Darwin

My kin take from the land. They steal and ravage from it all life and goodness for their own selfish desires.   “Mamma, are you still here?” I was but a cub when my kin took from me all that I loved.   “I'm still here child.” I can still hear her tender voice as she held me strongly between her arms, protecting me from my kin's rave and debauchery; their indiscriminate and savage violation of life.   “Mamma, I'm scared.” Wherever they go, they devour. Wherever they stand, plague and starvation follow. It's as if they were demons, sent to desecrate these lands. They . . . we are cancers that must be cleansed off the face of this world.   “Hush, Darwin. Momma's got you.” She wasn't of my kin, yet she loved me as her own. She was an elf, primarchs of magic and beauty, true beauty.   I remember still the scent of her blood. A scent I was instinctively drawn to. It was almost second nature for me to have a taste. The sweet, yet bitter scent of blood and flesh that beckoned, as a succubus would her pray.   “Darwin,” she shook me with what little strength she had left, “please,” she begged. This snapped me out of my stupor. The realization of what I had almost done shamed me. How could I have thought that? It was the first time I was exposed to death, yet in stead of mourning or fearing it, I indulged in it, if even for a second.   As my kin gored those I grew to love, Momma chanted under her breath a spell of warding. A spell that protected us from the savagery while it was active. The earth trembled beneath us, my kin roared and feasted, we shrank and cowered.   Momma chanted for hours. Her breathing was sharp and forced, her voice was thin and weak. Her arms trembled around me. Deep down I knew I would lose her too, yet I refused.   This mental struggle strained me, she was obviously hanging to life by a thread, yet I refused to accept it. Suddenly the realization that it’s been a while since the rumble, and the fire, and the gore, and the moans hit me.   As the serenity of the woods around us settled in, her sweet, gentle voice whispered to me mid-chant, “Echk brehnna Darwin, my sweet cub.” Echk brehnna: until we newly meet; an ancient elven phrase of departure. The sound of that phrase made my spirit plummet into despair.   “Please don't leave me alone, Momma,” I begged her in sobs, holding her firmly in my embrace. “I don't want you to die Momma.”   “It’s natural Darwin. Everything dies, child. This too is love, my cub; this too is beauty, young one.”   “Please don't leave me alone Momma.”   “Momma?”   Her body laid lifeless on mine. She hunched over me and surrounded me with her loving arms for as long as she drew breath. She held me in this embrace even after death. Her love for me transcended racial boundaries. Her love transcended hate, and even death if seen from this perspective.   I was a young orc; barely a child, I was yet a cub. It strained me to comprehend death, as did most her teachings, but I dared comprehend. It took me a while and many pains in the head, but I managed to comprehend.   Death is what my kin call the end. Death is where we, my kin, triumph in the face of good. It is where we stare good in the eyes and smile, for it is the good who killed, and we don't become more evil as we die, yet they do.   Death, to my mother, was hope. It was love and it was beauty. To her, death brought forth life that a barren womb had refused to give. To her, death is simply nature and beautiful. It meant that she had a righteous reason to die for. My mother believed that orcs, as do all living things, can radiate something other than death, destruction and decay; I was proof of that.   The three years she slaved to teach me good, morality, beauty, love and the magic in it, were priceless. They proved that good always prevailed. I was but a cub, an orc cub no less, yet the knowledge she imparted into me were treasures greater than any god in the heavens can grant me.   If there is anything I cherished about her; if there's anything I buried deep in my heart from her, it was her greatest teaching: Love is everywhere. You need just look, and from that hellish day onward, look I did.
 

Suggested Characteristics

I tend to shy away from strangers and try to blend into a crowd. I don't want to attract any attention to myself.

Traits

Ideal

Bond

Flaw