The Tale of Morin

Prologue: Death of a Treaty, Birth of a Revolution

Beneath the pale grey light of the full moon an unlikely crowd gathered in the forest to await the arrival of the ambassadors. Humans, dwarves, and kahshi sat conversing around a small campfire, while centaurs and elves fletched feathers to arrows. Off to the side, but not too far as to be excluded, a hulking minotaur devoured a small stag, ripping a hind leg from it and offering it to the group of nearby urthraki. Threats of violence chased them all from their homes and brought them here, where they wait for the ambassadors they sent only this morning to return. The news they bring, whether good or bad, will change everything. These outcasts will have their freedom, or they will have war. 

With each passing hour they grew more solemn. The air was dense with the palpable tension of those gathered. Despite the rather large crowd, not a word was muttered. The entirety of the forest was surreal in its silence, as if it held its collective breath in anticipation. In any other circumstance it could be relaxing, serene even.

"They should be back by now." An urthraki male hissed, breaking the silence. His dull green scales glinted in the moonlight as he fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Quiet Uraga. These things take time." An older man chided the young urthraki. "We'll wait as long as we have to." 

Minutes stretched for what seemed like hours before two men suddenly materialized before the crowds' eyes. 

"They've returned!" The old man shouted, his face twisting from brief joy to despair as he noticed that only two of the five were present. "Where are the others?" 

"Captured." The man on the left answered with a strained voice. He clutched his right shoulder, applying pressure to a wound. A member of the crowd ran to tend to it. The other man stood tall, his scarred face illuminated by the moonlight. He drew what looked like a ripped piece of parchment from his pocket and addressed the crowd.

"We went to them with ideas of peace. We wanted only to live free of being outlawed and killed simply because we are different. We were fools." The man let the ripped treaty fall to the ground. "We cannot hope to erase centuries of fear and hatred of our kind with logic. Such emotions are far too strong for mere words. Stand tall, my brothers and sisters, for tomorrow is the dawn of a new world. A world in which we are no longer branded as criminals for acts that are not our doing. We will no longer be hunted out of fear, but we will be feared. They think us monsters, we will show them monstrous. We offered them peace, and they spit in our faces and bared their teeth. They wanted war, they will know war by our hands. I ask, who is with me?" 

Hours of silence shattered as the crowd roared in answer.

"Who will stand with me?" The man shouted back with his fist in the air.

The very ground seemed to shake with the energy of the crowd.

"WHO WILL FIGHT WITH ME?" 

***

Despite the lateness of the hour, the encampment bustled with excitement at the thought of a rebellion. The man whose speech inspired them lay separated from the rest, staring at the open sky with thoughts only known to him. A woman approached and laid next to him, letting the silence stretch for what seemed like ages before he broke it.

"You were right. For all the sense we spoke, their fear could not be reasoned with." He said softly.

"I am proud that you tried, Morin. It would have been wrong to resort to war without at least an attempt at a peaceful discussion." She sighed a deep, worried sigh. "Even if we win this war that won't be the end of prejudice. They will still fear our power as long as they themselves don't have it." 

"How is it that they can't see that we live as they do? How can they outlaw our very lives, hunt us because we have the possibility of being dangerous? How can they be so closed-minded?" Morin's frustration was obvious, but underneath that the woman saw how he truly felt as only a mother can. He was frightened, and he mourned for the friends he lost today, and those he had lost throughout his life. 

"They have not lived as we do. They know not what it means to be a mage, they only know that it is beyond their control, and so they fear it." 

"I will teach them then." He answered the unasked question.

His mother merely laughed. "How? By force? That's an odd way to show someone we're not to be feared."

"I will write my story. All that read it will know that it was not us that started this war. They will understand that we only want the chance to live."