[Cautionary Warning: Chapter contains graphic content that may be disturbing to some readers.]
'Where am I? What's going on? Why does it hurt, urghhh, why does everything hurt? Wait why can I speak? What's going on?' Runaan was rushing through chaotic questions within his mind, all he knew was that he was now in excruciating pain. Right after his birth, he began to cry in agonizing pain. He began to look around when two very enervated hands wrapped around him. 'I am not alone?' The hands belonged to Runaan's mother, Saris Dragonsblood.
"I am so sorry my precious little boy... I am so sorry I won't be here for you when you grow up... I won't get to see you play... I am so sorry my precious child, your mother never meant for this to happen in this way... I just hope my prayers to keep you safe come true... Runaan Dragonsblood, Future King of the Dragonsblood Clan... If only we weren't betrayed by that man... if only your father wasn't stabbed in the back... just promise me, you will remember to come back to find our clansman.... promise me Runaan Dragonblood, you will live strong and free your people... and remember that your mother will always love you..." The disheveled woman's voice was coarse and heavy.
Saris struggled to speak to Runaan, it continued to become weaker and weaker. Until finally, with the last bit of her strength, Saris began to write her child's name on the ground near her so that someone might know his name. However, she could only write "Runaan" before she had untimely passed away, she was hemorrhaging too much blood from his birth and other wounds across her body.
**********
[The night before]
Saris had been exhausted from trying to escape from something, in the Forgotten Woodlands when her labor was induced by the struggles of fleeing the deeper most part of the forest. When she then was met by the pack of Black-Tailed Shadow Foxes. The foxes were attracted to the scent of blood and the pheromones released when she entered labor only furthered their bloodlust. The foxes could only tell there was, to their eyes, a free meal.
Saris began to struggle to run from the foxes that had begun to encircle her. There were some two dozen foxes trying to entrap her. Foxes were cunning pack animals, they were trying to cut off all possible routes for her to flee from them. However, the foxes had severely underestimated the strength Saris held, even while wounded and beginning to enter labor.
Saris was a very high-tiered mage within the Dragonsblood clan. Saris was a Sage Ranked wind mage, as such, with a flare of her hand, that clearly had no wand held within it, a massive amount of mana flooded the surrounding area. Saris had created a tornado around her body.
The winds and the surrounding air became so fierce within a blink of an eye, the tornado had begun to grow and take shape. There were a few faxes thrown some hundreds of yards away, those were the lucky ones. The other foxes that had begun to lunge at Saris at the worst possible moment were sucked up into the sky from the immense air pressure lifting them into the sky, while they were in the sky, the winds began to pick up debris from the surroundings, and started tearing the foxes to shreds. The tornado was dyed red for a short moment until the debris began to mix with the blood in the air, turning it a dark brown.
The tornado was then expanded by Saris' mana to offer her a safe passage towards the edge of the Forgotten Woodlands. But as she was trying to exit the woodlands, the contractions from her womb had begun to tear her focus away from trying to flee the woodlands. Saris hurriedly darted her eyes around the surrounding area to find a suitable place for her to try and safely give birth to her firstborn child, she was terrified. She couldn't believe she had been forced from her home by that man and reduced to the state she was currently in.
That man poisoned her husband's mind, he tricked him into trying to kill Saris and their child. Saris's husband, Roland Dragonsblood was the current clan's ruler, the strongest amongst them. The man was afraid of their power, and he knew he couldn't remove the two of them himself. So he created a cunning plan to poison Roland's mind, convincing him that the child would become the downfall of the clan. Saris didn't know how the man was able to take control of Roland's mind with poison magic, but he wasn't strong enough to compete against them in a contest of strength, so he resorted to underhanded methods to try and gain dominion over the Dragonsblood clan.
Roland's mind under the effects of the poison from that man, made him attack his wife and unborn child. Roland was the only other Sage-ranked member in the Dragonsblood clan, he had the blood of a true dragon flowing in his veins, as such, it gave him the power to easily separate the surrounding mana into his favorite power, the power of Earth Mana. True dragons left marks on their kin through the form of a birthmark the would be present on the reverse side of their eyes, only visible when mana was used by them and when others used mana on them. The birthmark upon the Dragonsblood kin signified the strength of their inherited blood from their parents, the more intricate and brighter the eyes showed equally deepened the level of their inheritance. Roland's eyes had glowed the brightest of any of their clansman.
The strength behind Roland's eyes was respected and envied by many. That man had grown to resent the difference in the inheritance of their blood, how could his brother receive such stronger eyes than him, they were cut from the same seed. He couldn't stand the power his brother had received, he became corrupted by envy that turned to greed. He plotted to take his brother's place as the sovereign of the Dragonsblood clan. Rathgar began to lay waste to his opposers through the poison he used on Roland, starting with Saris. Saris was coveted by Rathgar, and when she married his brother, he began his plot to take the throne from his brother, through any means necessary.
Rathgar began his coup against his clansman, and with Saris in her weakened state from being pregnant, he was able to take the throne from his brother, and remove the things that he found to plague his deluded right to rule.
Saris was the linchpin to Rathgar's plan to take over the Dragonsblood clan. Her being weakened from the pregnancy nearing its end gave Rathgar the perfect opportunity to seize the throne. His coup forced Saris to flee from her home, to run from her husband, to run from her power-hungry bother-in-law from killing her child. She had only wanted to live with her family in peace, but that all went up in flames without warning.
The night Saris had to flee from her home, was the night she died, filled with pain, guilt, and regrets. She regretted the fact she couldn't be in her child's life, she felt guilty she couldn't protect her family, all the while she was in excruciating pain. When she was beginning to enter the painful thralls of labor, she could only find a Krosis tree that had begun to up-root as her tornado passed by it, the tree was nearing the peaks of its adolescent stage of life, as such, it was the perfect place for protection given her current predicament.
Saris had begun to walk slowly towards the hollow created between the tree's roots and the ground. When she began to neat the entrance to the hollow, a contraction hit her, it threw her to her knees. She wanted to reserve her strength as much as she possibly could for what was to come, so she crawled the rest of the way. After she entered the hollow, she used her meager control over earth mana to try and pull the Krosis roots together to close the hollow off, she had just been attacked by a pack of foxes, she couldn't risk getting involved with other beasts from the woodlands.
Saris's labor began to come into full swing, and when her child had begun to be birthed, she needed to retract her tornado from the area to try and preserve the vitality that the mana had offered her. Saris had become to be in so much pain, she began to clench her torn clothes with her teeth, she bite down so hard trying to avoid the pain caused by giving birth that she began to crack her teeth. The pain was soon the only thing could feel, the only solace she found was that at this moment of agonizing pain she could only begin to think of her child that was soon to be born. She had to endure the turmoil of childbirth alone and while being pursued by bloodthirsty beasts, attracted by the scent of blood.