Blood Quantum

[Hekatos]

Blood Quantum

"As one whose sacred duty is to safeguard bloodlines, I would advise you not to let them harden into chains that bind you," was all she said to that.

When the time seemed correct, she led them thither, to see the wonder she promised. If his retinue was too fatigued, there were those on hand who could assist magically or physically.

At a wall seemingly wrought of one seamless piece of jet, she placed her hand just so and pushed. A hidden door, huge, swung open silently as if it weighed next to nothing, and she led them into a sort of vault. Bright white lights ignited in crystals set into the ceiling and the floor, but they could not completely erase the red of the array of blood shards suspended in the air. Lines of light reminiscent of arteries flowed between them.

As in many places of power within Sol'Valen, layers upon layers of enchantment, some new, some ancient, existed in tandem. Even the semblers among those cloistered here, familiar with them, needed time to focus on any single element of the great complexity.

"Sol'Valen has libraries aplenty. Some are filled with books and scrolls, ancient papyri and stone tablets. Others mnemosyte matricies. This is her archive of blood."

"Greetings, Mother Haera," came a warm alto from nowhere at all.

As she stepped toward a cluster of blood-red crystals, they danced a ballet through the air into a new arrangement. She set her fingertip to the point of one of the crystals and the latticework of aetheric energies made visible changed until they centered upon what looked like a family tree. Presumably, this was her. As it scaled back, it showed more of the pattern, more of the sanguine context that made up Haera Val'Istra.

"Here we save blood memory."

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

Tyrann smiled inwardly at the advice. He could certainly see its merit, though he felt far from chained by his own blood. What others deemed deficient he’d used to his advantage. It was easier to defy expectations when fewer were imposed upon one. Tyrann felt he had made good use of his bearer’s affection and the good underestimation of his social betters.

“There are those who have tried to tether me thusly, but my presence here is proof that I shook off the shackles to claim mine own destiny. I am allowed to be brazen, where my siblings lack my pretexts. There is strength, I think, in variance.” Tyrann offered, plucking up one last morsel as he rose to follow his hostess. The honour guard strained to rise, but shirked any offer of aid insisting upon making their own way behind their charge.

He blinked at the revelation of the hidden passageway and, padding into the archive, his wide eyes scanned the environs slowly.

“Fascinating…” He murmured to himself before raising his voice to address the lorekeeper:

“If anything like this exists in Caerulia it is above my rank to know of it.” His focus homed in on the shifting pattern forming before Haera. It was dazzling to look upon. He might have lost track of how long he stood regarding it.

“I haven’t a clue how to read this, but it is certainly lovely to look at…” He paused his perusing and his gaze danced from the crystals to the lady hostess. With an amused glint in their sapphire, he mused:

“Is this the part where you prevail upon me to open a vein to complement your collection?”

[Hekatos]

Blood Quantum

For whatever it might be worthy, she seemed to approve of his breaking those chains to seek lore upon the land. In the dark sanctum, she watched him bemusedly. The sanguine matrix was indeed a creation of wonder, and it was bittersweet to see someone's first reaction, remembering her own, and realizing that anything could become commonplace given time and familiarity.

"I would be fascinated to see a Neptori version of this," she admitted. "The making of it was lost with the Age of Dreams. Some secrets have been carried down since then, others lost, and some regained. Perhaps your people do have a similar library." She doubted it, of course.

"You needn't open a vein to donate," she said, showing him the finger she had used to touch the point of one of the blood shards. It was unmarked. It was entirely possible the sophisticated array from the days of the immortal elves had read him as soon as he walked through the door or as soon as he set foot upon this eyrie.

Her smile didn't fade. "You may if you choose to. I will not seek to sway you."

But she did beckon him closer to add some context to what he was seeing. Upon closer examination, the lines of power were tightly packed runes, perhaps some ancient form of Vallenor. They unwound at her arcane gestures.

"Mandeserceo," she said, and several other words that tickled at translation. The first was, perhaps, an activation key for the matrix responded with more apparent complexity. But she unwound one strand in her pattern such that he could read it. Some of the words made perfect sense. Some were words he knew, but whose usage didn't make sense. Some seemed quite specific to arcane branches of knowledge for which he had no foundation.

"Conclusion," the matrix voice explained, "Haera of House Val'Istra has platinum blond hair."

Perhaps it had eyes. Perhaps it could tell from her blood what color her hair was. Elves did tend to save anything ancient that might be of value, but they would not have saved something like this unless it was a truly helpful tool and repository of knowledge.

She manipulated the light until it showed a family tree again. Her line was brighter, but it became relatively clear that the vast lore contained in her blood was here pared down to a line of light laid along several others.

"My siblings," she explained, then pointed out an adjacent line that somehow seemed a different color, though still red. Upon closer examination when she pulled her line and this line out to compare side by side, there were threads of gold through her line; through the other was both gold as well as a sort of silver patina.

"My brother Laurevere. Hm, he's in the capital for a while before he needs must travel abroad again." She smiled faintly. "His mother was Siltori. The way the information is displayed, you can see how Hytori-specific parts of the bloodline are golden, and Siltori-specific parts are silver. I'm afraid our creations carry on our prejudices. In any case, despite having different mothers and half his blood coming from a different race, this shows how little actual difference there is between us. For all the diversity among us, most of what makes elves, even our human cousins different lies in very few actual differences."

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

Tyrann pursed his lips— curious albeit bemused, not only at the nature of the occult wonder being presented to him, but at the wherefore of its being shared with him in particular.

He shook his head in the negative at being welcomed to offer blood as he’d jokingly mentioned moments prior. Well, half a joke. He had, in fact, expected her to want him to donate. It was the first guess he’d made at why he’d been invited that seemed to hold water, as it were. If she and hers thought him to be some missing link lost to antiquity that might answer old mysteries, then he could certainly understand why he’d be of interest. He was interested in what she had to say and show him regardless of her motives, but he could not fathom that this woman had sought him out merely to educate him without seeking something in return. But then, perhaps she’d already gotten it without his noticing. He had been eaten of their food and surely there were morsels of his essence left about the room. Air didn’t wash things away in currents and dispersed them in the same way water did.

His internal meanderings faded into the background as he focused on Haera’s demonstration and explanation of the archive and this sample thereof. The moral of her story rather took him aback and a thick brow rose.

“Not a sentiment I expected to hear, I admit, in Sol’Valen… and I suppose it is true that we all bleed red, but the practical differences are still there and that can be enough to elicit bigotry… tribalism.

“Look at my people. Five nations distinguished primarily by habitat. Our most notable distinction? How long we can tolerate the habitat of our cousin nation. I understand why such minimal divides become so stark, when this is the case. Drowning men haven’t the faculties to ponder their similarity to those of us with gills.”

[Hekatos]

Blood Quantum

"We are the First People," she said with a smile. "There have been more iterations of Hytori over the millennia than any other race. Countless before the various schisms that led to diverging bloodlines such as your own. And yet for all our shared history, we are not an intellectual bloc..."

Haera paused, considering.

"Do our aquatic cousins husband animals for food or raw materials? Or perhaps in the depths, you have seen hybrids in any case. Our ancient ancestors plucked species from different worlds and molded them like clay. But even now, simple farmers might breed a mule from a jack and a mare. Or a hinny from a stallion and a jenny. These hybrids come from two distinct species, and most are infertile. There are reasons for this. The sage Haldane wrote in depth about it." And his works were in the abbey's library, of course.

"In the wild, big cats have been known to make hybrids... a lion and a tiger making a liger or a tigon depending on the sex of the parents. This can occur naturally, though it is certainly rare. The pertinent issue, however, is that it is the incompatibility between these cousin species that causes the infertility. We do not see that among most sentient races. A Hytori and a Siltori can sire a child, such as my brother, and he has no greater chance of infertility than any Hytori or Siltori. This is true between Hytori and Dratori, Humans, and I suppose even Neptori. For all the differences between us, the specifics of us that are coded into our blood, into our flesh, are less different than between other sorts of species.

"These are facts. How those facts are interpreted, well, that could be dangerous to and for some people."

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

“Oh yes, Neptori breed well with other races. You will see our halfbloods serving often aboard ships… the Nation of the Wayfarer is especially prone to miscegenation, and the Tidal Nation the least inclined for the aforementioned pretext of our… well, their weak lungs.” Tyrann nodded,

“Of course! We have mounts, pets, livestock and all of the things you have on land. You have shepherds, we have… Well, I guess it would translate to fishherds. And as you have hounds domesticated to rein in your sheeps, we have domesticated seals to do the same. The hardest thing to manage is the cetaceans. They are bullheaded and whip smart. Thank the Deep they haven’t evolved to bear Runes yet, or they’d run us out of the sea I think. Mesmer is the only means of keeping some of them from eating our pets.

“Oh, and if you ever see a Neptori astride an orca, know that they are riding for war and get to land in haste.” He added with a jovial smirk.

“But I take your point. The similarities are starker than the contrasts and so it is, perhaps, less productive to focus on the latter.” He pondered this point as his eyes perused the clandestine chamber of secrets.

“What else would you deign to display to this humble emissary of the seas?” He inquired with a smirk that seemed not the least bit humble, even if his eyes bore more of the innocence of a seal than the soulless hunger of the shark.

“I wonder, also, Mistress Haera, whether your order has goals beyond the keeping of lore? Are you content to archive these histories, or do you put them to active use in the present day?”

[Hekatos]

Blood Quantum

Haera smiled. While she did enjoy the sea, she would certainly not want to find herself in the path of a Neptori riding a whale-killer into battle.

"So noted," she said drily. "I thank you for the advice." But her smile persisted.

"We were consulted upon the restoration of Hytori sovereignty. To confirm noble bloodlines. House Sol'Eilran didn't really need it. Other records than ours confirmed Taegan as a direct-line descendant of the last ruling Sol'Eilran prince. The Val'Kor were the same. The other lines had gone underground, so to speak, not using their names lest the Lysanrin use them as leverage against a greater number of Hytori. Val'Melua and Val'Devemar wanted our corroboration when they reclaimed their names. But Val'Mystra, we sought out that bloodline and found an heir who was unaware. Cassarond is better for its prince, and Sol'Valen for another Dragon House restored.

As she spoke of the other princely houses by name, chains of ruddy light shifted as if in readiness to display, but as she didn't call on them further, they did not interrupt the display of her own Val'Istra heritage.

"We still seek the others. Even a Hytori branch of the Sol'Miaren lineage. We are also healers, of course. Behind the scenes, we helped King Taegan resolve the Withering Sickness. Only fell magic can truly strike us down with sickness, though. And so, I suppose, we are experts in fell magic."

Whether that were ominous or not depended more on the hearer than the speaker. The Hytori certainly did their best to put on the airs of utopia.

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

Tyrann’s pale eyes darted to each of the sigils that appeared, as if summoned, when their associates pedigrees were broached. Catlike curiosity caused his gaze to linger, waiting for them to take prominence, though it seemed they were not to be drawn forth standing, instead, at the ready for a call that didn’t come. Vaguely disappointed, his eyes returned to the orator.

Well, that was enlightening, Tyrann thought. He was glad that he asked. He wasn’t sure how widely known any of these intricacies were in the broader world, having only the context of his own culture in the sea, but he could imagine some of this was little known. He could also imagine this might be due to lack of interest in many circles who might not have any pressing desire to follow the nuances of Hytori succession, but to him it was, at the very least, interesting trivia to share with the more sanguine-centric members of his family.

“Well, for what it’s worth, Nepthalia Colony, from which all Neptori descend, was almost entirely Hytori. By the time the other elven races may have spread to our neck of Ransera, we were out to sea.” Perhaps it was insignificant to note that they’d been full-blooded Hytori once, now that none of them remained so and all had evolved into an entirely separate species (or to take Haera’s point ‘subspecies’) of elf.

“Well, for sharing so much privileged information so freely, I would be churlish not to invite you to visit our court at Caerulia. If such a thing interests you, of course. I don’t know to what magicks you are privy. Tis rude to pry uninvited, but if you need assistance to ensure our habitat, we can make arrangements, I’m sure.”

[Hekatos]

Blood Quantum

"I did know that much," she averred. "Sol'Miaren is a hallowed bloodline, and so you and yours are of scholarly interest to our order, which is not to undervalue what a delightful guest you are in your own right."

The Val'Hytori flashed him a less urbane smile. He was nobly born and so she could only assume he understood how a person's utility was often calculated into their value even as a social contact. This was just pragmatism and no offense intended.

"I would have to make some preparations to take you up on that offer, but 'tis an offer I would take you up on. Perhaps whenever you return for a duration of sufficient length. I would not want to be a burden upon you when you are home."

After a pause, she spoke in that strange dialect of Vallenor. Words that sounded similar to 'key' and 'compass' accompanied an ancient version of 'Arsoren Sol'Miaren.' The matrix of thaumaturgy swirled around them in a balletic light show, eventually manifesting in a point that hovered over her upturned hand.

A red gem dropped into her palm and she held it out to him. It might have been black without the pulse of incarnadine light that intensified as she held it out to him.

"A gift to remember us by," she said. "It will glow brighter the closer it is to your most famous ancestor. If he himself held it, the light might be blinding—at least, before his deal with the Dragon God of Suffering made him the first Human. I am pleasantly surprised by how strongly it reacts to your presence. As much as I am a proponent of each of us being our own best selves, I still find it comforting to know that echoes of our race's glorious past remain with us."

More wonders she might have shown him had he offered his own blood for analysis, but the time for that had passed.

"I suppose we ought to check on your retinue, eh?"

[Hekatos]

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