79th of Frost, 120
"I told you of my curse the day you woke from your long sleep, do you remember?" Spoke the Sil'Norai in the dark of the broad stone pipe. Arkash watched her cautiously while she loomed just a foot from him. He'd slipped into hibernation not too long ago due to the cold, and his body suffered frostbite in several patches of scales as a result. The burning fire beside him helped to gradually warm his body, but it was slow going. His breath had yet to form clouds of condensation, indicating that his body temperature wasn't that much hotter than the air around him.
"Yeah..." He answered while he focused the full gaze of his yellow eyes on her. She had yet to question just how Arkash came to get his arm and eye back, but he had no doubt it was coming. Before then, however, Fayeth had resolved to share with him a story. Something pertaining to his prejudice, his racism, no doubt. Arkash hated humanity; he saw no light in them, only malice and selfishness. They were an oppressive scourge that had trampled him from birth. It was the stomp of their boots that had hardened him to a deadly edge, their fault that he fell into a conquest for the blood of the wicked.
Fayeth had seen a glimpse of that edge, and though she intended to use the rathor, she had to redirect his hate. Humanity was not the enemy, despite whatever flaws they might have perceived. It was the system that perpetuated power for the wealthy and continued to oppress the less fortunate. That was her end-game, and she would make it Arkash's too, in time. "...I didn't explain the nature of my curse, only that I must feed on the flesh of the living," she affirmed. Arkash nodded in turn but didn't see what part of her curse had to do with his hatred of humankind. "I am what's known as a Dranoch; some are born with this condition, but I was not."
Arkash nodded his head carefully. He hadn't considered there would be a name for her curse, but there were apparently more of her kind. It had to be something sort of common to have its own name, right? "Arent 'ew a Sil'Norai?" He asked at last.
"Yes, but Dranochism is a blight, any of the mortal races can become afflicted with it. Though it alters your physiology a little, the Dranoch are very good at blending in with mortals. In some parts of the world, they take seats in the government and abuse their power for their preservation and steady growth of power. You see, the more a Dranoch feeds, the stronger it grows."
Arkash furrowed his brow. It was a strange concept, or was it? he supposed that muscles became larger and stronger with the right training and diet, perhaps Dranochism was the same? "...How do 'ew turn int' one?" he asked, cautiously interested. if Arkash could grow in power just by eating, he certainly wanted that curse. He held little empathy for the mortal races as it was, and he'd already drunk maybe a pint of blood over the span of his life, and perhaps half a pound of flesh.
Fayeth didn't immediately reply; she saw the glint of hope in the rathor's eyes and met it with disdain. "...Another dranoch gives you their curse."
"How?" Arkash asked, almost too eagerly.
"Why do you want to know?" Fayeth returned, stern.
Arkash hesitated. Again, she'd seen through him; the elf was far more perceptive than Arkash meant to remember. "Jus' wonderin'," he replied.
Fayeth offered a hard, threatening glare that filled a moment of silence between the two. The next thing to leave her mouth was the dismissal of his question in the form of a subject change. "...In Sil-Elaine, the entire government is made up of Dranoch; they rule the land and freely feast on the inhabitants. Ordinary Sil'Norai are second class citizens to their superiority. I was one of those unafflicted Sil'Norai..."
"So 'ew becaem a dranoch?" he asked, again, without restraint.
"Not by choice, Arkash," she explained with something of a sorrowful sigh. Arkash saw the regret in her eyes and fell quiet. Why wouldn't she want to be a dranoch if they were superior in every way? Endless perks seemed hard to turn down in his eyes. Fayeth seemed to recognize that confusion and went on to explain. "I hate them, Ark. I've always hated the Dranoch, the court of dusk and all those that follow them. I lived my whole mortal life in fear of falling prey to their jaws, I lived as their cattle and served beneath them for years, Arkash."
Arkash furrowed his brow a little and fully sat up to stare the elf down at a more equal height. "How do 'ew fink I feel?! Tha's what the 'umans are liek t' me!" Through her claims, Arkash only saw the connection between them, their adjacent oppression, and hatred. "We's no' so diff'run't, Fay. Dun' 'ew see-?!" He flapped his gums until the dranoch took his drooly muzzle in her clenched fist and squeezed his mouth shut. The rath lifted his new claws to her wrist to hold her hand steady. The pressure around his mouth was uncomfortable, and could quite easily turn to pain at a moment's notice.
"We're not alike," She spoke flatly, then pulled on his face to elicit a half wince and a curl of his lips. "You take out your ire on peasants and commoners. You fail to grasp the full story, the big picture." She pushed on his muzzle as she released him, knocking Arkash to his elbows where he laid. "You're narrow-minded, tunnel-visioned on something as low and petty as revenge when you could be working toward the greater good of all those that have suffered like you. Don't you see, Arkash?"
The rathor shook his head and rubbed the length of his muzzle. He didn't understand. Did she not take out her wrath on dranoch? Come to think of it, he'd only ever seen her kill crooks and lowlives, and it was apparently because she had to in order to survive. "I dun'..." he spoke at last and shook his head. "I dun' get i'."
"...Well, try to think of things more plainly. Think simple, without all the nuances and variables. Think without all that extra information that clouds your mind, and what do you find when I ask you this next question? What do the Dranoch and the Humans of Lorien have in common?"
Arkash furrowed his brow, and brought his eyes to squint. "...They's bof evil li'l fucka's," he spoke with a snarl.
The dranoch shook her head and sighed. "No, they're not Arkash. They're both products of their environments. They aren't the disease, they're a symptom, as a wise doctor might say." A faint grin showed on her lips at the phrase, and Arkash knew she spoke of Cyrus. "I'll ask you again, what do they both have in common?"
So... Humans and dranoch weren't fundamentally evil? They both seemed to be, but why? Just for a moment, he set his hatred aside and began to think. At first, his gaze was on his lap. Silence surrounded the two, bar the distant whistle of winds and the crackle of the fire beside him. Finally, he lifted his eyes to Fayeth's and peered into the piercing red of her hunger-wrought irises. "They bof 'ave powa' ova' us." Power. That was the single unifier, the thing that linked them. Both the Dranoch and the Humans held positions of political power, supported by a network of underlings. For the common peasant, they were untouchable. The nameless didn't have the power to change their fate if the king dictated they were to writhe and suffer. Just as the Sil'norai were powerless to leave their country-prison or live in peace because of their predatory overlords.
Fayeth smiled a little. "Had. They had power over us, but you are correct. That is what they held in common. And how did they act in common, Ark?"
It was all starting to make sense. Something deep in his core brimmed at the thought, his heart thudded fast at the sensation and the realizations that unfolded. "...They walk't all ova' us..."
"Yes," Fayeth returned with the beginnings of a laugh, and brought her hand to his shoulder. "They both have power, and they both use it to oppress those born beneath them. Now you see, don't you? Humans and dranoch are vastly different, but with power, they're both monsters on a fundamental level. That is all power creates in society, disparity, and oppression."
Arkash's eyes were alight in the dark of the pipe; he understood everything she said, and the very fiber of his being reveled in it. "It's all... So poin'less too! What gives 'em th' right to shove us aroun'? Just bein' born where 'ey is?"
"Right!' Fayeth cheered and jostled the rathor's shoulder a little. "It's so arbitrary! Why does being born to a wealthy, powerful family offer you so much more privilege than those without?" She translated the rath's poor common.
"Tha's wha' I sed!" He spoke in turn, grinning broadly.
"You see it now, the root of all evil. Systemic power, wealth, and the ignorance of the lower class keep those vile people in positions of power while we wallow in filth. Do you see now, where your ire should be aimed, Arkash?"
He'd never liked rich and powerful people anyway. It was that same brimming feeling in his core that stoked the flames of hate toward them, but now, thanks to fayeth, he understood why. Their wealth their power corrupted them at their cores.
"No one people should hold all the power, Arkash. The only truly equal society is one without positions of power. Where everyone has as much right and privilege as the person beside them. None can be born into power, they must work for their own keep, fight to protect what's theirs, just as you have your whole life. Just as I have, Arkash."
Finally, Arkash lowered his grasp from her wrist, and the two came to embrace one another. In all the madness of the world they lived in, Fayeth and Asmodei were some of the only constants that made sense to the young rathor.
Image source.
