"We are all like water; limpid, pristine and unbiased. We merely reflect, what's inflicted upon us"

- Seros Sterling, 2020

Lothar, Traetos province, Southern Avestriā.

Mesha 462, Daktila, Deven 13

Lord Seros*, the parent star, was vanishing from the heavens leaving Systara, the planet, unguarded in the tenebrous shadows. It was the month of Daktila*, the time of the ominous 'Grand Obscura' when Seros and the three moons disappeared from the heavens. A child born during the Grand Obscura was considered as an ill-omen. Such a child was called a Caligor which meant the 'Child of hatred' who would bring darkness upon the people.

The pathways of the kingdom were forlorn as the people were hiding in their houses to protect themselves from the impending doom. The disc of Seros was gradually disappearing from the heavens as the demon Caligos was swallowing him. People were offering animal sacrifices to spare themselves from this darkness but with no avail. The battle of mighty Seros and the demon Caligos was raging in the heavens and Caligos was defeating Seros. Amidst the dark sky with a partially swallowed disc of Seros, a cry of a newborn child and the shrieks of a woman resonated within the walls of a house. A mother was giving birth to a child during the Grand Obscura. A Caligor was being born.

"The people will despise us. They will hate our child," said the woman, sobbing in agony, as she was giving birth to her child. She was covered in a layer of sweat and breathed heavily. The woman's husband was laconic and apprehensive about the birth of their child during the Grand Obscura.

"Promise me. If I die, you would continue the struggle. Promise me that you will protect our child," said the woman, enervated from the labor. Her lips pursed as she uttered those words. Her temple was warmer and she was sweating profusely. Her husband leaned closer and held her hand. His touch was gentle. He glared into her brown colored eyes, sunken deep inside her eye sockets.

"You are not going to die. Just stay with me. Keep breathing... Keep pushing," he said, holding her hand. He was wiping the sweat from her forehead, while the woman yelped in pain.

"I can see it!" said the midwife. Finally, with a loud shriek and a final push, there was the first cry of the newborn infant. The midwife held the newborn in her own hands and cut the umbilical cord to its mother.

"It's a he," the midwife announced as she, with experienced calmness and speed, wrapped a sheet of gossamer fabric over the newborn. The midwife, however, was wary and suspicious about the future of this child. He was, after all, a Caligor.

The misty-eyed father, on seeing his newborn, blissfully turned towards his wife and kissed her on the forehead. As he approached to kiss her on the lips, he was petrified. The woman had no life in her eyes. She was not breathing. She was just lying there cold, pale, and still. The man rubbed his palm over her cheeks, only to discover that his wife wasn't responding. She had already passed away.

"She-she is... She is not breathing. No! Trisha??.... Please wake up!" He spoke, his voice sounding as if he was choked.

His throat was parched and his eyes were filled with tears that rolled down from his cheeks. He was baffled, whether he should mourn for his wife's death or celebrate for the birth of his firstborn. He placed his head over her bosom and cried in anguish. There was no limit to his sorrow. He had loved his wife more than anything in his world and now she was gone. Bereft of his lover, he felt utterly melancholic and broken.

After some time, he could finally gather himself from the maudlin loss of losing his wife. He gently placed her head on the pillow and shrouded her eyes as she went into an eternal sleep, never to return. The man's eyes could still reflect the deep sorrow within. He stared at the morbid figure of his lover for the last time and then turned away. He gradually moved towards the midwife and took his newborn son in his own hands.

The midwife dubiously looked at the man, assuming that he would disown his son for being a Caligor. However, the man held the baby affectionately, with a smile on his lips. He was feeling elated for begetting a son but melancholic for losing his wife.

"He looks strong, doesn't he?" spoke the man with a shivering voice, his joy was overwhelming.

"Yes. It does," replied the midwife.

"Oh look... His eyes are as blue as the skies. Like a Blavelus" he said stoically, gazing at the cerulean blue colored iris of his son.

"With all due respect, you do know what it is, don't you? It's a Caligor," said the woman, suspiciously. The man frowned at the midwife.

"What do you mean by it? This is my Son... Not some beast. His mother was an Auctisila by birth. He is a high born!" he replied, ferociously. Auctisila was the name of a clan in the Traetos province from the continent.

"But... " said the midwife in an attempt to express her opinion but she was stopped by the man.

"Begone! Your job is done" he dismissed the middle-aged woman in a clipped tone, commanding her absence. The man stood there and stared proudly at his son while the midwife left the hut.

"You are brave like your mother, aren't you?... And you are strong like me," he said.

"You are not a Caligor. You are not the 'child of hatred'. You are the son of a Kyshatar. You will be a great warrior like me and your mother," he spoke proudly.

"I name you Mythra Auctisila, following on your mother's footsteps," he named his son while kissing the baby on its forehead. 'Kyshatar' meant warrior in the Isharian tongue.

The man grabbed some cloth lying nearby to clothe the infant from the breeze. As he unfolded the sterilized fabric by the midwife and gently placed the babe on the cloth, he heard a small humming sound emanating from the infant.

"That's my boy! You've already mastered to speak?" he said. But as he held the infant closer, he was flustered to realize that the child was asleep, and yet there was this sound that he could distinctly hear. He hearkened to it and he was bedazzled when it got louder.

"What's that?" he said in astonishment, as he heard the sound emanating, not from the infant's mouth but the edge of its spine. It was arising from the newborn's rudimentary tailbone, from within the flesh and the bone. The man stood his ground. His sorrow and bliss had both vanished. He just stood there, befuddled by that sound, emanating from the infant's body.

"No. That's not possible. Could it be true?" he said. He was shocked at witnessing this event. His eyebrows raised, his pupils dilated and his ears harked to the child's tail bone. "Are you really...?" he was flummoxed.

Meanwhile, the rest of the town and the entire kingdom was terrified and cringed by the darkness. The disc of Seros had almost disappeared and only a fine crescent could be seen. People were witnessing this horrific event through the windows of their houses. They were frightened. The town's rustic ambiance had turned into a dementing one. Slowly and steadily, the disc was fading away. Finally, in the next few moments, there was complete darkness over the kingdom.

Some of the women were weeping in the fear of darkness that crawled over their houses. Some people were still offering sacrifices to give strength to Lord Seros in the sky. Finally, the disc of Seros was completely swallowed by darkness. A humongous shadow was cast upon the world. The birds stopped chirping and resorted to their nests. The beasts started howling, men and women were terrified of this impending doom.

It was the time of the demons to walk the world. The trees once beautiful, now appeared as the shadows of the crooked creatures. The rustling of the pale dry leaves could be heard. Such was the tranquillity all around the town which had turned bleak and dark. The priests in the temples were chanting the incantations to prevent this calamity and to bring back Lord Seros up to the heavens.

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Mesha 462, Temengel, Deven 3

A few days later, people of Lothar having recently survived the Grand Obscura, were performing their daily activities in the fields, in the stables, and the castle. The kingdom of Lothar was always haunted with some kind of cold weather and it was bleak at this time of the year in the month of Temengel*. There were small kids running in the fields and chasing each other, farmers working in the farms to cultivate the product, and to store them for the harsher and colder seasons, priests chanting incantations at the first light of the day to worship Lord Seros. Life in Lothar was pastoral.

On the embankment of the lake Lush, there was a huge temple built for Lord Seros. It was an auspicious monument of the kingdom of Lothar. Behind the temple was the lake, copious with blue and limpid water. The architecture of the temple was filled with intricate sculptures and carvings. The temple had a rectangular base constructed over a plinth with a staircase leading up to the niche. There were small statutes of some other deities with folded hands carved all around the circumference of the temple walls.

As your vision went up, one could see the brilliant craftsmanship from the rows and rows of rocks that had been carved to tell the tales of the high gods over the wall. The upper column had a round tower with a pediment in the central region. A hemispherical dome with a lesser area than the base formed the temple top and finally at the apex was the pointed peak. It was shaped in the form of a burning flame or an inverted droplet. The temples of the Avestriāns were built in such a way that their niche always faced the rising of Seros.

He was standing at the foot of the temple staircase and he was staring at the entrance. He was diffident about trudging inside the temple corridor. The man was holding something in his hand, something so tiny that it could fit into his manly palms. He finally made a decision and stepped inside the temple through the niche. Pillars were lined up on both sides of the corridor that led into the Sanctum Sanctorum. The cylindrical pillars had lining at the bottom and also at the top. The windows on both sides of the temple enabled the light rays to enter and illuminate the milieu.

The high ceiling of the sacred grounds was a sight of the cultural richness, brought alive by the blessed artists in Traetos Province. A masterpiece that showed intricate details, depicting a section of antediluvian folklore about Lord Seros, the Master of Light. A symbol of his being the Patron God. As the man walked through the long corridor, he could feel the smooth and cold floor beneath his feet.

The floor was made of perfectly cut rectangular pieces fitted together by the gum of the Qiazal root, the highest quality of adhesive found in the innermost regions of the forests in southern Avestriā. The mysterious thing about these temples was the aberrant cold weather inside the milieu even when it was much warmer outside the temple.

When he reached the end of the corridor, he saw a small gate which led into the sanctum sanctorum. Inside, there was the statue of Lord Seros standing in an aggressive stance with a discus in his left hand. It was a humongous idol. His right hand held a long spear, the tip of which touched the ground.

There was a halo carved behind the head of Seros, evincing his godly aspect. Seros was portrayed as an armor-clad muscular deity with flowing curls and admirably carved facial expressions. The statue was made from gray clay which was a mixture of water, milk, and soft mud.

The man could see a priest offering the food as per the daily rituals. The attire of the Roshai was a pure white cloth draped around their bodies from their left shoulder towards the chest and down towards the lower torso. The right shoulder was naked and exposed.

That was the dressing style of Roshai. It was the most venerated social class of the Avestriān society. They were the priests who were studied in the first two edicts of the Testament of Senotahn, the religious text of the Avestriāns.

As Roshai saw a man standing at the edge of the sanctum sanctorum, she walked towards him. "May the blessings of Lord Seros be upon you!" she said.

She was a woman dressed richly and a hint of serenity reflected in her eyes. From her appearance, she was an old woman and supposedly a wise one. Her greyish hair was tied above in a knot. Her eyes were as green as the leaves and they glittered as the light rays fell upon them. Her posture was stern and she looked at the man with a humble smile. She was shorter than him but the man looked like a dwarf in front of her as he knelt, his knees brushing the cold floor beneath. The man bowed in reverence for the Roshai and with gratitude for her blessing.

"Revered Roshai, I come here for help," said the man in a low voice. The priest looked at him in the eyes and she could sense his cause as sincere and true.

"With the power vested in me by lord Seros and our Holy Testament, I promise you that I shall try my best to help you in your cause," she replied firmly. The man was dubious as he heard the word 'promise'.

"You promise?" he asked in astonishment.

"Yes," she replied without even hearing his conundrum.

"I need you to adopt this infant. He is my son. His mother died giving birth to him... But that's not the reason why I am choosing to give him up to you," he said as his voice shuddered with guilt. The Roshai was slightly moved from her stoic posture as she heard this unusual request.

It was the usual practice for the Roshai to adopt all the orphans or abandoned children. It was their absolute virtue of helping the destitute, the abandoned and the harmed. She was befuddled by this strange request. The man took a deep breath and after a while narrated a story that seemed cogent enough to the Roshai. She finally understood the reason behind his strange decision of giving up his son.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" the Roshai asked for assurance. Her gaze narrowed upon him. The man nodded affirmatively.

"I don't want to, but I have to," he said in an unwilling tone. She simply extended her hands without a question. It was as if she was expecting all of this to happen.

From the story told by the man, she was aware of the birth of the baby and the unfortunate time of his birth during the Grand Obscura but that was precisely why she had to take the child into her custody, for its purification. As the man turned over the cloth covering the baby's face and revealed it to her, she smiled.

"He is beautiful," she said. The infant slowly opened his eyes.

The woman gazed at his eyes and uttered," Is he a Blavelus? What is he called?"

"His name is Mythra Auctisila," replied the man proudly.

"Son of Trisha Auctisila," he added, remembering his beloved spouse who was no longer with him.

"An Auctisila?" her brows lifted in a show of astonishment. A Roshai hardly ever showed their true emotions, perhaps this was a rare happening.

"So far away from Virgin Cape?" she asked. People belonging to the house of Auctisila resided in a different part of the province and hence the Roshai was confused to find an Auctisila, so far away from its ancestral kingdom.

She took the infant carefully in her own hands, however, and gently stroked the infant's forehead with her soft and wrinkled fingertips; the infant raised its tiny blobby arms to grab her fingers. Her finger could fit in both its palms. The baby let out a giggle as the Roshai lovingly smiled at him. Then she lowered her head and the baby stroked her wrinkly cheek with his tiny fingers and giggled even more.

"One could have never imagined a babe this innocent and adorable to be a Caligor," she said, almost challenging her understanding of the Grand Obscura.

"Thank you," the man whispered. His voice is heavy and his heart gloomy. This was the last time he was going to see his son.

The man put a hand in his pocket and retrieved a small object. It was a Talisman. The Talisman was a family heirloom. It was a square-shaped sheet made out of a metal called Vescar. Vescar was malleable and ductile and it was found predominantly near the kingdom of Virgin Cape in the Traetos province. Virgin cape was the ancestral home of the Auctisila lineage.

The talisman was opaque brown in color with a striped texture over the surface. It was also called Browngrass in the vernacular tongue because of its surface resemblance to the blades of grass. The Talisman had some names carved over its face on both sides, supposedly indicating the lineage of Mythra, the baby, from his mother belonging to the house of Auctisila.

The man took a last glimpse at his baby son and walked away with the heaviest heart. Inside the temple stood the Roshai, holding the baby named Mythra Auctisila in her hands. A baby who was a Caligor by birth and an Auctisila by blood.

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Footnotes

• Seros is the name of the star that shines upon the fictional world of Systara.

• 'Seron' means a solar month of the Avestriān Calendar. There were 16 Seron in the calendar, out of which Daktila is the name of sixth month in the sequence.

• The 'Grand Obscura' means a total eclipse when all the three moons, the planet Systara and the parent Star Seros are aligned in the sky and the largest moon named Vaerūn covers the disc of Seros. However, the phenomenon of eclipses was not discovered yet in Avestriā and hence they believed that an ancient demon named Caligos swallows the star Seros in the battle of the gods.

• Temengel is the Seventh month in the Avestriān calendar, comprising a total of 16 months. It is the succeeding month of Daktila.

• Vescar is one of the strongest naturally occurring elements on the continent.

• Auctisila is a clan in the Traetos province of the continent.

• Blavelus is a clan in the Traetos province of the continent.