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21-04-2023, 02:08 PM
((Originally posted by Hirak Sanguinis, April 2017))
Tales from Rattatak
Episode 1: Abandoned and Forgotten
Before them was an arid planet, from space it looked as if the world was nothing but craters, blackened desert with spattered variations of homesteads and little cities crawling around the hightened points of the world. A disgusting world, the only real way to truly describe some of such a nasty texture. Located nearer to the unknown regions than the Republic or the Sith Empire. It lay beyond the natural control of the Republic space allowing all manners of evil, horrid creatures to crawl out from every orifice of that space sector to lay claim to a vast wealth of slaves and gladiatorial combat. Yet only the natives truly understood the raw power of the nature that surrounded them. They were brought up with it, evolved from it, deep underground in their cities beneath the crust the Rattataki came to existence. They were pale skinned, tattoo'd all over and they favoured scars as a sense of story and progression. But beyond their tribal stages the Rattataki were eventually united by a Warlord who lead them to the surface to conquer the world where the sun shines. So they did, and they settled it turning it's vast landscape into their own battle grounds. They fought with one another and all the others that tried to settle on their world. They were a warrior race, born as cruel masters of the weapons they wielded and instilled with a great ferocity for killing. After viewing the planet and it's inhabitants, they came and they left without a word leaving a package in sentient form.
Yet this is not the story of an entire race, one that during the Great Galactic War gets subjugated by a power hungry Darth, enslaved or turned over - no, this is simply the story of one in particular. A Slave, A Gladiator, An Alien, before he became Sith, before his destiny took shape. This is the story of Hirak the Rattataki before he left his homeworld.
It all started when he was a child, many years after he was abandoned on Rattatak to the northern tribes where Gladiatoral fighting was at it's fiercest, where blood sprayed and stained the darkened sandy coloured ground where even the greatest foes go to die. Hirak was but a young boy, merely seven. To a Rattataki, he had three more years left until he went out on his Kwemanan Jaeran, or rite of passage. At the tender age of ten, the Rattataki youth are tested by their tribe to see if they have what it takes to be consider one of the strong. In the Gladiatoral pits... this marked the age at which you could fight in the arena and the Arena Masters of his people would conduct the trials. It was a great honour for a slave to fight and to die in those pits, where they could make a name for themselves and not die alone covered in the arid dust of their homeworld, or to die in someone else's estate as a slave. The mind of the young Rattataki had always been concerned with fighting, he'd watch through the bars of the hovel he lived in down with the other younglings and see the other gladiators go out to fight, cutting through their enemies or opting to blast them with blaster fire, depending on what the crowd wanted to see.
The only solace Hirak took was in his friend Izasi. They would play together, run around and practice fighting. Hirak always won, he was far stronger than her - he had the blood about him that pumped a fury into his veins. They would always run around the dusty dunes of their pit suburbs, throwing rocks at unsuspecting wildlife before having to run off before they get mowed down by angered herds. Hirak was a cruel friend, often trying to provoke the female youngling to attack to try and make her stronger, but she could never always keep up. This frustrated him. He knew that their people would one day see her inability to adapt or find a way past her lacking strength as a sign of her being unfit for the arena. Her frailness always caused their owners to look down upon her. Some of them would mutter incoherently:-
'She will never become a gladiator. It's a waste to feed her.'
The ones the pair particularly worried about were two of the more bloodthirsty set of Guardians, the group of warriors that looked after the younger Rattataki that were trained to become gladiators one day. The lesser of the two was burly, his head bald like all of their race, his tattoos creeped around his face to make a sprawling sun. His name was Vrekiz. The other, slightly more lithe than him but no less dangerous had a similar tattoo was known as Mkarz. The symbol of their tribe, etched into their heads by one of the local Wikkjaz. Both were horrible creatures of pain and torment, and their favourite pastime was to focus all their hate on Izasi.
Hirak listened intently to their words and even at such a tender age he understood that the idea of waste in their culture often meant death. The weak die and the strong survive, that is how the Rattataki become who they were. Their land and their culture was only built on strength because no one could survive without it. Izasi was considered a freak, a weakling who was unlucky enough to survive birth. So, the sympathy of the young infected Hirak's mind. He planned with his friend to remove them both from the gladiatoral hovel that they lived in. When the guards had gotten drunk and fallen asleep, Hirak pushed open the gate and left, leading his female friend onwards past the hastily built walls that allowed the enclosure to pen in all it's occupants. They climbed up the walls, making sure to be as quiet as possible. Their small feet and hands clambered up the metallic dusty coloured walls, and like shadows they moved up it's angled inner face. Until they got to the top...
Mkarz and Vrekiz were waiting for them. They had only needed a chance, a reason to have Izasi killed. They only needed the slightest hint of betrayal to make sure that the weakling was put out without wasting time on putting her as bait in a Gladiator bout with beasts. The two fully grown Rattataki smirked.
"About time you made it up here, we were beginning to worry you'd never come... weakling."
Mkarz spoke first. He always did, the ringleader of the two and never without some twisted sense of pride in his dealings. Hirak had grown to hate him the most. Whilst Vrekiz said nothing, he hefted up a sharpened sword in his right hand and pointed it towards them threateningly.
"Get out of the way, boy. You're going to be a gladiator but this one will die. I'll not have my food shared with the likes of her!"
Mkarz growled out a guttoral threat. Hirak snarled, baring his teeth at the two of them as he took a step forward in front of Izasi as all four of them stood on the causeway settled neatly in the middle of the wall. Izasi shivered. She was cold, wary and scared. More scared than she ever had been in her life. Her mind raced with her eventual death, until she looked back towards Hirak, who despite being slightly taller than her stood in front to block her body out as he stared down the two older men. She noted his features, the slender frame and the muscle that had built up on the Rattataki child from labour. The Youth were made to work and in Hirak it had made his mind focused.
Mkarz laughed.
"Then you both die."
Mkarz always spoke in absolute truths. He motioned for Vrekiz to do the deed with a swift flick of his right hand, whilst his left picked up his own sword, and the other Rattataki trudged forward with his weapon held at the ready. As he got closer, Hirak's instincts took over. His right leg twisted on itself, much like a corkscrew and as Vrekiz came at him with his lumbering swift over head strike to cut down the two children to pieces, Hirak leaped as if he could see the opening right before his eyes. He sprung, like a little demon at the older Rattataki's chest, slamming into it and knocking the surprised adult over, toppling onto the ground from the force. By this time, Hirak had already used the one weapon open to him - his teeth. He began to chew through the males neck, ripping out the major artery in the adult's left side with one swift movement and snarl. Blood spurted out all over the pale skin of the child, as he spat out the flesh but not before he began to slam into Vrekiz' face to keep him from retaliating. The older male screamed and gurgled as blood poured out, pain and a sudden weakness causing him to drop the sword as his hands twitched. The child smashed his fists into the downed male's head, beating into him with a resolve. He'd not stop, he'd only continue until the life drained away from Vrekiz.
Mkarz on the other hand blinked and frowned with both surprise and disgust; how would Vrekiz be downed by a child? He snarled and came forward, raising his own weapon. Yet Mkarz was not like Vrekiz, he was swift and fast and younger than his colleague; he zoomed forward with speed. As the weapon came down towards Hirak, the smaller male could only look up with horror as he saw his own life flash before his eyes. But then he was falling to his side, toppling off the corpse of Vrekiz with a scream. As he hit the cold metallic slates of the walls upper terrace he heard a scream, a young girl's high pitched voice. He lifted his head to see the arm of Izasi bleeding, removed from her elbow on the ground next to him. She had pushed him out of the way, but lost her arm in the process. Hirak stood up, feeling his stomach up in his neck as fear swept over him to notice that Mkarz had missed him and continued onwards into the wall behind them after cutting Izasi's arm, both surprised and angered by her actions. He'd run into part of the walls' open section, impaling his leg onto it. A brief respite, until the other guards came up.
They grabbed both the girl and the boy, pulling them away. They screamed for each other, Izasi starting to pass out as one of the guards patched her arm. Mkarz screamed after the two of them:
"Lock them up! I'll get revenge I swear by the ancestors!"
He was clearly out raged, but his attempts had been noticed and yet both children had survived. By the laws of their people, they would not be killed this night. At least Vrekiz would cause no more problems and Mkarz alone was not enough to inspire a tale of 'escaping' trainees.
Hirak was chucked back into his hovel. He searched for Izasi all over but could not find her. With no idea where his best friend had gone, he sunk to his knees and wept. The other children peered at him out from the darkness, all the commotion having awoken them from their sleep. Hirak balled his fists and hit the ground. He had lost his friend for good...
Tales from Rattatak
Episode 1: Abandoned and Forgotten
Before them was an arid planet, from space it looked as if the world was nothing but craters, blackened desert with spattered variations of homesteads and little cities crawling around the hightened points of the world. A disgusting world, the only real way to truly describe some of such a nasty texture. Located nearer to the unknown regions than the Republic or the Sith Empire. It lay beyond the natural control of the Republic space allowing all manners of evil, horrid creatures to crawl out from every orifice of that space sector to lay claim to a vast wealth of slaves and gladiatorial combat. Yet only the natives truly understood the raw power of the nature that surrounded them. They were brought up with it, evolved from it, deep underground in their cities beneath the crust the Rattataki came to existence. They were pale skinned, tattoo'd all over and they favoured scars as a sense of story and progression. But beyond their tribal stages the Rattataki were eventually united by a Warlord who lead them to the surface to conquer the world where the sun shines. So they did, and they settled it turning it's vast landscape into their own battle grounds. They fought with one another and all the others that tried to settle on their world. They were a warrior race, born as cruel masters of the weapons they wielded and instilled with a great ferocity for killing. After viewing the planet and it's inhabitants, they came and they left without a word leaving a package in sentient form.
Yet this is not the story of an entire race, one that during the Great Galactic War gets subjugated by a power hungry Darth, enslaved or turned over - no, this is simply the story of one in particular. A Slave, A Gladiator, An Alien, before he became Sith, before his destiny took shape. This is the story of Hirak the Rattataki before he left his homeworld.
It all started when he was a child, many years after he was abandoned on Rattatak to the northern tribes where Gladiatoral fighting was at it's fiercest, where blood sprayed and stained the darkened sandy coloured ground where even the greatest foes go to die. Hirak was but a young boy, merely seven. To a Rattataki, he had three more years left until he went out on his Kwemanan Jaeran, or rite of passage. At the tender age of ten, the Rattataki youth are tested by their tribe to see if they have what it takes to be consider one of the strong. In the Gladiatoral pits... this marked the age at which you could fight in the arena and the Arena Masters of his people would conduct the trials. It was a great honour for a slave to fight and to die in those pits, where they could make a name for themselves and not die alone covered in the arid dust of their homeworld, or to die in someone else's estate as a slave. The mind of the young Rattataki had always been concerned with fighting, he'd watch through the bars of the hovel he lived in down with the other younglings and see the other gladiators go out to fight, cutting through their enemies or opting to blast them with blaster fire, depending on what the crowd wanted to see.
The only solace Hirak took was in his friend Izasi. They would play together, run around and practice fighting. Hirak always won, he was far stronger than her - he had the blood about him that pumped a fury into his veins. They would always run around the dusty dunes of their pit suburbs, throwing rocks at unsuspecting wildlife before having to run off before they get mowed down by angered herds. Hirak was a cruel friend, often trying to provoke the female youngling to attack to try and make her stronger, but she could never always keep up. This frustrated him. He knew that their people would one day see her inability to adapt or find a way past her lacking strength as a sign of her being unfit for the arena. Her frailness always caused their owners to look down upon her. Some of them would mutter incoherently:-
'She will never become a gladiator. It's a waste to feed her.'
The ones the pair particularly worried about were two of the more bloodthirsty set of Guardians, the group of warriors that looked after the younger Rattataki that were trained to become gladiators one day. The lesser of the two was burly, his head bald like all of their race, his tattoos creeped around his face to make a sprawling sun. His name was Vrekiz. The other, slightly more lithe than him but no less dangerous had a similar tattoo was known as Mkarz. The symbol of their tribe, etched into their heads by one of the local Wikkjaz. Both were horrible creatures of pain and torment, and their favourite pastime was to focus all their hate on Izasi.
Hirak listened intently to their words and even at such a tender age he understood that the idea of waste in their culture often meant death. The weak die and the strong survive, that is how the Rattataki become who they were. Their land and their culture was only built on strength because no one could survive without it. Izasi was considered a freak, a weakling who was unlucky enough to survive birth. So, the sympathy of the young infected Hirak's mind. He planned with his friend to remove them both from the gladiatoral hovel that they lived in. When the guards had gotten drunk and fallen asleep, Hirak pushed open the gate and left, leading his female friend onwards past the hastily built walls that allowed the enclosure to pen in all it's occupants. They climbed up the walls, making sure to be as quiet as possible. Their small feet and hands clambered up the metallic dusty coloured walls, and like shadows they moved up it's angled inner face. Until they got to the top...
Mkarz and Vrekiz were waiting for them. They had only needed a chance, a reason to have Izasi killed. They only needed the slightest hint of betrayal to make sure that the weakling was put out without wasting time on putting her as bait in a Gladiator bout with beasts. The two fully grown Rattataki smirked.
"About time you made it up here, we were beginning to worry you'd never come... weakling."
Mkarz spoke first. He always did, the ringleader of the two and never without some twisted sense of pride in his dealings. Hirak had grown to hate him the most. Whilst Vrekiz said nothing, he hefted up a sharpened sword in his right hand and pointed it towards them threateningly.
"Get out of the way, boy. You're going to be a gladiator but this one will die. I'll not have my food shared with the likes of her!"
Mkarz growled out a guttoral threat. Hirak snarled, baring his teeth at the two of them as he took a step forward in front of Izasi as all four of them stood on the causeway settled neatly in the middle of the wall. Izasi shivered. She was cold, wary and scared. More scared than she ever had been in her life. Her mind raced with her eventual death, until she looked back towards Hirak, who despite being slightly taller than her stood in front to block her body out as he stared down the two older men. She noted his features, the slender frame and the muscle that had built up on the Rattataki child from labour. The Youth were made to work and in Hirak it had made his mind focused.
Mkarz laughed.
"Then you both die."
Mkarz always spoke in absolute truths. He motioned for Vrekiz to do the deed with a swift flick of his right hand, whilst his left picked up his own sword, and the other Rattataki trudged forward with his weapon held at the ready. As he got closer, Hirak's instincts took over. His right leg twisted on itself, much like a corkscrew and as Vrekiz came at him with his lumbering swift over head strike to cut down the two children to pieces, Hirak leaped as if he could see the opening right before his eyes. He sprung, like a little demon at the older Rattataki's chest, slamming into it and knocking the surprised adult over, toppling onto the ground from the force. By this time, Hirak had already used the one weapon open to him - his teeth. He began to chew through the males neck, ripping out the major artery in the adult's left side with one swift movement and snarl. Blood spurted out all over the pale skin of the child, as he spat out the flesh but not before he began to slam into Vrekiz' face to keep him from retaliating. The older male screamed and gurgled as blood poured out, pain and a sudden weakness causing him to drop the sword as his hands twitched. The child smashed his fists into the downed male's head, beating into him with a resolve. He'd not stop, he'd only continue until the life drained away from Vrekiz.
Mkarz on the other hand blinked and frowned with both surprise and disgust; how would Vrekiz be downed by a child? He snarled and came forward, raising his own weapon. Yet Mkarz was not like Vrekiz, he was swift and fast and younger than his colleague; he zoomed forward with speed. As the weapon came down towards Hirak, the smaller male could only look up with horror as he saw his own life flash before his eyes. But then he was falling to his side, toppling off the corpse of Vrekiz with a scream. As he hit the cold metallic slates of the walls upper terrace he heard a scream, a young girl's high pitched voice. He lifted his head to see the arm of Izasi bleeding, removed from her elbow on the ground next to him. She had pushed him out of the way, but lost her arm in the process. Hirak stood up, feeling his stomach up in his neck as fear swept over him to notice that Mkarz had missed him and continued onwards into the wall behind them after cutting Izasi's arm, both surprised and angered by her actions. He'd run into part of the walls' open section, impaling his leg onto it. A brief respite, until the other guards came up.
They grabbed both the girl and the boy, pulling them away. They screamed for each other, Izasi starting to pass out as one of the guards patched her arm. Mkarz screamed after the two of them:
"Lock them up! I'll get revenge I swear by the ancestors!"
He was clearly out raged, but his attempts had been noticed and yet both children had survived. By the laws of their people, they would not be killed this night. At least Vrekiz would cause no more problems and Mkarz alone was not enough to inspire a tale of 'escaping' trainees.
Hirak was chucked back into his hovel. He searched for Izasi all over but could not find her. With no idea where his best friend had gone, he sunk to his knees and wept. The other children peered at him out from the darkness, all the commotion having awoken them from their sleep. Hirak balled his fists and hit the ground. He had lost his friend for good...
