Magic most foul, an affront to the Ether, a power once reserved only for the Fae Monarchs. Unable to tame it, Humanity spent many failed lifetimes in the relentless pursuit of miracles. Until Elidion, the Betrayer, the Human who seduced a Fae Queen in a show of extraordinary guile and deceit.
In an unfortunate twist of fate, the Queen bestowed him with a conscious piece of her heart so that they may always be together forever, opening him to the wonders of the Ether. Elidion took her selfless gift and distorted it, turning it against his naive lover.
With great cunning, Elidion orchestrated a plan that would be triggered by his premature death to unleash a series of events that led to the demise of my people's reign. He seemed to foresee with uncanny accuracy that his existence would draw the ire of my brethren. But he had prepared accordingly, and the corrupted piece of the Fae Queen was passed onto a fellow conspirator.
Four more times it exchanged mortal hands. A total of five hosts, each one more formidable than their predecessor, with unfathomable lifespans compared to ordinary Humans. Elidion the Architect established the foundation of magic, rearranging the laws of nature and imposing rigid Human logic onto the Ether with the clench of a fist.
Varathis the Devourer accepted the mantle from Elidion's dying hand, harnessing it to fracture the Ether's last bastions of resistance. Three of my peers laboured in vain against her, falling one after the other and becoming fuel to gorge the Corrupted Fragment, making it fat with power. Countless lives, Human and Fae servitors alike, were sacrificed to Verathis's ambition. She tore open a never-ending void in the sky above the firmament and submerged it in an eternal night before birthing the place between spirit and mortal flesh, the Mirror Realm.
Ephraem the Lawbearer sought to undo some of the damage caused by his forebearer. With a whispered word, he brought light back to the Mortal Realm in the form of day and night, placing the sun, moon, and stars to illuminate the sky above. Angered by this desecration of the Mortal Realm, my brethren erased Ephraem's name from mortal lips.
Seeking justice for Ephraem, High Arbiter Kassiel came into possession of the Corrupted Fragment, now far more powerful than any solitary Fae Monarch could ever hope to achieve. Kassiel passed his biased judgment on any of my brethren unfortunate enough to cross his vengeful path. There was one good thing to come from this crusade, Kassiel did not follow the footsteps of his predecessor, Varathis. With each Fae Monarch slain, a portion of the Corrupted Fragment's engorged power was consumed.
Even then, we were blind and did not act against what we considered to be only a passing of seasons. Izzara, the Forbidden One, or 'the Catalyst' to the Humans, the last bearer of the Corrupted Fragment came into possession of it through unknown means. It was rumoured that Kassiel grew mad after seeing things no mortal should ever see in his countless generations of battle with the Fae. It was Izzara who became the catalyst for opening our eyes to the threat of Humanity.
Izzara started the construction of prototype shard towers, granting ordinary Humans the ability to use magic. My people felt fear for the very first time. We realised that Magi did not touch upon the Ether for their spell casting, which was like air to us and entwined with our very existence. Instead, they harnessed an unnatural power that refused to mix with the Ether like oil spreading across water.
The Fae went to war. With the combined might of Fae Monarchs and countless servitors, we won. But then something inexplicable happened, time rewound. Humans were unaware of this and forgot what had happened. Their dead rose again, returning to the prime of their empire before the war had even begun-
We remembered though, the Fae are unaffected by the passage of time. Our dead did not rise and remained fallen. Izzara exploited this to mobilise his armies, spurring them into a frenzy to recklessly throw themselves against us like endless waves of cannon fodder. The most terrifying aspect of the war was that each shard tower built remained like a monument of progress after each reset. It appeared only Humanity was affected by time… and benefited from its reversal.
Mercifully, the Corrupted Fragment's power was not limitless. It began to wane with every looping of time. Izzara did not care, his artificial magic was growing with every portion of land his army conquered. Our numbers grew thinner. For Humanity, with the exception of Izarra, the war only lasted for the duration of a single passage around their mockery of a sun. For us, it had lasted an age, countless thousands of years of attrition.
In the end, I was among those who stood against Izzara. He could no longer turn back the wheels of time. He did not need to, the Ether was gone from the Mortal Realm. Izzara was so arrogant, so cocksure-full of himself, like a man who knew that he had already won.
It is never wise to underestimate an enemy backed into a corner with nowhere left to go but down. In the final moment of distraction, I was able to strike forward and rip the Corrupted Fragment from his body, devouring his flesh along with it. For that, I have become the ultimate evil in the minds of mankind, above all of my brethren, the Figure in White.
I can still feel it within me now. Stirring. It provided the foundation of my return. Without such intimate knowledge granted by the Corrupted Fragment inhabiting a mortal body, I would never have achieved the formation of my own. One without their inherent flaws.
My body contains a collaboration of refinements and tempering from each mortal who possessed the Corrupted Fragment. Starting with Elidion, who desired nothing more than eternal youth. My physical appearance is nearly identical to Izzara's deceptive youth. When I rebuilt it from the mud, I removed a few obvious flaws and unnecessary Human adaptations.
For instance, the wasteful pigmentation that changes in the radiation of their putrid sun. I feel that I may have missed something though, my face moved of its own accord into the expression Humans call 'disgust' and my hands involuntarily clenched into fists. Fate be that this is the worst residual effect of the Corrupted Fragment on my disposition. I no longer have the means of making any changes to this flesh unless I reestablish contact with my true body. That won't happen unless I'm nearby when a shard tower is heavily damaged or destroyed.
Talus became aware of the heated muck squished between his bare toes as he stood amid the swaying grasses of the marsh battlefield. He lifted his palm to peer down at his curled fingers, absent-mindedly flexing while lost in thought. He was attempting to analyse what other Human quirks may have polluted him from the Corrupted Fragment.