Name: Zambak
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Kingdom: Swamp
Side: Neutral, also known as adiaphorous.
Allies: Brutus ( Pet gator), Lunara, Kellen, Vernon, Reed, Wisteria, Sorrel, Verice, Kayne, Fenix, Sunny, Dreadmar, Redlash, Nightstrike, Nightriss, Ironfang, Bluebell, Devan, Viorel, Crim, Lily ( Mother), Nelum ( Father ), and Freya.
Personality: Zambak can be a bit weird and crazy. She is good at acting all nice, kind, friendly, shy, and dumb, but she only does it to let people think that way about her because no one would suspect her of doing harm. she's a liar, but only lies when it necessary. She's not afraid of anything, because she doesn't feel fear when she encounters someone threatening. She doesn't care about strangers and their lives, she doesn't see the point in doing so. She doesn't care about people getting hurt or about anyone's safety. She is an unempathetic, sinister, heartless person. And she also has been called a psychopath by both strangers, hunters, and friends, but she doesn't care about what they call her.
Likes: Listening to lullabies. Spending time with Brutus. Rose Sherbet. Hunting. Running through the swamp. Adventuring into dangerous places. Arena fights. And taking lives.
Dislikes: Girls that are more attractive than her. Pineapple. Anyone who is close to her suddenly turning against her. People who learn about her true side, she ends up killing those people. Royals and Nobles. And anyone who thinks they can walk all over her.
Love interest: Zambak sometimes has crushes that only last for a while, like a puppy crush. There was this one girl in the outskirts she had a small crush on, but she was too shy to talk to her, same goes for a few males that also live in the outskirts. Devan and Verice, she only see those two as friends, and maybe one of them can be a potential partner in the future, depends if she wants to settle down and have a family. She also gets attracted to hunters because of how they look.
Enemies: Anyone who dares to stand in her way, that includes her friends and family.
Abilities: Beast morphing. Wetland/Swamp manipulation ( Télmakinesis ). Melee combat. Heightened sense of smell, touch, sight, and hearing. Speed. Agility. Climbing. Sharp claws and teeth which can be used for combat. And Feral Mind.
Backstory
Childhood ( 0 - 12 )
Zambak was born in the heart of the Swamp Kingdom, aka the middle area in the kingdom. It is known for being the place where 70 % of swamplings are born because it is much safer for them to grow up surrounded by a spiked wall. Growing up in the heart was alright for young Zambak.
In the Heart, Young Alligators would come and stay in the area for a couple of years before going back out. For the people who lived in the Heart, the alligators were like street cats/dogs. The people didn't mind them as long as they weren't close to the kids. The gators would also pick a house or place to stay under and sleep. One gator lived under a cabin which was Zambak's home. Zambak found the gator and named it Brutus. She would bring him some meat scraps and fish she didn't want to eat. Her parents let her do it because it was common for some swamp people to keep feral animals as pets, which they could use for killing an enemy or for company. But they would tell her that she should only feed him once every week so that he wouldn't get used to her.
One day, while Zambak was playing on the ground with her doll a ball landed a few meters beside her, she picked it up, and before she could play with it, a boy came. Turns out that it was his ball and she gave it back. The boy thanked her and was kind enough to befriend her since it's common for the kids to befriend everyone they came across, though no one came across her cabin because it was located further from the other cabins. That boy was Devan and he was her second friend, Brutus being the first. She would spend the rest of her days with him and his friends in the Heart, before leaving.
Early Teens ( 13 - 15 )
When the day came, her family moved out to the swamp kingdom's outskirts, sadly Brutus wasn't allowed because he was a wild animal. On her first days living in the outskirts, Zambak's father took her out for a hunt. They began to hunt and the prey was a dear. On the hunt, her father did something to trick the dear and kill it. She asked him why he tricked the dear and he responded by saying that sometimes you have to trick prey if you want to kill it. And that sometimes in life, you must be good at being cunning and tricking prey or enemy if ya want to keep on living. Her parents taught her a lot of important things. Like for example, Her mother taught her that sometimes you have to kill someone if they are a threat to you, and killing is a common thing in the swamp kingdom because its a normal thing in nature, and that it is okay to kill someone whose a threat such as a hunter or someone who doesn't deserve to live for reasons. They taught her more stuff such as collecting bones from the dead that can be useful. They also taught her swamp traditions such as battling, hunting, holidays, etc.
Though it was good that her parents taught her these kinds of stuff, something was missing. She remembered that she was missing her friends and that living in the outskirts was lonely. So, she concluded that she needed to find new friends. At first, it was hard but she came across Nightriss, Ironfang, and Verice. They were quick enough to befriend her and they began to hang out together. They took her out from her kingdom and showed her the other kingdoms she has never seen. She would spend time with them traveling the lands, helping Nightriss with ingredients, train with Verice and Ironfang, and fake hurting villages. The last one, fake hurting, is a thing the group did to make people think they were a bad group. Nightriss would make potions that acted like a poison that only lasted for a couple of hours. The group did this to get the attention of the big bad lava leader so that he can let them join him, and later they would backstab him to save the world. But none of the things they did barely got the attention.
But one day a group of people, who knew about the gang, believed that they were literally hurting people, so they went ahead and hunted the gang. When the group managed to capture the four teens, they decided to let Zambak go, because she wasn't that dangerous and because they thought she was dumb and didn't know what she was doing, of course, the last one wasn't true, she knew exactly what they were doing. Instead of imprisoning her, the group gave her parents a potion that made her forget about her new friends. This potion is meant to be taken once a month as a medicine. Her parents gave her the potion which lead her to forget her new friends and the old friends in the Heart. The parents were glad that their daughter wasn't in a cage, but the judgmental stares from the neighbors ( Because they knew about her and her new friends ) were hard for them to handle, so they decided to let their daughter live with her older cousin, who lived at the outskirts too. They told her older cousin that she had to take the potion once a month and to never skip. They didn't tell the older cousin why she had to take the potion, but the older cousin didn't care to ask.
Mid Teens ( 15 -17 )
Zambak moved in with her older cousin, Lunara, who was happy to finally meet her. She introduced her to her other cousin who was Kellen. Both were the same age so this meant that they could be friends and hang out with each other.
During the two years living with her cousin, Zambak would help Lunara out with some chores and play with Kellen. By playing, the two would go to a party and steal some tasty food. They would also play and annoy the gators, which Lunara had to step in and stop the two from doing it. She would also be given the potion by Lunara, who told her that it was a special sweet drink that she was allowed to enjoy once a month.
But, Zambak would also go out on her own to have some fun, which lead her to have a reputation in the lands.
One day she went to a village in the lava kingdom to look around. She found a dam made of mud, lava, and anything else that kept the dam strong. The reason is that on the other side of the dam there was seawater. But on that day, the wall was a bit unstable because of the salt in the seawater, and Zambak being Zambak decided to climb it, because it looked fun. At first, it went fine, but Zambak made one wrong move which caused the wall to collapse, covering the village and a nearby village with seawater. Zambak left the place quickly, but not quickly enough to be spotted by a person, but that person didn't follow her and went on to help the people in the village.
On another day, Zambak decided to go to the water kingdom, where she came across a pack of Vomicas. And she wondered if Vomicas were rideable. So, she jumped on one, which caused her to fall over. The Vomicas were angry, and they began to chase her. She ran as fast as she could until she came across a harbor. Zambak thought that if she went to the harbor she would lose the Vomicas there. So, she did that, which caused the Vomicas to attack everyone in the harbor and almost destroying the place. Zambak left, but a person spotted her, but they didn't have time because of the vomicas attacking the harbor.
On a third day, she went to the earth kingdom, while there she noticed that some earth people were working on a construction and she wanted to help out, not because she wanted to be nice but because it looked fun. She managed to slip by the workers and ended up standing on top of the construction the people were working on. And on the top was a pile of rocks that were going to be used for the building. The pile happened to be close to the edge, Zambak didn't see the pile and accidentally bumped into it causing the pile of rocks to fall on top of a worker. She left the place quickly, but one of the workers managed to saw her and remembered what she looked like, but he didn't follow her.
The people who saw Zambak talked with some hunters, one of the hunters happened to be part of the group that imprisoned Zambak's friends. That hunter recognized her from the description that the three gave to them. He of course told the rest about Zambak, and a couple of weeks later she became targeted. This made things harder for others in the swamp kingdom. Since the kingdom has a problem with hunters leaving traps and killing the people, more hunters meant that there would be more traps, causing more death in the swamp kingdom.
Freedom
The people of the swamp decided it was best to take Zambak into custody so that she wouldn't cause more problems. On the day Zambak was supposed to be taken in, Lunara forgot to give Zambak the potion, which led Zambak to remember her former friends, the ones from the Heart, and the three new friends she made in the outskirts. She escaped and went on to find a way to free her three friends.
She did remember that one of the people (who were part of the group that imprisoned her friends) was named Perth ( Because she heard one of the people in that group call him by his name ), who is a well-known hunter. She did know that hunters would spend their time in an Inn, so she went to the most popular Inn. When she arrived at the Inn, she didn't find him so she waited for a couple of days. When he arrived, she was surprised to see that he looked completely different. From what she remembered, he looked scrawny and weak two years ago, but now he's more muscular and has some scars from battles, meaning that he was now experienced. Zambak knew that she couldn't take him alone, because there was a big chance that he would end up killing her. But she decide to follow him to see where he lived. Once she knew where he lived, she needed to start thinking of a plan to capture and interrogate him to free her friends.
Days passed and she didn't know what to do until she saw the evil lava leader and his generals who were lost in the swamp. When she saw them, she immediately thought up a plan to take down Perth, and the plan included the lava leader and the generals. She introduced herself to them and at first, they were weirded out by her, then she said to them that she would help them get out from the swamp but only if they did something to her in return, they agreed and started to follow her. Once she helped them out, she asked them to capture Perth and told them who he was and where he lived. They did so, and a day later they managed to capture Perth. Zambak interrogated him, by showing her true colors and threatening to harm the Forest kingdom with a potion that could kill any plants that it had contact with. Perth soon gave her the Key, and he was later taken by the lava soldiers to the kingdom to be put in prison. They left Zambak alone. The potion she had was given by Nightriss, and it was a joke potion that only turned the plant's color and only lasted for a couple of hours before the plant's color came back, Zambak knew this, and Nightriss isn't dumb enough to give Zambak a real deadly potion recipe.
Zambak knew how Nightriss smelled like and hasn't forgotten the scent. Thanks to the recipe that still had Nightriss's scent on, Zambak could easily pick her scent up. She did manage to find the prison Nightriss was put in and released her from it. She was happy to finally see her friend and hugged her. Soon both left to live in the Heart, the reason was that Zambak wanted to go there to remember her former friends, and because her family still owned their cabin, which she and Nightriss could use as a place to stay.
Once they arrived at the Heart, Zambak began to hang out with her former friends and remember the times she spent in the Heart. She even changed her looks to not be targeted by the hunters. And she began to give Brutus more attention. But soon Nightriss left her to find the other two members. Zambak was a bit bothered by this but didn't let it get to her.
Late Teens ( 17 - 18 )
While Nightriss was away, Zambak began to teach herself about the swamp traditions, helping her old friends with missions to give the swamp kingdom a good reputation, learned the backstories of the hunters who were hunting them by disguising herself and talk with them in the Inn, Spent more time taking care of Brutus ( Which she was happy to do since she missed him the most), She also got together with her cousins and somewhat forgave Lunara about the potion thing, and she learned new things about the kingdoms and lands.
She learned that good and evil are worthless. Because while she was traveling the lands and the different kingdoms, she heard many people tell stories about the heroes defeating the villains. She learned from libraries, philosophers, and her friends that where there is good there is evil, where there is evil there is good. And that good and evil was an endless battle, where peace never came between the two. There will always be villains that want power and heroes that want to stop them. But if they stop the villain there will be a new villain ricing and new heroes. It was an endless battle with no peace. If there was peace, it would only last for a couple of months or years. Zambak thought that maybe both sides shouldn't exist because both sides provoked each other. If there's no good then there's no evil, if there's no evil then there's no good, only neutrality.
She also learned that The Hunters who would set traps and hunt the people of the swamp, People that only belittle people, Nobles and Royals who think that they are above others, The ones who think the world revolves around them, Even the ones that act like they are good at judging people by appearance, all of those people weren't worthy to live anymore, whether they are innocent or guilty. So, she began to kill those kinds of people, and she felt good about it. It gave her a good thrill. Stealing the life of a person felt joyful to her. Of course, she kept this a secret and didn't let anyone know that she was doing this. She hid this by acting all air-headed, dumb, shy, and innocent, many of her friends fell for this, but to those who knew her, knew her true dark side.
Nightriss soon returned with Ironfang and Verice, and soon the gang started to fake hurt villages trying once again to get the evil lava leader's attention. But Zambak knew that fake hurting people wouldn't get the attention of the villain, so she decided that they should literally hurt people. So, she began to give actual poison recipes to Nightriss. Luckily for everyone, Nightriss only used two of the recipes.
Zambak enjoyed her life, her friends, and of course the freedom of doing whatever she wanted.
However, all that would change when a Heron stole her bird skull pendant which happened in the story " Descendants of Legends" where her life will go downhill.
Descendants of Legend can be found on Wattpad and Deviantart.