MORT X AZURA
Mort's Backstory
Mort grew up in a seafaring town, with a modest port, big enough to live well but small enough to remain quaint. His father was a merchant sailor, and his mother was always frail, so his childhood home was close, but still a bit of a distance away from the town proper, more in the outlying forest than anything, so that she had cleaner air to breathe in was the intention.
This is likely part of why he likes living with Azura to be honest, as it reminds him of home, especially since his mother had a pretty garden and had learn a lot about plants from her and such. It wasn't that big of a home, but it was cozy and nice. Mort would go down to the village for school as well as for helping his father prep his boats, and often going out with him on seafaring trips, often to just nearby towns, but it was regularly enough that he got good sea legs and an eye for the ocean's fickle moods. Later on Mort realised the intent of these trips was mostly to keep Mort out of his wife's hair so she could rest properly. Unfortunately for Mort, his powers started to manifest very young, resulting in the village kids to get really scared, as it had first manifested in town and of course couldn't control it too well at first which led to incidents like rotting food he was holding, or rusting metal he was touching. He immediately set aside dedicated time to practice his powers as he wanted to be able to control it well, due to him being scared that he might hurt his mum, and over the next few months gained pretty good basic control over it. But the village kids didn't care if he could control it or not, they were scared regardless, to retaliate they started to pick on him. Nothing too serious at first, but the more they got away with, and the more they saw he wouldn't fight back, the further incentivised they were to continue their behaviour and to become harsher and harsher. Things being thrown at him when he went into town, food being stolen, damaging his father's ships or messing up his tasks on a ship so that he looked bad, were simple and Mort assumed they would get bored if he showed no reaction. He was wrong. The bullying escalated with fury, leading to regular beatings, setting his clothes alight, being locked in a barrel of horse piss and then being rolled down a hill, attempts at stoning him to death, ambushing him on his way home and creating dangerous pitfalls for him to fall into, attempting to drown him and essentially just do permanent damage. Mort refused to retaliate as he was scared of hurting someone, already aware that his powers could harm, and so he tried to be as non-confrontational as possible, despite now being aware that it only further encouraged the bullies to be more cruel by not reacting to them. But rumours kept spreading and getting worse, partly to validate why they bullied him, and partly because he was already a bit of an outcast and people were dying to gossip about him thus the rumours flew. It did not help the less he reacted, secretly, the more the bullies became afraid of him. Many a time Mort was saved from them by some sailors intervening that knew Mort, but he wasn't always lucky with finding a sailor or two to protect him. During all this his mother had got really sick, which was another reason why the kids were so scared, as there had been a disease going through the town, many adults were sick, and some of the kids were sick, unfortunately due to the complicated nature of Mort's power, they let their imaginations get away from themselves and thought that Mort might be the cause of the plague so they took out their frustration and helplessness on him. With time those emotions just blew out of proportion thus they started to attempt to kill him to try and make the potentially deadly disease go away. And at one point, he didn't mean to, but his power activated on accident and he ended up melting a young girl's arm off, during one of these attacks by the bullies, but all of a sudden the townsfolk in general had turned on him, he was no longer a victim, and clearly the rumours were true, leading to him having to leave school due to stones being thrown at him every time he attempted to go into town. Meanwhile the dad had been losing money as it had been so expensive to get sailors to man his ships now due to limited relatively healthy workforce, and his wife is remarkably sick, much worse than the majority of the villagers due to her weak health, many of the villagers later got better on their own even. So he starts looking into ways he could make more money to pay for medical bills and all, and one thing the town lawyer mentioned was that if his wife dies from the disease, at least he'd get a lot of money to ease the suffering of the loss. This gave Mort's father, who at this point was already somewhat mad with grief, an awful idea. So he took his son on a sailing trip as per usual, but part way through the trip, not too far out of port even, the ship caught alight, and essentially the story was that it started in the captain's cabin because his son had been messing about with the candles, and everyone in town knew that kid was a troublemaker so it was believed but what actually happened was his father tied him up and covered him in wood and set his own cabin alight because of the money he'd get from his child's death, which then his wife would be able to get better because he'd have enough money for more treatment then, then finally she'd recover and be well again, or so the father thought to himself. He was very careful with this plan, only told his first mate about it, who would be getting a hefty cut of the money from helping him enact his plan. Mort wakes up from being knocked out in the cabin, and ends up hearing his father having a conversation outside with his first mate "I still can't believe you're ok with this" "Whaaaat? I'm just saving my wife, do you realise how much money I'll make from this?" "But he's your son" "If he was really my son, he wouldn't cause so much trouble in town. No, that thing is a fake, I've talked with a travelling soothsayer and they said that he wasn't my son, but a changeling. All I've seen is further evidence to that with how much trouble he makes. I'm doing the world a favour." "Yes well it would be good riddance, did you know my son got beat up by him (he didn't, twas a lie from this kid another falsified rumour) a few times? Just wanted to make sure you wouldn't regret it. Even if he's a devil, he's still your son, and he's only what, six?" "Look, all I care about is making as much money as I can from this so I can save my wife." "Let's get to the rescue boats then, you sure he can't escape?" "Positive, I knocked him out with a sedative tea so even if they find his body, they can't say it was on purpose. And he's all tied up in rope and wood. Plus the fire started there, who can escape fire?" And Mort just feels so betrayed and hurt even his own father believes the rumours. They then leave and he's stuck there, however his powers activate due to how upset he is, and go a fair bit out of control so that his restraints disintegrate, and the floor breaks, so he's stuck in the hull instead, no longer close to the fire. The danger was not over however, as he could not swim, most of the sailor's couldn't, so he starts to drown in the hull as the ship is taking on water due to his power initially breaking through the floor, which left the sides of the hull weakened enough to take on water at an increasingly rapid pace as the pressure on the wood builds. Mort panics and activates his powers again, albeit crudely and in pathetic little bursts like a fire desperately trying to stay alive despite a howling wind. Thus it did not work effectively, broke the hull, but left him stuck under debris. Now he should've died at this point, but thankfully one of the local deities, the kia whose fur looks like a portal to the ocean, has a fondness for saving people from shipwrecks, and uses the ocean currents and local fish to locate and save as many as they can. Resulting in Mort being found, pulled ashore, and gets assistance in getting the water out of his lungs. He comes away from the intentional attempted murder fairly unscathed, some smoke inhalation, bunch of minor cuts and scratches, and a plethora of bruises, but ends up ashore a fair bit away from his sea town. His father gets the money he wanted, whilst Mort recuperates near the ocean, with the assistance from the ocean kia, making sure he was fed, scratches cleaned regularly until healed and all. Once he's better he immediately goes to his mother, receiving guidance from the ocean kia on how to get home, to find out that she was still unwell, didn't know of the plan, but has since got an idea of it so she at first comforts Mort giving him lots of cuddles, but tells him he needs to hide, so promptly hides him. Which turns out to be easy cause his father is mostly on a boat all the time, and so Mort is really happy and forgets about what his dad did for a while, his mother trying her best to help him forget too, and he just enjoys life for a while because he's just simply living with his mum all the time. For the next year or so its all good, but over time she is getting more sickly, so Mort decides to go off and find this flower he's heard about from his mum's stories. So for the next two or so years he looks for the flowers, going on a fairly long journey in order to do so, and does end up finding one, but almost immediately after meets Mysti, who is also searching for the flower. They chatted and Mysti shared her food with him, he was touched by how kind she was, how she helped him when he was starving, without asking for anything in return, despite her needing the flower as well. During their chat he hears her story and decides "Well they sound like they've had a harder time," so gave the flower the Mysti, plus he knew that's what his mother would've wanted anyways. Besides, she wasn't THAT unwell, she was very sick, but not as sick as this other kiamara's relatives so he decided to just find another flower. It shouldn't be that hard to find a secound. It's after this point that Mort runs into a string of bad luck and misfortune unfortunately. Some others who wanted a flower had noticed he'd found one already, so stalked him, and when he found another, which took about another year, he was ambushed and had it taken from him. All these emotions and feelings he'd been suppressing until then suddenly rose up with his anger at being stolen from, resulting in him feeling endlessly angry at everything all of a sudden and turned on his attackers, using his powers to hurt them like they hurt him. His powers without restraint ended up killing them all, but also wilted the flower. But at this point he didn't really care as he'd just decided to just take his mum away from that awful village, and they could find another flower together. So he started home, which took some time, he is around ten years old at this point, but when he got home his mother was too sick to move, and so he decided to stay by her side, it was too late to get another flower. Mort couldn't hang around too much despite his want to be by her side, as his dad had moved in and cared for his wife around the clock, but he didn't leave entirely because something felt odd about his dad. Almost too late he realised his dad had started poisoning his wife, as he was going bankrupt and was now blaming it all on her, he regretted killing his son and it was all her fault, she's a witch that turned his mind and made him kill his son. The least she can do is die so that he can get more money to make up for his loss. |
Mort found this out by both watching his dad make his mum's food and medicine, and also reading his dad's journal.
He was seeing red at this point with anger because, What the hell dad you weren't happy with just me, you decided to kill mum too?
And his power just went out of control and exploded; disintegrating the garden, the house, his dad, and a whole bunch of the surrounds, and when he'd calmed down a bit, he realised he'd also killed his mum.
Mort instantly went from anger to feeling just dead and cold inside because he'd hurt someone he'd loved, and never wanted to hurt, and suddenly he hated his power, the world and everything.
"What do you want from me world? Why did I survive then if not to save her? What good am I to anyone..." and then fell into a grieving heap upon the ruins of his home.
After grieving without pause for a long time, goes without eating, barely drinking at all, ending up in a half delirious half dissociative state, and goes "Oh yeah, there's doctors in town, if I ask the townsfolk for her they can heal her!"
Thus he stumbles into town, hadn't really formed an idea of what he'd do after that, but if he asks them for help they should help right? Sadly that does not happen. The townsfolk at first react with suspicion, distance and caution, watching him as he made his way to the medical facility in town, then their reaction turned foul. Fear and hate had a wedding that day in that town.
Thwack. Mort turned in disbelief to see many of the townsfolk were right there, having gathered makeshift weapons, the thwack had been the stick of a broom coming down on his back from one particularly forward villager, "Demon!"
Mort's eyes widened in confusion not comprehending what was happening, before he could process it, they came at him, hurting every part of him they could reach, screaming hateful scorn, resolute in their cries of 'demon' that the whole crowd had now taken up into repeating, with the loudest yell rising above it all with a chilling "Kill it! Don't let it get away!"
Feeling the panic rise into his throat Mort begged the crowd, "Please stop, please." and as the ruthless crowd continued its attack Mort started to sob, "Stop I'm begging you, I don't want it to happen again." His power was surging inside him, and he was struggling to keep it contained, at this point, a young girl grabbed at his hair, and he cried out, unintentionally his power was released for a moment, and in an instant the girl's arm was no more.
If the crowd could be at all reasoned with before, there was no hope in that now, what had been words became wordless cries of outrage, and shrill shrieks, one of his old bullies came forward and spat in his face whilst saying, "I knew it! You were always evil! I was right, the other kids felt bad for you once, thinking we went too far, but I knew we should've made sure to find your body, to cut it up and burn it, you were a witches son after all!"
Mort had enough. Something in him broke.
"Fine then. I'll be the evil you want me to be."
He stopped holding his power back, and let it lose control, they deserved it at this point he felt.
Thus he went on a vengeance killing spree by destroying that whole town and everyone that lived there, he did not care if he died afterwards, he just wanted the world to feel at least a little of the hurt and pain and loss he felt.
At the end of it all, he just curls up on the bare ruined ground and cries for days because he didn't feel any better.
Eventually the nearby town goes to check for survivors cause they saw the smoke, and only find Mort; a rumour goes around about how only one kid survived a brutal...fire? They weren't really sure what happened, but the kid wasn't talking and there was nothing left of what used to be a town.
And so he lives at the nearby village for a few months, still not speaking, and for some reason really touch averse, like he starts to cry if someone touches his paws and begs them to get away from him
Ends up pretty isolated in the town, and isn't forced to go to school because he's clearly traumatized.
One kid tries to push being friends with him, the local sweetheart child that wants everyone to be happy, and doesn't listen when Mort begs him to leave him alone, to stop touching him, sadly the kid doesn't listen, as kids do, and a ripple of Mort's power washed over him as an unintentional warning, the kid ends up losing the tips of three of his fingers, and screams bloody murder. Adults rushed in and saw their local kid was hurt, and they told Mort to leave, he was clogging up the air with his gloominess, he needed to either get along and become part of the village or leave.
So he left. Ended up just hiding in the port though, what was he supposed to do? He's only eleven.
Thirsty. That was the first thing be became aware of again, so he begrudgingly got up and asked around the port for some food and water, in return for doing some work. One crew decided to take him up on his offer, if he became their scullion boy for a while he could help himself to the food scraps and all. Mort readily agreed.
This went well for several months, but this vessel took risks, and ended up owing some protection money to pirates, so they sold Mort to them, against his will of course, but what could he do to fight back on open water, nothing that's what.
For the next two years Mort is tormented and treated like shit once again, trading him for money, debts and such along with a bunch of other slaves and all between various pirate crews, every time his current owners decided they were sick of him being bad at his tasks and being "surly" and ends up being a waste to feed compared to the other slaves.
But he endured and never let his power go out of control again during those two years.
One day, a pirate ship fleet comes along and raids the pirate ship he was on, just for the fun of it, and this is the first time he meets Tristan. The tall confident captain was looking over his captured goods, the defeated pirates just standing around trying to not look in Tristan's eyes, and Tristan took notice of Mort, and was impressed by the depths of hatred swirling in this young boy's eyes so he asked him a question, "Do you want to be free?" Mort shrugged at this, curiousity spiking he started probing what happened to him, purposefully egging the kid on and getting him more and more riled up, Mort answered the questions because he was so tired at this point, and didn't understand that Tristan was manipulating him and his emotions into a darker path, still being at a super malleable age. Finally he asked another question, "Want to kill em?" Mort looked up at the kia and took his appearance in for the first time, the anger he'd been harboring had now reached boiling point and there was a fire lit inside him for revenge now, "Fuck yes." Tristan clapped his hands with approval, "Well then, be my guest, you're free now, I say so, if you kill em all, I'd love you to come work for me sometime."
Mort used his powers with purpose for possibly the first time, all other times had been when he lost control of his emotions, this was calculated, and his bonds were thus ashes. True to his word, Tristan stood back and watched Mort subsequently murder all the pirates that used to control this ship. Not even necessarily using his powers to kill, but to make them suffer; those two years of being a slave had been worse than hell, there was no kindness or remorse left after that, it'd been thoroughly killed.
Tristan laughs at the result of what he'd said, "You're not sane any more, are you?" He shook his head as Mort tried to respond, "No, no wasn't a question. But do you know how old you are?" Mort was taken aback by this question, and had to think long and hard for a few minutes, "Twelve...maybe thirteen...? I've lost track..."
Tristan raised an eyebrow, "You've had an intense life so far, huh? Alright, if you want a place to call home, you can come with me. Just keep in mind we're family on my ship, whoever has wronged you has wronged us, and we need to make an example of them." A slow grin creeps onto Mort's face, "Really?" Tristan smiles back at him, "Of course."
Honestly, the pirate captain had several of his main crew killed in the last raid in the north, so was looking for newbies, the kid's power was a bonus, but what he said did have some truth to it, he truly cared for his crew and did treat them like dearly loved family.
Thus Mort became a full fledged pirate at thirteen, and from the stories Tristan told, quickly it became all the more apparent to Mort how awful the world is, how evil others are, and how dare they take his mother from him. During his first few years they go around finding his old pirate owners and was encouraged to kill all the crew, or at least the ones that he felt wronged him in some way, with Tristan riling him up all the way, and every time all the pirates had a party in his honour and praise him for venting his emotions and getting back at those evil bastards, and making it seem like nothing to kill another. Finally they took him back to that secound town, and some remember him enough to be like "Oh you're that kid we chased out..." then realise he rocked up with pirates and become frightened, so try and chase him out again, and he just smiles at them and goes, "I'm back to make you regret such behaviour." Kills all of them.
He just spirals from there to the point where Mort loves to kill and maim and cause grief, which started out as "if I don't, they'll just use me the same or try and hurt me" but ends up as more "I love to watch your face melt off as you scream and your children cry." Quickly becomes Tristan's favourite to send into raids first because of the horror and fear he causes people to feel when he lets loose. Plus he is very good at killing.
Becomes one of the first permanent crew members on the main ship, and is one of the most loyal to Tristan.
At this point he is a total bastard right? How does he become the kia Azura falls in love with? Well continue onto their story to find out how he becomes the kia he is today.
He was seeing red at this point with anger because, What the hell dad you weren't happy with just me, you decided to kill mum too?
And his power just went out of control and exploded; disintegrating the garden, the house, his dad, and a whole bunch of the surrounds, and when he'd calmed down a bit, he realised he'd also killed his mum.
Mort instantly went from anger to feeling just dead and cold inside because he'd hurt someone he'd loved, and never wanted to hurt, and suddenly he hated his power, the world and everything.
"What do you want from me world? Why did I survive then if not to save her? What good am I to anyone..." and then fell into a grieving heap upon the ruins of his home.
After grieving without pause for a long time, goes without eating, barely drinking at all, ending up in a half delirious half dissociative state, and goes "Oh yeah, there's doctors in town, if I ask the townsfolk for her they can heal her!"
Thus he stumbles into town, hadn't really formed an idea of what he'd do after that, but if he asks them for help they should help right? Sadly that does not happen. The townsfolk at first react with suspicion, distance and caution, watching him as he made his way to the medical facility in town, then their reaction turned foul. Fear and hate had a wedding that day in that town.
Thwack. Mort turned in disbelief to see many of the townsfolk were right there, having gathered makeshift weapons, the thwack had been the stick of a broom coming down on his back from one particularly forward villager, "Demon!"
Mort's eyes widened in confusion not comprehending what was happening, before he could process it, they came at him, hurting every part of him they could reach, screaming hateful scorn, resolute in their cries of 'demon' that the whole crowd had now taken up into repeating, with the loudest yell rising above it all with a chilling "Kill it! Don't let it get away!"
Feeling the panic rise into his throat Mort begged the crowd, "Please stop, please." and as the ruthless crowd continued its attack Mort started to sob, "Stop I'm begging you, I don't want it to happen again." His power was surging inside him, and he was struggling to keep it contained, at this point, a young girl grabbed at his hair, and he cried out, unintentionally his power was released for a moment, and in an instant the girl's arm was no more.
If the crowd could be at all reasoned with before, there was no hope in that now, what had been words became wordless cries of outrage, and shrill shrieks, one of his old bullies came forward and spat in his face whilst saying, "I knew it! You were always evil! I was right, the other kids felt bad for you once, thinking we went too far, but I knew we should've made sure to find your body, to cut it up and burn it, you were a witches son after all!"
Mort had enough. Something in him broke.
"Fine then. I'll be the evil you want me to be."
He stopped holding his power back, and let it lose control, they deserved it at this point he felt.
Thus he went on a vengeance killing spree by destroying that whole town and everyone that lived there, he did not care if he died afterwards, he just wanted the world to feel at least a little of the hurt and pain and loss he felt.
At the end of it all, he just curls up on the bare ruined ground and cries for days because he didn't feel any better.
Eventually the nearby town goes to check for survivors cause they saw the smoke, and only find Mort; a rumour goes around about how only one kid survived a brutal...fire? They weren't really sure what happened, but the kid wasn't talking and there was nothing left of what used to be a town.
And so he lives at the nearby village for a few months, still not speaking, and for some reason really touch averse, like he starts to cry if someone touches his paws and begs them to get away from him
Ends up pretty isolated in the town, and isn't forced to go to school because he's clearly traumatized.
One kid tries to push being friends with him, the local sweetheart child that wants everyone to be happy, and doesn't listen when Mort begs him to leave him alone, to stop touching him, sadly the kid doesn't listen, as kids do, and a ripple of Mort's power washed over him as an unintentional warning, the kid ends up losing the tips of three of his fingers, and screams bloody murder. Adults rushed in and saw their local kid was hurt, and they told Mort to leave, he was clogging up the air with his gloominess, he needed to either get along and become part of the village or leave.
So he left. Ended up just hiding in the port though, what was he supposed to do? He's only eleven.
Thirsty. That was the first thing be became aware of again, so he begrudgingly got up and asked around the port for some food and water, in return for doing some work. One crew decided to take him up on his offer, if he became their scullion boy for a while he could help himself to the food scraps and all. Mort readily agreed.
This went well for several months, but this vessel took risks, and ended up owing some protection money to pirates, so they sold Mort to them, against his will of course, but what could he do to fight back on open water, nothing that's what.
For the next two years Mort is tormented and treated like shit once again, trading him for money, debts and such along with a bunch of other slaves and all between various pirate crews, every time his current owners decided they were sick of him being bad at his tasks and being "surly" and ends up being a waste to feed compared to the other slaves.
But he endured and never let his power go out of control again during those two years.
One day, a pirate ship fleet comes along and raids the pirate ship he was on, just for the fun of it, and this is the first time he meets Tristan. The tall confident captain was looking over his captured goods, the defeated pirates just standing around trying to not look in Tristan's eyes, and Tristan took notice of Mort, and was impressed by the depths of hatred swirling in this young boy's eyes so he asked him a question, "Do you want to be free?" Mort shrugged at this, curiousity spiking he started probing what happened to him, purposefully egging the kid on and getting him more and more riled up, Mort answered the questions because he was so tired at this point, and didn't understand that Tristan was manipulating him and his emotions into a darker path, still being at a super malleable age. Finally he asked another question, "Want to kill em?" Mort looked up at the kia and took his appearance in for the first time, the anger he'd been harboring had now reached boiling point and there was a fire lit inside him for revenge now, "Fuck yes." Tristan clapped his hands with approval, "Well then, be my guest, you're free now, I say so, if you kill em all, I'd love you to come work for me sometime."
Mort used his powers with purpose for possibly the first time, all other times had been when he lost control of his emotions, this was calculated, and his bonds were thus ashes. True to his word, Tristan stood back and watched Mort subsequently murder all the pirates that used to control this ship. Not even necessarily using his powers to kill, but to make them suffer; those two years of being a slave had been worse than hell, there was no kindness or remorse left after that, it'd been thoroughly killed.
Tristan laughs at the result of what he'd said, "You're not sane any more, are you?" He shook his head as Mort tried to respond, "No, no wasn't a question. But do you know how old you are?" Mort was taken aback by this question, and had to think long and hard for a few minutes, "Twelve...maybe thirteen...? I've lost track..."
Tristan raised an eyebrow, "You've had an intense life so far, huh? Alright, if you want a place to call home, you can come with me. Just keep in mind we're family on my ship, whoever has wronged you has wronged us, and we need to make an example of them." A slow grin creeps onto Mort's face, "Really?" Tristan smiles back at him, "Of course."
Honestly, the pirate captain had several of his main crew killed in the last raid in the north, so was looking for newbies, the kid's power was a bonus, but what he said did have some truth to it, he truly cared for his crew and did treat them like dearly loved family.
Thus Mort became a full fledged pirate at thirteen, and from the stories Tristan told, quickly it became all the more apparent to Mort how awful the world is, how evil others are, and how dare they take his mother from him. During his first few years they go around finding his old pirate owners and was encouraged to kill all the crew, or at least the ones that he felt wronged him in some way, with Tristan riling him up all the way, and every time all the pirates had a party in his honour and praise him for venting his emotions and getting back at those evil bastards, and making it seem like nothing to kill another. Finally they took him back to that secound town, and some remember him enough to be like "Oh you're that kid we chased out..." then realise he rocked up with pirates and become frightened, so try and chase him out again, and he just smiles at them and goes, "I'm back to make you regret such behaviour." Kills all of them.
He just spirals from there to the point where Mort loves to kill and maim and cause grief, which started out as "if I don't, they'll just use me the same or try and hurt me" but ends up as more "I love to watch your face melt off as you scream and your children cry." Quickly becomes Tristan's favourite to send into raids first because of the horror and fear he causes people to feel when he lets loose. Plus he is very good at killing.
Becomes one of the first permanent crew members on the main ship, and is one of the most loyal to Tristan.
At this point he is a total bastard right? How does he become the kia Azura falls in love with? Well continue onto their story to find out how he becomes the kia he is today.