OOC: Jax would have to be my most psychologically based characters yet. His life is a tragedy, as is most of the Markovi Peoples lives were. many were born learning how to fight a relentless and unstoppable enemy, only to abandon the only home they have ever known. And for what? An uncertain live aboard a massive ship that could only be moved by the currents becuase of how large it was, after fifty years and countless lives they made landfall. They were somewhat prosperous until the greed of one of their own damned them all, of the surviving few Markovi, almost all of them had lost family, almost all of them extremely demoralized due the the near destruction of their race. They all went separate ways, unwilling and for many psychologically unable to try to rebuild. This is Jax...retelling his past.
IC:
Tranquility is often described as peace of mind, body and soul. To seek tranquility is considered to be an impossible task, as you achieve peace in one aspect, the others fall into chaos. Greatness is often described as superiority in one form or another, many times in a positive light. To seek greatness is considered to be a foolhardy task, as to achieve greatness one most forgo themselves, making what you wanted to be great for obsolete. So what am I to conceive from this? To long for peace is to ask for a miracle and to want to be great is to become a shell of yourself. How does one find purpose in this?
Whatever purpose I had for being put on this earth was taken from me at birth, the entirety of my race was fighting for survival against a relentless destructive power. We called them Imber Atrox, and as their name implies, their strength lies in numbers. A mountain does not flinch at a single drop of rain, but even the tallest and proudest of mountains will bow to a relentless rain. By the time I was barely a century old, I was fighting in a battle which I knew was impossible to win. The Imber Atrox were not adept warriors like the mass of the Markovi, but for every two that you killed there was another three waiting for you.
Eventually we realized that we could not hope to win against the menace, so we created a last ditch hope for survival. It took another hundred years to build, but finally when the Ark was finished, we made a hasty exodus. The Imber Atrox did not pursue us to the sea, they were content with the dying land that they won, little did they realize that whenever we lost out land, we salted the earth, Their victory was Pyrrhic and would lead to their demise, and our actions brought us closer to ours.
In order for the Ark to house the surviving Markovi, it had to be massive. I really didn't not come to understand this until the first time we saw land from the Ark. Our mighty vessel was to large and too heavy to be moved by sails or oars, to with to tow of the current on out massive hull. We watched in despair as the land just stayed there for a moment, then slowly drifted back to the horizen. We wouldn't see land again for another forty-five years. The food supplies we had prepared for was not even close to what was required. But by the time food became an issue, so many had died because they lost the will to live that the food was easily rationed. I ate and survived because someone else felt that there was no reason to go on, this is a horrible thought but I am thankful for those people, they are truly heroes, had they had the will to go on, all of Markovi would have died on that vessel of life.
Fate did eventually decide to take pity on us, we landed in what is now Whitesands. Soon every able body was working to take apart the ship and make a new home. In less then a year we had accomplished this, we named it something reminiscent of the home we lost, Arjuh. From then on, life was for the better. We seemed to finally achieve a reprieve from the endless unfortunates that had plagued us. For once in my life there was some normality, I fell in love, I got married, I had a child. For once is my survival driven existence, I was content. But all good things must come to an end.
Daemon Ulmitia. One of the more respected members of our society for is prestige in the war. He is the cause of our downfall. He happened to encounter a race we had never seen before, humans. They were the indigenous to the land we made our new home, they are a fragile race. Daemon sought to conquer them, conquer the continent. He and his small following created a Schism in our society, it evolved into a most uncivil conflict.
Fighting broke out in the middle of the streets one day, the violence rapidly growing and spreading, until the fire broke out. No one knows how the fire started, but in a city that was made from wind-dried wood, we were soon engulfed in flame. The inferno was intense, the air was so hot that to breathe was to bake your lungs. I watched as my house collapsed with my wife and child inside. They were gone, there would be no saving them, but that didn't stop me from trying. As I dove into the burning debris, I knew that it was hopeless. I managed to dig my wife's body out before I had to leave the city or risk death myself.
Outside the city, I was amazed at how few managed to make it out, I could hear the tortured screams of those still in the city slowly burning to death. It was maddening, I had to get away. I carried my wife's body to a meadow not far from where we made our home, My wife and I had come here several times just to get away, she had loved it there. I could think of no better place to lay her to rest.
I laid her body in the center of the field, only then did I take a look at the remains of my wife. Her face was almost entirely burned off, most of her flesh was sickeningly charred. My wife, my beautiful Thicro, died in the worst possible way imaginable, and there was nothing I coul have done to save her. For the first time in my life, I wept. The immense pain was blinding, sending my body into a quivering mess. Eventually, tears spent, I got up and went to go, where I had no idea but I knew I had to keep living. But who should I see when I turned? Daemon Ulmitia.
My mind quickly went into a rage. That bastard had the audacity to leave the burning city in anything less than a coffin. I quickly set out at him, to describe how I killed him would be to describe absolute manic rage. When he was dead, he was surrounded in red flowers, I found that very odd, the flowers in the meadow were all white.
That is the basis of my life, when I finally achieved happiness. It was taken from me, in the most brutal way too. I honestly have no idea what drives me forward now. Perhaps it is because it have seen what it is like to die from a lack of will, it is a slow and lonely death, there is no peace in it, there is no meaning behind it. I want my life to mean something. I want, I want something to be remembered by, a legacy. I want something that etches into all of history that the Markovi were once powerful, prosperous, that we were here. I suppose this could be defined as my purpose, a quest for tranquility and greatness. I guess that makes me of the most foolhardy of beings asking for a miracle., But it is a purpose nonetheless, one for which I am grateful. Someday I will join Thicro, but until then, I am reacting to the present, which is about as certain life can be.
