Trigger Warning: Violence. This one is more intense than the others so far. It contains a higher volume of violence, (specifically of many human un-alivings in large-scale acts of war) Nothing is described with too much graphic detail, but I would rather anyone who could potentially be harmed by the discussion of these events skips this chapter entirely.
~ Please feel free to skip if that's not your thing ~
If you still want character info but don't wanna risk it, feel free to hit me up in the reviews or my P.M.s and I can give ya the spark notes free of charge! :3
Stay safe all~
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Amroth
One of the few among us who was known better by deed than by name. Few people remember the nearly silent, dark-skinned, golden-eyed, distracted man on the fringes of our group, but everyone for an entire generation spoke only in hushed horror of the night Iliria burned. But, to better understand the man, we must trek back through his history. Many of the details and subtleties contained therein are utterly lost on me; not only was he a very quiet man by nature, but neither do his people disclose their private operations to outsiders. Understand that the details I lay out here were told only to me and in highest confidence; I do not believe he ever relinquished his secrets to another soul. I have tried to pair down details as much as possible out of respect.
He was born the son of a chief in one of the wandering tribes (he never disclosed which). I only know that their path often allowed them to interact with the northeasternmost fringe of the Empire. His closest friend and intended marriage partner at that time was a young girl whose name no one now knows. Their existence was fairly peaceful until they were defeated by another tribe. He disguised his then friend as a boy to protect her and ensure they would not be separated. Inevitably, their ruse was discovered and two things happened in rapid succession: she was betrothed to an older man of the absorbing tribe and he was abandoned; declared 'outcast' by the new leadership.
They abandoned him near the capital city so he would not die (the punishment is not about death, but about living on, isolated from the lifeblood of your home). He wandered into the city with nothing more than the clothes on his back. He joined the queue surrounding two riders out of curiosity alone. He did not expect to be chosen, nor had any of the very different faces surrounding him expected the scrawny, dark-skinned little boy to rise to a greater status than any king right before their eyes. He named his dragon after his first and only friend, a touching memorial to the life he thought lost to him forever. Even with this shocking twist of fortune, the tribe's punishment was still in full effect, and he felt every mile of their journey to Vroengard chipping away at his sense of self.
Very few Riders hailed from the tribes because of their isolated nature. And the few that did understood well what Amroth's designation meant. Thus, they left him largely to himself. This was no concern for Amroth; he spent much of his time with *******, telling her all that he knew of his home so she could understand him better. He especially told her of his smoldering hatred for the other band and his determination to one day repay them. He remained isolated from everyone, but took a ravenous interest in studies of all kinds, particularly the limits of the physical world. He became something of a tinkerer, and some of his earliest inventions remained in the elder's vaults up until they collapsed in our final battle. In all that time, he could never truly let go of his memories of his friend, or the urge to avenge her unfair fate.
Once he had graduated, he took an impulsive flight from Doru Araeba all the way to the edge of the Hadarac. He located the tribe in question and took it upon himself to wipe them out. He told me this tale exactly once in excruciating, mechanical detail. He sounded like a man half asleep, recounting the dream splayed before him. When their camp lay in flames all about him, he found and confronted their leader. He slew him, his son, and his wife, only then noticing something eerily familiar about the woman at his feet. He dropped to the ground and took his dying friend in his arms, staring helplessly as the light of life was replaced with only dancing flames.
It was there, in that horrific moment, that he first felt drawn to fire as more than a tool, but as an expression of himself. He was what many would call a "pyromaniac", though in his days of numbness he never allowed himself to explore it. His passion for heat and flame was stronger than any other emotion he possessed, the fervor of an artist, medium, and muse. He never missed an opportunity to cavort with his true mistress, and she never deserted him when he most needed her. He would come to etch his name in history with that very tool, but first, he needed to meet a source of direction.
He had the sense to remain in the wilderness after his blatant misuse of power. It was in this isolation that I encountered him. By then even I had heard hushed rumors of his atrocity, though I had no concept of what sort of man could have accomplished it. He invited me to share his camp and we exchanged brief accounts of ourselves. He seemed intrigued by my goals of toppling the old order, though he never deigned to tell me if it was out of genuine interest or an excuse to ply his trade. To both of our ways of thinking, it made no difference.
Amroth spoke only rarely, but when he did it was invariably an insight and asset to us. He was nothing less than a genius, though he expressed it only in blunt monotones. His instinct for mechanics created some of the most wicked traps known in any society ancient or modern, and his workings with fire charges were some of the most bone-chilling things I've ever witnessed.
One of his greatest and worst accomplishments was during our assault on Ilirea. It began in the earliest greying of dawn with us entering a network of tunnels used as bolt holes by elves during the time of the dragon war. Half of the thirteen labored under Amroth's diligent eye while the rest followed me deeper into the city. Many of the elder riders had residences scattered throughout, and many others were bunked in a set of buildings in their own isolated area. You can imagine the frightening hell unleashed when Amroth detonated his first masterpiece: whole swaths of the city were simply consumed by his chosen mistress. Many people who had access to the tunnels fled into them… only to be enveloped by the second wave. Nearly a quarter of the city burned that day, and those that remained understood our message perfectly. Barbaric? Perhaps. But, it proved extremely effective; we did away with a massive swath of resistance while simultaneously removing notions of further revolt.
As one can imagine, his flinty exterior kept him from developing many close bonds. Formora cited an intense discomfort with the man, "I get violence. Hell, we're all killers! But someone who can just… erase hundreds of people without even blinking? That's not natural." I was one of the only people in the world who can say they knew Amroth well, and even I never knew everything about him. I grew to understand that, in his fractured mind, there were the times before Her death and the times after. Before, he had as much humanity as anyone else. After, the world turned grey for him, and only his fire could restore the color.
This problem only worsened in the following decades as ******* began to fade away. He not only lost his bonded partner, but he also began to lose any and all memories of the woman whose name she bore; the woman who defined his life. It worsened until she was no more than a hazy shape at the edges of his past. His strongest memory of even that horrible night was of the flames themselves reflected in her eyes. He dove harder and farther into his experiments, pushing the limits of what could ever be considered possible. Finally, his own disregard for his safety caught up with him. Nothing now remains of his estate except for a burnt-out shell of stone and the scattered bones of his dragon. I can't begin to predict if it was some horrible accident… or if it was exactly what he intended.
Amroth stands out sharply among the forsworn for more than just his skin. He entered a gang of loud-mouthed ambitious youths when he was none of those things. He was silent, brooding, ambivalent, listless, and mature well beyond his years. His past haunted him until he was willing to throw away any hope of a future. His genius was overshadowed in the end by the horrors it enabled. I will not pass judgment on him, partially because of all the people in the world my morals are the least admirable. But, also, because I simply never knew enough of his heart to say if he believed he was doing the right thing, or if he was just releasing his pain on everyone around him. I will say that he had a fascinating mind, and (for better or worse) the world is not likely to see another like him.
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*Whew* By far one of the more gruesome bios of this group, and that is a massive shark to jump in the present company! I can't even deny that he's one of my personal favorites, both in design and application. He's just a very... unique vibe. R+R as you'd like, peace lovelies~
