A/N This is a fantasyverse fic to be clear. I know I probably won't a lot of attention for it.

Three hours.

That's how long Abram had waited in the tavern. Surrounded by the debauchery of alcohol and whores, and the last place he'd choose to be.

The man he was interviewing was rich almost beyond measure, yet, for some inexplicable reason, he chose this spot to meet in. It made no sense.

Perhaps this was a joke.

That thought made Abram grimace.

Abram wondered what would happen if he got up right then and left.

Undoubtedly his reputation would be destroyed given the nature of his subject's import.

Or would be if he had a reputation left to destroy. His time with General Maxwell had erased practically credibility within society in general and the order of Scribes. Everyone was surprised given the recent failures that he was the one picked to chronicle the life story of the man who'd rebuffed all the attempts his order had made to transcribe his story in the past.

So despite his anger, he'd stay put all night if he had to as thoroughly unappealing as that sounded. In the meantime, he'd read the second volume 'the classical application of musical theory' by Terry Farmer.

"Heya!" a deep scratchy voice shouted right beside Abram's ear, making him lose his book in shock.

Childish snickering accompanied his reaction, which flustered Abram, who turned around to tell off the speaker.

He opened his mouth but found himself unable to process words having realized who'd spoken.

He wore a simple brown shirt that went only to his elbows. He wore blue trousers with smudges of dirt. Abram was not short, but the man he was looking at easily towered over him. He had a slight paunch, but anyone could see the man was strong from the solid form of his arms, which had tribal tattoos that appeared to be that of golden chains. But what Abram paid attention was the man's long hair, which had begun to grey, and was held back by the bandana with a bull insignia.

There was a playful glint in his eye.

"Great-uniter," Abram whispered in shock.

The man smiled but waved his hand dismissively. "That's a too big title for one so small as me. Please just call me Lemy."

Abram blanched at the disbelief of such a statement. "Too big!? But you're you."

The Great-uniter scoffed. "Plenty of people had a hand in all the good stuff I get credit for. I frankly get a ton of undeserved praise."

"Don't nearly get I do deserve flack for the bad stuff I did have a hand in," he muttered, a brief flash of sadness coming on his face.

He then gave a bright smile. "Attention-soaker, that's what I should be called." the man then boomed with laughter.

"I think you'd be more apt called piss-soaker," a whore piped in across the tavern, which in turn had the bar erupt in laughter.

Abram was flabbergasted. Didn't these people know who they were laughing at was their lord? This was his land.

He could have them all executed with a snap of the fingers.

Instead of the man who got mocked, a man feared and respected by the world was taking as much amusement in his mockery as the other patrons. If anything, the great-uniter was laughing the hardest.

After his fits of laughter died down, he turned back to Abram. He held out an arm to the scribe.

"It's nice to meet you, Abram Abrams."

Abram clasped the hand retroactively; he immediately realized how unprofessional the action was.

Lemy Loud may have looked like a peasant, but he was a man more important than most kings in the world.

The large man took a seat on the other side of Abram.

"I am sorry for being late. I had some business I needed to do."

"It's of no consequence, my lord_."

The great-uniter waved his hand dismissively. "Again, just call me Lemy."

Abram grimaced at the suggestion of Informality.

"It's of no consequence Lemy."

The great-uniter smiled. "I hope my story is enough to be worthy enough for you."

Abram wondered if he was being mocked. But the Great-uniter face showed only sincerity in his words.

His eyes flickered to the other patrons, who'd stopped what they were doing to watch the exchange.

"Do you wish to do this in private?" Abram whispered.

The great-uniter turned to the other patrons. "All of you leave right now."

No one moved. "Yeah, we're not doing that," the whore who spoke earlier said.

The great-uniter shrugged. "I'm sorry Abram looks like we're going to have to do this publicly," he said with a smirk.

Abram sighed but got out his parchments.

"Whenever you're ready." the scribe said.

I was born free on the plains of what most people would call Bull's land.

The name seems self-explanatory as to why'd people call it that.

Though to my people, it was only home.

My people called themselves the Loud tail latches.

We were one of the dozens of tribes that had lived on the land.

I think around the age of nine or maybe ten; I went on my first big hunt. Of course, I'd captured small game before birds, rabbits, I even caught an elk once though admittedly it was small and weak.

One day I decided I'd like to play with the men and big boys. No one came for me.

I just said I'd be going along.

I remembered feeling so excited after the hunt. I had even help land the killing blow on a particularly big Buffalo, and I was feeling prideful as young boys are when they think they did something important involving violence.

It was awesome. I was a big man now.

I felt this way until the hunting party I went with came back to the camp.

"We're so sorry we've only got such a small bit of meat," Lincoln hollowed in utter despair. He dropped to his knees and pounded the brown dirt grassland with a mighty fist. Lincoln was jokingly referred to as 'white-rabbit,' given his pale white-hair and overbite.

The man was also my father.

That did not mean much to me.

Parents in my tribe did not own their children, nor did parents feel the need to call for hard respect out of the relation. Lincoln was a genuinely lovely guy, a respectable hunter, which was a good reason for women, including my mother, to choose him as a mate. But in my tribe, everyone was family, so I saw no reason to see him differently.

Lincoln was his person, and so was I.

The tribe's elders examined the quality and quantity of the meat they would divide up around camp. My eyes flickered to the bison that we brought back. The fat would nourish the tribe, and would certain everyone ate well that night. It was purely practical for Lincoln to mock what we brought in. My tribe had this maxim: 'A man with a big head will crack his neck and squash those around him.'

So for every hunt, no matter what was brought, one was supposed to mock it.

If not, others in the tribe would do you a favor, and they'd typically be much harsher in their rhetoric.

Everyone who took part in the hunt did this since no single person could genuinely speak for the other.

"A newborn babe could have brought in more. I'm so sorry," I howled when it was my turn. I dropped backward and bawled out my eyes, much to the giggles of everyone watching.

Elder Lynn, my grandfather, sighed. "I guess this poultry sum will do. You should try to be better next time, however!"

With that declaration, the women and girls began lugging the carcass away to start making use of the Buffalo.

With the day's work done on our part, I wanted to start roaming and playing with the other children.

Before I could go, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I turned around, and I saw Lyra, one of my older sisters, and the daughter of Luna, my mother.

"How was it? Lemy, are you ok?" Lyra asked.

I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. If I was hurt, wouldn't I have said so and asked to see the main healer?

Lyra was a weird one in our tribe. She had this peculiar notion by having come out Luna; first, she needed to continually check up on me, and tell me what to do and act as if she had any authority over me. No one else was acted this way, far as I observed, and it was entirely inappropriate. Luna said my sister had gotten fixated with me when I had become sick with Salaria, which looked terrible enough to end me. However, that was years ago; surely, if I had any of the sicknesses, I'd probably be dead by now.

My tribe was not cold to each other, far from it. If someone asked for aid, you'd find no shortage of volunteers. I had helped cheer up younger of our tribe if I was closest when I heard their cries.

But again, I trusted that people would tell me what was wrong and say something was wrong if they needed my help. Why would someone ask for help and not truly need it? Why wouldn't they say anything? There was no great shame in it.

So Lyra's continued check-ups on me was odd.; even Luna, who in my view was spectacular, hadn'tdotted on me as much as Lyra. Luna was the story-singer in the tribe, one who'd regale of us with stories of our past our gods and the reason for the world being the way it was. She was the best singer in the world as far as I'm concerned and one who was always eager to play. She was smart and talented and taught me to sing.

I remember her helping me make my first play hut with Lyra.

But even our mother had understood my independence.

Lyra didn't.

If, for example, I decided to sleep in the forest by myself, as was my right, Lyra would track me down and told me to come back to a hut to sleep with her.

I could have said no.

But I'd always say yes.

Once in a hut, she'd wrap me around with her and trap me in her loving embrace. She had this wicked little trick where'd she hook her leg around me, press her body, and cover against me. I had little choice to fall asleep then. She was soft and warm, quite frankly sometimes when I was drifting off Inwondered why exactly I wanted to be away from that.

I once said I didn't want to sleep with her. But the look of hurt on her face at the refusal made me quickly recant.

I loved Lyra. She was the one who'd played most often with me when I was little, sung to me most whenever I had a bad dream and was the one I turned to whenever I was scared-when I was little, of course.

So I chose to humor her peculiar nature.

"Yes, Lyra, I'm fine; you don't need to worry," I replied.

She smiled in response. "Thank the gods! I made a prayer to Enuch that you'd be such."

Enuch was the god of hunting to my people. A smart little squirrel who'd managed to capture prey thousands of times its sizes using his wits.

The god was always a sordid prankster who turned the sky dark every day just to watch us fumble around.

He was my favorite god.

He also enacted a horrific price for whenever the prayers sent his way were answered.

"Thanks. I'm going to try not to laugh too hard when you do the squirrel dance." I said, snickering already.

The squirrel dance was a ritual a person must do when Enuch answers a prayer.

People would have pushed their teeth on their lip and hopped around camp like a squirrel at dinner time.

Lyra gave a hearty and beautiful laugh, which in turn got me laughing.

When we stopped, Lyra gave my arm one last squeeze before joining the other women in making use of the carcasses.

I ran to meet the other boys and girls who'd met in the field. One was my older sister. Her name was Lupa.

She'd adopted our father's white hair.

We wrestled for a bit, to the laughter of those around us.

I thought I was making some real progress in finally beating her until she found her elbow in my back, while I found my face in the dirt.

"Draw?" I offered graciously.

"Nah," she responded tepidly.

"All right, I give up. Now let me up," I said.

Lupa got up and offered me her hand. I accepted it and lugged myself up.

I then asked an important question. "What's the game?"

"Hunters and Prey," Lupa chirped.

I grinned. That was my favorite game. The game was simple enough. One person hides while the other players hunt him or her. When/if found, the prey must scurry back to camp before three hunters touch them, making the game into a draw.

"I call prey!" I pronounced quickly. The rest of the group nodded; they closed their eyes and prepared to count to one hundred.

I knew the perfect hiding spots and the best ways to cover my tracks.

I got under a bush, fully confident that no one would find me.

"This is a pretty good spot," Lupa said right beside spooking me. She poked me.

Though Hunter and Prey was my favorite game, it was Lupa who'd excelled at it.

She was usually the one who found me.

She flicked me on the nose.

I got up and began running back to camp.

"Prey spotted," Lupa hollered, alerting the other children.

All the other hunters came over, Lacy, the fastest of us, tackled me to the ground, and Lemorya a girl, one of the youngest, managed to give a slight slap to my head.

"We got you!" she cried ecstatically. She gave a little dance that I thought was adorable.

I could not help but smile.

"Yeah, you got me," not saddened at having lost. It was just a game, after all.

At feasting time, Lyra made good on her bargain with Enuch and danced the squirel dance around camp.

Much to the chagrin of everyone else.

She came to by me afterwards. We gorged on the buffalo soup, which had been drenched with the berries the women had picked.

Eventually Luna got up in front of the tribe and began singing tales of our history.

Of how man was once flowers that got bored standing around all the time. Our flowery ancestors were jealous of the other creatures of the earth who roamed and played freely.

The flowers prayed to Enichi, the Goddess of shapes, the one who made all things of the world and the world. They begged the Goddess to give them new forms. Enichi was kind, so she granted our wish.

After her song, she sat with Lyra and me.

"You know I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't have been more specific in our prayers, she lamented, "Like imagine if we had wings. Life would be so much more awesome,"

I grinned. "I'd ask for big horns like a Buffalo. I could swoop down and scour prey,"

Luna smiled and pointed to me. "I like the way you think, boy," she moved her finger to Lyra. "What about you?"

My older sister scratched her chin. Her eyes widened, and she pointed upwards.

There was a metal square hovering over us.

Ten massive figures came out of a hole in it. They landed a couple of feet away from us.

They stood like men. They were hulking and pure shiny grey; their eyes were pupils and bluer than the brightest sky.

The creatures raised their hands, and blue light emitted from the palm of its grip.

Beams shot out, melting my homes and some of the family. Among them, Luna.

Lyra got me up in her arms like I was little and ran.

A beam had come our way, but before it could reach us, Lincoln intercepted it, throwing himself in front of it.

He saved our lives.

I watched Lupa fall to her knees at the remains of our father. She always did like Lincoln more than me.

Lupa's mother, Lucy, tried dragging her daughter up to run, but before she could, they were shot.

The last memory I'd ever have of Lupa, my brave white-haired sister, who never seemed to let anything get her down, was her crying in grief and terror.

I was more confused than horrified at the carnage I was witnessing.

We were not warriors. We were peaceful. We never hurt anyone, so why would they hurt us? It made no sense.

Some of the creatures jumped and got between us and the forest. They lit the forest pathway on fire. They circled us and proceeded to exterminate most of us.

Only a couple of us, ten, including me, didn't get murdered. The other survivors we're my older female cousins, and Lyra and Lupa.

One of the creatures reached towards its' head and started removing it.

It was a man. He had short blonde hair and a cleft chin, but he just a man.

He went walking up to Lyra and me.

He yanked me from her arms.

Lyra fell to her knees and begged the man who'd massacred our family for mercy. Not for her. But for me.

He paid her no mind as he examined me.

He gave the nod.

And other men came forward and grabbed the last remnants of my family. I could hear their laughter and snigger underneath their helmets, remembered how they fondled their breasts.

All this time, Lyra kept begging for me.

They took us up to the thing that had brought them to my family's home. The corridors were well lit with light though I could see no fire, the walls were silver grey,.

I begged to be with sister and cousins, but at best, my pleas were ignored or met with slaps.

They put me in a room with a large bed and a five women. They scrubbed my body with towels so hard hard I thought my skin would peel over. They drenched me with this liquid that smelt sweet.

They then cut my hair.

I did not even try resisting.

I could not say I felt shame at the moment. The utter fear eclipsed any emotion I could have.

I didn't want to die.

The blonde man came by with a woman with a white coat. He didn't wear the thing he used to murder my family. Just a simple white shirt and made sordid gestures towards my tats.

Everyone in my tribe got tattooed to express themselves when they got old enough to bear the sting of it.

I'd gotten mine was a couple of months ago. Lyra went with me though I didn't ask her to. She held my hand.

I felt a moment of relief that they couldn't get rid of the tattoos even though they disliked them. Unlike hair, ink melded onto skin was supposed to be permanent.

I was wrong.

The quickest, most effective way to remove a tattoo is through burning the skin it's attached to it.

I had my arms chained over a table.

The woman got a hot metal bar. I knew that could only mean pain.

"Please don't," I whispered meekly,

The woman pressed the iron to my left arm first and started the process of burning away my ink.

Through my fits of pain, I cried for mercy, said I'd do anything, be anything if she just stopped.

She didn't stop

I then turned my pleas elsewhere.

I did not call for the help of a God, or the elders or Lincoln, or even Luna.

I called for Lyra.