Information

Tai Miut
Legacy Name: Eoligos

The Reborn Tigrean
Owner: Miczariel

Age: 5 years, 3 months, 1 week

Born: January 25th, 2019

Adopted: 5 years, 3 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: January 25th, 2019

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Statistics

• Level: 74
   
• Strength: 183
   
• Defense: 167
   
• Speed: 57
   
• Health: 164
   
• HP: 164/164
   
• Intelligence: 134
   
• Books Read: 133
• Food Eaten: 7
• Job: Sparring Partner

your life is composed of befores and afters.

BEFORE

your mother calls you Aten. she licks the top of your head and rumbles. Asim, your father, hangs overhead and smiles when Rana does not. You are too young to remember the way they held you, switching between the two of you, so desperate to give you love. 'you look just like him.’ Bast, you are told and will not remember, is your great-great-great grandfather or something. maybe he was just a great grandfather. you never got the chance to ask for clarification. but she tells you he was a great leader, a fantastic warrior. just like you will be. your mother cooes. ‘Just like i used to be.’ she says, cradling you closer. You remember this part, just barely - the overwhelming night dotted with stars, the warmth as she holds you close. What you don’t remember is that it wasn’t stars but torches.

AFTER

You are nameless until you turn twelve. It is customary for the arena combatants to be nameless, to only be called by the numbers emblazoned on their back but in the orc ways, your mentor explains, you earn your name. You are given a name when you have proven you deserved one. “A name,” your mentor explains, “means to live.” His name is Maelstrom and he is no calm before the storm, he is deafening and ferocious and merciless and most importantly, he is kind.

AFTER

you visit the arena’s healer, Ginkgo and a child comes by and asks, why are you like that? before you can answer, Ginkgo shushes them - comes out of the den, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed. hello, you say and she pulls you in for a hug and kisses the side of your face. you talk, make idle chat and you wonder. you remember the way she paused briefly before she rested her head against your scars, before she pulled you into the hug how her hands had trembled. You stare at your own hands and learn to hate them.

BEFORE

Everyone dreams of being Champion. That is the title in the arena and that’s what the other children scrap over - in between taking care of the other pit slaves you gather up sticks if you are lucky enough to find any through the slots in the basement walls or your fists. you tell your cell sister you are going to be champion one day. You spend the rest of your day playing the adventures of champion and you fight your fellow pit slaves and ignore the hunger in all your bellies. Some of the older gladiators take bets and you become a favorite - perhaps it is because you are not emancipated like the rest of your kin - you seem to grow healthy and strong no matter how little you eat. And eat little you do.

You are servants for the other gladiators until the day comes in which you are shackled and collared but you and your cell sister, Eins, are wily and stealthy. Despite your size you are soft-footed and you steal what you can, only briefly feeling bad about it and then you pass out the reserves to the other children. One of the older ones, a gnoll by the name of Jackal always refuses. “You are soft, Tai.” He snarls and he stands. “That will ruin you.”

AFTER

He was right in a way. Kindness did ruin you, but in your defense - there was not much to ruin to begin with.

BEFORE

It’s raining that day. You begin the day as you do every day. You eat a little and begin to exercise in the chamber of your cell - pull ups and sit ups and chin ups - keeping your body muscular and lean. You are a weapon, and you must keep yourself sharp. You are a weapon, and you are only good when you are pointed at the enemy. Every now and then you pause to talk to Nedjem through the holes in the cell. You have a fight today and per usual, you will win. It is set in stone.

When they finally come and get you, you gather the familiar weapons in your hands and for some weird reason, they feel heavier than before. Perhaps it is because you have learned that you have no real use of them. By the end of the match, it will be your teeth slick with blood not the sword.

It is still raining when you enter the arena, the earth an even darker shade of red from the decades of blood spilled and you are breathless. He is standing there. He looks at you in horror, mirroring the own expression on your face. And for the first time in your life, the weapons drop unwillingly from your paws, too hot to hold.

AFTER

Ginkgo stays for a few days before she disappears. You question whether or not it was suicide - an unfortunate but not uncommon aftermath. Days before she had gathered the courage to speak to you. She had approached you - all smiles and the curls of the wrinkles by her eyes as she held your paws in her hands. But you know she sees the red stain on the prison floor and that it burns behind her eyelids. I should have known. You whisper to her, staring at how huge your paws are - how they engulf her fingers fully, and you surprise yourself with how heartbroken you sound. you couldn't have known. she whispers back. it's not your fault. she says a few heartbeats later.

You know she does not mean it.

BEFORE

Nedjem is the same age as you - brilliant and different and so smart. You’ve never met anyone like him. He’s of average height, but he’s more wolfish than cat-like. From the tufts of fur to the purple hue to his skin, to that laugh. You use your excuse that you will one day be Champion to talk to him and he laughs - but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You want to make him laugh until he aches. So you try again, and again - every time until finally the dam breaks and Nedjem laughs so hard he hits his head on the stone wall. He teases you after ward when he shows off the bruise. “It’s all your fault.”

AFTER

When they drag his body into the sheltered underground long after you have calmed down, you are silent. You want to cry, you want to laugh, you want to bury your head in someone's shoulder. But there is only you, there will only ever be you now. Ginkgo looks at you, everyone does but not at you - not at your eyes still weeping or your heart still breaking. Just your hands still covered in Nedjem’s blood. Instead, your mouth just moves ever so slightly as your jaw clicks - open, shut. open, shut. It’s all your fault.

BEFORE

“I cannot do this.”

It is the first time in your life that you have uttered these words and it feels as though everyone in the arena is listening. The eyes of the guards and the magicians that keep you here imprisoned bore into your back but your eyes are on him. They have always been on him. You can feel the electricity in the air gathering and it's so hard to tell where it is coming from - is it the magicians, ready to sear your skin for not fighting? Is it gathering in the air above head? Is it in your bones?

Nedjem seems to squirm under your gaze, shifting on his feet. Stars, he is so small, smaller still in the rain. You can see what little fur he has plasters to his bones, just barely underneath his skin. There is no muscle, there is no weight. “You have to.” He answers.

“I will win.” You say, and you realize through the rain drops, that you are crying and the only way you can tell is that you can feel the heat of your cry sear through the scar on your cheek.

It takes forever for Nedjem to reply, the silence between the two of you lengthy as you stand, unequipped - heart bare to the world as you stand motionless - that this is an act of your love. That the unbeatable champion of the Numeria pits has stood still in the presence of a creature two feet smaller than himself.
“I know.” Nedjem says and he pounces.

BEFORE

You had never thought to kill another person. It's an idea that you never sunk in. When you were a kit playing in the dirt of the arena, the world was so huge and the people so big, with stars in their eyes and scars. But Maelstrom was determined. He breathed over you, lips lifted in a snarl. "what will you do when the enemy does not stop? What will you do when they come to you and ask you to stand aside? To bow? To bend ? To break ?"

AFTER

You stand your ground. Maelstrom is dead, they carried his corpse away and they threw him away. Down the river outside the arena, or the sewer - you never found out. and you mourned him - despite everything he ever did. You killed your mentor, your father figure and you have no choice but to lick the salt from your whiskers and the red stains your chest. It's almost easy to lose yourself in that moment. But you hold on. Just a while longer.

AFTER

There is only you, you are focusing and not focusing at all. You are hot, and wet and cold and there is so much. There is so much of everything. What do you focus on? There is cheers and howling and sobbing and there is your teeth - chewing and gnashing and your tongue dips between them to taste the air but are they yours? And your hands, they are holding and ripping apart but they don’t feel like yours. There is no consistency in this moment as your cheek splits open and bleeds, more blood for the arena floor.
There is no consistency in this moment, just like every moment before when the bloodwrath comes for you. Is it the rain that has made you chilled to the bone? Is it the blood? Is it your tears? There is no consistency but one. Red.
Everything is red.

AFTER

Your name is Tai Miut and when you walk into the room, people stare. your face hurts in the raw of winter from when the love of your life sliced your cheek open from lip to ear. you wanted to be champion, you wanted to be free, you wanted to be loved. sometimes you hesitate before answering when they ask your name as if you don’t know - as though you wish you were someone else. when something goes wrong, you go charging in - claws first. After all, there's nothing they can't do to you that hasn't already been done.
Your name is Tai Miut and you are a monster.

BEFORE

You are held in your father’s arms as he sings a song in amurran which you will soon forget. Aten, he says before he passes you to your mother who holds you in one arm. She bends her head to touch foreheads with yours. You will not remember that she was crying, that they both were, you will not remember the way she shook when she gave you away. You will not remember that you were loved once.

Your name was Aten and you used to be someone’s son.

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