It's an old story, a good story, and you know it by heart: he was born among the dockworkers, the sweating, gasping work-gangs who load Lookshy's massive merchant-ships. He was born in a place of black mud and emerald green reeds. He was born among your kind and he was, to the ignorant eye, cast in your mold. But the whispers of ancestral dragons slithered through his veins, the murmurs of brooding serpents; a trickle of saltwater from the Western Ocean, The Sea that Quenches the Sun. And one day those whispers rose to a roar and spoke so loud, with a voice of thunder, and the seeming-slave was transformed. Sapphire scales swimming out of his flesh, the power of the Dragons protecting their Chosen from the blows of lesser men and unworthy masters. With their power he became a pirate-king of the Yanaze, a spiteful, careless laugh tossed in the face of the City. A lesson given from on high.
First the Encrypted Ones were sent against him, but they failed for he stood above so many of them in the cyclic coils of reincarnation and was outside their mandate. Then, ships were sent against him and they failed, for how could the wrath of the waters be undone by mere wood and linen and jadesteel? Great generals were readied, an army was raised and the garrisons of the City marshalled but then, amidst the chaos and confusion a wise archoness counseled careful contemplation; consideration of Daana'd's teachings. And the Conclave knew her strategy was sound and acquiesced to her designs.
Thirdly the City sent a woman to him, beautiful and perfect in every way. And she took him as a husband and he took her as a wife and, thusly completed, he sailed his armada back to the gates of the City and humbly sought their pardon, for he now knew the truth of himself. A Lost Egg, lead astray by the licentious lies of slaves, born to believe he was a helot.
His name is Damianos Afion Peritaxikhon. Aspect of the Element Water. Lord of Gens Afia. He is of the City, one of its great regents. He is of the City and is forever above those scarred, whipped masses that birthed him.
