#kritach

The Empress: A woman you really admire.

Being known as the oddball of their forming Warband as she was, Chyla often scooted off while Primus Coarsesnarl thought they were asleep.  Instead, late at night, she’d wander on down to the Factorium Canton, but not quite that far.  No, she’d stop there, near the memorial where the great statues of past heroes loomed.  There, she would sit at the base of Kalla Scorchrazor’s great paw, hidden from patrolling Adamant Guard soldiers.

There, she would hope that her magic stayed down another day, that she’d find a way to be just as good as the rest of the cubs at the fahrar.

After she was done hoping, she’d admire Kalla’s fierce stance and wonder—dream—that one day she might be as wild and renowned as the great charr female.

Though quietly, quietly in the depths of her mind, more than she admired Kalla’s snarl and spit…The quiet memory of staggering exhausted after her mother through the rough and rocky heat of Fireheart, the Marches, to the softer comfort of Ashford would float up.  She would remember the smell of blood and sweat, the hissed words of 'Quickly now, quickly', and the scorched pads of her paws, and the burned black fur decorating her mother in patches.

That, she would think, was real strength.

The Hierophant: Something you believe in.

Belief was hard to come by among charr, and Kritach was no different.  He didn’t care one way or another how other folk thought, so long as they kept it out of his business.  If asked, he’d say so directly and without thought.  Tact was another thing charr like him weren’t known for.

What sort of charr was he anymore anyway?  That was another thought he mulled over as he stumped around the Citadel day in and day out, listening to gears grind, welding, and bellows.  The smoke filled air filled him, and damned if Krit didn’t feel like it was soothing part of the ache.

He knew better, though.  He well knew that the only thing to soothe the ache of his burned out magic were the bottles lined up by his bunk, carefully tucked away to be taken when he woke, and in the wee hours when he woke up, fur sweat prickled and pain so bad he could barely breathe.

No, he wasn’t the type for believing in anything.  That had long ago died through the trials and betrayals of his life.  These days, if he believed in one thing it was a certainty.

The certainty that his time was over whether the proud few who served in his Warband wanted to admit it or not.

The Star: Someone you consider perfect.

Perfection was an algorithm, an equation.  Perfection was beautiful, sought after, exclusive, necessary.  Perfect was something that Ziatt had sought since he was a small, sickly Progeny with ears too big and a mind racing a million miles too fast for his body.  Perfection was something he stared at daily.

He would smile thinly to his clones as they raced around him, doing household chores and fetching him things, or taking care of this and that in the depths of his lab.

Each and every one of them, a perfect balance, equilibrium and strength personified.  They looked like him, yes, but they…they were perfect. Vainglorious as it was, he found truth in it. Magic, after all, was the soul of the Eternal Alchemy, and he spun it from his fingertips as easily as he breathed—easier some days, perhaps.  

At the end of the day, when they shattered and he watched himself die for the nth time, the perfection distorted and dissipated…Ziatt would return to his normal, imperfect existence.