Of Heroes and Happenings

The Perfect One, Chapter 2

Of the four most powerful types of elemental genies, the fire genies were known throughout each plane of existence to be the most martial and least compassionate. The Efreet, as they called themselves, viewed their world, the Elemental Plane of Fire, to be the superior plane, and their own people to be the most dominant. Because of this, the Efreet worshipped no deity unless it be they, themselves.

Like any Genie, the Efreet were not born, claimed any parentage. Instead, a soul adrift through the Plane joined to material from the Plane itself and formed therefrom, choosing characteristics and personalities that usually matched whatever the soul had previously embodied. The new Efreet generally retained the gender most familiar, but not always.

Another Efreeti trait was an overwhelming desire for vengeance against the smallest of slights. Once, a wealthy merchant named Horeb had insulted an Efreet named Shad-Kasseir in some fashion known only to Shad-Kasseir. Since the merchant had been previously boasting of his wife's beauty, the affronted warlord had stolen Horeb's wife, Vindesa, and taken her to the City of Brass as a slave. He'd used her cruelly, had done everything in his power to destroy every vestige of her great beauty.

A year later, the woman was returned to her lawful husband. She appeared at the entrance to his considerable estate entirely marred by burns and scars both new and old, and large with child The child within her had been enchanted, she claimed, by the author of her profound scarring and the sire of her child. Only after he'd been sure that the enchantment would hold, did Shad-Kasseir allow her to return, with orders pertaining to the naming of the child.

Horrified by his wife's suffering, Horeb sent immediately for a cleric, who was handsomely paid to remain in the couple's home. Daily treatments of Greater Restoration saw Vindesa delivered of most of her scars and allowed her to survive the birth of her child. On that day, the evidence of the warlord's vindictive enchantment manifested, for the child, a fire genasi, could be pronounced neither son nor daughter, but constantly flickered between the two. Only the cleric's intervention allowed both mother and child to survive the delivery, for strong emotion caused every hair on the baby's body to dance as flames, from the bright orange crown upon the head to the downy silk of body hair, and birth is a traumatic time for any infant.

Terrified of the Efreet warlord's return, Vindesa obeyed the injunction handed her and named her child 'Gwn'itt,' then proudly kept that name as a sign of her own strength and tenacity as she and the child thrived under the loving care of her husband. Horeb adored the odd infant as much as he loved his wife and the sons that she had given him.

For twelve years, Gwn'itt was raised, loved and nurtured by both mother and the man clearly not the father. As the child grew, gender became manifested according to the emotions Gwn'itt felt. Even in this, Shad-Kasseir's pall was felt over the child's life, for whatever emotion the Efreet warlord would have deemed as 'weak' manifested as a daughter to Vindesa, while 'strong' emotions manifested as a son.

Defiantly, Vindesa taught her child to love both sides of Gwn'itt, expected her sons to accept their youngest sibling in like manner. Gwn'itt was raised to see her female form as beautiful and grew to love ornate hairstyles, feminine arts and fine manners, just as he was raised to see his masculine form equally as comely and loved to engage in tests of strength with his older brothers and father figure. Most importantly, Gwn'itt learned quickly to govern emotions that would cause that innate, fiery nature common to any fire genasi to manifest. Flaming hair and heated skin damaged those Gwn'itt loved, set unintended fires and left the author of those fires in need of new clothing when the material burned up during a fit of temper.

Despite Vindesa's love for her unusual child, however, Gwn'itt's appearance made the young fire genasi feel alienated from the rest of the family. Their coloring was uniformly fair, in stark contrast to Gwn'itt's dusky skin, bright orange hair and brown eyes generously flecked with a red that glittered in the sunlight. To further that gulf between Gwn'itt and the others, not one of them displayed any talent toward or interest in the arcane, which was inherent to any genasi.