Bearer's, an entire bloodline given the all important duty of containing horrifying powerful beasts called calamities.
Through ancient sorcery the calamity is sealed within one's body and soul, with the strength of the seal being correlated to how many members are members of the family.
Sealed within their souls, the beast forever writhing within causing immense pain for the poor courier.
So of course the families given this duty are given land and titles to help ease their burdens.
Yet of course not all promises can be kept, and a few will always slip through the cracks.
…
Adder did not have much hope when it came to his future, Adder Serpens was the bearer of the calamity of venom, the basilisk.
Since the day he was born he had held back the giant serpent, with nothing but his body and soul.
And what did he receive for this great burden and mighty labor?
Scorn, plain and simple.
Even as the Basilisk corroded Adder's body with its horrid venoms making him weak and feeble.
To all he was seen as a ticking timebomb, as a wall that would one day collapse and release the great king of serpents to plague the lands once more.
With no one around him to rely on living, in the crumbling house of the Serpens family who had been on the decline from the very moment his family house was created to bear this burden.
Yet a miracle happened, he awoke something not from the arcane or of the flesh but in the soul.
Somehow he had awakened the power to see one's future, it had happened on his fourteenth birthday.
He was looking across the river that bordered his family ruins, and just before it happened he knew that a carriage was going to crash into the pond from right where he was standing.
And as he moved to his left, a carriage led by a spooked horse rocketed next to him.
Of course Adder saved the innocent riders as well as the coach driver.
He could never forget what happened next after saving them.
Adder had recognised the people he saved just from the carriage alone, it was the merchant Calalos and young family.
The merchant was one of the many people that looked down at Adder, seeing him as nothing but a beast in human skin.
But as Adder pulled out Evylin as well as their newborn son who would have been nothing but victims of the river the merchant only did one thing.
Thanked him, and it was before long that the merchant's wife had joined in with the platitudes.
He was truly thanked, they knew what he was and they still thanked him.
That feeling was inked onto Adder's very heart.
And as the days turned to weeks he tried to continue these acts of helping.
Which would end in the same thing, the people that once whispered his name in fear now happily sung his praises.
The feeling was euphoric to him, it started to become something that he needed desperately again and again.
But even though he had traveled across the outskirts of the capital for the whole of last week he hadn't been able to help a single person.
So now being desperate, Adder decided to do something he hadn't before he was going to try and see his own future.
So using the only mirror he had, he watched as his grey eyes turn to bronze and for the first time since awakening his gift.
He entered a form of wistless sleep.
…
Adder came too in his crumbling home, but now it was fully restored to a form that Adder could barely recognize.
This had been very different from the other times of using his gift.
The visions had always overlaid themselves with the present.
But now it had seemed that Adder had traveled through time.
The adolescent did not take any time as he sprinted into every restored hall and rebuilt room.
Searching for servants, friends, and even family.
Sure he didn't know how far he was in the future, but if the family house was rebuilt to be greater than ever, there had to be somebody.
Yet as Adder ran through the slightly familiar halls and completely unrecognizable rooms there was no one.
Sure there were treasures littering the garish walls, with trophies and relics sitting right beside those paintings on jewel encrusted podiums.
But nobody, not even an older of himself could be found.
Then as Adder stood there in his confusion, he heard someone approaching.
When he turned to see the guest though he was instantly disappointed.
Before him was a frail old man, who seemed to be the very definition of dour.
Lifeless gray hair cut short, wearing a very kinglike ensemble, and he walked with a cane that was styled after a serpent.
He was small, even the fourteen year old boy easily stood a foot higher.
Adder watched as the elder walked through the halls, and then stopped right in front of him.
The old man took a second as he looked straight into Adder's eyes.
'Please don't tell me this is me.'
Adder silently pleaded to whoever could be listening.
"I don't remember ever looking into my own future?"
The old man grumbled as he took out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead.
Not at all looking pleased by this visitor from the past.
The older man led his younger self through the rebuilt Serpens family home, telling the youth about the victories he was able to contribute to through his gift.
Judgement is what the old man called it, and the way he revered his own power made the younger of the two deathly quiet.
Yet the visitor carefully listened to every tale the old man spoke of.
And soon the young Adder started to piece things together.
…
It would all change about six months after he awakened his power, his exploits would gain so much traction that he would gain the interest of the two princes of their empire.
Reemus the eldest and Romulus the dreamer, and while both would come to recruit them for their own faction.
It was Romulus who gained Adder's loyalty, and with Judgement they were easily able to gain the upper hand when it came to the throne.
And that was just the start as emperor of Nalise, Romulus with Adder right by his side conquering all of the lands that surrounded the great empire.
A warpath that they would continue until there was nowhere left to devour.
The elder proudly told his younger self about the innocent blood painting the dunes of Neverstu and how the treasures of Dagora had been harvested.
And after all these tales of unmatched victory, it was then the old man realised that his younger self had stopped following.
He turned to his first visitor in almost a decade, the younger Adder was a few feet away from his older reflection.
He had his head down, his hands clutching at his rag like pants.
Before he could demand an answer from the visitor, until his younger self started to furiously start to shake his head and ran away from his glorious future.
Yet when the old man started to chastise his past self, he watched as his manor filled with relics of his victories and successes.
Slowly began to fall apart at each step the visitor took, breaking apart into chunks and then into dust, until there was nothing left.
…
Adder was now alone, the dark future that disgusted and disturbed him now gone.
No more ill gotten gains, no more monuments to his cruelty, and no more heartless lonely old man.
So Adder sat in the middle of this blank void, trying to calm himself down once again all alone.
"Maybe I deserved their scorn."
He whispered to himself with tears in his eyes.
Adder couldn't help but think if that was his future, his destiny.
The boy couldn't judge the people's fear, their ire had been proved to be more than deserved.
But before he could continue down the path of thought.
He himself received a visitor.
From the very edge of Adder's hearing there was a slithering that came writhing from beyond the void
The visitor's arrival changed the very void around them, what was once nothing but blinding white void soon became a mountainous plain.
With towering mountains far from where he was, and as the boy started to gain his bearings.
Lush grass bursted from the once barren ground and then towering trees.
Adder watched in wonder as the void around him turned into a beautiful forest, with green grass, strong trees, and crystal clear lakes.
And as he looked all around him, the ground in front of him gave way, forming a wide open pit.
Then the noise that Adder could barely perceive started to grow in volume as the pit in front of him stirred.
He made his entrance with all the nobility that he of his station earned.
His large head topped with mighty golden horns, his titanic form elegantly rising from the pit covered with shining scales of royal purple with bands of gold that only proved his nobility even more.
But the most identifying feature was his eye's, black slit pupils that laid on a sea of crimson,
The eyes that petrified the thousands who foolishly met him eye to eye.
Adder watched as the massive serpent slowly but regally slither out of the den, but not once taking his eyes of Adder.
This was the king of serpents himself, the Basilisk.
The Dragon of venom, the scourge of Arenrit, and the Venomous king.
Even with all the names that the Basilisk had earned and that were forced onto Adder.
There were not enough to showcase his might.
For when the Basilisk wrapped himself around the area that Adder stood, the boy couldn't even stand to face his 'cell mate'.
For the first time Adder saw the king of Serpents face to face, or the closest thing the two would ever get.
And they just stared at one another, Adder was of course confused but as he looked into the serpent's eyes he had a feeling.
That what Adder just experienced, basilisk had experienced it too.
Then Adder had a seemingly impossible thought, that the Basilisk had come here for a truce.
When that thought entered Adder's head, the massive serpent tilted his head confirming Adder's fantasy to be true.
Adder sat there, trying to understand this olive branch from the venomous calamity.
His entire family lineage was made to contain the great serpent so why?
Why now of all times, he had been living alone in a crumbling ruin for a little over two years now.
Then it hit him like a hurricane, Adder was at his lowest.
He had finally reached the bottom of the pit known as despair and the king of every single serpent known and unknown had enough.
The beast caged for over a thousand years had somehow gained pity for his long tortured jailer.
This was life changing, for when a bearer is able to attain "control" over their calamity they would become a warden.
Wardens, bearers that gain the powers and abilities of their calamity, becoming innate warriors with powers that the common people could only dream of.
Of course the amount of warden families could easily be counted with one hand.
But now the Serpens family would be added to that dauntless group, with them becoming the sixth warden family.
That is when the Basilisk that started to move closer and closer to Adder, the boy's hand rose to meet the calamity.
And when they met, Adder woke back up in the crumbling ruins that was his home.
…
It took a moment for Adder to truly recognize what had happened to him, the boy trying to figure out if what he experienced was a dream or not.
That is when it hit him with a sense of complete certainty, Adder recognized the source of this feeling immediately.
It was the Basilisk himself, of course it could not speak but the king of serpents' emotions had imparted themselves onto Adder.
Thus the boy had gained the temperance of the venomous king, and he planned to use it.
And when he got up on his feet he made his second discovery.
He had grown in height and in mass, it took a second for him to get used to his new size.
Adder then gained a sinking feeling in his chest and grabbed the mirror that he had used to put judgement on himself.
He was surprised by his visage cause it was then when he made his third and final discovery.
His eye's had changed to those of the basilisk, Slit pupils on a sea of crimson.
When he opened his mouth his upper and lower canines had become thinner and curzed inwards.
As he started to wonder about if he could use venom, his body answered him.
Adder felt the flesh around his teeth constrict, with Adder soon tasting an acidic sour taste.
The boy reconized the this as the taste of venom, Adder thought as he tested the new muscles in his mouth.
Flexing them to see how they worked and what were their limits.
It was then that Adder was hit with a monstrous hunger, his stomach seemingly transformed into an endless pit.
Planing and further discoveries could wait, for Adder needed to feed now.
And without any thought Adder ran to the beast infested forests to saciate his new found hunger.