Quote:
It has been seven long years since the Great Oban Invasion. It almost feels like a dream, considering all of the changes that have occurred in Tendaji since the great war. A new King sits on the Oban throne, and he has opened the boundaries of Oba and Matori. Many already are taking advantage of the open boarders to travel and explore. The world was expanding and changing all things to the massive war of the great nations.
Since the war, Tendaji took a stand against the extremist Alkidikes and won. They came together to show a new alliance that many could never dream of. Everything was settling, and now that there finally was peace everyone has begun to to take a moment and remember all that has come and gone.
How have the major wars and changes impacted your character these past few years? Are they bitter for their failures or happy about their success? Do they see a peaceful future to come or are they concerned about those who may be still holding grudges?
Matori was so pretty, and its people were so merry, that it was easy, for a while, to forget some less-than-cheerful facts.
He had come here instinctively. He needed a break -- a rest from all the chaos that had come in the wake of his confrontation with Talin. He needed to figure some things out, think about where his head was at, and… well, have a little fun without worrying too much. Matori had seemed like the perfect place. It was sunny, warm, and glittering blue-green. There were busy towns with lots of people to meet, and also quiet, lonesome beaches where you could lie and look at the sky and listen to the surf.
Damn, but it was a beautiful place.
But eventually, when the initial awe of seeing the sea was pleasantly dulled by familiarity, he began to remember those other things.
Matori men and women his age wore scars on their arms and shoulders. He hadn’t been able to pick them out at first, for their skin was so different from his own. In fact, the first time he became aware of them, he felt them rather than saw them -- felt the rough ridges of a whip-cut against the palm of his hand while feeling up a flirty fisherman against a weedy, wet rock. The sensation had startled him, and he pulled his hand away for a moment -- then reached out again upon seeing the sudden darkening on the fisherman’s face, distracting him with a kiss and a smile and a wink and whatever it was that seemed to do the trick.
But he looked, later, in the dawning sunlight. And once he learned to recognize them, he began to see them in other places. He didn’t like it. It made his blood boil.
He’d always hated slavery, of course. The very thought of it had sounded like a pure evil to him, even when he had been a boy. He remembered learning about the Obans and their deeds. He remembered that name, ‘Oban’, sitting like a curse word on his tongue. He would meet decent Obans after that, sure enough, and maybe the name itself had finally been tempered into something more reasonable, more wide-reaching and capable of describing both friends and fiends. But the deed, the slavery itself, that he had never forgotten to hate. Still, it was one thing to hate it in Jauhar, where it was just a word, just a thing for him to orate about to his followers, urging their tempers to rise alongside his…
It was a whole other to be in this once-enslaved land, where the signs of a dark history were everywhere and… and nowhere.
The water earthlings had made quick work of their recovery. They worked hard, but they worked for themselves, and they made a good living. They were quick to welcome him -- armed as he was with his lance, some saw him as an ally of their kind, a member of the group that had fought for their liberation. Ouen didn’t always have the nerve to tell them he had been little more than a mischievous tramp back then, but… well, if he hadn’t been, if he’d been older, and smarter, and stronger -- he would have fought for Matori. So maybe it was just a matter of principle. Anyway, he often regretted not having been involved in the war. All he’d done, at best, was kill one Oban on a fluke, and baffle a group of others as he ‘rescued’ a pack of radaku. And then, after what seemed like a glorious eventuality, the war was over. He became a bandit instead. He lashed out at Oban merchants and mercenaries. That was something, wasn’t it?
Yeah. It was. Maybe Talin called him a coward, sure, maybe Talin thought he was little more than a soft-hearted thief. But Ouen decided that he knew better. Fighting wasn’t something that was done only in wars, for injustices and wrongdoings didn’t wait for wars either. If one was to stand up against injustice, one had to do it every day. One had to organize, to plan, and to act. These things, these sour, bitter evils, they wouldn’t go away without directed action.
And so, sitting on the beaches of Matori and staring out into the hazy horizon, Ouen resolved to do just that. He wasn’t alone -- he had his allies. They were experienced, strong, and good at what they did. Maybe the living they hacked out of serving justice wouldn’t be as rich as what they could get by senseless raiding, but… they’d find other rewards, he was sure.
Like knowing, without a shred of a doubt, that they could make a difference.
words: 784
