Heavy the Head

Prologue

A woman sat in a chair, her two tails curled around the chair, as she looked down at her five children. Their ginger and auburn hair caught the setting sun. Their emerald eyes were fixated on the auburn-haired woman they called mother. She was wearing a tattered green tunic and a tattered green long skirt. On her forearm sat a red patch of skin with two tails twisted into one another.

"Tell us a story, Mommy." the middle child, a young female with auburn hair and green eyes, begged.

"Alright, Shiva. I'll tell you a story about the era in Shunin history where our ancestors lived daily in wars and bloodshed. A world long past gone. In this world was a girl. Her name was Luna Cardinal, and she was not like any other Cardinal. A handful of them had a genetic defect that resulted in no horns or tails like their brethren. It was a time of war like none we have seen before. The six families were in constant fights, but eight young Shunin left their homes and lives to find a solution to their families' blight." She spoke as little green symbols floated in the air.

There were marks similar to the one on her forearm in a way. The first was a wolf fang with a circle above it. The second was a circle with a set of horns beside it. The third was a circle with three gills on either side of it. The fourth was a volcano with a circle above it. The fifth was a rock with a circle missing in the center of it. The sixth was a circle with two feathers on either side of the circle.

"Each family had their strengths and weaknesses. The Wolfhymns were weaker than their cousins, the Cardinals. They didn't have horns or spikes like the Cardinals. They didn't have wings or anti-magic like the Grandeurs. They couldn't breathe for long durations of time in the water like the Withers nor live close to volcanos and hot springs like the Lavages. They weren't able to live underground like the Rocklins either. They were weaker than the other families, but their sixth sense set them apart. Wolfhymn could sense magic in the air they breathed, the plants around them, and the ground. Everything around them contained magic. Everything but the Grandeurs." She said as a ginger-haired man with gray eyes approached.

He limped past the kids holding two crying infants in one arm and one tail. He reached the woman and held the child out to her. She took the ginger-haired baby and rocked the tiny baby until it fell back to sleep. As soon as it had returned to its slumber, she looked at her children again.

"The children of these families fought a war that none could remember how it started. They continuously fought one another for land that neither they nor the humans could remember who had claim over it. It was a time of war like no other..."