Before a warrior bears the sword, he must first endure the storm.
I. The Birth of a Tempest
Long before Cyron took his first breath, a night of lightning and memory bound his parents' fates together.
A Flash of White Fire
It was the height of summer, and the city of Marinth lay sweltering beneath an unending sun. Farmers wilted in the fields; priests begged the sky for mercy. No rain had fallen in months. The riverbed cracked like a parched tongue. Only one soul found beauty in that relentless heat.
She was Amara, daughter of a humble scribe. Every morning before dawn, she stole away to the river's dry bank, ink-stained fingers clutching scrolls of her father's lost histories. There she read aloud, her voice echoing off empty stone. She believed stories could summon water.
On the night of the Festival of Remembrance, Amara stood reciting the Legend of the First Storm—when the world was young and the heavens wept for joy. As she spoke the final line ("And from that weeping, Gaius—the Storm's Memory—was born"), a single cloud cracked open above her. A bolt of white fire split the sky, illuminating her face with otherworldly light.
When Amara's voice faltered, a figure stood at her side.
He was tall, his hair the color of a gathering tempest, eyes glowing with distant thunder. No rain fell upon him; instead, his presence seemed to draw moisture from the air. He held out a single drop of water suspended in midair, like a jewel.
"You called me," he said, voice low and resonant, "though you did not know my name."
Her heart stuttered. She bowed, trembling. "I—I speak of history, of gods long gone. I meant no calling."
He smiled—a flash of lightning across his ivory cheeks. "Memory is no idle thing. Words bear power."
He taught her then that night how to remember storms long past, how each drop of rain carried a story. And in the hush that followed, as the cloud drifted away and the earth sighed with relief, something stirred within Amara: a longing beyond mortal reach.
II. The Child of Thunder
Nine months later, Cyron was born at the first thunderclap of winter. The midwife found him swaddled in blankets streaked with blue sparks rather than blood. He wailed, and frost formed on the cradle's edges.
From his earliest days, Cyron knew two things: the comfort of his mother's arms and the echo of distant storms calling him home.
The Whisper of Rain
At three, he chased shadows of rainbows in the courtyard, his laughter weaving patterns in the mist. Neighbors said the ground bloomed where his tiny feet touched—flowers that drank from the morning dew and bowed before him.
Amara noticed how, when she sang lullabies of the river's ancient waters, the room filled with a soft patter as if raindrops tapped on the windowpanes. Yet outside, the sky was clear.
The Weight of Memory
By six, Cyron could recall scenes he had never witnessed: the first lightning strike on the primal world, the tears of the earth after the Great Sundering, the brief, radiant birth of Gaius himself. He spoke these visions in sleep, startling his parents with names and colors that should have been lost to time.
Amara and Gaius realized then the truth: their son carried both his father's gift and his curse. He was, in essence, a living conduit for the Storm God's memories—sea-change and sacrifice woven into flesh.
III. Trial by Tempest
On the morning of his tenth birthday, a storm rolled over Marinth—a phenomenon unseen in centuries. Black clouds roared like a hundred lions. Amara clutched Cyron's hand as wind shattered shutters and walls trembled.
Gaius emerged from the tempest, standing at the city's edge. His cloak billowed behind him, a living storm. He beckoned Cyron forth.
"Show me what you have learned, child of memory," he commanded.
Amara knelt, covering Cyron's eyes. "You must choose," she whispered. "Embrace his legacy… or forsake it."
Cyron nodded once, resolute. He stepped into the rain. Instantly, panic seized the crowd: lightning forked around him, thunder cracked under his feet. Yet he stood, arms stretched wide.
He closed his eyes, inhaled the scent of ozone and wet earth. In his mind's eye, he saw every storm that had ever been—each gust, each downpour, each tumultuous gale. He reached out, plucked a single droplet from the air, and spoke its memory:
"The first rain fell for sorrow… and thus the world learned compassion."
The storm stilled in mid-scream. Clouds froze like inkblots, thunder paused mid–rumble. Then, gently, as if satisfied, the sky wept. Soft rain washed over the city. Windows no longer shuddered; walls no longer groaned. Only the drip of water on stone remained.
Gaius placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "Then you are ready," he said. "To carry the storms—both raging and gentle."
IV. The Call to Journey
In the days that followed, Marinth celebrated Cyron as a miracle. Merchants offered gifts; priests chanted prayers. But Cyron felt restless, as if bound by invisible chains of expectation.
At fifteen, he stole away at dawn, leaving a note for his mother:
I must learn the secrets beyond memory. I must walk where the storms are born. Do not seek me.
He carried three things: a battered journal of storm-lore; his father's spear—a long, slender shaft carved with runes of thunder; and a vial containing the first drop of rain he ever summoned.
His path led northward, following legends etched in crumbling maps: the Ruins of Whispers, where the wind still spoke in ancient tongues; the Mountains of Eternal Gales, whose peaks cut into the sky; and beyond, the Forges of the First Cloud, where it was said Gaius himself had shaped the first lightning bolt.
Along the way, he learned to temper a storm's fury. He saved a village from a flood by diverting a river's memory back into the ground. He calmed a desolate field cursed by drought, coaxing dew from the blades of grass. He faced creatures born of tempest—roc-winged leviathans and thunder-toads—but each time he remembered their place in the world's unfolding, and they bowed before him.
But with every triumph came a toll. The deeper he pressed into storm-blasted lands, the more he tasted the tragedy in each memory: cities lost to tidal waves, forests aflame with lightning's vengeance, gods lamenting the very powers they had unleashed.
In his journal, he wrote:
To remember is to bleed history. I carry the scars of a million storms. Yet I cannot look away.
V. The Horizon of Fate
Now, on the eve of his twentieth year, Cyron stands before the Canyon of Echoed Roar—an immense chasm carved by a tempest so fierce the bedrock was split in two. Ahead lies the Temple of Forgotten Rains, where the next hero is said to awaken.
He pauses at the canyon's edge, spear in hand, wind whipping his cloak into a banner of promise and warning.
As lightning arcs across the black sky, Cyron closes his eyes and listens: the distant laughter of Vornyx on a medieval moor; the shattering grief of Elirah's broken visions; the echo of Vaelith's grain-burning fields; the distant hum of Dravik's mechanized heart.
He breathes in and speaks to the storm:
"I am memory made flesh. Guide me beyond what I have seen."
Lightning answers by striking his spear, imbuing it with crackling energy. Cyron lifts it high, letting the electric hum weave around him like a rite. Then, with one step—just one—he plunges across the abyss.