SA - Perseus: Vagabond Primary

Perseus: Vagabond Primary
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♫ And when we die,
We will die
With our arms unbound.
And this is why,
This is why we fight,
Come hell. ♫

[Childhood]

Perseus had a relatively normal life among the Talori. It was as pleasant as it can possibly be for a pegasus living in Inaria. It was a lifetime of barely-hidden pity and begrudging tolerance. But it was the way things were in Inaria, and Perseus knew nothing different. To him, it was normal.

And he made no attempts to change it. He believed in Cascade's mercy, in the holiness of the Divine, the strength of the Defender, and the wisdom of the Sage. He watched the sacrifices with the same unease as any pegasus, but he questioned it not.

[Teenage]

Until it happened to him.

At the age of eighteen, it was his name drawn. To celebrate the summer solstice, he was to die. It was an honor, he knew. To be chosen to be given to Cascade.

To think it murder was traitorous. Yet he was afraid. Despite a lifetime of being taught it was a gift to join with the goddess, when the pressure fell upon him, he balked. He didn't want the ocean, didn't want the scales and fins that came with it. He loved his wings, as hated as they were among his people. He didn't want to lose the feeling of the wind at his hooves and the sun on his feathers. But what could he do?

They paraded him through the streets, their little captive bird in a gilded cage. He was surrounded, walls of horses celebrating his demise. Where they felt joy, he felt only fear. His heart rabbited in his chest, and the banquet they feasted on tasted like ash on his tongue. And there was little Eve, but fourteen years of age, at his side. Who was this child to tell him he should be pleased with his killing? This pampered brat parroting what she'd been told, oblivious to his terror.  It only made things worse. His fear began to brew into anger. Impotant, a frustrated, powerless rage. He felt he was nothing but their plaything- and they holding the glass over the anthill.

Yet the procession moved on. As the sun fell, so would he.

He was drugged, given the traditional tonic, and taken stumbling to Pegasi's Leap. Though his anxiety fought the sedation, it could not banish the effects completely.

The scythe was drawn. And into his wing it cut, through the muscle, the tendon, rendering it useless in a single stroke.

Panic. Blind and desperate. As the pain slowly bled into his awareness, he bolted. And the only place he could run was off the cliff. He jumped, praying that Alya would catch him. But even Alya couldn't help him fly with one wing. He felt her try, in the wind whipping against him, hooves trying to hold his weight and simply unable. Down he went, down, down. His wings slowed the descent, but only just.

He hit the water, and it was like hitting stone. His bones snapped, cracked, shattered. But he was not done falling. No, he sunk now through the water, the bitter and frigid depths, trailing blood and hope.

Gold saved him. Brilliant as the sunset in the sky above him, Alya's colors mourning his loss. It was not Cascade that came for him now, but one far more mortal. Cualli was her name, and unlike all the others he'd ever known, she was on his side. And it was by her grace that he was pulled from the waters that would have ended him.

He was taken into the wilds of Aquore. Three pegasi tended him, pegasi who had long abandoned the herd that hated them. And they healed him as best they could. One mended his broken bones with powerful magic, and removed the leg she couldn't. Another gave him herbs to fight his infection, to dull the pain to stave off madness. And the third gathered all he would need to rebuild, the food to replace all he had lost, the metal to hold new weight. And at his side through it all was Cualli.

The four of them spirited him away, to the Barrier Mountains.

[Adult]

A small camp of pegasi would grow into an army under his watch.

Perseus was a living martyr, the personification of all the wrongs Talori commited against their kind. And he turned his pain and his anger into drive. He lead them. They built their camp into a town, and more and more flocked to their banner. With each new sacrifice came a new wave of fury, and new wings among their formation. All the rage that simmered under the surface of Talori society fueled the Flight.

And Perseus would lead them to their revenge.