Welcome to Gaia! ::

Agares was a very quiet and reserved foal, though he still found himself playing with the other youngsters from time to time. He was very inquisitive and snuck away from his parents often to explore. One evening he ventured a little farther than normal, and heard strange sounds coming from a clearing. There was a flickering light and strange smells that freighted the young colt, but curiosity got the better of him. He crept around some bushes and found himself in what seemed an entirely different world. Flames rose high into the sky and strange smoke filled the clearing. There were many colors and a strange sensation rushed through the foal. He panicked and tried to run, but was disoriented and confused. His senses her overwhelmed and the next thing he knew, darkness was descending upon him. In those last moments of consciousness he saw the color filter out of his world and a strange creature approaching him.

He awoke slowly, his head feeling thick and fuzzy. He let his eyes drift before raising his head, but found himself blinking harder and harder, trying to understand why he could only see grey and white and black. There was no light, as though the sun and moon did not exist and he started to panic. He felt soothing hands upon his flank and turned his head to see that strange creature again. It walked on two legs and was almost completely furless. He wanted to be afraid, but the creature was making a soothing noise that calmed the foal. He relaxed and let the two legger stroke him gently for a long time. Agares had no concept of time anymore since he couldn’t tell what part of the day it was. He hoped his mother wasn’t too worried about him. He stood finally and gazed at the two legger for a few lingering moments before leaving to find his mother. He felt a strange connection with the creature, and knew he’d be seeing it again.

When he returned to his family he found that his mother HAD been terribly worried. She rushed to him and nuzzled him and scolded him. He nuzzled her back and apologized, but suddenly his mother took a step back from him, her eyes wide. She demanded to know what had happened. She told him his eyes were all white now, and asked him if he had seen a two legger. When he told her the tale, she nodded thoughtfully and gazed in the direction of the clearing. After a long pause she told him to go to bed. She refused to speak of the incident anymore.

It wasn’t long before Agares started to see soquili that were no longer living. The first time it happened he was frightened and ran away from it. As it happened more and more he started to learn how to tell the difference, though he was far from perfect at it. He mostly tried to ignore them and kept to himself. If he was a withdrawn colt, he was a downright distant stallion. He rarely spoke, and chose to keep to himself. As Agares grew up he learned to deal with his new lightless sight. He observed the behavior of other creatures to determine when it was day or night and tried to live in peace with the other soquili around him, if at a distance from them. After a while, however, he simply preferred to be alone and left the lands to make a solitary place for himself. He never strayed too far, however, as he visited the two-legger that had inadvertently cursed him that fateful night.

Agares is something of a solemn stallion who speaks little. His eyes appear blind, but in fact he can see things in a very different way than most soquili. As a foal he stumbled upon a two-legger shaman's ritual and interrupted it by mistake. As a result he was cursed to no longer see "reality", but to see the world as it appears in the spirit realm. He is colorblind, and sometimes even sees soquili that had passed on. Also, the sense of light and dark or day and night is gone. It is as though the entire world is cast in a gray light that allows him to see in the dark. Because of this strangeness he usually avoids other soquili and prefers to be out at night when most others are sleeping. The two-legger that had inadvertently cursed him has become a favorite companion to Agares.

Some time had passed since the dissolution of the great kalona herd that had rampaged through the kawani lands. Things were much quieter now. There was no long death on a daily basis - at least not the death of her friends and family members. There was no longer wanton massacre and senseless violence. In this sense, Wretch had to believe that things were better now. When the ripple of dissent had coursed through the herd, she was one of those who ended up turning on the kaona herd. She'd had enough of constant war, of death, of fear of being "made example of" by the great protector if she disagreed. That, more than anything, had swayed her against the great herd.

Wretch was no unquestioning follower.

Still, she had no desire to help harm any of her fellow kalona, nor to help the impure scum attacking them. So she merely refused to fight, fleeing into the mountains. She attacked and killed any of the non-kalona she found in her path, leaving the kalona alone. She felt pangs of guilt that some of her friends may be dying because she was not there helping them, but she'd made a choice.

Still, she felt the pangs of loneliness as she traveled, wandering the lands in search of a home and companionship. She missed the gathering of kalona like her, the community that it had created in the beginning. She wondered if she would find that sort of feeling again -without the constant bloodshed.