Kormada

Original

He should have known better.

So too should have the Kormadians.

It had been there, buried deep in the recesses of history, the knowledge--the proof--that the wyvern was not who he said he was. He was not their god, nor had he ever been. In fact, as the Halcyon would soon tell them, Kormada had not been created by Kestrel. It had been shaped by him. Transformed. Stolen.

The Forest Planet had once existed peacefully, its journey around its star unhindered by its celestial sisters. The Halcyon too, had her counterparts--the Asp and the Basilisk. But Kestrel was a mistake. They should never have created him.

It was Kestrel who robbed the original Kormadians of their beautiful planet. It was Kestrel who stole the visions of the other three Immortals to create the Kormadian Equines. And it was Kestrel whose lack of experience and knowledge and desperation for power racked the planet with disaster after disaster, and killed so many of his own.

The Immortals had seen enough.

Though they had vowed never to intervene, Kestrel's latest battle against the Scourge had proven too much for him to correct on his own. Something had to be done, and there was but one option.

The Halcyon was good and just. She would not kill as Kestrel had. She believed in second chances. And so it was that she came, unannounced in the night, and stripped the great wyvern of both his plight--and his immortality.

Claiming authority over the beast that had so terrorized them, the Halcyon spoke to the Kormadians--equine and non-equine alike--and gave them knowledge.

She told them that the great wyvern was like them now, that he could live and die as they could. She told them that he could gain his immortality back, but only if his Kormadians so wished it. He would have to find a way to prove to them he deserved its return before it would be returned.

The Halcyon called for the return of the Scarbearers, but gave them new names. There were to be four pairs, one pair to each of the four equine continents. Each continent's inhabitants were under the control of their Scarbearers. Each Scarbearer would ensure their subjects remembered what Kestrel had done to them, to ensure they remained knowledgeable, to ensure their eventual choice--to permanently revoke or permanently revive the wyvern's immortality--was not swayed in one direction over the other by lack of information.

But the immortal soul of the wyvern had to go somewhere in the meantime. And that is how the Scarmakers were revived. The evil in the beast would continue to plague the planet, but lacking physical strength it could not so easily kill.

The Kormadians were free to live out their days as they now pleased, but they would need to make another choice. Those who chose Darkness sought the return of Immortality to the wyvern who they called their god. Those who chose the Light fought against it. Those who saw the validity in both sides were the Neutrals. And those who could not choose…they were the outcasts…the Rogues.

When the Kormadians were ready to make their choice, the Halcyon told them, they need only call her back.

"First, bring light to the Weeping Towers," she said, her beautiful white wings fanning out as she prepared to return to the heavens. "Second, bring light to the edge of the Grindstone. Third, bring light to the ice fields of the Stills. And then, when lights so too appear at the point of the Vaporous Eye, I shall know you are ready to announce your decision and it is then I will return."

Their hope and desire for life restored, the Kormadians watched the great bird take flight.

And so it begins.