Tale:Monster and the Maiden

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Under Heaven and Serenity, thy Cradle of terrible Magics turns.

This content takes place on Keppel, within Chromagaia.

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Chromagaia's time moves forward with ours! Today's date is:
Lysisday, Yahataidh 23, 1133 LE

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Index / Lexica / Timeline

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Diegetic Page

This page is written from an in-universe perspective. This means information contained within it may be subject to bias or take a much different tone or format from other articles.

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Date

Perspective Character(s)

Location

1141 LE

Seren Afon-Tan

Written in Yarras, City of Stars

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Hark, the fragments of ages twist! They turn my father's blood to gold, the priestesses to witches!

—excerpt from Striepaurheei Törrhyatz's Prophecy of Stars

I would wager to say most children have heard some variant of this tale. The year is 1141 now, and though the events recounted by this folkloric haze occur more than seventy-five-hundred years ago, by my research, back to the end of the Mesomythic, they still resound across continents and ages. Why is that, when so few seem to take the message of its foremost storyteller, the great Philosopher-Warrior-King who conquered the desert I now wander? I have taken utmost care in my research to reconstruct the tale as told by its original distributor, down to methods I will not be disclosing for their absurdity.

"The Monster and the Maiden" has two continentally differentiated variants, though I have certainty they are recountings of entirely separate periods of the titular monster's life. I have placed the Remnan version first chronologically, as it recounts the birth of said monster, whilst the Koeyan version omits it. I know not the method by nor intention of separating the accounts by this, but the curses at the end of each match with some inscriptions I recovered from various cities in the savannas North to the Ocean of Flame.

My thesis is thus: most people interpret the fairy tale from a perspective of the human, of the poor imitation thereof and the dangers of trying to fit where one innately does not belong. There are exceptions, but it remains the majority from my experience. But the framing of the tale when connecting all the disparate versions really begs the question: why does the perspective follow the monster exclusively, and neither of the maidens? And furthermore, why are people—who, in my experience, love nothing more than to be the unlikely hero—choosing time and time again to project onto the ones causing that monster pain?

I urge readers to take this retelling, augmented by notes from who I believe to be the originator of the majority of its story, Striepaurheei Törrhyatz, and I urge them to look at the whole thing from the perspective of Moveriath, the Strioboros and titular monster. What becomes hidden behind each half is made apparent when the two are combined. And what injustice this poor soul's tale is done by that.

—Seren Afon-Tan

Remnan Fragment

The mist-laden night concealed the silver-stirred skies, that mirror of mirrors whence all hymns emerge. The white of all asterisms broken up by that seven-eyed father of hidden things, allowing a single fracture in the perfect quartz of its symphony. A violet streak of light emerged from the heavens, and down to the clearing fell a scorned shard of a star, stripped of immortality and stasis and doomed to the fate of mortals down below. Below the moon, the rings, the clouds, this fallen star landed in the tall golden grass, newborn and starving, quivering. The mind granted thus held a shard of its timeless dance, a longing from which the beast would never recover. A home forever sundered, the cold of beyond the glassy veil a stark contrast to the thick moisture of the balmy night air.

The pillar of violet severed from the stars alerted the towns fifty miles far, but the one by which this star had fallen was the only to investigate. A small family of farmhands failed to keep their young daughter inside. The girl's instinct and human curiosity, rattling immaterial things that spoke to some core part of her soul, betrayed her father and mother, her little legs pushing beyond what even adults could. This maiden, Röyhullá, found the whelp of a beast this star-shard had become, a night-black thing with sickeningly dim violet eyes, no larger than a housecat, and brought it home. She fought day and night to keep the thing, with its lanky feathered body and bizarre anatomy, in the house as a pet. The family lived on the outskirts of their city, as farmers are wont to do, and so they reluctantly agreed. The Legendary Beast of the night sky, a sickly onyx with six gangly legs and four blank beady eyes on its horned head, held shut for its weakness in birth, wrapped in its two still-quivering wings, found a home that night. Its mouths, five of them, two by the ribs and one on the chest and belly, coughed from the acrid thickness of terrestrial air, so far from its glassy æther the fragments of memory it retained demanded it return.

Four years passed and a collar around the many-tongued beast's neck[, reading "Moveriath"] while its owner-family thrived. Their crops had grown in abundance and their daughter almost marriage age, and it was a bountiful summer of youth for the family. Röyhullá herself ate often with Moveriath—the latter using only the mouth on its beastly face to do so—now her pet/sibling/friend. The borders between these roles were waning like clouds under the blazing sun as the monstrous thing grew. Its wings had turned luminous as it ate, glittering with a heretical lilac imitation of the wandering stars, its four blank eyes matching the piercing hue of its grandiose entrance, of the striking violet of the long-blade of Annrava's make. Moveriath had growled and whined in a tongue unknown to all by this point, an unfittingly complete compendium of night-speech that this nascent thing had known since birth. Röyhullá was teaching it to speak their peoples' tongue, and by four years Moveriath could now hold the basics of a conversation. The two slept in one bed against the foggy winter nights and ate the same foods. They were inseparable, and once Moveriath could understand its parents' orders, it had become quite handy in labor befitting that of an ox. Stronger every day, larger every phase of the moon, the celestial signifiers of its form and cant heralding the ebb and flow of its future.

Moveriath was a strong beast, known to the town as the one that Röyhullá rode to school on, as the strange and arcane pet that understood her words. When Röyhullá returned from school, the two would plow the ripe fields together, ride through the sparse trees and catch sungazing lizards, sun themselves on smooth white rocks, read tales of legendary heroes together, and make up their own. Moveriath didn't mind that the townspeople saw it as an animal, a fundamental outsider to their tongue and gait, all while the beast knew their faces and names and what their jobs meant. Röyhullá treated it like her own kin, taught it to be human like her. How to sit upright, how to speak in the manner of a proper noble, what the looks in peoples' eyes meant, the names of rivers, the dances she danced at each season's feast. Moveriath in turn taught her what it could of the night-tongue, of the sounds she couldn't hear and the taste of the wind, the omens in the patterns of the shifting stars, and how to tell the scents of people apart. They had a secret hut not too far from their family's home, made of thatch and grasses. Moveriath lit a violet flame there once, and the whole thing burned down. Röyhullá simply began constructing the next, and the two of them laughed heartily.

Moveriath grew, as seasons cycled like the suns around the world, to the size of a large hound, then a wolf. The moon cycled in and out in this way, but the bed could not suit both itself and Röyhullá as it once had. And with this size had grown ravenous hunger, unparalleled strength, and instincts beyond what it had learned from its family. Firmly a sibling of Röyhullá's now, firmly a child of that family of farmers. Human in all but name and form, this terrified the fallen star, the night-runner[, the Strioboros]. It feared the things that strength could do, the harm in that titanic appetite. And so Moveriath did what humans do. It repressed the hunger, eating thinly as the color drained from its wings and eyes, starving itself till it could barely speak. It tempered its strength and slept beside the bed, not on it, curled away from its sister. Too large, I have become too large, it thought. It took frequent trips into the night, running and running out the calls for territory. How horrid would it be, it thought, that I might become a monster to my family? Yet the gazes grew colder upon Moveriath, and the words to it fewer. And so it refused more food, refused to speak when angered, took to drinking starlight from the heavens to survive, took to molding its form to be smaller, 'til not one was aware that its true size approached that of a dragon—another blasphemy for this already too-draconic Legendary Beast, guilty of mimicking their holy form. And it hoped that this would make the halcyon summer of youth return. And it hoped none would notice how its eyes flickered in longing and fear.

But Röyhullá noticed. She noticed the food gone cold, the warmth off her back when she slept, the howling of the untimely nocturnal winds and the creaking of the door late at night. She noticed her sibling salivating over the meals it rejected, how it seemed to get more agitated as the day went on, the flicking of its tail as sunset came. The blurring of shadows in the night as a familiar something ran past, flew past, larger than the Moveriath she knew. Too much larger. She noted the cold discontent in the fallen star, and it scared her. What is it that has changed? Why does it withdraw from me? She thought. What hunger could cause that pain in its eyes?

A bad suitor once passed by and tried the ill-gotten custom of wife-snatching, an animalistic practice of marking a woman to destroy her honor, that only a marriage may return. Moveriath had picked the vicious scent before the man had gotten near the house, and in its night-stalking curiosity had silently followed behind. Moveriath had been taught by Röyhullá the dangers of walking alone at night, and this suitor's scent was known to the fallen star. Bad bad man, scum less human than I, is what Moveriath thought. So when it heard the creaking of the front door, the sneaking sounds of footsteps lightened, the familiar echoes of its own stealthy escapades to and from the house, it knew. The monster inside that man had awakened. Little more than a second passed before the door was off the hinges, a second monster shadowing the first. Slithering through the hallways on its six terrible paws, Moveriath found its way to the source of a sudden scream, then muffled by fabric. The bastard in her bed, in their home, in its territory!

Moveriath snapped in fury, eyes blaring in the manner of the morning light and shadowy limbs plunging across the room at the intruder. The five mouths of the star-beast were put around the frail human's limbs, 'til restraint and disassembly were only a matter of pressure on the titanic jaws. The knife of the assailant on the floor, a terrified Röyhullá in the corner. The night air pulsed in time with Moveriath's heart. It released its form in anger, released its hunger and dominated the space of the room with presence and power. The final mouth on the belly of the monster opened.

"What use do you have for a knife in the home of a farmer, son of masons? What use have you for a woman's bed and neck this night?" It could barely restrain the guttural accent of its inborn tongue, the rolling growls in its furious breath. The suitor yelled in protest, forgetting the position of his limbs and head. The second the word "own" left his mouth, so too did his head leave his neck, frayed as it tumbled into the beast's stomach for its last instant of vitality. The taupe of the bedroom and the pale lavender of Röyhullá's bedsheets were stained a wine-red. All instincts suppressed by humanity taught snapped their chains, unbound if only for a moment of unchallengeable violence against the limp body. Insults known only to the heavens were roared with each bite, each clawing, each thrashing of the fresh corpse. Limbs flayed and diced, the pooling of warmth cooling on the floor. Defilement of the would-be defiler. An outclassing of a monster by a monster. Gods! What have I done?! thought one mind. The flesh of monsters is bitter… thought another. But the house was not empty of monsters yet. Röyhullá's screams resumed now, the knife plunged into the fallen star's thigh. Moveriath howled, demanding an explanation. She brandished the blade again now, soaked in that luminescent liquid the color of royals' dye.

"MONSTER!" she screamed once more, and her parents broke down the door. The three of them had such fury in their gaze, Röyhullá's soaked with tears and terror. It was only then that Moveriath took a step back, seeing the bloodied pawprint on the floor, feeling the rank wetness on its lips. A hundred thousand thoughts flooded the monster's head.

-Instinct.-
-I didn't do it!-
-I'm sorry!-
-HE WAS GOING TO-
-No no no no no no no no-
-Please don't leave me!-
-RUN-
-I didn't mean t-
-I had no choice!-
-KILL-
-I saved you!-
-Didn't you see what he was-
-MY BLOOD-
-He's the monster!-
-Barely human-
-Deceiver-
-Stop it!-

The splintering of many materials immediately resounded, none of them flesh or bone. Moveriath fled, bursting through the windows into the night. The family would never see it again, that creature of darkness beyond the shadows of the world. And the town would forget the monster that Röyhullá once rode, for a time. As it ran, it wept, the traces of monstrosity and instinct fading in the trail of blood and wailing tears it left. Out into the lonely dark again, out into the unkind wilds of strength-on-strength and hidden nightmares. Never again to cross paths. It thought in truth that it was a monster, that it should be fit as nothing more. And yet Moveriath was more, despite its best effort to purge that human heart it had grown. That life of little comforts it saw fit to starve to keep from waning was real. It was. And now it was gone evermore. As Moveriath raced away, it raged and wept and cast a curse in both the tongues it knew, the mouths on its sides in the human language and the rest lamenting in its own celestial cant.

"Woe! Hell fall upon thee who chase me from thy home! Who take me from the arms of Nature, who clip my wings and feed only the maw you share! A curse upon thy home and clan! Who once called me thine, who severed me from the Wild I stalked that I may never learn to live from it again! Who forced me out into the place that now starves me! Never in death shall you escape me! A plague upon your souls, you who break my horns and heart! May the Night that birthed me swallow you whole! May unending cold lay upon your core!"

Notes and Supplements

The great Striepaurheei Törrhyatz is cited in three places as "scorching the birthplace of his master" and summoning "a great pillar of light upon the place it had once fallen". This alone is not enough to suggest his role in the fall of Banna Sitahq, but I did discover the writings of the Striepaurheei at the city's ruins, carved into multiple of its walls. Regardless of what Törrhyatz did at Banna Sitahq, he didn't cause the fall it eventually had three thousand years later. What he did do was secure the search for the original tale. The curse spoken by Moveriath as he fled the city is inscribed in the walls, over and over again. Why do this? Why write the end of a tale in the place it references, but only tell that part an ocean away? Is it for someone from Remna searching for answers? Searching for Moveriath on the other side of the world? Why and how would he anticipate such a thing? And more frustratingly, why do I fit that description so well?

The phrase to "who broke my horns and heart" is intriguing, as Moveriath's horn was not broken in any popular telling of the Remnan version of The Monster and the Maiden. It is, however, broken in all direct tellings by Törrhyatz in the Koeyan versions, which, I may remind the reader, are a different and later event. This implies that the Curse of the Strioboros was somehow revised later on, or at least a direct connection between people who told either tale. It may also just be figurative speech akin to "clip my wings". As far as I can tell, his wings were never literally clipped.

Relevant Passages

Hell upon the openly vile, yes, but that hell waits for death. My blade falls on the wind-blown, the ones who turn on their loves with no recourse. The traitors to their kin, blind loyalists to instinct alone. Do I think the flame of passion can be tempered by cold avoidance? Of course it can. But the hearth-fire and the torch ultimately carry the same heat.

—Törrhyatz, Message to the King-Elect of Rahmman-Duul

The crime of difference is exceptionalism. To be born as something 'other' is to admit defeat from your beginning. You will never shrink away enough to loose the chains. They will only tighten 'til your truth would suffocate or worse. All out of your control, as is known, but you can react. Unrestrained violence is the tool of the wise and the scorned.

—Törrhyatz, Lessons at El-Fazzaim

Had I six legs to crush you, those would suffice. Alas, you die by the too-worthy blade of my outer palm. Had I the heart of a warrior like my master before me, my teeth would suffice. Alas, you die by the hand of the man you envy instead of the maw of the beast you reject!

—Törrhyatz, War-Musings

Footnotes

Text in brackets is added in from other sources, not typically in individual tellings. This mostly applies to the Remnan version as they have no historical legacy of Moveriath or Törrhyatz to speak of.

Moveriath is never cited as a name in this continent's versions. "Fallen Star" or "Night-beast" are the common descriptors, but it usually uses "The Monster" in folk versions. Similarly, Röyhullá is usually just referred to as "The Maiden". These versions stick out from other folklore less for their vague names.

Koeyan Fragment

Hark, O long-prayer-slurring travelers of the desert, ye caravan and cart, ye wine-and-incense toting scum of the cities, ye whose weight is half from gold! Heed, this name you know. The Night-Upon-Man, the cursed spawn of darkness that beset your towns in brilliant flames of Akhupit's light! The fallen star, Heavens beget thy repentance! Ye know the war-drum beat of his legs, the gnashing of maws, the brilliant crystal that turns away mage and metal alike! Ye know the curse he laid upon thy sands! I speak of the one whose blood flows through mine, whose FURY enforces my words and fists! Hark, O pious sinners of Koeya, for ye must heed well! Heed the warning and curse of the Strioboros!

—Törrhyatz's preachings at Crymythwarre

Hark, wanderers, for it is known. This beast of beasts, the thief of the visage of dragons, whose heresy against the stars is to consume like the desert-glass their light, whose blaspheming against the order of man is the flame of purest violet. The shadow in the night and the rumbling in the hot winds. This Strioboros, a monster by the name you so reject, isolate and desperate in its wanderings, long-forgotten by the peoples of the North and all but the traitors at the ruins towards the setting sun, this beast longed with its leaded heart for the lights of a city. And so it found, by some chance, a road to Crymythwarre. Afear'd was the Strioboros, though a year for every sun had passed betwixt its last ravenous hunt and that night, of the fire in the eyes of men that might yet turn against itself.

Human, so human was the heart enchain'd in lead and by the sandstorm winds of the South, that it could still yearn for love it had been taught. And so Moveriath, your monster-in-the-night! Not yet master of the Mage-Slaying Hand, nor Scourge of the Five Lands, nor yet even a man! This beast saw fit to hide itself in the night, studying the gaits and guises of travellers. Moveriath's man-form you have all doubtless heard tell of, though the visage you recall is that not too unlike my own. It is known, his inborn ability to mold his body. Imagine something in between for me. A face too long to call human, but too short to call a snout. A thin coating of feathers almost narrow enough to call hairs. An awkward lumbering stance, held up by a thick tail. Feet not quite human enough, but not too pawlike at a glance to question. Eyes of a dragon, still four, horns still sprouting from its skull. Ears of its true form still unable to be changed. This visage was Moveriath's attempt at a human form, though the throat could not bellow the way it liked and the accent of the night-tongue bled through.

Stealing the cloaks of men to clothe itself, Moveriath wandered into town that night, listening to the tongue in between foreign and familiar, that tongue known to it from the teachings given by those who now shunned it. The irony of connecting with the same insolent race that chased it into the night years prior is lost on my master, but not on me! In that town of liars and cheats, the fallen-star searched for something to do. The manner of beggars befit the beast, and through the cover of fabric its muffled voice managed to call enough coin to turn the eyes of a shopkeep away. Clothing adorned under the true disguise, the freedom to move was greater for the anxious Strioboros.

A masked dance was to be held that autumn-turn, on the night of the half-moon that rises at midday. The town center had a grand announcement from the Chief-King's daughter, the late Queen Anþaalinac whose head I was not fortunate enough to sever myself. She was, according to her youth and status, as beautiful as a desert lotus in the vast mirage. A discordant rhythm struck Moveriath as she spoke, and though it could not speak for fear of its distorted voice, it craved, as desperately as the cloud-choking mountains crave the East sea's rain, to share words with her. And so it decided to attend the dance, in as fanciful an outfit as stealth-fitted plunder would allow. A theme of the heavens was required, and so Moveriath took it upon itself to use the still-awkward parts of its visage in the outfit.

A lythryd passed, and the summer faded out to chill breezes and nightly fog. Clothes and silks and paints kept disappearing from the markets, never enough at once to question, never at times quiet enough to track. The fallen star knew well by now to prowl in the crowds, to slip gently along with the motions to not reveal the fraught strength in its still-settling form. To tuck the tail and pad the head to hide the horns, to drape cloth above two lower eyes to conceal its obvious visage and to squint the others to hide its hue. This fluidity and awareness are tenets of the Mage-Killer, you must know.

The night of the masked dance arrived, and around the courtyard of the hanging gardens a great ten thousand luminous moths were released. Music eminent of the jade moon flowed, and guests arrived in their greatest silks and dancing-robes, adorned by star-browed masks for just their upper faces. Anþaalinac knew the names of all invited, and told from their gaits and robes which rank and suit they were. Ornaments for the show, predictable and neat. Orderly, as planned, and beautiful. But something else caught the maiden's eye. A tall and slender individual, broad-shouldered and covered in dark hair like a man, but adorned in the unmistakeable dancing garb and gait of a woman. They wore silks the color of great Galaxios and the arcs of the rings and moon, and great silver gloves covering much of their arms. Their outfit was unorthodox, fit to be a costume in some theater of the gods. Their mask had great violet horns, and its curve covered their entire face, plain painted black but patterned with the seven chromatic eyes of the old god of Night. They twirled in the manner of the low courtyard women, revealing a shimmering dark tail attached to the robes. They stood on their toes as dragons might, and their dark and fluffy hair had been anointed with something, some exotic dye, that made its pale mauve ends shimmer like the night sky. Anþaalinac felt as though she had encountered an otherworldly spirit when they made their unceremonious entrance. Truly masterful artistry, she thought.

Anþaalinac knew the symbols of the Old Faith when she saw them, the pagan gracelessness in the dance, the strange contradiction of dress and form, but what she did not understand was the intent, the attendance, how this person entered the festival or why they dressed so extravagantly. She called off the guards, a woman of curiosity above tradition. She approached on the dancing path, holding her dress to let her match this… man's? motions. Of course she would ask them to dance. But before she closed the distance, a skip of sandals resounded in front of her and the pastel-clad dancer outstretched their gloved hand. The crowd recoiled, for asking such a favor from the Chief-King's daughter was akin to treason. But something in Anþaalinac stirred, that great need to know. And so she took the dancer's hand, and they moved in time to the drums.

They were a strong match, mimicking each other's motions minute by minute. The strange toe-gait of the interloper became her own, the moths joining in the frenzy. The other dancer's costumed tail moved with the dance, almost as if it were a part of their body. She made idle conversation between songs, but the dancer refused to speak save with their hands. But Anþaalinac was smart, and signaled back with her body the things too rude to say in words.

Moveriath, behind the mask and costume, was nerves upon nerves. Its heart beat arrhythmically, pumping heavenly violet blood through the chimeric body. The woman whose beauty had enthralled it was so extremely curious and interested, and by the looks of the other guests Moveriath was overdressed. Nothing else would have sufficed to hide the beast-tail and the horns and awkward parts of its anatomy, though. The five mouths were clenched shut, as the performance of humanity had to be kept intact, and only through the chimeric, painfully flattened snout did Moveriath breathe. They sat down as the maiden tired. Anþaalinac spoke her name, and inquired again and again for the monster's own. Eventually, the beast's will was whittled down and it spoke.

"Móveirijaþ… Moverjáð…" it cleared its throat. The voice was difficult to get right. "…Moveriath." The words were gravelly, the throat straining to keep up. Fear struck needles through Moveriath's star-blood as Anþaalinac's expression grew puzzled. She had decided from the voice that this beast was a man, and sat there perplexed at the dancer's attire and motion. Wherefore did this man, strong and tireless and recklessly confident, dress and dance in the manner of women? This strange individual who hid his whole face behind that black painted mask. Anþaalinac asked as politely as she could manage. Moveriath stared off into the distance in that mask, a serene wistfulness imposed under its seven-eyed obfuscation. It couldn't possibly speak on this. The lessons learned from traitors' past, the names which diluted the curse it cast with every future utterance.

"This is simply the way I know," Moveriath said, its deep voice still adjusting to the shape of the body. That curiosity in Anþaalinac's heart burned hotter. Moveriath's own fluttering was turning quickly to dread. Is she interrogating me? Man? Woman? Is that not only for citizens? Will she find out what I am? It took her hand and began the dance again. The moon passed below the cloud-line as midnight nearly fell upon the attendees. In the dimming turquoise of the setting moon's light, the mists rolled in slowly. Some back and forth occured between the two while they danced. Mere minutes of exchange felt like years. Anþaalinac was the daughter of Crymythwarre's Chief-King, raised to be noble and cunning, apart from the rest of the world; Moveriath was a nobody from nowhere, thrown out by the last people it had loved. The two found solace in their common isolation from others. Not so alone right now, eh? they both thought to themselves, dancing the peasant-womens' dance in sync.

It was like the rest of Crymythwarre had ceased its motion to allow them. Nobles were aghast at how much time the Chief-Princess had spent with one guest, one disquieting interloper who had forgotten manners and the taboos of crossing roles. At how she danced in turn the low-class dance of peasants. Why she tolerated him, the people could not decide. Later accounts cite this as witchcraft, enchantment, but Moveriath never dabbled in those arcanities in his entire life. As those truly acquainted with his wrath know, magecraft was amongst his most detested tactics even before his choice to cast was sealed.

As the song faded out and Jadethrone dipped below the horizon, Anþaalinac lifted the mask off of Moveriath's face. It was tiring by this point, and had forgotten, in lovestruck stupor, how unorthodox its face was during the long chats. When Anþaalinac saw its protruding snout-like jaw, the four slitted eyes of that piercing luminous violet, the horns attached to the skull, not the mask… she recoiled. In a moment of sheer dumb processing, Moveriath flicked its tail with a puzzling expression on the not-quite-human face it wore. The real tail, not part of some exotic costumage. Anþaalinac screamed, as was her right, jumping as far away as she could manage.

"MONSTER!" She cried out. A mirror somewhere inside Moveriath's soul shattered, bringing back the root wound of betrayal. A gnarled thicket red with blood and fury grew in its spine. The rejection, the gazes on it now, the lights focused on this freak, this monster-

"Anþaalinac, wait!" Moveriath reached forward, trying desperately to claw at any explanation that could save the night. A shaven monk descended from the watchtower nearby, hurling a spear of lightning at Moveriath. It dodged, the loose fabrics protecting its true form from sight. The jeering began, the thousand eyes on this fallen shard of the heavens masquerading as a human. It was too much, too restraining, too vulnerable. A second spear hit, this time breaking the tip of the left horn of the great Strioboros, a sparkling violet shard of it falling to the ground. The four jaws on Moveriath's torso opened, and it turned in a fit of unbridled instinct into its massive original form. The pseudo-dragon, the legendary beast of the night, no man but the sexless and otherworldly Strioboros. Roaring in despair, it dashed away, out of the courtyard and out of Crymythwarre as the orders rang out for the Chief Guards to hunt the monster down.

And so Moveriath ran into the night, chased by guests with hate in their eyes and by the blank-faced soldiers commanded by its fleeting infatuation. Tears luminous as the rings above scattered across the ground as fireballs and thunder-spears chased the creature. How terrible for him, that the charismatic man they knew mere seconds ago was dead, replaced by the soulless beast, the demon. In a pit of defiance, Moveriath resolved to bring that man to the world once more, taking that role e'er after. And as a man of the night, as a force that could not be stopped, as a vengeful and lonely man who would one day take revenge on Crymythwarre, in the tongue the stars knew, he screamed a curse on the city and its traitors, taking off with those powerful star-eating wings into the ungrateful midnight sky.

"Woe! Woe! A plague of eternal rot upon your hearts, you who chase me now! You who deny what you once knew! You who turn passion on its edge and plunge it as the rusted blade of hatred, who feed me from thy hand that you may administer your poison! Who ask my name to curse it! Who touch my face to harm it! Who name me man to condemn me! Woe! A famine upon your sons and daughters seven times thence! May your lands be barren! May your rivers run thick and pungent with salt! Never will your children love! Never will you recall their smiles! Woe! Woe!"

Notes and Supplements

This version is much more extensively documented. Törrhyatz spent the majority of his life in Koeya, and much of his philosophical teachings and stories were about his master, who is known to be the Strioboros. Though many modern tellings omit the name Moveriath, as do a disturbing number of other historical documents about the Strioboros, older etchings in museums and libraries have turned up the name directly in reference to the tale. It varies regionally, but I have attempted to combine them to fit as much information as possible. Inferences about the Remnan versions were made possible in part by references in this tale.

As the tellings directly from Törrhyatz are more widely available in old translations and transcriptions, mostly from before he ascended to the title of Conqueror-for-the-Night, I have chosen to include many more of his asides and comments as his dialogues. Their inclusion is the first thing to be removed in retellings, I have seen, and the original Early-Neomythic North Koeyan Pseudodraconic (Koeydraatþ, as it is natively called) text was my primary research guide.

My main source was "I Þiin Val Drekemnest Törrhyatz u Crymyþwarre", which was written by a listener of Törrhyatz's telling at Crymythwarre roughly half a year before his great destruction of the city. The author explains that scribes alone were spared at these performances, that they might spread his story further.

Relevant Passages

I revile the 'lovers' scorn'. Fickle emotions themselves are weakening in context of battle, but beyond that they mean nothing one way nor the other. The curse of expectation is all-consuming, and no matter whether you can eat the universe itself as a pill you will still be gnashed apart by its truly infinite maw. Emotion need only be discarded by lesser warriors. Love and love's vengeance need be discarded by all who claim freedom from sin.

—Törrhyatz, Treatise on the Heart

One will come, as my master once said, who will repeat his great follies. He only hoped that memory of him would die by then, that they might be as lost as he. That they might not take his bitterness as the answer.

—Törrhyatz, Chronicles of Disobedience

Crymythwarre burned years after Moveriath was cast out, and though the Chief-King was slain, his daughter was nowhere to be found. When I finished the job and truly sent the city to ruin eighty years later, she had lived and died with prosperous reign. I'd hoped the shock of seeing my master's face in a different shade would get a rise of that hag.

—Törrhyatz, War-Path Notes

My master was a man by his own volition. He struggled to tell humans apart that much, but over the years found enough of a method to mimic them perfectly. He refused to do so out of spite, however. And as for the method? He kept saying "I'll tell you when you're older" with a five-mouthed smirk... but he started grieving himself long before I was old enough, and I never felt it right to ask before he died. Knowing the old man and having some of his instincts mixed with mine, it was probably ordinary vulgarity. One of his most human activities, one might say.

—Törrhyatz, Memento of the Strioboros

Assembled Epilogue Fragments

The official telling of Moveriath's story ends with the flight from Crymythwarre, but I have in my studies uncovered more information I believe should be compiled. The date of the complete destruction of Crymythwarre is unclear at best, but it lines up closely with the great lost age of Khrum-Ziware. I was initially drawn to Khrum-Ziware on suspicions from this that it may be the mythical Crymythwarre, and lo and behold I am correct. They do not take kindly to inquiries about the Strioboros, as it is in their culture a spawn of the Night-Devil Stridhoht and taboo to even speak of, lest it be summoned. But their sacred relic, a horn gifted to them allegedly by an angel, matches up exactly with one specific telling of Moveriath's exile from Crymythwarre. Upon my own inspection, I determined it to be Moveriath's horn itself. Crymythwarre is Khrum-Ziware, or at least had some relation to it in the distant past. And what's more, that horn shard is the only known remains of the Striobroros! I have since been banned permanently from entering the city, but I feel like they should be damned for holding onto a trophy like that.

Moveriath was hunted for decades by Crymythwarre's soldiers, though all of them fell before him until he scorched the city himself. A curse was laid upon Moveriath by a monk named Ythraki (Yþraaki in original spelling), whom he killed before the magic could run its full course. This ultimately forced him to retire to stalking inhuman desert beasts instead, though no hunter sent out to find him afterward did ever return either. Törrhyatz cites this curse as "one of crystal bones and flesh, a horrific twisting of magic made to turn men into baubles and foci". I deeply dislike this description for its vague similarity to a curse once laid against me, which I too would have succumbed to if not for fortunate circumstance cutting the magic short.

Additionally, the two versions of the "Curse of the Strioboros" are called by another name in unrelated stories told by Törrhyatz: The Three Counts of Vengeance. He recounts them in "A Failed Student's Eulogy", as cursing the treacherous, the two-faced, and the hopelessly vengeful. The curse against treachery lines up handily with the Remnan Curse of the Strioboros, while the one against the two-faced can be seen to fit the Koeyan version. The third one is said to be inscribed in the long-lost Cave-Tomb of the Fallen Star. Törrhyatz, the speaker, said that he once disobeyed his master's wishes by speaking it aloud. It was apparently intended to be untranslatable and lost until some vague prophecy is fulfilled. I am glad he did so, as I do not believe even that prophecy would allow that tomb to be found in the first place. It has most definitely been buried under full meters of sand by this age. The Third Count of Vengeance, which I had to search for across every library north of Yarras, reads as such (translated directly by me):

"Woe! A curse upon ye who sully my resting place! Who enter my home now that I have been forced to flee from yours! Who trample my bones! Woe! A plague upon your sons of sons! You who deny my spark of life! Who deny that I too gained humanity! And Woe! Fire beset thee who froze my heart in glass! Never shall the heavens light your path! Never will you rest in death! Woe! Woe! Woe!"

The reference to "glass" specifically as well as several previous mentions of mirrors in the tellings worry me. These are mostly for personal reasons. My study at Khrum-Ziware confirmed these worries… but I know not how much deeper this line of anachronistic riddles goes. The Strioboros and his Ennean were far wiser than the records state.

Ultimately, I would like to think people would sympathize with Moveriath from these tellings, but the primary sources and immediate retellings differ vastly. I believe the recency of the Strioboros' violence, and the resurgance thereafter as Törrhyatz used the blood left to him by Moveriath to become the Strioboros-Ennean, caused a great stigma against positively depicting the Monster. And sadly, even as time passed, the Remnan tale became one of how all people return to basal instinct in crisis, and the Koeyan simply a prelude to the "Scourge of Crymythwarre, of Koeya and the Five Lands" that many of their peoples know the Strioboros as. An origin story for a mythological monster, no different to them than the thousands of Legendary Beasts known to them. I urge the reader to recall the primary source of these tales is twofold. It is oral tellings of gossip from those who witnessed Moveriath mixed with the tellings of a man that the Strioboros raised himself. It is rumor polluting the dedicated efforts of a man to clear the name of his master. In the end, Moveriath may have found but one person he could trust.

A final note. A warning, perhaps. Do not allow yourself to be defined by ones who revile you. Do not allow those you love to allow it. Fight for your own sake, become a monster for those who would never call you one. Heed the warning of the Strioboros, of the Fallen Star…

—Seren Afon-Tan