Uroe

"To desecrate the image of man is to desecrate the image of God himself. Perversions of perfection; know them, dread them, destroy them. Wheresoever deformity might appear--in your fellow, in your children, even in your heart--purge it, for to invite inhumans into our midst is to invite calamity upon your fellow and your children, and doom upon all the world."

Ask a hundred humans to imagine the incarnation of fate, and you'll get a hundred different monsters in a hundred different forms and dispositions. Ask a hundred humans in Einveth to do the same for fear, and you'll get just as many fingers pointed towards one singular shape: that which was once human.

In Einveth, 'sin' has long been written out of divine law and household dictionaries alike. One word alone embodies the concept in a way that makes all other shortcomings of body and spirit insignificant: inhuman. From the dirtiest dirt hovel to the palaces of holy silver where Exemplars steer the theocracy's course, nans and nurses frighten children all the same with tales of the punishment awaiting anyone who strays from the Perfect Path, and of the horrors they'll inflict upon everyone else before being put down.

Forbidden magic, pox and disease, alchemical experiments gone wrong, even simply touching an inhuman (the church would have everyone believe), can turn a God fearing man into a man fearing devil. The smallest imperfection of the human silhouette is enough to warrant the visit of a Church Exterminator, and should the number of limbs or fingers or organs or teeth tally above or below the Perfect Path's demands, or any sort of animal or demonic growth found anywhere, a death by molten silver shortly follows. Turning another into an inhuman by any means, usually through hexes designed to morph and twist the body, is likewise punishable by death, for what could be more abhorrent than to sentence someone to an even worse fate? Because of the inhuman phenomenon and the uncertainty around its circumstances, sorcerers and witches are seen with suspicion in Einveth; gold is the currency of transmuters and occultists, not of the honest man, and animals are checked twice over by a Church layman before butchering, for who knows if they really had been born as such. As for cures, there are none.

And still, there's no shortage of would-be saviours.

It is said that on her 18th birthday, Seirier Rabestrick was gifted a vision of the Imperator being infected and turned by a feral monstrosity. Prophecy has ever been a poorly understood magical science--even its status as such disputed--but coming from a noble, that sort of warning warranted at the very least prudence. When the threat proved real and, thankfully, avertable, an opportunity was then extended to the young Rabestrick scion: research further this gift of foresight with the Church's sanction, so that it may prevent calamity.

A fool's mission met a fool's ambition, but if God's radiance really is everlasting, who's to say his mirror images don't deserve light of their own?

It is said that on its 428th birthday, the entirety of House Rabestrick was taken to a ritual site deep within the mountains. 244 bodies in all, including the children and the raven pets which served as the house's symbol animal. From that day on, Seirier declared, all who share the name and blood of Rabestrick would become the deliverers of humanity's future. The magic worked that day had never been meant for human eyes, and certainly not human bodies. Most perished outright, while the survivors were grotesquely changed: down from the wrists their hands blackened, burnt in punishment for trying to grasp something not meant for mortal hands, and at the very tips their flesh fused with nail and bone into dark, long talons. Their bodies were left bereft of warmth as their blood turned pitch-like, and their irises changed to yellow. Whether this had been Seirier's plan all along or a mere miscalculation, none could say, for the dead didn't speak, but all that was left of House Rabestrick could now hear the voices of something else: the ravens, whispering of corruption, and where it would next appear.

For all religious intents and legal purposes, House Rabestrick ceased to exist that day. Not unheard of for an entire line to be lost in the grandeur of its leader's delusions, less so for a new species of inhumans to be catalogued right after, bound by that selfsame cursed name and blood. Seirier's research had been an investment after all, even if the Church had to cash in on it with leashes and branding irons. The Rabestrick were added to the ranks of "royal inhumans", the few invaluable enough to be gifted some semblance of status instead of a swift silver death. The Rabestrick ancestral homes were "renovated" to accommodate for their new status; birdcages with walled off windows, hidden behind brick and hedge in the Capital's heart. Some Rabestrick go their entire lives without seeing the outside world more than once, and that's if they travel to another branch of the family for marriage with distant relatives. Not a lot of space is required to keep alive a species counting just a few dozen individuals, even more so when they naturally seek closeness with their kin for warmth due to lack of, but keeping the blood thick enough for the curse to be at its strongest demanded things that ought to never see or be seen by daylight. As a result of the closed circle inbreeding, offspring are sometimes born so weak and malformed that only the darkest of rituals allow them to live past the first hours. Anyone beyond help ends up as food and fuel for another. One's standing up the Church's ladder must be almost touching the feet of God to be made aware of the workings inner to royal inhumans, and so they enjoy the approximation of self-governance as far as means are concerned, for the ends have always been clear: foresight foraying ever farther, until the source of the inhuman curse has been found.

Stacking corpses high enough to complete an order that tall takes a bit more than a couple hundred of years though, but the elders still will have something to show for it every once in a while. Like Uroe.

Second in line to the Main Branch's leadership but second to none in generations as far as prophetic powers go, Uroe Rabestrick was born even more frail and sickly than their kind usually is, due to her parents being siblings. Inbreeding spared her any sort of crippling physical lameness, but left her mental faculties lacking behind. A stutter often wedges itself between her words and breaks them a-a-part, born of neither unsureness nor unknowingness, but simple, painfully tangible inability to both recall words and use them at the same time. Often Uroe pauses, furrows, frets, all just to find that slippery word for a simple activity or object, and then spell it out loud in one go. Growing up in a household where fitness is measured in recitals and remembrances had Uroe working twice as hard just to keep up with the middle of the flock. While her siblings could recount the entire genealogy of the Main Branch by the age of 8, any such attempt from Uroe was a race against both brain and body. By adulthood, most Rabestrick are able to deal with their innate conditions, but even as she turned eighteen Uroe found no significant improvement to her figure; bone pale skin stretched over bone bulged sinew, a chest as flat as her backside and shiver-wracked posture. All Rabestrick are born with dark hair, but unlike her sisters and nieces Uroe keeps hers cut at shoulder length, with bangs always obscuring one of her yellow eyes. All Rabestrick are born hauntingly beautiful, and Uroe's unfortunately no exception.

What little time is spent not separating the wheat from whispers, Uroe dedicates to anything that lets her relax in solitude. Making black candles from a mix of tallow and her own coagulated black blood is perhaps the most traditional Rabestrick pastime, as are calligraphy and painting, also done using blood. Because any sort of fine manipulation like handling pens or brushes is impossible with their hands, dipping and dragging talontips across fabric without tearing it has been polished to a fine artform across generations. Uroe also dresses in traditional attire: black, long and thick kimonos with enough sleeve space to nest their talons in and a sash to hold together both fabric and precious heat. Embroidered on the left shoulder area is a black raven feather. Books are an import held to the same necessity as food for the households so, for many and especially the young, those might as well be the only window for square feet around. When she was 6, Uroe found a dried, pressed chrysanthemum flower between the pages of such a book, and became entranced by the practice. She has never seen a wild or even potted flower before.

Save for what's aimed at the most important of individuals, prophecies are delivered by messenger ravens. Regular folk sometimes end their own lives on the spot upon so much as seeing ravens fly towards their house, rather than even entertaining the possibility of help from curseridden monsters. In the end, an appendage like "royal" does little to shield the word inhuman from hatred. Even if the Rabestrick are vital to ensure that Einveth's chain of command remains unbroken and uncorrupted, even if they're responsible for saving thousands more outside of that, finding any joy in it doesn't come easy. Still, Uroe tries to maintain a positive outlook, whenever it can fit in between her shyness and learned shame of being inhuman. Some of her kin even dare dream, and to humans that is perhaps something more horrifying and abhorrent than anything else.