Maladir

> **"Fire is our passion. Earth our endurance. Water our mutability and Air is our fleeting existence."**
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I never knew my mother and father, only the Horde. We roved and raided, taking what we needed from the world around us, consuming without thought or care for others. It was harsh, past a certain age you had to scrap and scrape just as much as anyone, the concept of handouts was foreign. Knowing what I know now, it's a miracle I didn't grow up to be the monstrous brute so many others did.

When I was ten I got lost during a storm, the rain was driving, and in the night I simply lost my way in the forest. Truth be told, I wasn't sad to be on my own, but I was scared. The Horde may have been harsh, but it was also safety of a kind, the safety of numbers. I wandered, eating what feral animals I could catch, until finally I was picked up by a group of humans. I mean that literally, they wrestled me to the ground when they spotted me in the trees and nearly slew me on the spot, but one of them had a better idea. They clapped me in irons, took me back to their camp, and caged me. The following months they kept me fed and alive, but only just. We went from town to town, when we arrived we would set up in the town square, my cage on prominent display, and they would poke me with spears to rile me up. I didn't know this at the time, it was all confusing and I didn't speak common, but they would get me to roar and shake, I think they would present me as a prize of sorts and garner coin for the spectacle, the beast brought to the hamlet, a novelty.

Though they kept me alive, it was only just, it seemed I was always hungry, all the more to aid in the performance I know now. I was terrified constantly, in pain often, and most of all alone, none spoke Orcish, or if they did, none tried.

I tore them apart Brinarei, but that's jumping to the end. As I awoke one morning, I noticed something odd. There were small gusts of wind that passed through camp, but they matched my breathing. I played with it awhile, pushing bigger gusts, small long breezes, and stillness. Nothing violent or powerful, and I was trembling at it, but... it was the beginning of my power. Over the coming weeks I taught myself how to control it, expand it to the earth and the plants. I could feel them as I learned, their lives, even the wind's, moving all around us, unnoticed by the men who were my captors.

One day, I was able snake a vine to the cage, and rent it in two. The sound of the metal breaking attracted the men, I ran, but they were faster, stronger. I lashed out, hoping to paw my way free, and found my hand had changed into a vicious looking claw, akin to a bear's. The man's throat lay shredded before me, crimson flowing freely before he collapsed. In the ensuing fight, I killed two more of them, before finally fleeing into the woods, on my own again.

As I continued to survive, I worked learned, focused and grew. I was able to speak with animals, even become them for a time, you know how it is. Surviving became easier, I could grow my own berries that sustained me for a surprisingly long time, I could sleep comfortably in the trees. But still, I was haunted Brinarei.

When I first spoke to those plants, the land and the sky they told me of their pain, of the fires that man destroyed them with, the holes they carved into them and the fumes they filled the air with. They cried out for my help Brinarei, they wailed for me. As nature came to my aid in those days, I decided to come to its. Truth be told I hear it still, the crying of the land, it's awful nearest the cities, like a thousand children sobbing for their mother. Thankfully, the land is serene her in the Feywilds, here there is peace for the land and the sky and the plants.

The rest as they say is history, I struck out, killed more of the vile creatures who make the world worse by simply existing, found others with a similar view, found others who needed my help who could help the cause, and finally found a sweet little girl in the pit of depair that is Mawburg.

## A Dream of the Family That Was

A moment passes, then two. You hear Maladir settle in next to you, seemingly seated on the ground by your torso. You find yourself becoming incredibly tired, and soon drift off to sleep. Then, suddenly you feel pain, all over. Your left arm feels like it may be broken, your right ankle is definitely twisted, and at least 8 points on your body are going to be heavily bruised. You also feel fear, a cloying oppressive fear. You are in a forest, and it is night. The moon overhead casts long and twisting shadows around you, each ready to jump out at you. You look down and realize you are not in your normal tiefling body, instead, your have slender pale green arms, a broad lithe chest, and are taller than you remember.

Then, you remember: Ogda and Cagan. You haven't seen them, they must not have made it out of camp. Frantically you search, looking for familiar faces, but none meet your eyes. You take a wide path through the forest, backtracking to your camp. You realize as you approach that your distraction must not have been as successful as you had hoped, despite the injuries you've sustained trying to fend your foes off, they didn't chase after you when you made your flight from the camp, as you had hoped. A dull orange glow begins to filter through the trees, and as you get closer you can see that your camp is now a desolate black spot in the forest, small ember-strewing fires wafting upward from the few tents that occupied it.

You sift frantically through the area, until finally you see two shapes on the ground near the center. Your heart drops, knowing what it must be, but hoping with every fiber of your being that it isn't. You walk, slowly, to the bodies. On the ground lays the beaten and broken corpse of a woman, a half-orc, who has the shattered and torn body of a young half-orc boy in her arms. You can imagine the swords and clubs coming down on them, her trying to shield the boy from the blows, but her flesh finally giving way, her life seeping out a moment before her child's. Her child, and yours. You fall to your knees and scream, gathering the bodies in your arms despite the ash and blood, caressing them to you, petting them as though it will wake them from their slumber. But it does not. A piece of you dies, that night, left in the ash in the woods.

You awaken, tears streaming down Maladir's face, his mouth twitching at the corners as he tries not to lose control.