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The Tales of the Scarlet Suns - Ch 1: The Hellgate Incident

The world of Glinocyre, the world created in the folk tales from the struggle between the four elemental forces attempting to overlap one another. The struggles forming the many mountains, wide open plains, dense forests, harsh deserts and various lakes and seas. It was at the apex of one such battle when one of strongest warriors of the air elementals, later to be known as Garazir of the Eight Winds, shattered his weapon and flung the shards into the ground below and told his fellow elementals to step down. This act of determination went known by the many elementals and upon reaching an agreement, they created an united pact known as the Glinocyrian Haven.

The pact went undisturbed for many generations and the elementals' peace brought forth many legends, but most in the present Glinocyre agreed on one thing. They were all the offspring of the elementals. Even if their bodies had been transformed over generations, they all carried with them a will of their past. Where the many elementals' weapons once stood, there were many villages, towns and even great cities. Ones more beautiful than the rest.

However the peace couldn't last forever, and a few years before our story begins, the evil demon king Nosrammon ascended from the darkest pit of the underworld, ready to conquer the lands. The many soldiers and brave heroes that existed, stood up to defend their kingdoms, some even being told of in legends themselves, even if it had not been that long since it had occurred. It was this event that sparked the beginning of the West Glinocyrian Rebellion and one such attack from the rebellion is what begins our story.

"Stay back, you rebel scum!" The soldier yelled as his blade clashed with the axe of the slightly larger barbarian, who seemed amused by his smaller opponent, "Little, little tin man. You are no match for me, the great Berne the Executioner!" The barbarian laughed as he raised the axe above his head with both hands on the hilt before swinging it down at the soldier, "Now, die!" The sword clashed once more, but the axe brought it down closer to the helmet of the soldier before the barbarian felt something stab into his torso and quickly opening a path to his intestines. A loud growl of pain echoed through the landscape before the soldier's sword had pierced him through the head, starting at the chin.

After getting his sword dislodged from the head of the barbarian, the soldier gave his companion a thumbs up, "Nice work there, Katia. He almost had me." The rogue smiled before purring, "I know you could have handled him, Mark. I just wanted to make your job a little easier." The feline scouted their surrounding, witnessing the chaos after the recent raid that had occurred, "So many that lost their lives to this." The once proud village that had been was now nothing more than piles of rubble and broken pieces of wood, not to mention the statue in what had been the main square was now missing both of the hands and the head.

A few feet away from the soldier and the rogue, a lightly dressed mouse girl was walking over the many corpses littering the ground of the village, her eyes focused on finding any survivors, but she noticed that all of them were dead, "May their spirits become one with our ancestors." She spoke a silent prayer for the departed while walking, stumbling over one of the corpses and her face hit the dirt, alerting her companions that came running to help her up, "Hey Juniper, take it easy. You okay?" The mouse girl nodded and rubbed her nose, "Yes, I just tripped over one of the poor people." She looked behind her and she spotted a female otter laying dead there with arrows through her back, probably puncturing her lungs and heart. This wasn't what shocked Juniper the most, but the fact that the otter was having a big belly.

As she moved closer, Juniper placed her hand on top of the dead otter's swollen belly, "S-She was pregnant. Poor girl, she never got to experience motherhood." Juniper felt the tears building in her eyes as Katia gave her a hug, "Life has never been fair to those outside of the protective walls of a big city, Juniper. We got to accept it." Juniper nodded and took a hold of the dirt to get up, when she felt something wet at the spot and upon seeing where the hand was, her eyes became big, "Her water broke recently!" Mark and Katia looked in shock as Juniper set herself into removing the lower clothes of the otter female, something Mark was quickly questioning, "Juniper! Do you have no honor for the dead?"

Juniper wasn't listening as she used the lower clothes as a makeshift towel before saying a prayer as she pushed a hand into the otter's private area and reached in deeply to find the cervix had already been prepared and something was slowly coming out. Taking a hold of this something, Juniper began to slowly pull and with Mark and Katia standing guard, Juniper worked until she asked Katia, "Can you borrow me a clean dagger?" Katia wasn't going to even ask and flung a dagger next to Juniper's leg without watching and while neither of her or Mark watched, Juniper finished up her duty and not before long both Mark and Katia stood in pure shock when they heard the scream of a baby and Juniper smiled warmly, "It is a healthy baby boy."

Mark and Katia turned to face Juniper and like she had said, in her arms laid a healthy baby otter that cried loudly before Juniper gave him a nipple to suck on, as thankfully, she was lactating any time of the day, meaning she could easily provide him with a slightly less nutritious meal than his mother could have. Mark walked closer and smiled, "What a miracle. He is the only survivor of all this. It is sad really." Katia cleaned off the dagger before nodding, "Yes, but one is better than none." Juniper nodded before Mark gave her a pat on the shoulder, "My sincere apology for calling you dishonorable, Juniper." She just smiled, "It is okay, Mark. It is just my duty and it comes in all ways, so I expect to have dishonorable views to help others." Katia was quickly to her feet, "We should return to the tower of Alam and report this." The other two couldn't agree more to that suggestion and with the former village left behind them, they headed through the wastes towards southwest, to the tower of Alam with the only survivor in Juniper's arms.

"So, what are you thinking that we should do with him?" Juniper asked as the otter cub kept nursing from her breast, Katia and Mark looking at them before Katia spoke up, "Maybe we can talk to the village elder at Baham, or maybe after we have done our duty at the tower we can head back to Ampwick and speak to elder Gregory." Juniper couldn't deny how well that sounded before Mark spoke up his own mind, "Why not train him in martial combat when he is old enough so he can defend himself?" Katia gave him a look of disbelief, "Like your parents did to you?" Juniper could have sworn that she saw Mark's eye twitch when Katia mentioned his past, but he quickly re-collected his mind, "Unlike them, I will let him decide on his own." Katia giggled, "I would like to see that." Soon a cute yawn could be heard as the little otter had finished feasting and fell asleep in Juniper's arms, making them smile.

The landscape surrounding them soon changed from the desolate waste to a more grassy plain and Katia seemed to at least be happy as she let her natural instinct come out when getting down on all four to move like a feral and the others couldn't avoid to smile at her behavior. Juniper's mind wasn't all there however, as she tended to the otter cub a little while he was sleeping, "I don't think we should tell him about how he was born. Would scar the little guy." Mark gave an understanding nod, "Yeah, it wouldn't be easy to tell him that." He put on an imitation of his elderly voice, "Listen here, boy. I gonna tell you the truth of your birth. When we found you, you were still unborn and miss Juniper helped your mother's corpse give birth to you. Just wanted you to know." He felt Katia's glaring eyes pierce him as he lifted his hands in defense, "Hey, I would just explaining how awkward it would be to do."

The rest of the journey to the tower went rather uneventful, other than Katia having to fend off a "love sick" male prowler that took interest in her. When they could see the top stones of the tower of Alam, it was like their bodies had suddenly more energy, causing them to speed up a bit before they could see the base of the tower and see the guards approaching them before they raised their shields and swords, "Halt! Identify yourselves!" Mark raised his own shield and sword to show the black falcon emblem with the red background. The falcon had a blue eye while the others had a green eye on theirs. The guards quickly lowered their shields, "Ah, Sir Garven. We expected you earlier today." The guard noticed Juniper holding the otter boy and moved closer, "Who is this?"

Juniper handed over the otter boy, "When we went through the Hellgate Plains, we noticed that the area had taken some severe damages and had become more of a desolate landscape, so we took a slightly different route and ended up finding a band of raiders killing and looting the villages. Mark and Katia handled them while I only kept them healthy. I wasn't really doing much for them. When I was checking through all the villagers, I tripped over one that was pregnant and... she was in delivery, so I had to save the child and this healthy boy is what came out."

The guards looked at the baby otter and then at Juniper, "Once again, you are truly out of your mind, but in a good way. So what is his name?" Juniper, Mark and Katia looked at each other and then at the guard, "We haven't thought of one yet." The guards looked at the otter boy and one of them soon spoke up, "Maybe Irving?" They looked at the guard, who was smiling, "My mother told me that she had a friend that was named Irving and his name was meant to tell of his love for the sea." Juniper could agree that it was a good name and leaned in close to the baby otter, "How does that sound? Wanna be named Irving?" The only reply she got was a loud crying and she was quickly back to letting him feed from her supply of milk, while the others gathered around to look at the little miracle, "Yes. Irving, the sole survivor of the Hellgate incident."

To be continued in chapter 2: Blood and Honor.