HESSAT MALIK-GUHANI, PURPLE CLAN - STRAIN

Life was not kind, as life seldom is. Hessat was just the son of a wayfaring stranger and a gypsy who longed for more than her life allotted. She would never speak of the man who sired him, her expression tightening in a way that he was loath – even in his infantile curiosity – to worsen by pursuing an answer.

As gypsy’s theirs was a life where stability was a pipe dream for children to humor and adults to lament. In the short time that Hessat journeyed with the moving caravan’s with the freedom to dally and play, he had not yet become disillusioned to the lifestyle. They walked where the wind took them, played music of immeasurable beauty, celebrated life when opportunity arose and lamented in the warmth of togetherness when hardships struck. Gypsy’s, for all their wanderings, knew what it meant to be a community and even if he was penniless, he had want for nothing that coin could buy.

And then the cusp of his fifth birthday the order of his life began to shift. At first he did not know what it was that felt different. His days did not boast a remarkable change nor did their brief stops into townships amount to much but minor mischief. But when he dreamed…his dreams were vivid. It must be a dream for there was no way such opulence could be real. Yet even as he thought such things he could distinctly feel the silk flow beneath his fingers, crisp sweet wine on his tongue, and the heat of fire chasing away cold. It was like the tales of Shangri-la, a paradise of harmony that provided everything the soul could need.

What he was remiss to realize was that the effects were limited to his mind and as he played in golden fields and drank sweet juices by firelight, his body was at rest. His mother had shaken him but he remained dull-eyed and unresponsive, creating panic and uncertainty, as he showed no symptoms of illness that any of them could identify. To all observers he was vaguely comatose; he seemed to have mild awareness of his surroundings but could not respond to them. The solution came when one of the men of their company moved him a bit too roughly and Hessat jerked into awareness, startled.

His world of fantasy melted back into the living realm but his family was happy that whatever spell he’d succumbed to had broken. Confused, Hessat spoke nothing of what had happened and quailed at the thought of losing his paradise. Each night he would sleep and dream of his sanctuary, learning to limit how much time he spent there as he realized that what his mind conjured did not reflect on him beyond it.

Eagerly the next day he would regale the other children of his paradise, laughingly telling them of how he rode Lurkers, how they lauded him as King and he slept in the most luxuries palanquin. Naturally he was called a liar and mocked for his extravagant imagination as children were want to do to their peers. Hessat did not take kindly to their ridicule and after a week of yelled insults and pushing, decided he would simply show them his magnificence. So by his will he grabbed one of his harsher tormentors and dragged him into his mind to witness how great his realm was. Little did he know the boy had vanished from the outside.

The boys marveled at the world of Hessat’s Sanctuary but still his peer was equally terrified by it. A rough hand from the outside disturbed the event, Hessat remembers only the vaguest idea of the ground rushing up to meet him before blackness consumed him and he was forcibly ejected from Sanctuary. He would not come awake for a full day later and upon doing so found the adult sent him scathing looks and children quickly relocated their games when he approached. The once harmonious community sharply became hostile towards the youth. On more than one occasion he would have women who had once given him sweet bread, spit at his feet if he dared grab at their skirts, men shoved him with little care if he fell or forewent discretion and struck out at him if he got too near.

Their people valued names and compounded upon them, each one gained being an indication of title.

Guhani. Dream Devil.

It did not take Hessat very long at all to learn avoidance, skirting around the caravan like a shadow and hiding from the more vicious members. His mother, bless her soul, did what she could to provide comfort. Many evenings she would sit him in her lap and brush his hair of whatever manner of dirt and leaves he managed to accumulate during the day, rubbed oil on bruises, kissed scrapes and sang him melodies but she could only do so in the privacy of their own tent. Among the others she never spoke in his defense, looked away when blows rained down on him and never scolded the children who would chase him like a Lurker should they catch sight of him. It was agonizing. Hessat’s only solace was sleep, where his dreams let him feel safe and whole, even if the love of his creations were hollow.

A year of being ostracized came and went before his life took another shift, one more disastrous than the last.

Like many nights before this one the caravan has paused beyond the walls of civilization, choosing the forest thicket as adequate cover. Gypsys were an unscrupulous sort. The reason they could thrive outside the cities protection was because they accepted more than just those who worshiped Raduga’s Gods and the nature around them but outcasts of society, people with no place in the world but to wander, which included runaway clansmen and women who willingly used their blades to protect them in exchange for shelter. But on this night they were betrayed. A clever tracker had infiltrated their band and left a trail for her associates to follow. On that night, fire was set to the caravans and they were set upon by raiders who had no qualm with cutting down the fleeing gypsy’s as they came within range.

Hessat was lost in the pandemonium, running to what safety he presumed the forest would serve. But as a small boy he was easily caught in the traffic and shoved, perhaps accidentally, into one of the campfires. His right forearm caught, the sheer fabrics catching immediately and ripping a scream of pain from him as pure white agony lanced up his side. Someone caught his arm, dragging him from the tongues licking at his skin and he’d have been grateful had a wrought iron collar not been shackled to his neck, nearly choking him as he was then dragged away. Mercifully he passed out, waking hours later to find himself in the back of a wagon with other members of the caravan all shackled as he.

It was not hard to understand what had become of them, what fate awaited the miserable cluster that had not managed to escape in either flight or death and they bemoaned their ill fortune. They reached a fortress, some long forgotten bulwark whose owners forsake as Lurkers invaded in numbers they couldn’t combat, and the prisoners were marched underground into cells.

Fear ruled him in the year spent in captivity. In the time he was kept there were only glimpses of sunlight and clean air was but a far off memory. Many nights he would be tempted to simply slip into his Sanctuary to escape the stench of human waste and unwashed bodies, as their keepers were not keen on making their stay hospitable. They were less than cattle and were treated as such, fed only enough to keep them alive and on the outskirts of good health, never giving more than that. Whimpers from those with untreated wounds were his lullabies as he was too frightened of what might happen to him if he attempted to invoke his powers. If the gypsy caravan had been openly hostile surely death would await him should these brutes ever know.

While trapped behind bars there was no such thing as safety, bondage never allowed for it and nobody was brave enough to raise their voice against their captors. It was not an infrequent occurrence that bored guards would take their pleasures out on their charges, smelling of swill and sweat as they sated their lusts by bringing pain. Hessat certainly did not escape their attentions. It was simply one long, hellish nightmare and as he writhed in dirt and sewage.

When next he saw daylight it was to be loaded into a wagon and shipped off to the city of Zold for auction. Recently prisoners had begun to trickle out, never to be seen again and it was assumed they were to meet similar ends. Hessat cried soundlessly as they were herded into some seedy hovel where the roars of bidders tickled his ears and the eyes of far too many prickled over his skin. They were kept close by the platform and it was there that he glimpsed his last sight of his mother as she was hauled into view. He had known she was captured, he’d seen her, but their communication had been minimal. They had been kept in separate cells and neither risked their safety to reconnect with the other. He wept louder as voices rose and buyers made their intent known until some lucky swine won out. She may not have defended him from their people, she might have ignored him when in public, but she had not shunned him, she was his mother and something terrible would happen to her in the hands of these men.

He stopped paying attention after that, barely managing to shuffle forwards and blocking out the noise as he was auctioned like a trinket, led away like a dog and pushed into yet another wagon to whatever masters he was to serve. The place, a brothel, was their destination and it was there that he was introduced to a woman named Karissa – the matron of whores who would supervise his integration. By some small mercy it was decided he would not be marked for clients but made a servant, not that he was unfamiliar with sex by now and in the time he spent there he certainly was not oblivious to what sort of establishment this was.

Unfortunately the boy was pretty, kept thin from lack of food and his dark skin and bright eyes were exotic. He turned heads even in rags and there was more than one occasion where a customer would pass a hand over him or offer payment for private services. He had spent nearly three years skirting around corners and avoiding wandering fingers but one zealous customer would not be thwarted so easily by a quick-footed child and cornered him in the storeroom where he’d tried to escape. In his terror Hessat invoked Sanctuary – he’d nearly forgotten he could – and trapped the man within his mindscape.

For the next five hours he labored in the brothel, trying to conceal his crime but weakening with every few ticks of the clock. He had never held someone in Sanctuary for so long and the stress overwhelmed him until finally he passed out on the floor. The next he knew Karissa was leaning over him with the sternest face he’d ever seen on the woman, ushered before some higher ranking members, his deeds there for all to see. As the purple clan was the owners of the brothel his fate was theirs to decide. Death should have been certain but Karissa vouched for him, offering to teach him her ways, mold him into a loyal tool, should he be given pardon. It was agreed but he would be watched.

Karissa, as it turned out, was more than a simple lady of the night. She held a wealth of skills and was far more sinister a creature than Hessat had ever thought to fathom. It was from her that he learned the art of subtlty and subterfuge, of a sly hand on someone’s thigh, a coquettish smile, a few drops of poison passed between lips. In many ways Karissa was his first, his first kiss, his first lover, his first friend, his first teacher, but always did she remind him that she would choose her life above his should it ever come down to it. She accompanied him on his first mission to assassinate a man who had heretical views against the Purple Clan and silenced him in the midst of their moment of passion. It was a rush like he never felt before and a freedom that was as sweet as it was bitter. It was after his success that he was formerly branded with the Clan mark.

Years passed in a blur. He became many things, a courtesan, a killer, a maker of peculiar concoctions that addled the mind and made the day slightly more bearable. It was when he was eighteen that Karissa left for a mission that she did not return from. Hessat shed not one tear.

Time continued as it always did and finally, his present day. A walk around the city drove him closer to the rivers where he discovered a young man, or rather a strain. The other was far more obvious in his nature but he was curiously without memory of who he was or from where he came. Sensing opportunity or because he felt some form of responsibility as Karissa had with him, Hessat dragged the man back to the brothel and with permission from the King, nursed him back to health, renaming him Starling.

TIMELINE

0 - 6 YEARS OLD,
» traveling with family and gypsy caravan.
» manifests strain abilities.

7 YEARS OLD,
» the caravan is attacked and he is taken prisoner.
» spends a year in captivity being conditioned.
» manages to keep his strain abilities hidden.

8 YEARS OLD,
» sold to a purple clansman at Black Market auction.
» becomes a servant at the brothel.
» officially meets Karissa.

11 YEARS OLD,
» a customer attempts to assault him and activates Sanctuary as a reflex.
» tries to keep it secret but is caught when he faints from the strain.
» Karissa comes to his defense and offers to teach him to be loyal and useful provided he's allowed to live.
» begins assassin training.

15 YEARS OLD,
» completes his training and pledges himself to the clan.
» starts experimenting with plants with Karissa's supervision.
» joins her on his first mission.

18 YEARS OLD,
» Karissa is slain on a mission.

19 YEARS OLD,
» begins distributing crafted drugs to the populace.

24 YEARS OLD,
» discovers the amnesiac Cyrus, brings him back to the clan after renaming him.