The Ruby Empire

Demir the Centaur

Male Monster x Female Human

I grew up as a slave. My people were used as beasts of burden simply because we were perceived as barbaric and wild. The Western Steppes weren't the same as the rest of the Ruby Empire. I had heard that Centaurs towards the east had much more freedoms than my people did. The lords of the land did everything they could to squash these ideas and stories. They told us we were the same everywhere and that we should be grateful for what the gave us. We could be out in the fields starving because we were too stupid to find food.

Well, these men dug their own graves. My father led an uprising and started a war with the lords of the land. He became Chief of the Western Steppes, leading his army of centaurs to freedom and prosperity. I had expected my father to continue his conquest, but it ended where it began. When I asked him why he did not want to continue conquering and unify all lands, he shook his head at me.

He told me; "do not reach for more than you need. Chances are it will slip from your hands and fall on top of you." He was always wise, but this was the first time I didn't believe him.

Once he died, I took his armies, now my armies, and decided once and for all that the Ruby Empire deserved to be what it was, not just in name, but in reality. I would do what my father was too cowardly to do, and I would expand from the West and conquer this land.

Of course, not everyone agreed with my vision. Many tribes that had once unified under my father were now breaking off. Some even chose to stand in my way. One such tribe was led by a man who had been close to my father. He was a formidable man who challenged me to hand to hand combat during the battle. As men fought around us, we circled each other. In youth, he had been the one who taught me how to fight. How ironic it is that this could be the way it ends.

We charge one another, and in the heat of battle, it looks like any other fight. The warriors rage around us like fire through a wheatfield. Yet between this man and me, it feels like we are encased in ice. Time stands still as I take his life, and the battle comes to a grinding halt when the horn sounds.

His son approaches his father's corpse, and as he mourns, he extends his hand to me. "He died on his feet?" He asks.

"He stood till the end," I take his hand and bring it to my chest. "It was an honor to be his last."

He bows before me, kneeling down and laying his hands on my feet. The rest of his tribe soon follows, all of them bowing down before me.

"Stand men," I announce. "Celebrate our union and take your fight as a success. For in my eyes you are my equal and my partners in this conquest!"

That night we celebrate. After we bury the dead and tend to the wounded, a feast is made. Sorik, the son of the tribe leader I killed, joins me as my right hand.

"Do you plan to rule the world?" He asks me as we drink.

I grin and chuckle. "The world is a huge place. I don't expect it to be easy or kind. My ideals for what it could be are what is best. But I know not everyone will see eye to eye with me."

"Then why do you do it?" Soril asks. "Money? Glory?"

I shake my head, a smile still on my face. "I want this world to be beautiful. I want everyone to feel like family. Back in the fields when they broke our backs and whipped us, when they raped our mothers and sisters and told us we should be happy about it, I knew it could be better. I knew what was evil and what was good. This world needs a unifier, a leader who can tell them the right from the wrong."

"And what if no one listens?" Sorik asks.

"That is why a hand needs fingers," I reply. "That is why I must unify our people first!" I shake my head. "How will it look to the world if I try to unify all nations but cannot even bring together my own people?"