Innoruuk has a minion!

Hooves the Swagger

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through

My name is Innoruuk.

I once lived a relatively happy life with my family and a flock of Irion deep in Shadowglen. There had always been some light tension in the flock, mainly about disputes regarding the leader. They always had a way of working themselves out. There was another problem, though, that lingered with me no matter where I tread. I was born with abnormally colored fur and feathers. My younger brother, too, carried this deformity. I will never know if my parents were ashamed by this – I hardly remember them – but I know that my flock was intensely superstitious of our coloring.

Years went by, and other than some rude remarks about our fur, my brother and I lived among the flock peacefully. When we were just barely adults, a new leader arose to replace the previous, who had succumbed to illness. This new leader was fearless and ruled with an iron claw. He hated anything that he believed would cause harm to any member of the flock. To his deranged mind, this included my brother and I. We fought verbally, mostly, and the few physical fights we had were brief. Some flock members took our side, claiming that the color of our fur had no bearing on any other aspect of life other than appearance. The others agreed with their leader, believing us to be some kind of devil-spawns. The flock leader must have seen the schism about to unfold and, fearing loss of control, banished my brother and I.

We must have wandered the glen for weeks, just hardly able to survive. My brother was too young to hunt for himself, so I had to carry the weight of both of us. We very well could have carried on this way until he was able to hunt, if not for the constant rainfall that kept us sheltered and unable to find food. The conditions grew worse over the months. We were covered in mud, starved almost to death, completely and utterly helpless to disease. My brother was the first to fall ill, and I followed shortly after. But as I got better, he did not.

I remember that night so well. We always huddled together to preserve our warmth. It was raining, and we had not found adequate shelter. I awoke in the middle of the night, the raindrops making it difficult to stay asleep. I looked at my brother, curled up next to me. He appeared to be sleeping. I did not want to wake him, so I put my head on my claws and let sleep slowly overtake me. The next morning, I nudged him softly to awaken him. He felt strangely stiff. Panicked, I leapt to my feet, calling out his name. No response. I turned him onto his back, his head lolling pitifully to one side.

I do not think I need to elaborate on my grief. Let me just say that the only important thing in my life had been torn away from me. I had tried as hard as my strength would allow to keep both our heads above the water. And despite my efforts, he had drowned. Now I was left alone, treading water. I debated whether or not it was worth it anymore.

Over the next few years, nightmares tore away at my mind, making it almost impossible to sleep. I saw my decomposed brother almost every night. He would stare at me for a long while, and then just as he seemed about to speak, I awoke.

The years without him began to eat away at my mind. I came to realize that it was not my own shortcomings that killed him. The fault laid entirely with my old flock and the leader that abandoned us and left us scared and miserable in a strange part of the land. I made it my life’s goal to avenge him.

I spent weeks tracking the movement of my flock. They did not travel far enough away. I found them. Their apparent happiness made me even angrier. Could they forget us so easily? When I was through with their leader, they would forever remember my name. I spied on them for a few days until I knew at exactly which points their leader was vulnerable.

I took no pleasure in the killing. It was swift and silent in the middle of the night. I hardly felt as satisfied as I imagined I would. Disgusted with myself, I turned my back on the still and bloody figure of my flock leader and took wing – flying as far away from the pack who had wronged me, and who I had also wronged.

I no longer sought revenge, but I was still angry. Killing their leader had not made the awful nightmares go away. They still tore away at my mind, and even as I begged for release, they seemed to grow worse. I realized that I needed to understand the nightmares, not fight them. I travelled to the Sacred Lands to obtain knowledge on the interpretation of nightmares. I spent so much time studying, and hardly any time feeding myself, that I reverted to a state of emaciation. I was fascinated, perhaps too fascinated, at the intricacies of the realm of dreams and nightmares. I got to a point where I felt as if I knew about nightmares more than I knew about myself. Upon this realization, I decided to return home.

I knew I could never rejoin my flock, even if I wanted to. I decided to settle in Shadowglen as a loner. But after the long years I spent away from that land, my knowledge of its landscape had become flawed. I stumbled into the territory of my flock without knowing it.

It was the first night that I had slept without nightmares since my brother’s death, and I was rudely awoken from it. Around me in a circle stood the members of my flock. Some faces were new, others I recognized. I did not try to justify myself, and I did not try to fight. They cut me down without a moment to waste. In my last moments I almost pitied them – so consumed by their anger that they had become hollow and blind. They may have killed me, but they were never truly alive anyway.

I live now in a different way than I used to. I have a body, and a mind, but I am not truly alive. Blood does not flow in my veins, nor do bones and muscles render me able to move. I am not a beast of flesh. Somehow, in a way I would be unable to fully explain, the nightmares that terrorized me in life were my saviors in death. They imbued me with the power to live again, although this existence hardly replicates life. Every emotion I feel is strong and vibrant, but they disappear come morning. Just like a bad dream.

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