Heretics - The Prelude: Atham, The Sword

As the sole child of Alatham and Justine, Atham was born on the borderland town of Fashe, known also as Forestgate. The memories of Atham's father are vague at best, as the former knight was drafted into the Vernom Argoth battle of 1016AEF, during The Years Of Unrest, leaving behind a child barely 2 years old and a beloved wife who had been looking forward for a calmer existance for her loved ones unsuccessfully. With so few returning from the horrors of the eastern frontier, Justine knew she had no other way but to move on in honor of those who had paid with life and blood for the days of peace she had been looking for.

Grown playing with the tools of an artisan of war, dreaming to scrapping of stone against blade, and waking up to the ringing of hammer striking plates of metal, Atham thrived in the mid of an unsipid calm born from the bitter aftertaste of sacrifice, a peace unshared and lonesome. Forestgate was a town of retired soldiers and old people who wanted to forget the scars of war, the mourned ones, and the splendor that was bygone, like a dry forest awaiting for it's very last tree to wither and die, bereft of hope or desire to linger. How could a child be nurtured in mind or heart in such a dull land that rejected him? Bereft of the solace of others in his likeness, Atham's world was his mother and the world that lied beyond the town walls, in the whispering forest, which had grown darker in the absense of the elvenwatch.

However, things changed when Atham reached his 12th year of life, as an unexpected visitor arrived to his life on a fatefull afternoon at the whispering woods. Never before had the boy beheld such an enthralling beauty nor anybody else who seemed to be on his age, so he could not resist the charms of the young girl, paying no mind to her inhuman visage, betraying a nature not entirely of this world. While the girl never gave Atham her real name, upon insistence of the boy, the girl chose "Lilium" as the means to be called by the young hume, and both became fast friends, meeting every day for half a year in which they grew more than merely fond for each other. Nevertheless, after spending such a memorable time together, "Lilium" bid Atham a most heartfelt farewell with a promise of return in a year after granting him a memory of bliss way ahead of their time.

But, when Atham rushed back home, still with the taste of such memory on him, the sensation grew sour and unpalatable, blended with the smell of cinder, the sound of despair, and the poison of betrayal creeping up to his very heart, as Forestgate was laid waste amid fire and flame. With none to greet him, the child ran to his home only to find an unknown man leaning before the bloodied body of Justine who had been wearing her old knightly armor one last time. Despite the grievousness of her wounds, the mother beared a semblance of peace on her face, just as if having a pleasing dream. The man looked upon Atham's sorrow and said he had known Justine on her younger years and that the face she beared before death was one of someone fullfilled on proving her valor before the eyes of the celestial abodes as much as the spawns of the abyss.

Corvus, as the man was named, took Atham to the rebuilding Keep-City Of Ashturias under his wing and, for the next 3 years, helped polish the natural talent of the boy, inherited by father and mother alike, for he believed the destruction of Forestgate was the ennactment of a demonic vendetta against Atham's bloodline due the events that took place at the east. As such, along with the remains of his mother and past home, Atham buried his feelings and the voyd left behind was filled with the undwindling resolve to follow the steps of his parents and strike back at those who robbed him of everything he held dear.

Thought aware the thief who robbed him of his innocence could easily asume any form likeable to the senses, Atham is always in the watch for any fair woman of luxurious red hairs, ruby eyes and otherwordly charm, lest it be the demonspawn is plotting in using another innocent for their devious purposes.

-"You can only take away from someone who still has something. I have nothing left, so you can harm me no more."
Atham, The Sword.