learned the full ramifications of it later. His mother had chosen a newcomer to the House, eschewing the chance to purify her bloodline with the nobler lines of Winter. Such things weren't necessarily taboo to the Eliksni, who couldn't afford to be too selective with their progeny, considering how close they teetered to the brink of total extinction, but it was still something of a statement.
"Am I named after him?" Evoksis asked.
"No. He was called Vesriks. I chose your name from one of your ancestors, who served one of the lost Houses," his mother said.
"Which one?"
"The House of Stone. The House of the great Chelchis, who stood before the maw at the end of our world. You carry his blood, though it is thinned by many generations. Evoksis: heart of stone. Remember this, for it is where you come from, and it is what you must carry with you into the future. You've been born into a dangerous place, little one."
"The House of Stone," he'd intoned, quietly solemn, speaking with a gravity possessed only by the very young.
"Yes. Stone and Winter. Devil, on your father's side, and Scar, too, distantly. Perhaps some other mongrel strains." She paused, and tilted her head, her eyes narrowing in that quizzical expression. "And sometimes I wonder," she murmured, "if some trace of Rain lives in you."
It would be many, many years before he understood what she'd meant by that.
That night, she took him out to the banks of a remote jungle river, where he could better see the night sky. "Attend to me, little one," his mother had said, "and I will tell you of the four powers that govern the soul."
The forest stretched out all around them, and as wild as it was in the daytime it was twice so at night, filled with the raucous cries of nightbirds and the shrill droning of insects. Evoksis had used to be afraid of the night, but she had told him, once, that these sounds were a joyful noise. The discordant array of voices was a pale backdrop against the soft power of his mother's voice.
"One for each of your hands," she said, kneeling and holding all four of her arms out, palm-up. Evoksis darted forward and placed his hands on hers, marveling at how huge and ruggedly powerful her talons were, compared to his. She could snap branches as thick as her arm like dry twigs, could tear her enemies apart limb from limb, but those hands were always exceedingly gentle when she was with him.
"The first is probably the one you will fully recognize last. It is your nature. Often we don't realize who we are until late in our lives. You must be tested to find yourself. And sometimes, the test is harsh." Sekrrin curled the fingers of one hand around Evoksis's, eclipsing the entirety of her child's hand in her grip. "But the harder the test, the surer you will be of your answer."
She went on, "Your nature will be with you, even if you don't recognize it. The things you resist, you will resist because of it. The things you accept, you will accept because of it. You will defy or obey others because of it; you will hate or love because of it. Trust your instincts, for they are its voice. Do you understand, little one?"
He'd told her yes, even though he wasn't sure he did. Evoksis did his best to memorize her words, even if he wouldn't yet fully grasp their significance for many years to come.
"The soul is not immovable, though. It is not static. Even if your nature is the heart of who you are, there is still room for your soul to be shaped by the world you live in. This is the second great force: how you are nurtured." She closed the fingers of her second hand, once again dwarfing her son's tiny fingers with her own. "Just as practice made your arms strong, and your reflexes quicker, so do the experiences of your life shape you. The most important of these changes are the ones that come from learning. This jungle has many lessons for you. I have many lessons for you. Your allies and your enemies will have many lessons for you, as well. Keep your body strong, and your mind stronger."
She released Evoksis's hands and gestured for him to sit beside her. He did, clambering up onto her leg and tucking himself against her side, clinging to the forearm of one of her lower arms.
"The third great force is the most important of all," she said, looking up at the night sky through the canopy, over the river. "And it is the most mysterious force of all, and the one furthest out of our reach to control: holiness."
She told him of the spiritual traditions passed through her family, the legends, the burial rites and oaths of revenge. She told him of the exalted Servitors, those beings who offered them sustenance, survival, communion. "It's more than just a practical arrangement," she said, "you will know, when you stand in the presence of a Prime Servitor. You will feel it when they turn their gaze upon you."
"What's it like?" he asked, awed.
She considered this. "You will feel the weight of their long, long lives, of the power they carry within them, pressed upon you when you meet their stare. They wear a holy shape—" She traced a circle in the air with her upper arms. "—and many say that this is in the memory of the great Machine. But they are great, themselves. They might not be the Great Machine, but they are great machines in their own right. When you are in the presence of holiness, you know."
Evoksis nodded, resolving to remember that. "What's the last one?"
"The fourth great force that governs the soul is your home," she said.
"Venus!"
"Perhaps." She looked back down at him, lifting her arm slightly so she could look him in the eye, amused, indulgent. "Home is not necessarily where you're born, though. Home is where you belong. Like your nature, it is something that often takes time to discover. Sometimes it's a place. Sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, home is who you're with, rather than where you are."
Evoksis's eyes narrowed in a thoughtful expression. He didn't quite understand, but didn't say anything. His mother didn't need him to express his confusion to sense it, though. "You'll know. Home may be by the side of a mighty Servitor, or the camaraderie between you and your fellow warriors. Home might be a state of mind you go to when you're reflecting on matters of the spirit. It might be the feeling of riding through the air on a pike with the wind in your teeth. Home is difficult to describe, but like holiness, you'll know what it is when you feel it."
Evoksis trusted her on that matter.
He woke up one morning knowing something was wrong.
It was in some way like the feeling that came to him when he knew his mother was about to visit: there was some indefinable shift in the world around him, as if everything had changed in some undetectable but fundamental way. Instead of seeming brighter, more full of life, a sense of terrible dread wound through Evoksis on that morning.
He found out, two days later, that his mother had died in a battle with the Vex.
Even young as he was, Evoksis was left with a sense that something had been stolen from him. It was a feeling entire separate from his sorrow, as if he were grieving for something that had never happened. The next week passed in a quiet, listless haze interrupted only when one of the older children came to round him up for food or ether. A great solemnness settled in his soul, and by the time the grief had faded enough for him to feel alive again, the last of what could be called his childhood had left him.
Evoksis still taught himself to climb with two arms, even though he had nobody to show his accomplishments to.