Maria Mathis's Blog - Posts Tagged "mash-up"
Post 3 - Tuyouk's Early Life
These blog posts end up being longer than I expect them to be, while covering less than I think they will! This post talks about Tuyouk’s life from birth to the age of twenty-five, when he met Belall. It describes how his earliest experiences in life set him up with his many strengths, and a couple of weaknesses that can actually bring him to his knees.
Tuyouk started life in a farming community in a small village in the Cerule Province. His village was one of several clustered around an important crossroads used by two warring factions--that of the evil empress, Belall, and that of the Northern Provinces Syndicate (the military organization that opposed her).
Tuyouk’s parents were Percumas, a professor of literature, and Ru’Nedeh, a famous actress, known for her on-stage portrayals of the ancient queens of Ahman-tahk. Percumas was in his seventies, and Saqui fifty-two, when they returned to their birth province of Cerule to make a living on Ru’Nedeh’s family farm. At that time the region had been under Belall’s rule for a hundred years. The population, like the population in the north, had considerably diminished because of the curse Belall had put on the women. Almost all of the women who had not succumbed, pledged loyalty to Belall and joined her army to save their own lives. Most of the men had been wiped out during Belall’s frequent “tax collection events.” What was left were a handful of demoralized men, and dozens of orphaned boys.
Tuyouk’s mother, Ru’Nedeh, was one of the last women in the village. She did what she could to help the orphans who would show up daily at their farm looking for food. She fed them, and had plans to start a school for them, but, when Tuyouk was two, she died of the women’s curse, shortly after giving birth to her second son, Ongtavo. After Ru’Nedeh died, Percumas cared for his children the way he knew she would have wanted, but he never found true happiness again. He only lived five more years before dying in a farming accident.
The strengths Tuyouk gained from his parents were many. He’s always had a good, compassionate heart, always valued learning, and always put other people’s needs before his own. But on the negative side, because he had a brother to care for, he followed his father’s example of hiding his grief, which, as he approached adulthood, turned into an avoidance of sharing any emotions at all. Inwardly, he developed a near-phobia of reflecting on situations that might provoke the grief he carried inside him. Instead of confronting the mountains of painful experiences that continued to occur in his life, he counted on his determination and positive outlook to carry him over them.
From the time he was born, Tuyouk’s best friend was a boy his age called Wahya-Ganeha. Wahya’s family lived down the road, and was one of the few families in the village that still had older relatives in the house--a father and a great, great-grandfather--neither of whom had time to take an interest in what the boys were up to. Every evening, Tuyouk, Ongtavo, and a constantly changing group of other orphaned boys would go to Wahya’s farmhouse to get a meager meal and watch the household’s public access scrying pane. The Ahman-tahki information ministry would broadcast news reports over the scryer, highlighting stories of Syndicate raptors and dragon warriors--heroes who wore bio-armor, and fought to defeat Belall’s evil forces. The hope-starved boys devoured these stories as if they were manna from Heaven. They would cheer, jumping up and down on their knees at every report of a Syndicate victory.
Eventually, Wahya’s three older brothers started organizing the orphan boys into a gang--one of several in the area. Their aim, at first, was simply to supplement their food-intake by scrounging through the refuse at produce warehouses, but it soon turned into stealing. Tuyouk was eager to develop his stealth skills, and would later credit Wahya’s brothers for being his first teachers in things like thievery, sabotage, and hand-to-hand combat. Throughout his childhood, Tuyouk learned how to plan, how to lead, how to conserve and divvy up resources, how to talk peace with rival gangs when he could, and to fight when he couldn’t.
By the time he was eleven, everyone could see that Tuyouk was different than the other boys. He was as tall as the fourteen-and-fifteen-year olds, and excelled at any physical contest, and--thanks to his father’s early influence--he was a voracious reader. At about that age, he started working on developing his cha-weh, aka his spirit energy, or magic. As was common on their planet, he, Wahya, and the other magical boys practiced drawing cha-weh into their hands, and manipulating it into projectiles or fireballs. As to be expected, their first efforts were weak, but quickly improved, especially for Tuyouk, who became the group’s leader in all things explosive. By the time he was sixteen, he loved to entertain the other boys by blowing up old tractors, or making fireworks in the night sky.
As the boys began to look up to Tuyouk, the gang’s leader, Ko (Wahya’s eldest brother), began to look on him with jealousy. Even though Tuyouk was much younger, the two slowly became rivals. Tuyouk was unafraid of Ko’s aggressive posturing, and often spoke up with new ideas--good ideas--to improve the gang’s activities. Ko did not appreciate this constant critique of his leadership, but the rivalry didn’t become real until the day Ko assigned ten-year-old Ongtavo to participate in a dangerous job without his big brother.
Instead of allowing Ongtavo to take on the mission like any other boy in the gang, Tuyouk physically held him back from going. This was the last straw for Ko, and he challenged Tuyouk to a proving match. Tuyouk was twelve--Ko was twenty-two. Ko won the fight, but it took all his strength and tricks, as well as most of the day. When it was done, instead of coming to pat his shoulders, the boys swarmed to congratulate Tuyouk. Ko considered this, and then made the purely political decision to give Tuyouk the rank of squad leader. Five years later, when Ko was killed by the witches, Tuyouk would be chosen over the older boys to be the new “susaya,” or leader.
Throughout his life, Tuyouk admired the Syndicate’s armor-wearing dragon warriors, and wanted to be like them. If he and the other magical boys had armor, they could attack the frequent convoys of trucks that passed through the crossroads on their way to Belall’s compound. He’d already learned to transform into a dragon, but being able to get close to the wand-wielding witches while two-legged would allow him to finesse his attacks in a way four-legged creatures could not. There was, however, no way for him and the other magical boys to get bio-armor, which needed to be created by magical professionals and cost a great deal.
Then when he was sixteen, he saw a Public Access piece that would change his future. It was about a Cerule scientist/shaman team--the only Cerule scientist/shaman team--that crafted armor for Syndicate warriors in Cerule’s capitol city. Tuyouk and the other magical boys, (and Ongtavo--he never went anywhere without Ongtavo) went on an adventure to commission four suits of bio-armor. Since they had no money, but were very good at obtaining things, their intentions were to trade for them.
When they met the team, the shaman immediately sensed Tuyouk’s potential. She realized that, had he been a city boy, he would have been identified as being gifted, and would have been given a scholarship to the Syndicate Academy. Being Cerule themselves, she and her scientist partner knew about the poverty in the non-urban areas, and, instead of bringing Tuyouk to the attention of the Syndicate, decided that he could do more good by staying where he was.
It took a few years, but when Tuyouk was nineteen, he finally got his armor. He was a full-fledged dragon warrior--just like the Syndicate warriors that people admired and watched on the scrying pane each week. This couldn't help but give him a new boost of confidence.
For the next six years, he instigated and maintained the merging of all the gangs in the area into one rag-tag guerrilla army called the Crossroads Cadre. He used his new numbers to start attacking Belall’s convoys and stealing her food and supplies, which he distributed to the local villages--a move that quickly put him on her radar, although she was unable to catch him for several years.
The one challenge that Tuyouk was unable to overcome was the availability of females for bonding. A favorite pastime for him and his warriors was to sneak through the hills to admire the witches that lived in Belall’s compound from afar. As he grew, his dreams started to include finding a wife--a woman who would bond with him physically and spiritually. Unfortunately, the only women he ever saw looked at him as a common criminal. Obviously, this didn’t put an end to his dreams.
Next time, I’ll talk about the two romantic relationships in Tuyouk’s life--that with Belall, and that with Ayana.
Tuyouk started life in a farming community in a small village in the Cerule Province. His village was one of several clustered around an important crossroads used by two warring factions--that of the evil empress, Belall, and that of the Northern Provinces Syndicate (the military organization that opposed her).
Tuyouk’s parents were Percumas, a professor of literature, and Ru’Nedeh, a famous actress, known for her on-stage portrayals of the ancient queens of Ahman-tahk. Percumas was in his seventies, and Saqui fifty-two, when they returned to their birth province of Cerule to make a living on Ru’Nedeh’s family farm. At that time the region had been under Belall’s rule for a hundred years. The population, like the population in the north, had considerably diminished because of the curse Belall had put on the women. Almost all of the women who had not succumbed, pledged loyalty to Belall and joined her army to save their own lives. Most of the men had been wiped out during Belall’s frequent “tax collection events.” What was left were a handful of demoralized men, and dozens of orphaned boys.
Tuyouk’s mother, Ru’Nedeh, was one of the last women in the village. She did what she could to help the orphans who would show up daily at their farm looking for food. She fed them, and had plans to start a school for them, but, when Tuyouk was two, she died of the women’s curse, shortly after giving birth to her second son, Ongtavo. After Ru’Nedeh died, Percumas cared for his children the way he knew she would have wanted, but he never found true happiness again. He only lived five more years before dying in a farming accident.
The strengths Tuyouk gained from his parents were many. He’s always had a good, compassionate heart, always valued learning, and always put other people’s needs before his own. But on the negative side, because he had a brother to care for, he followed his father’s example of hiding his grief, which, as he approached adulthood, turned into an avoidance of sharing any emotions at all. Inwardly, he developed a near-phobia of reflecting on situations that might provoke the grief he carried inside him. Instead of confronting the mountains of painful experiences that continued to occur in his life, he counted on his determination and positive outlook to carry him over them.
From the time he was born, Tuyouk’s best friend was a boy his age called Wahya-Ganeha. Wahya’s family lived down the road, and was one of the few families in the village that still had older relatives in the house--a father and a great, great-grandfather--neither of whom had time to take an interest in what the boys were up to. Every evening, Tuyouk, Ongtavo, and a constantly changing group of other orphaned boys would go to Wahya’s farmhouse to get a meager meal and watch the household’s public access scrying pane. The Ahman-tahki information ministry would broadcast news reports over the scryer, highlighting stories of Syndicate raptors and dragon warriors--heroes who wore bio-armor, and fought to defeat Belall’s evil forces. The hope-starved boys devoured these stories as if they were manna from Heaven. They would cheer, jumping up and down on their knees at every report of a Syndicate victory.
Eventually, Wahya’s three older brothers started organizing the orphan boys into a gang--one of several in the area. Their aim, at first, was simply to supplement their food-intake by scrounging through the refuse at produce warehouses, but it soon turned into stealing. Tuyouk was eager to develop his stealth skills, and would later credit Wahya’s brothers for being his first teachers in things like thievery, sabotage, and hand-to-hand combat. Throughout his childhood, Tuyouk learned how to plan, how to lead, how to conserve and divvy up resources, how to talk peace with rival gangs when he could, and to fight when he couldn’t.
By the time he was eleven, everyone could see that Tuyouk was different than the other boys. He was as tall as the fourteen-and-fifteen-year olds, and excelled at any physical contest, and--thanks to his father’s early influence--he was a voracious reader. At about that age, he started working on developing his cha-weh, aka his spirit energy, or magic. As was common on their planet, he, Wahya, and the other magical boys practiced drawing cha-weh into their hands, and manipulating it into projectiles or fireballs. As to be expected, their first efforts were weak, but quickly improved, especially for Tuyouk, who became the group’s leader in all things explosive. By the time he was sixteen, he loved to entertain the other boys by blowing up old tractors, or making fireworks in the night sky.
As the boys began to look up to Tuyouk, the gang’s leader, Ko (Wahya’s eldest brother), began to look on him with jealousy. Even though Tuyouk was much younger, the two slowly became rivals. Tuyouk was unafraid of Ko’s aggressive posturing, and often spoke up with new ideas--good ideas--to improve the gang’s activities. Ko did not appreciate this constant critique of his leadership, but the rivalry didn’t become real until the day Ko assigned ten-year-old Ongtavo to participate in a dangerous job without his big brother.
Instead of allowing Ongtavo to take on the mission like any other boy in the gang, Tuyouk physically held him back from going. This was the last straw for Ko, and he challenged Tuyouk to a proving match. Tuyouk was twelve--Ko was twenty-two. Ko won the fight, but it took all his strength and tricks, as well as most of the day. When it was done, instead of coming to pat his shoulders, the boys swarmed to congratulate Tuyouk. Ko considered this, and then made the purely political decision to give Tuyouk the rank of squad leader. Five years later, when Ko was killed by the witches, Tuyouk would be chosen over the older boys to be the new “susaya,” or leader.
Throughout his life, Tuyouk admired the Syndicate’s armor-wearing dragon warriors, and wanted to be like them. If he and the other magical boys had armor, they could attack the frequent convoys of trucks that passed through the crossroads on their way to Belall’s compound. He’d already learned to transform into a dragon, but being able to get close to the wand-wielding witches while two-legged would allow him to finesse his attacks in a way four-legged creatures could not. There was, however, no way for him and the other magical boys to get bio-armor, which needed to be created by magical professionals and cost a great deal.
Then when he was sixteen, he saw a Public Access piece that would change his future. It was about a Cerule scientist/shaman team--the only Cerule scientist/shaman team--that crafted armor for Syndicate warriors in Cerule’s capitol city. Tuyouk and the other magical boys, (and Ongtavo--he never went anywhere without Ongtavo) went on an adventure to commission four suits of bio-armor. Since they had no money, but were very good at obtaining things, their intentions were to trade for them.
When they met the team, the shaman immediately sensed Tuyouk’s potential. She realized that, had he been a city boy, he would have been identified as being gifted, and would have been given a scholarship to the Syndicate Academy. Being Cerule themselves, she and her scientist partner knew about the poverty in the non-urban areas, and, instead of bringing Tuyouk to the attention of the Syndicate, decided that he could do more good by staying where he was.
It took a few years, but when Tuyouk was nineteen, he finally got his armor. He was a full-fledged dragon warrior--just like the Syndicate warriors that people admired and watched on the scrying pane each week. This couldn't help but give him a new boost of confidence.
For the next six years, he instigated and maintained the merging of all the gangs in the area into one rag-tag guerrilla army called the Crossroads Cadre. He used his new numbers to start attacking Belall’s convoys and stealing her food and supplies, which he distributed to the local villages--a move that quickly put him on her radar, although she was unable to catch him for several years.
The one challenge that Tuyouk was unable to overcome was the availability of females for bonding. A favorite pastime for him and his warriors was to sneak through the hills to admire the witches that lived in Belall’s compound from afar. As he grew, his dreams started to include finding a wife--a woman who would bond with him physically and spiritually. Unfortunately, the only women he ever saw looked at him as a common criminal. Obviously, this didn’t put an end to his dreams.
Next time, I’ll talk about the two romantic relationships in Tuyouk’s life--that with Belall, and that with Ayana.
