It was easy to see Alexander as the self-serving, narcissist villain that he was when Kael encountered him. But he hadn't been born that way. In a classic nurture vs nature argument, Alexander's evil ways might have been changed if he'd been allowed to grow up under his mother's care, and if he'd never known his father.
It wasn't by chance that Dakra was found in the forest around his estate. She was after all, his great- grandmother. One of her sons had raped and impregnated a human girl. That child, Alexander's grandfather, was left to die in the forest by the girl's parents after he was born. Dakra found him and raised him as her own child, later encouraging him to rape and impregnate another young girl, who gave birth to Alexander's father. Each generation looking more and more human but still carrying the genetic code and temperament of a gnoll.
Alexander's father had been raised as an only child by one of the wealthiest families in the area who hid his paternal lineage. His mother had died in childbirth because of his size, and her parents were so devastated by her death that they clung to the baby as the last heir to their fortune and the last bit of their daughter that they had left. They raised him as their own, never telling him of his mother or how he was conceived.
When he was still a young man, he followed the "generational curse" of his parental lineage and raped a young woman, resulting in her pregnancy with Alexander. Upon learning that she was going to have his child, Alexander's father paid her parents a great deal of money to "sell" her to him and save her family's honor. She would live at the estate until after she gave birth so that he could ensure the lineage of the child. After the baby was born, she was free to leave if she wanted but the child would stay with him. If she agreed to stay for the first three years of the child's life, she would be compensated for her time that she helped to raise him, but then she would have to leave. She would not be allowed to ever visit or even see him from a distance after he turned three.
Reluctantly, his mother had agreed after learning that her parents had sold her to him and realizing that she had nowhere else to go.
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| Image Source: Pixabay.com |
The first three years of Alexander's life were filled with love and laughter. His mother doted on him every minute of the day, even sleeping with him wrapped in her protective embrace. She taught him about all of the woodland creatures, all the trees and flowers, and the songs of the birds. She showed him how to dissect owl pellets and identify the tiny bones within. She showed him where the storks would nest on top of the chimneys, and how to catch tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs. ...
... Those years were just faded memories that Alexander sometimes dreamt about. His father had imprinted different memories once his fully human mother had vanished from his life. Dark things that came out when the sun went down. Kinks in his psyche that his father both beat in and tried to beat out of him. There was no more crying for his mother when fresh tears would spring to his eyes after waking from a dream. Now his heart was only faithful to one person.
Himself.
Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, "It might have been."
ReplyDeleteSuch a sad beginning for Alexander. I hope there is some chance he might remember his mother and somehow learn his own history, perhaps even becoming a kinder person?
ReplyDeleteBeyond nasty - even if at least partially explicable. Generations of nastiness.
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