Reflections of the War Demon

Before I vanished, Gleipnir was about ready to give a storytime on his past through RP. While I promised it'd start when I returned, I returned too late, things happened, the moment was ruined. Still, I promised, and since I found Jabba's Shehad Memoirs to be inspiring, I decided to do a few installments for Gleipnir/Fenrir to keep that promise.

"Was it worth it?" they ask. "How does it feel?" they ask. "Always remembered as a tyrant." "Nothing but a monster." "Got what you deserved." And then there was the one who asked, "Why?" I never gave her a straight answer. Not because I didn't want to, but because at the time, there was no straight answer I could think of. When that final piece of my past splintered and shattered though, I saw parts of the answers in each little fragment as I fell with them...

Fenrir Eir

I.
Think it goes back to before I was born, or some parts, at least. When 'cubi were feared, like my parents. Members of the few left among clans slipping into more lewd, depraved methods of survival. We weren't always the fabled fiends of bedchambers gnawing on the souls of lovers - at least not in the way they go on about us now. No, those involved in that nature were originally expert spies and saboteurs. Not the kind who simply destroy machines and poison armies, but the kind who sow seeds of betrayal and destruction in the place the enemy least expects it - in the sanctity of their own home. 'Cubi poisons were something deep and chronic. Something that infected bloodlines. Over time though, there were those that gave into notions of pleasure, romance, forbidden loves...poisons that over time sabotaged us in the same manner until old ways were shunned and spat upon. Ironic.

But no, those of my own blood were never like that, all the way back to our beginnings. Never strayed, never caved to the temptations of slipping into that carnal foolishness. Never left that accursed taint for our descendants to suffer. We were considered war demons for our nature. Our lusts always remained on the battlefield, where life energies ebbed and flowed through the air like an intoxicating miasma with each fallen ally or foe - free to be spilled as blood, rather than coaxed from lovers like one milks cattle.

It's always a...fascinating and thrilling experience - seeing one feebly clinging to their waning life force while it escapes them. Feeling their sorrow, rage, and pain as it becomes a part of you. Being reminded of your own mortality, reveling in that instant of life and the ability to take another's, and another's, and another's...

And oh, that deliciously bitter, torturous pain...but that becomes a nasty drug itself. Soon it's like the only way you can feel alive is to feel the pain of ripping another person's being apart. Perhaps the 'cubi I scoff at did have the right idea, changing ways of themselves and descendants to avoid such a thing. (Or maybe they were just weak.) All the same, it's something I could never accept doing. Not because of pride, blood lust, or preference, but...ah, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Regardless, clans changed over time. Perhaps there's those that found other ways to feed. Don't know, don't care any longer - if it wasn't something openly shared back then to preserve our kind, obviously it was a failed method.

II.

Anyways, this leads up to my parents. I don't remember much about them, aside from them being strong warriors, one of the last clans that stayed true to ancient rites, and...overly protective. Justly so. While their keep was civil and safe enough (perhaps eerily dark, but certainly not as savage as I'd heard humans describe a number of us in later years), it was also a stronghold on the ever-changing borders between Fomors and humans. The fighting was nothing new. I often slept to the lullaby of beating war drums during evenings and woke to their alarm early hours of the mornings. Tastes and scents of the battlefield drifted in on chilled winds, so I knew them long before I ever set foot on one.

I knew a day would eventually come when the keep would fall. After all, it hadn't been in our possession for generations, but something built over constantly by its conquerors. I was just a toddler when it happened. Humans managed to breach the walls, shouting cries of justice for their people and goddess and other such nonsense. That usual promised land garbage of crusading zealots. I watched from a balcony as my parents were cut down in the courtyard below. Mother taken by an arrow to the head, Father's cut open across his back and middle. The enemy nearly broke through the barred doors that were the last line of defense the keep had; but then, the reinforcements we'd been waiting for finally arrived to drive them off. I and the few behind those doors were spared by that timing; but it was hardly a force considered worthy of even holding the keep five minutes from another attack. We were to be disbanded, transferred, and the area put under a different guard.

I did as I was taught. It was ancient tradition, and something I was raised to maintain, even at that age. I don't remember crying for my parents, or feeling any particular sort of rage, or the desire to avenge them. I do however, remember what their pain and anger felt like as I devoured the remainder of their spirits among the other fallen.

And their laughter.

Death has been seen as many things for me, but never amusing. I never really found out what was so funny until faced with the same circumstances in an entirely different lifetime.