Story/Blessfrey/Rune.txt

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Rune is an outcasted half-breed, ignorant of his culture and raised by the abyssal beasts that roam the abandoned buffer colony of the deep earth. He considers Bless, the thorn-crowned styracosaurian queen, to be his mother. She's adorned in shimmering beetle black scales and towers over every other creature in the wilds. All beasts follow her cue, and she ensures Rune is always provided for in her own way. 

He does not know it, but he and his sister are the last of the Portal Mages, the tribe that controlled the flow of traffic throughout the Deep. In their absence, the portals lie dormant, and pockets have begun to diverge from one another. 

He barely knows his older sister, having only met her on precious few occasions growing up. She was kidnapped by surface agents to face an unknown fate. In her, he lost his only anchor to his people and any possible answers to the identity of his parents and what exactly he is. Her caring face forever glows gently from the back of his mind, though it grows murky and faded as hope wanes. 

More than anything, he wants a companion like him and an explanation of his past. But to find people like him and the information he seeks, he has to break his mother's heart and leave her behind. Abyssal fiends cannot pass the threshold to the surface, nor can they descend into the hollow. 

Through his journeys, he catches word of his sister, then finally, a recital starring her. He rushes there, but, horror, instead enters a crime scene. She was murdered an hour before his arrival. In her, he lost any chance of learning his past. He disappears to an inaccessible pocket of earth only he knows of - the secret fort he shared with his sister once upon a time, and mourns the loss of his family and chance of normal life.

The next time he's seen, he's happy. He has spent almost every season of his youth in indignant retrospect, dreaming of the day he is strong enough to knock down the door to whatever fortress imprisoned his sister, having a candid conversation without reservation about their past, and confronting his shadowy parents. But now that the key is lost, he can see the folly in looking backwards when we are meant to live our lives while looking ahead. In his journey, he has found all the family a man needs. Though he will always love Bless, he has people in his life he can talk to, play with, fight with, and touch upon the deeper issues that animals cannot fulfill. Being born into infinite neglect from his parents is the same as being born into ultimate freedom. He is in spring and ready to move into his new life, re-establishing the portals and exploring isolated worlds.