Zathor had just finished taking down the fortress controlled by the Betrayer's troops near Nightbend in the eastern ashlands, the home of the Dark Elves, So, Zathor went to the Lord of the city to let him know that he had finished.
"Quite impressive, Zathor, not many individuals could take down a fortress of enemy troops on their own." The Lord said, "Now as a reward, I would like you to have this Stave with Magical properties, made by the best enchanter in the east."
"I don't want a reward, my lord." Zathor said, "I just want to ensure the denial of Military assets to the Betrayer."
"Why do you not wish a reward?" The Lord asked.
"I lost my family, I won't tell you how, or who, but I will tell you this, I loved them dearly, and I still do, I will never insult their Memory by taking a trinket as a reward, or any reward for that matter." Zathor said
"Is that so?" The Lord asked.
"It will be till the end of time and space itself." Zathor said, "and don't thank me, I don't deserve it."
Zathor then turned and left. With a sigh he gave one good look to the Red Well, the Volcano that dominated the region, Zathor found it distasteful, it reminded him too much of Darkmount, the Volcano in the Southern Ashlands, and too much of his past.
For years, Zathor had been on the wrong side of the conflict with the Betrayer, he was the Betrayer's Dark Captain, but none of it ever felt right, during one battle, Zathor fought his sister, Zanna, he did everything he could to avoid Killing her in their clash, but he miscalculated their spacing, and she took a lethal gash across her stomach. That was the Moment Zathor had realized that he chose the wrong side, but he stayed on the betrayer's side for a century, leading the Charge on the siege that placed the betrayer in the Imperial palace, feeling it was where he fit in. Not long after that, he was visited by Zanna's ghost, Showing him his continued Mistakes, not long after that, he fell in battle against a man named Tedran, who had Zathor dead to rights, but instead of finishing Zathor off, Tedran showed Zathor Kindness, and healed Zathor's wounds, and then not Long after he Originally met the woman who would eventually become his wife, Xomera, Zathor was visited by a hooded man of red demonic skin tone in a black hood, who, via magic, showed Zathor how grim the future could have been if he remained on the Betrayer's side, but didn't believe it. Then, the next day, Xomera showed back up, and simply talked with him. And over the course of the discussion, resulted in what needed to slide into place to get Zathor to change sides, when Dolga, who was Zathor's direct subordinate at the time realized this, he tried to kill Xomera, setting the company on her, but Zathor got up and defended her, killing the whole company minus Dolga before dying. In the plane of death, he encountered Xomera again, who he then realized was the Goddess of death. And she resurrected him, believing he was making a change for the better.
And Zathor was grateful that she did, from there, he became her Champion of Death, several months after that, professing his love to her, and the rest, as they say is history, at least, it was at least until nearly a year and a half ago, when the Betrayer, Dolga, the Illusionist, and The Cudgel learned from one of the wraith Memories they had where Xomera lived, the wraith in question was permanently killed not long after discovering this information, it was a few months after Zathor met Xomera that the wraith found the place. It was looking for Lilly, Xomera's best friend. The Betrayer just didn't think to check the wraith memories until under a year and a half ago.
When the Betrayer arrived, Zathor wasn't present. He killed Xomera in four consecutive blows, he hardly gave her time to react. It looked like Amara escaped, as Dolga's boys were searching for her when Zathor Arrived. He killed them all, brutally, and then he found Xomera's body…
He had to force himself to stop weeping, as he knew that if Amara was still alive, someone would need to get the Betrayer's troops off of her, and to start looking for someone else. So Zathor set out attacking as many fortresses owned by the betrayer and his army as Zathor could find. Never accepting a single reward, he failed, he didn't deserve one. But now, Zathor was pretty satisfied, when the betrayer's army in Disarray because of him, and something that happened near Whitereach several months back it, which lead to the Cudgel being temporarily disabled, the Illusionist dying and coming back with gruesome burns on his face, and Dolga was the only one to come out fairly unscathed, but not woundless.
So, with the Betrayer's army in disarray, Zathor decided it was high time to head home, and find Amara. He would never forgive himself if he got there and she was gone. So, he began to make the Week and a half trip back home. He ran into an issue four miles outside of Nightbend: Dolga.
"What an interesting meeting of chance." he said as soon as he saw Zathor, and Zathor's anger nearly boiled over immediately
"What do you want, Dolga?" Zathor said Aggressively, he really didn't want to have to battle anyone, but was prepared to if he deemed it fit.
"To know how my fortress is doing." Dolga replied.
"It's gone. Go home." Zathor said.
"Now why would I do that? Dolga asked, "I have the most wanted opponent to our military forces right here, after all, the other two have been dead for some time."
That part really Pissed Zathor off, he knew Xomera was one of the two that he spoke of.
"Who was the other one?" Zathor asked.
"Who do you think? The second most Chaotic woman to have ever existed." Dolga meant Lilly, which meant she was the one sending the betrayer's army in disarray near Whitereach.
"And what was the cost of that whole affair?" Zathor asked, "You may have secured your Objective in the north but because of it the Cudgel still has a healing arm, and the Illusionist is blind in one eye, not to mention the whole army you brought up there."
"Now that isn't enjoyable." Dolga said, and what Zathor said clearly pissed him off.
"It's not supposed to be." Zathor told him, and at that point Dolga decided to charge Zathor, who Sidestepped the Charge, and drew his sword. And they began battling, it wasn't the first time Zathor fought Dolga one on one, so Zathor was fairly aware of what Dolga could do. So, Zathor continued to exploit the openings Dolga unintentionally presented, until Zathor disarmed Dolga.
"You've lost." Zathor said.
"But you have nowhere to imprison me, not since, well, you know what." Dolga replied, his trademark smug smile on his face, Dolga then quickly managed to disarm Zathor, so the fight Became a brawl. However, Dolga overestimated himself, as Zathor won the Brawl easily, and because of his comment about what happened to Xomera, awarded him getting beat to a pulp by Zathor, killing him, and banishing him to the ninth plane of hell. Zathor watched in anger as Dolga's body disappeared into the planes of hell, giving a disappointed sigh, knowing that Dolga would be back fairly quickly. So Zathor got a move on.
Normally he would go around centerpoint city, but this time he went directly through, decreasing the amount of time it took for him to get there. And In total it would take the full week and a half. When he got to the house, Amara was not there, but someone clearly had been, and Zathor assumed it was Amara, even though he did not find her
"Amara!" Zathor called. Searching around for her. About a half hour later, Amara broke through the tree line, and Zathor breathed a sigh of relief. But Amara Completely ignored Zathor, and Proceeded into the house. Zathor didn't understand why, so he followed her into the house, where she went into the kitchen to unload her haul from Foraging.
"Amara?" Zathor asked, a worried look on his face.
"Just go away" she said, not even looking up from what she was doing, and it hurt Zathor inside a bit. With a sad sigh, Zathor proceeded over to the living room he stoked the dying fire, and proceeded up the steps, to where he and Xomera had slept, Hoping Amara would come talk to him.
Eventually Amara did come up the steps, and Zathor saw from the main bedroom, that Amara had two bowls of chicken and dumplings, when he saw this, he walked over to Amara, who, behind a child, was sorely dwarfed by Zathor's 8 feet of height. She silently offered him one of the bowls to Zathor, Zathor knelt down to get a better look at her, the first thing he noticed was that instead of the baby blue that her eyes were last time he saw her, they were a blood red, another interesting detail, that worried him was that here was an inverse blood red triangle under her right eye, it was tiny, but there. Zathor didn't question her on it, it was way too early for that, but he accepted the bowl she offered, and said "Thank you." to which she shrugged and went to sit in the doorframe of the main bedroom and began to eat her Chicken and Dumplings.
Zathor found himself some space in the Hall, and sat down next to Amara, accidentally shaking the house a little bit. Amara Glanced at Zathor, but didn't say anything.
"Hello?" Zathor said, trying to talk to her, but he did it in a very calm, and very patient manner, he didn't want to ruin his chance to be her father again. He got a small hum from Amara in reply, as she took a bite of her food.
"I want you to know, I won't be going anywhere from now on. I'll be there for you when you need me to." Zathor said, again, maintaining the calm and patient attitude.
Amara shrugged, "I learned to fill those roles."
"I believe you, but you don't have to." Zathor replied.
"I needed to." Amara said in response.
"You don't have to, anymore." Zathor told her, correcting himself because of what Amara said.
"And what's my reason to stop?" Amara asked, she was right, in some respects, she had managed to provide for herself for a year and a half, and she didn't have much reason to stop, if any.
"I know… that I have been gone for a while, Amara, but I'm back now, and I would like to be your father again." Zathor explained.
"Why now all of a sudden?" Amara asked
"Because I believe that you are safe now, with the betrayer's army in disarray." Zathor said, desperately hoping that it was enough of a reason for this.
"Why does that matter? You left me alone." Amara said.
"I searched for you for hours after I got back, I never found you, but I trusted that you were alive, and that due to the high presence of- due to the fact that the betrayer had stationed troops here to search for you, I thought it best to get their focus off of you." Zathor explained.
"Or a year and a half?" Amara asked, Unconvinced.
"There were many more than I had anticipated, the empire's gone lazy, I was lucky that their presence in the northern region was dealt with by someone else." Zathor told her.
"I can get a few weeks, but a year and half. And never coming back once?" Amara asked again.
"Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer to travel without a horse, and I had none. I would have plane shifted… but after what had happened, I had lost the ability…" Zathor gave a grieved sigh.
Amara winced at that, and said, "I don't want to talk about that."
"Fair enough." Zathor replied, understanding completely, though it was likely worse for her, because she was present when it happened, "what would you like to talk about?"
"Not anyone relating to the dude who bashed my mom's skull in." Amara told him, he didn't show it, but Zathor was taken aback by how she phrased that.
"How about what you gather when you go foraging?" Zathor suggested
"How about we talk about how to get repetitive sounds out of your head." Amara said, being snarky
"What do you mean by that?" Zathor asked, a little confused
"What do you mean? What do I mean?' It's exactly what it is. I hear and see stuff all the time after everything that happened. Nothing good, that's for sure." Amara said, it all clicked into place for Zathor than, it made since why she ignored him at first, she thought he was a hallucination, this came from the trauma she must have had after seeing Xomera's body.
"I didn't know, I'm sorry." Zathor said, "I'm sorry I wasn't there."
Amara gave a small shrug, her red eyes finally raising to lock with Zathor. "Why would someone ever do that? Why would someone come in, and attack mom?! Why would they hit her over and over before finally taking her to the floor an- "Amara ranted, her voice getting louder and louder before she finally cut herself off, in tears as she shook.
"It's alright, I'm here, I won't leave you, I promise," Zathor said, "The Betrayer did this because Xomera caused a lot of problems for a lot of people who wanted to hurt the world, and watch it burn. The Betrayer was one of the main people she focused on delaying, and he had the right people to keep her trapped long enough to get the upper hand to try and pull ahead. He wanted her… gone, because she had done the morally correct things, and it hurt his regime."
Amara then hugged onto Zathor at this point, still crying. "B-but he… he just… he beat her head in…" the girl whimpered, seeming to cringe as if reliving it over and over again. She had seen it. Zathor hugged her back. emotionally crumbling as well but trying to stay strong. Zathor mentally recalled the events of when he found Xomera's body. Dolga's men outside the house, searching for Amara, laughing about what had happened, that they didn't think she would go down as quickly as she did because of her past in dealing with the betrayer, it sickened Zathor, and it still did to this day.
"I'm so deeply sorry, amara." was all Zathor could say, before silently breaking into tears, as well. He then promised once again to Never leave Amara alone like he did, ever again.
"I'll hold you to that." was all Amara said in response.