I was born to be a prince on a faraway world, you know.
My people walk in small bands beneath a star filled sky, the hot sands beneath our feet as we hunt. The desert is our kingdom, the rippling sands of my homeworld, where even the great predators give us wide berth.
That is our way, we desert kings, we apex predators. And that is why we are taken, for our prowess, for our flame-magic, for our ferociousness, for our courage. We are taken to fight in arenas in the sky, for the pleasure, at the pleasure, of others. Of weak, fearful men with money-hands, who have never raised a blade and felt the hot spray of blood on their faces. Cowards all, who bet on the lives and deaths of others. The come to our world, my world, in their sleek silver ships, and they take us by force, they shave our manes, they tattoo our backs and send us to kill or die for sport.
I was taken. But in the pits, I became a prince as well. They threw me the most beautiful women their worlds have to offer in the evenings, for I opened the throats of men and beasts alike under their false, electronic lights in the day. The pits became my desert, my opponents my prey. I was a god among these aliens, these bloodthirsty fools, screaming for more. I gave it to them. With my blades I killed Magmarian tribesmen who bled lava from their veins, and hackspiders with their fangs like scythes, dripping yellow-green poison; I murdered bountyhunters with swords of hot light and cyborgs with skin of unbreakable metal. It was I who defeated Caralador the Phaseshifter, taking his head cleanly from his shoulders. I called the flames of my desert to shield me and heal me. And after every fight, I added more ink to my skin, to hide the scars.
I ruled my arena, dressed in the armor of fallen foes. Until, of course, I grew too proud. It is a flaw of my people; it is a flaw of my own. I grew too proud and shamed the wrong man, the wrong soft-handed degenerate, and rather than grant me the honor of death, in the ring or out, that vile creature had me banished here, to this awful place, this terrible, terrible world. Left here to rot with nothing but my armor and my blades and my life.
But I see so many foes here. I see so many challenges. I will have my honor again...
I was born to be a prince on a faraway world, you know.
My people walk in small bands beneath a star filled sky, the hot sands beneath our feet as we hunt. The desert is our kingdom, the rippling sands of my homeworld, where even the great predators give us wide berth.
That is our way, we desert kings, we apex predators. And that is why we are taken, for our prowess, for our flame-magic, for our ferociousness, for our courage. We are taken to fight in arenas in the sky, for the pleasure, at the pleasure, of others. Of weak, fearful men with money-hands, who have never raised a blade and felt the hot spray of blood on their faces. Cowards all, who bet on the lives and deaths of others. The come to our world, my world, in their sleek silver ships, and they take us by force, they shave our manes, they tattoo our backs and send us to kill or die for sport.
I was taken. But in the pits, I became a prince as well. They threw me the most beautiful women their worlds have to offer in the evenings, for I opened the throats of men and beasts alike under their false, electronic lights in the day. The pits became my desert, my opponents my prey. I was a god among these aliens, these bloodthirsty fools, screaming for more. I gave it to them. With my blades I killed Magmarian tribesmen who bled lava from their veins, and hackspiders with their fangs like scythes, dripping yellow-green poison; I murdered bountyhunters with swords of hot light and cyborgs with skin of unbreakable metal. It was I who defeated Caralador the Phaseshifter, taking his head cleanly from his shoulders. I called the flames of my desert to shield me and heal me. And after every fight, I added more ink to my skin, to hide the scars.
I ruled my arena, dressed in the armor of fallen foes. Until, of course, I grew too proud. It is a flaw of my people; it is a flaw of my own. I grew too proud and shamed the wrong man, the wrong soft-handed degenerate, and rather than grant me the honor of death, in the ring or out, that vile creature had me banished here, to this awful place, this terrible, terrible world. Left here to rot with nothing but my armor and my blades and my life.
But I see so many foes here. I see so many challenges. I will have my honor again...
((Sebastios Pride, Virtue server))