Sakar

Despite being born into the prestigious Silver family of the Lunaris realm, Sakar's childhood was marked by misfortune. His mother perished while giving birth to him, leaving his grief-stricken father a shell of his former self. To make things worse, Sakar's pure black hair and fur was deemed to be a curse in his society, and thus he was kept away from the public eye to prevent him from sullying the family name, and to protect him from superstitious Lunarians. 

As a child, Sakar was frail and sickly. He spent the first few years of his life locked up in a tiny, dark room on the highest floor of the Silver family mansion. His father shunned him completely, for as much as he loved the child, he could not help but resent him for the death of his beloved wife as well. Sakar's only visitors would be a trusted family nursemaid, and his older brother, Ailius. As a result, Sakar grew extremely attached to Ailius, who would play with him and tell him stories of the outside world. Captivated by Ailius's tales, Sakar begged for Ailius to take him outside so he might see the world himself.

While Ailius was initially reluctant to acquiesce to Sakar's demands, he eventually gave in to the kitten's incessant pleas. They did not wander far, and were soon found by their father. Their father, upon discovering that Ailius had went against his wishes and put his brother's life at risk, flew into a rage and struck him. Sakar, on the other hand, was forbidden from ever stepping foot out of his room again. 

Yet the young kitten's curiosity and desire for freedom could not be satiated. On his tenth birthday, Sakar pleaded for Ailius to bring him outside again, while their father was away on an expedition. Ailius, against his better judgement, agreed and brought Sakar to the marketplace to pick out a present for himself. 

However, in the crowd, the two brothers were separated. Sakar had caught the attention of a group of smugglers who were looking to kidnap highborn Lunarian children to sell to slave markets in North. Sakar's black fur and hair made him all the more a rare and valuable catch.

Sakar was abducted without much of a struggle, for he was too small and weak to fight back. Bound and thrown into the bottom of the smugglers' ship that was secretly docked in the port, he cried out desperately for his brother to save him. But Ailius never came.

The smugglers' ship set sail within a few days. Aboard the ship, Sakar was kept chained up in a tiny wooden box. Fed only a thin, watery porridge once a day, he was constantly in a state of starvation. Whenever he attempted to resist or escape, he would be brutally beaten. Yet his captors were always careful to keep him alive and not to leave any marks on his body. Months later, the ship arrived at a distant foreign kingdom, but Sakar's torment had only just begun. 

Sold to the owner of a brothel, Sakar was trained to become a pleasure slave. Yet no matter what cruelties were dealt to the young boy, he refused to submit. He fought back at every opportunity, driven on solely by his wish to return home and be reunited with his dear older brother again. But of course, his efforts were futile.

Eventually, the brothel owner decided that Sakar was more trouble than he was worth and quickly auctioned him off to the highest bidder. Sakar wound up in the household of a sadistic nobleman, who reveled in torturing his new little pet. The man, who had no interest in preserving the resale value of his slaves, inflicted countless injuries upon Sakar, leaving numerous scars all over his body. 

Sakar's every attempt to resist only seemed to excite the man further, causing his violence to escalate. One day, Sakar grew convinced that the man was going to kill him. Stricken by terror, he lashed out as the man approached him with a knife. The next thing he knew, his master was lying dead at his feet. 

Sakar fled for his life. Yet, he was caught before he could even escape from the nobleman's manor. It was then that his master's body was discovered, but due to the lack of discernible injuries on the man's corpse, no one connected his murder to Sakar. It was as if the man's life had simply been drained from his body. 

To cut his losses, the nobleman's heir sold off half of his father's slaves, including Sakar. With his scarred body, however, Sakar had all but lost his value as a pleasure slave. In the end, he was bought by an aspiring prospector and sent to work in one of Omrune's few mines.  

Sakar's weak constitution, combined with the hard labor he was subjected to, caused him to be prone to bouts of illness. Whenever he fell sick, he was simply tossed into a pit and left to die. Yet he recovered each time, only to be promptly put back to work. What his time in the pits did afford him were precious days of privacy, which he would spend honing the dark magic that he had discovered within himself. He was certain that it was this magic that had saved him from his previous master. At some point, he even began to feign illness just so that he might be left alone to experiment with his newfound powers.

During his time in the mine, Sakar befriended a slightly older boy, Sydwel, who had been sold into slavery by his own parents. Sydwel grew to be extremely protective of Sakar; the older boy would always offer Sakar a portion of his meagre meals, and bring stolen medicine to him when he fell ill. The two eventually became romantically involved, but were punished harshly when their relationship was discovered. Sydwel was also sent away to work in a different mine. And when news of an explosion in that mine reached Sakar's ears, there was little more he could do than to mourn the loss of his friend.

Having been dealt a significant financial loss from the mining accident, the prospector decided to sell off a number of her slaves, Sakar included, once more. It was under such circumstances that Sakar was put to work waiting tables in the popular local tavern. The boy, now fifteen years of age, had a pretty face and a way with words that easily charmed customers. 

Yet the main attraction of the tavern was something far more exotic: a living, breathing dragon with pure white scales embedded with amethyst crystals, forced into a humanoid form and kept in a cage to be gawked at. Sakar himself was tasked with the upkeep of said dragon. 

Since the dragon would not speak or respond to anything but physical touch, Sakar quickly realized that he was deaf. He began to communicate with the dragon using a mixture of hand gestures and writing. The dragon revealed that his name was Sasione, and that he had been raised like a pet by his master since he hatched from an egg. The gems that grew among his scales were highly valuable, and his master would periodically hack them off to turn a substantial profit, regardless of how much pain it caused Sasione.

As Sakar grew close to Sasione, the dragon soon confided that he frequently had visions of a distant crystal kingdom, as if they were memories from his past. He would dream of soaring through the air alongside other dragons, despite the fact that he could neither fly, nor even turn into his true dragon form. 

Touched by Sasione's story and seeing himself in the dragon's plight, Sakar was determined to help Sasione reunite with his lost kin. He had heard rumors of a crystal kingdom that lay in the continent beyond and became convinced that it was the homeland Sasione dreamt of.

Hence, one night, Sakar mustered enough magic to shatter the lock on Sasione's cage and freed the dragon. The two of them fled all the way to the nearest cliffside before they were surrounded by the tavern owner's guards. While Sakar fended off the guards with his magic, he goaded Sasione to jump from the cliff. Before Sasione could plummet to his death, he transformed into a great white dragon, soaring into the air. Sakar made his escape on the dragon's back and they flew off together in search of the crystal kingdom.

The pair flew for days before arriving at another continent. Fatigued and unused to flight, Sasione crash-landed and promptly fell unconscious. Sakar continued onwards on foot to seek help for his friend.

After hours of trekking through a desolate wasteland of rocks and crystalline structures, Sakar chanced upon another dragon in a humanoid form. Shocked by Sakar’s appearance, the dragon transformed to attack, but calmed down when Sakar started to plead for her help. She showed an intense interest in Sakar’s description of the white dragon, and flew over at once to Sasione’s aid.

With Sakar and an incapacitated Sasione on her back, she brought them to a large crystal cavern. There, she introduced herself as Ylene, the princess of Ylsevara, a kingdom of crystalline dragons much like Sasione. Ylene presented the two of them before her brother, Rekhir, the King of Ylsevara. Rekhir immediately took a great liking to Sasione, whom he believed was a reincarnation of his late lover.

While Rekhir greatly disliked mortals, for they were the ones who had killed his lover, he begrudgingly welcomed Sakar in his realm as he had helped him and Sasione reunite. Sakar could stay in Ylsevara for as long as he pleased.

Freed at last after five long and cruel years of servitude, Sakar began to think about his future the very first time in his life. Although he wished deeply to return to the Lunaris realm to be reunited with his brother, he knew that place was no longer his home. Even if he did choose to return, he would simply be locked away in tiny room again and robbed of his freedom.

At last, Sakar set his sights upon Omrune. Filled with resentment towards the kingdom’s wealthy for treating lives like commodities, he became convinced that the magic he could wield meant that he had been chosen to purge the land of its corruption and to free its oppressed population. Yet, even with his magic, which grew stronger the longer his hatred festered, he was well aware that he could not accomplish such a momentous task on his own.

Thus, he made a bid for Rekhir’s aid, requesting a number of warriors from the dragon king to help him invade Omrune. In exchange, he would ensure that no Omrunian hunter would ever venture into Ylsevara again to harm a dragon. Rekhir, however, had little desire to be embroiled in the mortals’ conflict, promptly declining Sakar’s request. 

His sister, Ylene, on the other hand, was fascinated by Sakar’s plan. Tired of being in the shadow of her overprotective older brother, she longed to establish a kingdom of her own. Against her brother’s wishes, she agreed to help Sakar, who promised her that they would rule together. Irritated by his sister's defiance, Rekhir exiled her to teach her a lesson, but his actions only solidified her resolve to leave.

With Ylene by his side, Sakar returned to Omrune. 

On Ylene's back, Sakar first rode for the mines he had been forced in work in. He slaughtered the overseers and freed the slaves, before finally destroying the entire mine with Ylene's dragon fire. While a few of the freed slaves joined Sakar's cause, most of them quickly set off on their own, fearing the consequences of recapture.

Thus begun Sakar's crusade as he and Ylene flew from town to town, bringing liberation and destruction in their wake. With each new area they took over, their following of wayward slaves grew a little by little. At the site of a destroyed mine, they encountered another group of rebels led by none other than Sydwel, much to Sakar's surprise and delight. Sydwel explained that he had escaped after the mining accident along with a few others. For months, he had been leading his rebels to raid labor camps, but their efforts had amounted to little more than a mere annoyance. He was only all to happy to join forces with Sakar.

After a number of Omrune's wealthy had been culled, Sakar's growing rebellion finally came to the attention of Omrune's king, Rhydien. The tyrant deployed his army against Sakar, only for Ylene to annihilate his forces in one burst of dragon fire. To Sakar's horror, however, he discovered a large number of the soldiers they had killed were enslaved Omrune civilians, forced to serve in their king's army.

Sakar realised that he could not defeat Rhydien through brute force alone, for dragging out the war would only result in the destruction of the realm and its people. Instead, he devised a plan to assassinate Rhydien and set out on his mission alone, after instating Ylene as the de facto leader of the rebellion. 

Disguising himself as a slave, he snuck his way into Rhydien’s castle. For months, he served in Rhydien’s court, waiting for his opportunity while working as a servant and a pleasure slave for the guards and lesser nobles. He would also come to befriend Zephia, a young foreign noble who had been imprisoned within the castle as a hostage, and Aeres, one of Rhydien's mistreated illegitimate children.

Eventually, Sakar was granted an audience with Rhydien. Alone, in the privacy of Rhydien's chambers, he was able to easily overpower the tyrant king with his dark magic, since Rhydien's own magic was significantly weaker. Yet, even as he was at Sakar's mercy, Rhydien only sneered and goaded Sakar to kill him. 

Before Sakar could actually finish him off, he was stopped by Aeres, who warned him of the many failed assassination plots that had came before. Aeres revealed that the source of Rhydien’s power was a spell that binds his life force to one of his offspring, known as a curse-bearer, such that any harm caused to Rhydien would be transferred to them instead. Aeres himself was Rhydien’s current curse-bearer. 

Taking in the information solemnly, Sakar thanked Aeres, before apologizing. He redirected his magic towards Aeres, killing the young man before he even had time to react. Rhydien, now vulnerable, attempted to flee, but Sakar killed him just as quickly as well.

With their king dead, the last of Omrune's armies would quickly crumble to the rebellion, allowing them to capture Omrune Castle. In the throne room, reunited with Ylene and Sydwel, Sakar gathered the remaining Omrune nobles and presented Rhydien's lifeless body before them. He announced that he had killed their king, and they had the choice of serving under him to rebuild Omrune, or facing execution. While most of the nobles declared their loyalty to Sakar, the few that still chose to support Rhydien were killed on the spot. 

When the dust settled, Sakar crowned himself the new King of Omrune, naming Ylene as his second-in-command. The rest of his court was formed from the slaves and prisoners that had followed him into the rebellion. At long last, a new era dawned upon the kingdom, and Sakar had accomplished his dream of obtaining power and freedom. 

Yet, the sweet taste of his victory was soured by the guilt of killing Aeres. Sakar never spoke of the truth behind Aeres's death, and if someone asked, he would simply state that his friend had sacrificed himself to protect him.

WIP