KHULAI LOVEL - GREEN CLAN, KING

-- Little dove, little dove, why do you cry? It is not the burden of Man to recall the history of their existence. Your stories will be rewritten and your memories will all fade into nothingness. This is the way of the world.

A little baby girl with beautiful hazelnut hair was the last thing a low-blooded family of eleven needed in their lives. She was just another body with another mouth to feed. She wouldn't even be the last. Being rather unremarkable, her life promised to be no more significant than a speck of sand in a vast desert. Truthfully, that prospect did not sit well with her, but she has no means of escaping her own blood.

Her family lived as fishermen by the sea, only occasionally sending a few of their children inland to sell their catch at a small market stall in the city. The city, though, was highly unpredictable place which sported plenty of petty conflicts between the undifferentiated clans. It was only a matter of time before their fish stall got caught in the middle of it all. Even at the time the events all seemed like a blur, but Aneszka did remember a man engulfed in flames being taken down by a bolt of green lightning. That lightning likely saved her from a brutal death by burning.

Suffice to say, her parents decided to limit their sales to more local, safer markets, therefore no longer sending their children into the city. Aneszka went along with this for a time, but she felt as if she was just fading away. What would happen to her when she died? Sure, her soul would go to heaven, but what mark had she made on this world? What was the point of living in it if she was less notable than a shadow?

She ran away one day, hiding herself in the carriage of a brief guest of their humble abode. It was dangerous for a little girl all on her own in a big city, especially a clueless little girl asking anyone and everyone she came across about the clans. The Green Clan found her before she found them, initially suspicious of her intentions. Regardless, her earnestness did eventually win them over, allowing her the opportunity to join them.

As they guided her through adjusting to life in the city, she became particularly close to a male clansman not much older than herself. After a few years, it was clear that they were practically inseparable, drunk in each other's affection. He taught her how to navigate the city and how to wield a blade, often sparring in the secret crevices of the metropolis. 

Unfortunately, the joyous news that she was bearing his child was soon followed by tragedy. In an assassination mission which was supposed to be simple, her lover was killed by hired guards, an unexpected threat. Heartbroken and furious, she took up the quest which he had failed and, perhaps foolishly, slit his throat. At the time she had not understood the full potential of her aura's power, so her first physical transformation was driven by the unrestrained fury in her cracking aura.

She -- now a he -- would only realize later that the developing fetus had been absorbed by his body during the shift, leaving him forever unable to have children of his own, regardless of the gender and health of his form.

-- There's blood on the walls and blood on the floor and blood on your hands and blood on your soul. Careful, little rat, or you'll drown yourself in your own sins. One life was not meant to pour a drowning pool so deep as yours.

Lord Gavin was the head of a well-off and relatively influential family. His life was orderly. Predictable. Stable. He hadn't expected to go insane.

It's hard to describe what it feels like to slowly realize that you've turned into the person you most despise in the most literal fashion imaginable. His family noticed that he had become deeply troubled, but he kept his thoughts and feelings to himself, well aware of what happens to people who lose their minds. On one hand, he cared for his family dearly, but on the other, he wanted to destroy everything that he had built -- or, rather, what the owner of this body had built.

He stayed with them for years, acting as their father while restringing the political threads which the noble had tugged on so nonchalantly prior to his death. But he couldn't stay. He didn't want to die as a backstabbing old man. By this time, he realized how he had gotten himself into this situation, and was betting that similar actions could get him out of it. It wasn't difficult to request an assassination mission; this was a time when the Green Clan had no shortage of people they wanted killed.

The people who died from the silent blade were traitors, backstabbers, and, for the most part, individuals in legally and morally questionable trades. The little girl who had once been in control of her life kept getting pushed aside and crushed into the back of their subconsciousness, now practically replaced by those whom they had murdered. They didn't question it anymore, whether or not what they were doing was "right" or "wrong". Those were simple words for children and fools. This was how the world worked. This was how you harnessed true power, for nothing was more true than death.

They began killing outside of their contracts, often not making contact with their Clan for years, if not for over a lifetime. As it began to seem mundane to kill, the sadistic nature of their acts grew. At its peak, it was no surprise that they would decide to kill a child.

-- Splish splash splish splash. That crimson hue which you loathe will never wash from your feathers, little cardinal. The stain has become part of you, eternal.

Erik didn't have parents to comfort him when the nightmares began to plague his sleep. He didn't have anyone to talk to when he began remembering blood all over a grown-up's hands that somehow felt like his own. He didn't have anywhere save to go when his stray thoughts began to scare him.

It was only a matter of time before he caused a scene in front of some city guards. Strictly speaking, he wasn't arrested since he had done nothing wrong, but anyone could have seen that the child was clearly disturbed. Determining this to be a problem more suited to the spirit of the divine rather than the laws of man, he was sent away to a monastery.

The monks were kind enough; they expected much from him, but he would eventually earn a spot in their brotherhood as an equal. He would only accept that his bloodstained dreams, recollections, and urges were truth many years later, though he swore to himself that he would change. He would make himself better -- stop destroying the world and begin to heal it.

One lifetime was not enough to compensate for his countless lifetimes of wrongs; perhaps no amount of lifetimes would be enough, but Erik felt like he had to try. When his current life had been nearly spent, he took the face of a terminally injured patient on their deathbed, ultimately leaving the monastery and starting a new chapter in his series of lives.

He began to dedicate his lives to learning and helping others, even reconnecting himself with the clan he had joined so long ago now that they had become focused in the creation of new inventions for the kingdom. He even began to advise some of the Green Kings, his lifetimes of experience making him a valuable asset. 

When he was known as the name Gladwyn Breos, he witnessed the death of two Green Clan kings. The first was more expected than tragic, as he had led a long and prosperous life before his Sword of Damocles began to reach a dangerous point of decay. That king's successor, however, was just a young boy, hardly old enough to be considered a man. His body was weak, only made functional by the power of his aura.

For the few years the child reigned, Gladwyn tried to protect him from the people who aimed to use the boy king for their own purposes. He tried to give him a life that wasn't shackled by immeasurable burdens. But his body and his powers were weakened quickly, and he asked to die at just 16 years old. Of course, the man who was his closest advisor and his father figure sat by his side when the Blue King at that time was given the grim task of ending his suffering.

Gladwyn would never say that it was a mistake to get so close to a king, but he did consider his consequent rise to power more of a curse than a gift. He had always considered his life renewable and, perhaps in optimistic foolishness, had believed that he could simply cheat death for eternity. But now the sands of his hour glass were falling, and a massive sword would henceforth hover far above his head to remind him of the inevitability of his end.

Fortunately, he had no great need to use his powers beyond changing forms, allowing him to considerably postpone his ultimate death.

The time spent as Malei, the identity assumed after Gladwyn, was most notably spent bolstering the prosperity of Zöld, maintaining some semblance of peaceful balance in the kingdom, and falling hopelessly in love with another clansman. The one whom Malei called "Habib Alby" would stand by their king's side for decades, and even survive through the most recent transformation into Khulai Lovel.