Crimson

Chapter Two

In the land of Duidon. Sidereal of the Scaled One.

The yellow creature bathed himself in Sangre, the red fluid of purification. His people called it Crimson for short. Precious to his kind, only once a cycle did if fall from the heavens. Every cycle the same event transpired, all of his kind gathered on the bluffs of the burning sea to acquire their portion of the valuable, powerful fluid.

The burning sea, a green mass of fluid covering the majority of the planet, acrid smelling and melted anything placed in it. Dissolving everything to black goo, down to their life spirit, eradiating all beings in its caustic fluid, this sea remained a tool of his people.

Many thousands of cycles in the past, many worshiped the burning sea as a deity. Sacrifices brought forth on this very bluff, thrown into the sea, destroying the being as their screeches faded to nothing. In the beginning, the sea remained untainted however, the individuals who have not succumbed to imprinting upon another, were first to given over to the god of the sea.

An honor for many, the first family bearing no more than seven children were chosen. The loss of one of their own meaning the rest lived in relative opulence. The change from sacrifice to study came when one of his own calculated the frequency of the Crimson. Ridiculed and eventually given to the god of the sea, much like any individual given to the curiosity of the sky beings or the intricacies of the gods of the land, ostracized and murdered, becoming fodder to the past while revolutionary to the future. Not until after his betrayal, was it proven that his calculations were correct. However, that was many generations ago.

Now, Pligal prayed to his ancestor for guidance. The youngest of seven, Pligal, like many others hailing from the seventh birthing, taunted, beaten, and continually discriminated against. In the beginning, the last child of seven was a blessing as the lifespan of these beings remained short, flawed. Time has a way of changing things. This idea of blessing warped to superstition. Fear took the place of honor as opulence contorted to poverty.

Pligal hailed from the tribe of Marn. His kin, brilliant warriors and tacticians. Pligal remained the lowest among them. After the twelfth season, his people underwent trials to determine their strengths. Much before the Madam Matriarch passed, unable to create more of his kin as his own Matriarch took her place. Out of the six: leader, warrior, royal guard, hunter, examiner, and breeder, Pligal's results remained inconclusive. This anomaly, not seen for many generations before him. In the past, those who did not meet any of these strengths struggled as their bodies flung from the cliffs, offered to the god of the acrid sea.

However, the most recent Baron outlawed this. Richtol, a name given to the baron in sequence, now the sixteenth in succession, seeing the waste of the life in this. Richtol decreed the youngest of a family of seven became a warrior, a legionnaire despite the tests to prove their merit within the clans.

Furthermore, declaring the family of seven would be exempt from forceful placement after the one moved to the Warrior Legion, preventing a family from having too many warriors and none of the other essential professions.

With his Matriarch due to birth another youngling, Pligal's Patriarch placed him immediately placed into the Legion. The Legion, a position of honor amongst many in the tribe. Pligal did not see this as an rectitude; however, he saw it for what it truly represented, a detachment from his control, and a position of slavery.

Currently, in the second of the four-moon cycle of his new career, Pligal returned to the Hall of Gloom, the temporary residence of the Legion trainees, after an evening of weapons training, exhausted, depleted from the impending death state. His yellow skin became vibrant due to strain. Splashing Crimson on his face and neck, allowed his scales to glisten as he utilized the communal basin.

However, contaminated this Crimson, passed through his fellow legionnaires, each splashing on their faces, each taking in its inherent abilities, to Pligal it was detestable. The laws of his kin forbade using another's Crimson. Here, with no choice, his freedom stripped, he did all he could to uphold the laws of his people.

Many, chosen for the Warriors guild, become savages, losing themselves in their profession. Unlike them, Pligal promised the patriarch of his kin he would uphold the laws. Often, scorned by his peers for his devotion, Pligal strived to maintain his heritage, his oath.

The Crimson served another purpose other than outward purification. The tonic, drafted from the heavens, falling by the Terra God, enabled his people to thrive. Needing to ingest the viscous fluid in order to survive until the next cycle, in it, it contained a key mineral, which helped Pligal's kind to metabolize their food, the element known as Stark.

Many thousands of cycles ago, the essential Stark filled the plains sustaining the lands. Stark's qualities, found in most edible forms of life. However, when the Sangre slowed its fall the vegetation withered causing many passed to the next realm through starvation.

Vexed, the people turned to the Sky Gods. Together they prayed and then the Crimson fell. Enough to sustain them. Millennia passed, and the people thrived once more with the fall of the precious Sangre in addition to regular ingestion of foods from the plain.

Here, his company of Legionnaires attended the cycle of giving where Crimson fell. However, from all the Crimson collected, one-tenth was only utilized for self-ingestion. Another of the same portion was collected for everyone's self-purification.

Those who questioned this practice were removed from training and presumably ushered to the next plain of existence without choice. Common knowledge among the legionnaires, the taskmasters often ordered supplication through unveiled threats.

Once again slashing Crimson on his face, close to his death and rebirth cycle, the name referring to rest and wake, his scales flickered bio-light throughout feebly, his body pulled down into the depths as a heavy mass of exhaustion flowed over him. Blinking his onyx orbs, looking down at the Crimson and noticed it formed the shape of another creature. Meeting its orbs before jumping back, Pligal thought something lingered behind him.

The use of contaminated Crimson was purported to cause false realities. This in conjunction with his looming death cycle, he dismissed it. Returning to his hole he dug into the terrain of the Hall of Gloom. Pushing the lightly speckled dirt with a litany of colors cascading throughout, Pligal finally fashioned his own hole, his own nest. Contorting himself into a circle, letting the death cycle overtake him, he closed his onyx orbs briefly glimpsing the creature once again. Too exhausted to care, he let himself pass into deep death. 

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