Reothadh
Viruðligr’uch
Name Meaning:
Child of Magnificent Frost
Nicknames:
Reo, The Dark Lady, Reo-Leòmag (Vanity Frozen), Reò-pàiste (Frozen Child), Tu Aundal Bas’aeg dol Kirkja’Fio (Bringer of the Tragedy of Kirkja’Fio)
Gender: Female
Age: 311 at time of death
Species: Kurosian Dragon
Breed: Brokt
Main Element: Shadow
Minor Element: Ice
Patron Gods:
Main: Breithonakt
Relations:
- Sire – Gràidheil (Loving) Losi’vok
- Dam – Dorcpaidh (Dark Purple) Corcair’vel
- Mate – Claimed Breithonakt was her Mate and she his Chosen Bride
Lore:
In the lonely and remove village of Kirkja, one of the first founded by the Fiosioc and the furthest Fiosioc founded territory from
Kurosin’Laidirlon, life was hard. With another harsh winter fast approaching, the village’s people were finishing their last checks to ensure that their survival in the heart of the village was secured. The last to arrive with their final batch of supplies were an older pair of fishing mjolja:
Gràidheil and Dorcpaidh.
So the story goes, the two were well past egg carrying age, and had never successfully laid eggs together or apart; the sadness they’d felt not being able to have their own children had bonded them, and they were rarely seen apart, constantly bickering over everything. Dorcpaidh, however, seemed more distant, and took ill within the first week of winter. No matter how the healers tried, she simply could not seem to regain a survivable body temperature. It wasn’t until a month into winter that they began to notice the swelling of her belly.
By the second month, Gràidheil woke to find his long-time mja frozen stiff, an egg tucked into the crook of her arm and perfectly unharmed.
The village of Kirkja took the egg to the rookery, leaving Gràidheil to mourn over the body until the burial rites could be completed. By the time the Mahourian priests arrived, however,
Gràidheil had died, too. Some speculate that the pair shared love that is frowned upon, and his heart simply stopped working out of grief. By the end of this tale’s telling, however, all will know that it was far, far worse….
For three more months the village endured. This winter was recorded as more difficult than many others before, possibly the harshest since Kirkja’s founding. Many grew ill, and near the end of winter whispers began that the clan would all die due to the harsher than normal conditions. One night, as the Fiosioc piled together for warmth, a strange pall seemed to settle over all of them. When they woke, each one was wildly famished, and all the remaining stores were devoured within the hour. Once their senses were returned, it was discovered that every last dragon had fallen into a week long slumber.
Worse yet was that the fires keeping the rookery warmed had cooled, and all the eggs had frozen completely. As the clan entered a period of mourning, one of the priests tending to the eggs made a discovery: a single egg had survived, despite being covered in frost.
Not only had it survived, but on the day the doors were finally opened for the village to step out into the sunlight once more, the egg hatched.
And from that egg a black boned Kuros was born.
The villagers rejoiced, for such a thing had not been recorded in many generations. A Cnámhdubh had not been born into the Fiosioc in tens of thousands of years! And surely the birth of this child after the loss of their rookery was a sign from the gods, from Breithonakt himself, that they were blessed in the wake of this tragedy.
Thus they named her after the frost that had crept onto her egg, and the village took to raising her communally.
As the years passed, Reothadh’s powers grew, as did her ‘dreams.’ Reo often dreamt of green and yellow colored skies, of a sea of bones churning and howling for her, and every night of a thousand golden eyes, burning, e’er watchful over her. The first hundred years of her life were miserable for the girl, as she scarcely understood these dreams. But as time passed and every member of the village assured her that they would never let any harm come to her, her confidence that these dreams could not harm her grew.
And grew.
And grew.
So great was her confidence that it began to bleed into other aspects of her life. While she was the only hatchling born of her generation, there were others only a few seasons older than she was, but it was she that decided what games they should always play. What meals they should eat. And it was of course Reothadh who was far more radiant and beautiful than all others, with which the people of Kirkja agreed.
In fact, as the years went on, the village of Kirkja’Fio seemed to hang on Reo’s every word. Even as she told them who to mate with, to give her more than her fair share of meals, to bring her fine jewelry and fashion the bones of her late sire and dam into jewelry that she wore in her locks and about her neck. A custom that typically only nobles participated in, but they allowed it, encouraged it. When her dreams took on a more prophetic tone, they believed she was predicting the future.
They believed her when she told them that Breithonakt had been showing her his kingdom within The Veil, and that she would some day join him as his bride. Reo told her people that together they would spawn an army of black boned children that would wipe out all opposing dragons, and that together they would destroy the gods of the Chroma and all others. They believed her, and soon word began to spread to the many other Kuros territories and kingdoms of her claims.
Despite it’s remote location, for the chance to see and speak with the Cnámhdubh, to hear her prophecies, Kuros of all breeds flocked to Kirkja’Fio. Many took up permanent residence there, until the village of one hundred heads swelled, and swelled to almost a thousand strong. By this time Reothadh considered herself royalty, and demanded that the King and Queen come to her kingdom and pay their respects to the Bride of Breithonakt themselves.
In their stead came a Warlord and his entourage: a small army disguised as those coming to pay their respects. The Kogdal’Tiarnach introduced himself to Reo as equals, which caused Reo to laugh in his face.
“Sir, you mistake me for the littlefolk,” said she. “I am your better.”
“Madam, before our Lord and Lady visit you upon your icy throne, I must ensure that all will be as it should be on their arrival. Thus, I am their voice piece, their eyes, nose and ears, their right hand until further notice.” The Warlord stared the black boned Fiosioc down. “We are equals until then.”
Though furious for his sleight, Reothadh held her fury in check; unlike her fellow Kirkjans, her anger was not fiery. Quite the opposite. Reo bade the Warlord see her kingdom, insisting she give him a tour herself. She told the Warlord how things were in this village, while the seasoned warrior and military genius in him noticed that which she did not tell him. All the while his scouts split apart from the main group, spreading out to inspect the village themselves. A feast was held in the Warlord’s honor, though it was to Reothadh that all the villagers sang praises and showed fealty to.
As the night waned, runners came with their reports scrawled in secret runes to the Warlord:
The Cnámhdubh forces those who do not wish to breed and those who are not suitable for one another to mate
None of the villagers speak, do, or even think for themselves. If their lady does not will it, it will not be so
Every winter fifty more Kuros die than the previous year. Reo reaches out to the families of those visiting and the nearest villages for the bodies to be retrieved. None ever leave
No rookeries have successfully hatched in the past ten seasons. The eggs disappear into the Cnámhdubh‘s chambers
There is a cellar under the Cnámhdubh’s quarters; tens of thousands of egg shells, hundreds of skeletons and corpses were found
She will consume them all
The final report reached the Warlord, and his stomach turned. Rarely had he ever shown a scrap of fear on the battlefields. But in that moment, he felt it. Despite his fear, the Warlord was no coward. In an act of love for his brothers and sisters in arms, he wrote a single coded letter to his scouts, giving them a single instruction:
On my order, you must all run as far as you can
In the moments that followed, the Warlord’s fate was sealed. Though he knew it came, he dared not reveal it, nor reveal what he knew for the sake of his soldiers. Reothadh noticed groups of his own leaving the feasting chamber, and turned to the Warlord, asking why his people were leaving.
“Kurosia is under attack, milady,” the Warlord answered. “I have sent some of my best warriors back home to assist them.”
“Are you not needed, then?” she asked of him. “Surely if the King and Queen place so much importance on you that they would consider you their equal in their stead, you must return, too.”
“I am awaiting their orders, madam,” the Warlord responded. The black boned went silent, contemplative, until she laughed airily and turned a sympathetic gaze to the Warlord.
“Sir, if you are that loathe to part from my company, all you had to do was admit to it. Though my heart belongs to my Lord Breithonakt, I cannot deny that there are many others who find my beauty radiant, and that I enjoy basking in it. Why, if you are so sad to be parted from me, I shall accompany you. We all will.”
And she smiled.
And the Warlord knew that her smile would be the last thing he saw before he died.
“Madam,” said he, “that will not presently, nor shall it ever be even remotely necessary.” He stood, towering over her, looking down at her; it was the first time in years that any had dared such a thing. “For you are quite literally one of the most heinously hideous creatures it has been my intense displeasure to converse with, much less behold with my own eyes.
Bhag’haltu, ada tigfeil Bhailiu kak ar yol Nihmiotail.”
It is unknown to many what occurred next, as all but one survived the battle that occurred in the hall. What is known that in her fury, Reothadh killed most of her own people, and scholars believe that they woke from their hundreds of seasons-long slumber. It is speculated that from the moment her egg was leaving her dam’s body, Reothadh killed. She froze her mother from the inside out, then the ice spread to her sire. From her egg she froze the rookery she would have been born with, and her presence in the village killed many during the winters that followed her birth. Whether or not she was near death when it occurred is not known, but the battle ended in one of the most horrifying ways in recorded Kurosian history.
In a thrice, the entire village was frozen. In every sense of the word: every square inch, every building and animal, every dragon down from the eldest to the youngest were encased in ice. A mound of ice formed, nearly jet black, leaving the air itself frozen so high up it nearly touched the stars. Those who have braved this place have claimed that now, the furious storm that has never ceased has buried the mountain in snow. But during the first week of spring, when the snows begin to melt and the storms calm for a time, many have claimed that there is only one landmark left where Kirkja’Fio once stood.
At the very top of the mountain of ice there is a shape that resembles a claw: outstretched, desperately reaching upwards towards the heavens, all traces of Kuronium replaced with clear ice. Not a scrap of magic left in what remains of Reothadh’s corpse.
– The Tale of Kirkja’Fio and Reothadh,
Tu Aundal Bas’aeg dol Kirkja’Fio
TRIVIA:
- One of Dorcpaidh’s siblings managed to escape the tragedy while the Warlord’s warriors were leaving; they tried to smuggle out as many natives as possible, and Dorcpaidh’s sibling would go on to live in Kurosia for the remainder of his days. It is through him that Tàirneanach is eventually born.
- Most Fiosioc are born with Fire; Reothadh’s element would have been ice if she didn’t have black bones.
- Reothadh’s dreams are actually hallucinations brought on by Breith trying to speak to her. His language makes most of the Cnámhdubh insane, and before Reothadh, many gladly threw themselves heedlessly into the first battle they could just to die an honorable death and rid themselves of the visions. Reothadh’s claims of being Breith’s ‘bride’ are completely false; illusions of grandeur, mostly.
- Breith is totally offended; she’s not his type.
- The Warlord died after ripping out Reo’s throat, but only after Reo had shoved at least twenty giant ice spikes into his body. The Warlord is an ancient ancestor of Ciar, Asiirha’s mother.
- Map was the Queen reigning in Kurosia at the time of Reothadh’s birth until her death. She wouldn’t have come visit Reo, even if she’d been invited.
The Fiosioc were originally created by Lizzy Dizzy Doodle
The Kuros are © to @weirdhyenas / @weirdlanders and collaborated on with me
Art and character belong to me
Weirdlanders 