Aidan doesn't remember much about his early life.There were murky memories of travelling at night with his mother before he was left in the care of his uncle, Zagun. Growing up in a forest cabin, he was forbidden from going outside for reasons he did not understand. Zagun was a distant parent as well, always seeming concerned about one thing or another, but never about Aidan. There were many times he was left locked in the cabin while Zagun disappeared for days without explanation.
And then, one week during Aidan's twelfth year, Zagun didn't return. Staying put in the house until the pantry's stock dwindled to nothing, Aidan eventually managed to break one of the sturdy windows to escape into the night. In the distance, he saw the lights of the nearby village Zagun had always alluded to.
Following the lights, he eventually arrived at the village. But it could barely be called a village in this state with the way it had been burnt to the ground. Dead bodies were strewn haphazardly on the ground, and as Aidan stepped forwards into the village speechless from what he saw, he heard some people yelling. An arrow flew past him, narrowly missing. And in that instant, Aidan knew he couldn't stay here.. He grabbed a shortsword off a corpse and fled the scene, knowing that if he didn't, he would not survive.
He wasn't sure where he was supposed to go. For a day, he followed the roads that seemed to run on endlessly, unsure where or how they would end. The second night, he saw a dim lantern light in the distance walking down the otherwise empty road.
With only food on his mind, Aidan hid in the brush and gripped the shortsword tightly, resolving to rob the stranger.
As the traveller passes by him, Aidan ambushes him, but is quickly met with more force than he had ever thought possible. The stranger deflects his initial blow with ease, and, realising that he was going to die, the draconic blood that lay within Aidan surged and caused him to undergo a partial shift, creating a barrier of scales that stayed the stranger's fatal blow.
Taken aback by this, the stranger stopped to get a better look at his assailant and realised it was merely some child. Aidan, laying on the ground and clutching the gash across his chest, did not expect the stranger to show him mercy. Even less did he expect the stranger to ease his pains with some unknown magic.
The stranger introduced himself as Mad. He asked Aidan who his parents were and where he was from, but Aidan was unable to provide any meaningful answers. Intrigued for reasons beyond Aidan's comprehension, Mad offered to let Aidan travel alongside him. Unable to think of an alternative to his plight, Aidan gratefully accepted.
As they wandered the land together, Aidan learned more about the eccentric man named Mad. He claimed to be a retired warrior who had dedicated his life to travelling, as he hoped to one day find his purpose in life. Aidan felt that it was strange someone as youthful in appearance as Mad would be retired from a life of fighting, but the manner in which Mad spoke seemed to belong to someone far more tired and experienced than he looked.
For some years, their travels would continue. During this time, Mad taught Aidan basic combat skills. But he would not show Aidan more than self defense techniques, much to the teenager's dismay. As a teacher, Mad was gentle, firm, kind, albeit slightly melancholy. When Aidan saw Mad fight for the first time, however, he caught another, longer glimpse of the man that had almost killed him that night.
At some point, they came across a village being waylaid by bandits, similar to the attack Aidan had found himself entangled in. Stunned by a mix of fear and admiration, Aidan watched as Mad hunted down the bandits remaining in the ruins of the town, killing them with elegance and efficiency. The last remaining bandit, knowing he was outmatched, fell to his knees and began to beg for mercy, crying uncontrollably. He did not have the opportunity to utter a coherent sentence before his head was severed from his body.
Distraught, Aidan asked Mad, who was wiping his blade off, why they didn't spare the bandit. Mad stopped in his actions and looked at Aidan with an emotion that was difficult to make out. He explained that it was because the bandits were bad people, rotten to the core. It was better to kill them now before they would inevitably kill more people. Aidan argued that there was no way they could've known the bandit would kill again in the future. Mad, however, simply smiled weakly and patted Aidan's head, explaining that killing was the only thing people like himself and the bandit knew when they were backed into a corner. Mad told him that he knew his own life would be ended in a similar fashion someday. But that was a fact he had accepted upon taking the path of a sorcerer. It was because of this that he hoped Aidan would never do the same.
Two years later, Mad received a letter from a carrier bird. After reading it, he told Aidan that he was being summoned back to his old post. It was against Aidan's best interest to go with him, he said, and he offered to get Aidan set up in a town where he had a lot of personal connections, where Aidan could seamlessly settle down and start a normal life.
Aidan immediately refused. The closest thing to a father he had ever had, Aidan would not part ways with Mad like this. He wouldn't stand for it. Eventually, to Aidan's surprise, Mad was swayed by his arguments and agreed to bring Aidan along.
Before they set off, though, Mad stopped Aidan one more time and asked him whether he was willing to give up everything else the world had to give to him in order to stay at Mad's side. There would be no way to go back once he set out on this narrow path of life. Aidan, not grasping the gravity of the situation, agreed, determined to journey with Mad to the ends of the earth.
The duo soon found themselves at Rehjovlnatys, the realm of the gods. Aidan discovers that this was where Mad was from, where he worked, and that he was also quite an important person in this place as well. Mad had left a vacancy in his position upon "retiring", but after his replacement went missing, they had no other candidates to turn back to besides Mad. Considered by many there to be an awe inspiring hero, Aidan learned how Mad used to fight back the Vesper faction as a force of good and justice. He had saved countless lives and had many accomplishments under his belt. Knowing all this, Aidan couldn't help but wish to be a hero someday too.
Upon learning of this, Mad laughed for quite some time. The words he said to Aidan echoed in his ears ominously: "You will always be seen as a great hero by those you save. When someone who was supposed to die ends up living instead, they can no longer see the truth that everyone else in the world sees. They can't see that you're just another coldblooded killer, no different than the ones they have come to despise."
And yet Aidan persisted. He desperately hoped to follow in Mad's footsteps, convinced that heroism was the purpose of his life. Being the son of an Elder deity, the earth god Unog, Aidan was slated to be Mad's successor should the day ever come that it was needed. Mad, knowing this all too well, actively attempted to shield Aidan from too much involvement in the world of combat, gods, and politics.
But there came the day when Mad, too, would fall. It came as a shock to everyone, most of all Aidan. He had believed that whenever Mad left, he would return safely as always. He hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Despite the grief that wracked him, the gods soon forced Aidan into the position of Grand Commander, a role dictated by tradition to be passed onto those of the early gods' bloodlines.
In his naivety, Aidan did not grasp how much his life had changed aside from the painful loss he had just endured. It didn't occur to him that things were never going to be the same anymore, not until he was tasked by Igal with the execution of a traitor. As the man was brought in front of him, Aidan felt paralysed. He had never killed someone himself before. Mad always did it for him, always forbade him from doing it. But the orders from the Lord Divinity were absolute.
When Aidan brought the sword down on the vulnerable man's neck, he realised in that instant that it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. Mad's conversation with him in that village from years ago surfaced in his mind. People who were killers would always kill someone else, repeating those crimes until the day they died. If it wasn't this traitor who died, it may have been Aidan or an innocent person. To his surprise, and to the satisfaction of those observing the execution, the event did not seem to affect him much. Aidan just stood there, expressionlessly watching the blood gush out onto the floor.
Without the guidance of his mentor present anymore, the only thing Aidan understood was that he wanted to carry on Mad's legacy. He once had a dream that he and Mad would travel together forever, the two of them seeing all the sights the world had to offer. But that was no longer possible. All he could do was become the hero Mad was, as that was the one and only desire left in his life.
Through grief and combat, things began to blur for Aidan. It felt reminiscent of when he was a child, walking forward step by step in the endless, empty roads, without a future in mind. There was nothing he had except a blade and a mind to survive.
And yet one day, while on an errand to collect any remaining personal effects from the cabin he and Zagun used to live in, he came across a dying girl in the woods. Intending to carry on, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the remnants of a novice draconic shift on her, the telltale flaking scales and reddened, bruising skin. In that moment, time seemed to freeze as he remembered how the ability to draconic shift was a symbol of a strong divine lineage. He thought about how Mad had taken him to Rehjolvnatys and how much that life had left him lonely and empty.
But before he could resolve to walk on, he remembered how lonely he had been before meeting Mad. How it felt that there had been nothing in the world until that day. And, holding onto that thought in his chest, he decided to give stop and help the injured girl, believing that if it were Mad, this was the decision he would've made.
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