My name is Ránëwén Ireth Adonnenniel, but you can call me Violet. I am not from this time or this place, yet this is my home. I am of the race of the people of Eralind, the Domirahva, and those of the Earth called humans. A hybrid in one sense, damnation in another. A past love turned me into an ungodly creature of too many mixed bloods. My former life created me into a state of chaos, afektrügimine, and led me here.

My mother, Jessenya, was a seamstress and a healer. She was not wealthy but had the beauty of a modest goddess, there was no shortage of men attracted to her. My mother wanted not one of them, as she had her heart set on one she could not have: the human prince.

His name was Dominic Eruheran, meaning led by the gods in human tongues, and he was a part of the human royals that were battling the nation of Eralind to overtake the land. He stood tall and proud, and his outspoken demeanor challenged her silent nature. They were in love before they could blink, but it was far from a fairytale.

The Domirahva do not like humans, they never have and most likely never will, and so there are very few hybrids. Those of us who are of mixed blood are frowned upon, especially when the human has procreated with a lesser status Domirahvan, and generally hidden as best as possible from the public.

My family was different.

My father was prideful of his love for my mother, though it was borderline forbidden for him to be with her at all, especially in such a flamboyant manner, but he didn’t care. He called her Piimaroos, white rose, and showered her with gifts every moment he could manage. His father, my grandfather, was displeased with the relationship but went on with his own business for the beginning years.

My father was entirely human, there was not a drop of Domirahva in his blood; likewise my mother was fully Domirahvam, not a drop of human in her blood. The Domirahva are cousins to the Elven, but not nearly as great in number, nor as diverse in character. Our name means something you might say as ‘the people who rule’, or have dominion, control. The humans interpreted this as a more aggressive name than it should’ve been taken to be; they wanted our lands, but they refused to negotiate. They wanted war. They did not understand our name or our purpose.

Then again maybe they didn’t want to.

My father was at the head of the Great War, a series of bloody battles that lasted for eons. The Domirahva age slowly. Even at 300 we are young… Not old until we’ve lived for a thousand winters, and almost always go past that point. Still, our lives are finite. They have a beginning and they have an end, though it is significantly lengthy compared to those of the humans, only living a fraction of the life we can. The humans looked at us as if we were immortal, and expendable, turning some of the Domirahvas against Eralind in an effort to strengthen their own army.

They didn’t understand that we were not meant to fight with guns or swords or weapons. We were meant to use nature to our advantage. The young men that my father enlisted in the War were sent to their slaughter, along with his own men, because they were not trained nearly as well in weaponry as the Domirahvas were in the forces of the wind, earth, and fire. My father quickly realized his folly.

My mother was tormented with the fate of her husband, while her love for him was greater than could have been measured he was killing her people, trying to take her land. They snuck away during the night, when the battles were quiet, and they spoke of leaving. Of running away and being happy, just the two of them. My father couldn’t imagine spending a life without my mother, and my mother couldn’t help but want him in whatever portion of hers his own life could fill.

There were secrets, though, that came out in the worst ways. When my mother was nearly my age, only beginning her true adult years by the standards of the Domirahva, my father asked her hand in marriage. Her parents gave their blessing, they only wanted their daughter, their Jessenya, to be happy. To everyone’s surprise, my father’s father, my grandfather, was content with the union himself. No one thought of the rouse he might have been playing.

The humans were cunning creatures, in a way that we had never seen before. We lived in our own land, and we stayed in our own land, only meeting the beings and things that passed through from one place to another. We were secluded. These humans were foreign to us, and even though there was a distrust in them, every Domirahvam longed to know of them. Children would take the soldiers food, on either side of the camps, and listen to stories from the humans. Tales of men that slept for a hundred years, star-crossed lovers who were damned from the day they lay eyes on one another, holy men walking the earth—it was all fascinating to us. For them, though, it was a plan.

My father and my mother were married in the cool of the autumn season, among much joy from the humans and the Domirahva alike. It signified a unity, a sign that there would no longer be war. The beloved Jessenya was princess, for now, and held some modicum of power. Surely she wouldn’t let her land fall to death as the humans had. And so she didn’t, for many years. Humans and Domirahva did not procreate much more often than they had before, if only for fear of some terrible fate of the child, but there was a peace and friendship between them for many years.

When my grandfather was nearing his end, he still stood tall and proud as he had taught my father to. He was gruff, as I’ve been told, and heartless. The many years of war took what humanity he’d been born with, though I cannot fathom it was very much to begin with. He brought to my father a Domirahva from the inner woods, a region called Coellan, in the country of Eralind only by location, ruled by the darker Domirahva. My home, Afesien, was a waterfront leading to these woods. We never entered them, nor did the Coella enter our home. The Coella were as much Domirahva as Domirahva could be, but they regarded themselves as ultimate rulers of nature, they did not live in coexistence with nature as we did. They abused their powers, and long ago, before even the elders of my time were birthed, we created borders to separate them from us. They birthed children who controlled fire, rock, electricity—they taught them to destroy.

My grandfather knew this, and he had a plan, the plan he’d had all along. He forced my father to accept this second wife, a Domirahva named Havsieva, woman of chaos. He ordered that before he take his final breath, there must be a child born to his legacy, raised in the ways of the Domirahva of Coellan. My father hated Havsieva, and my mother Jessenya had sorrow for the fate of their lives. Even a blind man could see the destruction that was to come of this.

What they could not see was the budding child that Jessenya would birth, too distracted by the demon in the womb of Havsieva.

It soon became too late to ignore the signs of pregnancy in my mother, and my father was overwhelmed with the prospect of two offspring so soon together, though my grandfather delighted in the possibility. Slowly, though, my father’s heart was being filled with the honey of hate and bitter dews of cruelty. My mother knew this. It was inevitable. It filled her heart with sorrow, and her spirit with worry, and she fell ill nearing the months of my birth.

It was decided that Jessenya would leave the castle for a time, living again with her parents until she was well. Slowly Havsieva began to overtake the affection of my father in a cruel manner, not with wooing or love, but with promises of power and delusions of wealth. My father had an odd love for her that was not truly for her but for what she could bring him. A child of immense power.

On the first eve of winter, my mother went into labor. It was sooner than she should have, the proper date having been expected weeks later, but there was nothing they could do to stop it. My birth was painful and long, drawing into the waning hours of the day; my father joined my mother nearing the end, he comforted her as best he could, and there I was born. To two former lovers, united for moments in my presence, the last time they’d look at one another with affections or care. My mother named me for a reason I no longer remember, aside from the shade of my eyes.

Soon after my birth another girl was born, Scarlet, to Havsieva. There was an evil about her from the day she was born, her mother falling deathly ill shortly after her birth was complete. My mother was placed in the castle again, but in her own wing where anyone but the nurses seldom went. Havsieva soon recovered, and unleashed her wrath yet again. She drove, almost singlehandedly, the nation of Eralind into a state of bloody warfare between the humans and the Coellan Domirahva. She’d promised her people prosperity from the lands of the Afesian Domirahva, much to the chagrin of my father.

I lived in the midst of this for all of my childhood, being taught to destroy anything and everything in my presence. Unlike many Domirahva, my sister and I were different. We could control many things with ease, not being limited to one or another. She favored fire, like the Coellan Domirahva, while I favored the water and earth as my Afesian Domirahva would. My powers, though, were stronger than her own. We sparred and every time, I outwitted her, even as a child. Physically she could overpower me, my size being smaller than hers, but skills she lacked to match mine.

I was only allowed to see my mother occasionally, and every time she told me stories of her childhood, the peace and prosperity. She told me of her love for my father, as I grew older, cautioning me to judge him mercifully. He was not always this way, she said, he was a kind boy, and gentle man, it was Havsieva and my grandfather who turned him into this bloodthirsty tyrant. I couldn’t believe her; no man of the gods would be so easily deterred. So willing to kill, destroy, and to harm for personal gains that would mean nothing in his death.

Havsieva envied my success, the love my father had for me. Though he was cruel, he was not yet heartless. He taught me diligently the way of the sword, since he did not wield the power to train me in elements. I stayed by his right side at all times, my mother absent, while Havsieva and Scarlet remained to his left. So much hate had filled their hearts, I was ignorant to it. I didn’t understand the extent of their cruelty.

When I was not even two hundred moons, a child in every sense of the word, I was barred from speaking to my mother. Torn from her side in a fury of tears by Havsieva herself, I could not control myself. I burned her harshly with the heat of my own skin, something no one had ever seen done before. She took joy in this, though, because she could punish me. And she did. She covered my left side in a vibrant marking, a dragon, a sign of havoc and terror to the Afesien Domirahva. The ink was enchanted with a spell I’d never heard of, one of an emotional plague. When those I loved hurt, I would hurt infinitely worse, sending me into illness often as a child, letting Scarlet take my place as the favored one. I felt, I cared, and I was weak. Silently I raged with myself, I had no love from my mother, no attention from my father, I was worthless.

In the height of this war, a boy was brought to my father for enlistment in his army against the Coellan Domirahva. This boy was hybrid as my sister and I, skilled more in the sword than in the elements, and he was special. Grey, for the stormy shade of his eyes, found favor with my father. He was taken in as one of our own, though we shared no blood, and trained with my sister. Her cruelty disgusted him, his only wish for fighting to bring peace to the land again, hers for the satisfaction of causing suffering. I learned of this boy from the servants, and my intrigue was too strong to ignore.

I was ill, still, but I learned to become numb to it. I regained my position at my father’s right side, my resilience outweighing the mere substitution that Scarlet possessed. Soon I trained with Grey, our powers equal in sword, but mine greater in elements. I trained him with fire and water, and slowly my numbness to emotions wore away. There was a way that he spoke to me like no one else had and a look in his eyes of admiration and tenderness. We cared for each other more than a brother and sister would, and I found myself often distracted by thoughts of him when we were apart. I was in love, and it was only the beginning of my end.

Grey and I grew closer over the years, fighting alongside each other in the war. I was one of the first women of my age to fight, and I was one of the strongest. I returned to our castle after only a week of fighting, my mother’s illness falling deeper when she learned I was in war. Her only daughter, she said, would not be a warrior, not of that sort. Scarlet was infuriated, and her mother likewise boiled with anger. They did not understand how my father could care for me or my mother, because they did not understand love, or compassion, or even humanity. Still they sought to rid themselves of me.

Grey was my only love. I watched him fight, I cared for him when he was hurt, and we grew together from ignorant children to strong adults. My mother’s health waxed and waned through these years, and she taught me how to heal others, and heal myself. With the spell from Havsieva, the only gift she gave me, I could take the pain from others and onto myself. Seemingly useless, but with learning how to heal myself quickly, it was a powerful tool during the times of war.

I coaxed my father into bringing peace back to my home, the war only ravaging our lands, impoverishing our people, and ruining our legacy. The Coellan Domirahva were allowed so many miles of the shore in Afesien in return for their withdrawal from the war, and this pleased the Coellan, but angered Havsieva. War was her sole purpose, distraught and death pleased her. She would do anything to have it, and she employed Scarlet again against my family.

On a summer between the end of the war and my leave from Eralind, Grey and I made love. He asked for my hand in marriage, and my parents gave their blessing. We were in love, and there was nothing we wanted more than each other; yet history was due to repeat itself as it had with my parents. I found I was pregnant, a child of two hybrids was unheard of and I feared the worst. Still, Grey promised to stay by my side, and with the support of both my parents, I was comforted. My father fell from his delusions of happiness with Havsieva, and removed her and Scarlet from the kingdom. They were forced to return to Coellan, where they were treated as traitors.

I gave birth to a lovely boy, Darren Eruheran, with grey eyes like his father. For only a few months we lived together peacefully, a family. Grey grew distant, though, and I worried for him. I’d thought the war had scarred him, but there was something else growing in him; the same kind of hate I’d felt. I couldn’t understand why, until now. Grey longed for the wars, he longed to be a soldier, to be in power. He spoke to Scarlet frequently without my knowing, and she weaseled her way into the cracks of his resolve.

Soon she filled him with ideas of grandeur as Havsieva had done to my father, and he demanded to be able to take her as a second wife. My father was appalled, but too feeble now to object; he lived on borrowed time from the magics of the Elders, keeping him alive as a Domirahvam. I was angered, and hurt. I refused to keep his hand if he were to take another, but was forced to accept it.

Havsieva returned and her wrath was strengthened. Having taken Grey from me and restoring Scarlet to a portion of her former glory, her hate for me rekindled. Darren was but a babe when I left him, in the care of my mother and her parents, too put out to stay any longer. I couldn’t live in another world of war, and I sought to find peace, to bring my loved ones with me.

I found Wing City on a fluke chance and made myself a home here. Never have I seen so many creatures, races, and beings all in one place. From a love I found, I was turned into a vampire. Naïve folly. By fate I found a daughter, alone in the woods, and I’ve taken her as my own. I’ve yet to return to my home to reclaim my son, but the time is coming.

Until then I wait in patience.