NeoDarklight (via Tagboard) wrote:...Okay, just what, exactly, is 'mallow's origin story? This is just making me more curious. My theory involves magic pixie dust that's actually magical. And time shenanigans. Also, obviously, a dust bunny.
Aaaaand, of the two, Black Knight is closest, although I believe the term used in the past was "core", not "magic crystal", and that core is pretty much as close to a heart as the imp has. Anyways, to touch upon it's backstory, I'll turn this over to Saeth -- it actually is her story, not mine, to tell...Black Knight (via Tagboard] wrote:...A magic crystal discarded and lost under a couch, perhaps? Or are my sources dated?
... Aaaand, that looks like all you're gonna get from Saeth. Hope that helps!Saeth Sorrowsky wrote:...
You wish to know about the... abomination... that is the little imp?
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I believe you are sick in the head.
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However, if you must satisfy your curiosity, I suppose I can indulge you. But know, if this is truly what you seek, then you are at my mercy for the duration... and I will tell this story as I see fit.
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When the world I had lived in and known was swallowed by the darkness, my daughter and I were some of the few that were spared. She and I lived for years as those who travel through worlds. One world we visited, was gasping out it's last breaths as it's inhabitants scrambled to escape to the stars beyond. Intrigued, we slipped in among them and shared their plight.
With them, we traveled to a new world. Lush and green it was, but beneath the surface something slept. It eventually awoke, and those who arrived first disappeared. My daughter and I were among the second wave, and we watched from our place as a flash of light burst from the surface and then swept over the continent where the first wave had already begun colonizing the planet.
All those who were of age and able bodied were given the opportunity to receive special clearance, to go down to the planet and help take it back for the refugees. My daughter was too young, but I joined with others and, after some years, this new world was ours.
How a sample of blood was taken from me, I will never know; I had always avoided giving the refugee's government samples and always conveniently missed dates for various tests. It's possible that it had been drawn during a time I was knocked unconscious, but I do not remember any cases of that. Nevertheless, my daughter and I had enjoyed a year of peace, of regular civilian-hood and working at a restaurant with some of the people I had been partnered up with during the reclamation, when she came in, dragging behind her a little boy about seven years old.
She very casually, and very bluntly, announced that the boy was the result of a genetic experiment, one that she had started when she stole blood samples from two people currently present, and had artificially matured to this point.
A son. My son. I knew it right away; he looked too much like my daughter and myself for me to even entertain the thought that my DNA hadn't been used. She confirmed it a few moments later as we all stood in stunned silence, announcing myself as the 'mother' and naming a man I had been partnered up with often as the 'father'. And then she shoved the boy further into the room before turning on her heel and walking out.
The father, the man whom I had worked with often, did not take the news well. He was a young man, not ready for the responsibilities of a child, and had his eye on another woman. His reaction was understandable, and I never held it against him. I took the boy into my sole care and, because the one who had created him only called him by the number of the experiment that had resulted in his life, named him Eltanin.
Eltanin was a sickly boy. My DNA hadn't blended well in the experiment and gave rise to a certain physical instability, the rapid maturation process had strained his heart and circulatory system, and there was something else.
When the entity that had slept beneath the planet's surface awoke, it released a... poison, I suppose. During the effort to take back the planet, it was discovered that this poison could affect anything -- plants, animals, people, even machines, computers, stone, and metal could be tainted by it. I have seen people fall, twitching, as the poison coursed through their veins and began changing them into something else, something frightening. Androids malfunction, their programming and AI's rewritten, and do horrible things. Mining and security mechs turn on their handlers... whole sections of a spaceship turned into pulsing, fleshy caves.
Eltanin had more than just a case of the poisoning. He had a parasite inside him, one that was born from the entity, and was continuously pumping the poison into the boy's system.
We left that world soon after; Eltanin, my daughter, and myself. I thought if I could get him away from air that contained trace amounts of the poison, it would slow whatever would happen to him. Give me time to find a way to properly remove it. We took living with... well, it's hard to explain the exact relationship with her. When my homeworld was swallowed by darkness, it had been because of her that my daughter and I did not also share that fate.
Years passed, and she and I found very little to save the boy. To slow the process, yes, but not stop or reverse it. It spread like an infection, twisting and disfiguring the left side of his body. He was in constant pain, and his mind seemed to be slipping. And, perhaps more frightening, the parasite and infection seemed to be gaining sentience. It got to the point where we had to find a specialist to design a suit for him, to keep the infection contained, because if an infected part of his body touched something...
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I... I hate even thinking about it...
The infection... part of it would slough off... just slide off his body and try to take root on whatever he had just touched...
It killed me inside, to see him in that suit. Unable to share the simple joys of feeling a breeze pull on one's hair, the sun on one's face... the touch of another's hand. He became more and more withdrawn and, despite everything I tried to ease him, fell into a deep despair.
Looking back, what happened next was for the best for my son's health. Our benefactor was away at work. My daughter and I had left for a short time to do some errands. We all returned home at the same time and found Eltanin unconscious on the living room floor. The top half of his suit had been cracked -- perhaps by him throwing himself into a wall repeatedly -- and the broken segments pulled off. His left arm, shoulder, and face were in contact with the floor, and the infection had spread and grown into a large section of it. The implications of this fact were, at the time, lost to us as our focus was on Eltanin and trying to pull him free of the floor and move him to where we could put a new suit on him.
And, since we didn't think much about it at the time, we never gave it a second thought that the infection was gone when we returned to the living room some hours later.
Eltanin eventually regained consciousness and, amazingly, started showing signs of recovery. The pain diminished and, while he was horribly scarred and almost mutilated on his left side, the parasite was gone and the infection and poison were fading as well.
A year passed. One day, while we were all sitting in the living room and relaxing, something crawled out from under the sofa. Despite the vaguely humanoid shape and clumps of dust, lint, and other debris normally found under furniture sticking out of it, I recognized it for what it was -- it was the parasite, and it had finally achieved sentience...
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