I am the last of my line....

Comes now Raalcorr, the Warborn, the last of the warrior royalty.
My birth, my destiny, and my path all began in battle, exist in battle, and shall most likely end in battle. I can imagine nothing better.
My sires were the royal family of the warrior peoples of the Blood Axe Mountains, so named for their appearance at dusk when their sharp peaks are bathed in the red dying light of the sun. They were fair leaders of a land of individualists who only followed royalty for the unity it offered for we are people that would sooner see our knees cut out from under us then to bow to anyone, especially those who would seek to conquer us.
Everyone understood that while we were all great warriors, men and women alike, to face the potential threats of the world as individuals would bring about our destruction. Whomsoever that attacked us would pay dearly for their victory, but that would not change the outcome. Therefore, it was decided by the Council of Elders, the leaders of that time, that the House of Morgran, the most trusted and beloved House, would become the new royal family. Thus my family became the leaders and united the disparate lands into one kingdom, which was named Juris, for Justice, one of the four most essential ideals of a warrior.
The kingdom under the leadership of the House of Morgran prospered and was reasonably peaceful for many generations with wars against our enemies being ended quickly and fiercely; but that was not to last.
My aunt, Gremainia, was mad and obsessed with power and was willing to go to any lengths to achieve it, not for others, but solely for herself. She had been banished years before for trying to assassinate my parents, along with The Council of Elders and their families with the help of Shadow Goblins, vile creatures born of dark sorcery and hatred and brought to Midgar through a portal hidden in our own mountains.
While her attempt failed, she did not imagine herself defeated, but rather, educated.
She realized that a land of individuals would never accept her as their Queen if she simply murdered their leaders. She would have to find some way of either turning the people against their royalty, or controlling them somehow. Or perhaps both.
She bided her time, building an alliance of Shadow Goblins, dark sorcerers specializing in mind manipulation and control, and a small army of thugs. She called her new force her Reach.
When she finally felt she was strong enough, her sorcerers infiltrated themselves amongst the various villages and cities to begin corrupting the thoughts and emotions of the people. Though the wizards and seers of the capital sensed a new threat was on the rise, they could not pinpoint it, nor even define it for it was everywhere.
Slowly, over the course of a year, the people became hateful, blaming imagined problems and fears on my family. The final nail in the coffin of that age was when some of the more clever of her thugs became leaders of a "resistance movement" and caused the peoples to rebel, even to march on our capital city of Honora.
My family refused to believe that this was a random act and had the wizards and seers try searching for the thread that would lead back to Gremainia, their chief suspect. They reported success, stating that she was having sorcerers change the emotions of the people to favor fear and rage, bringing them to states of unthinking violence.
My parents and their personal bodyguards had all taken an oath that they would never raise their weapons against their own people unless first threatened by said people. And since this was not their people acting against them but Gremainia, they could not fight the masses marching on the capital. They could only defend themselves. This came at a particularly trying time, for my Mother was pregnant with me.
My parents knew that they would never be able to escape the very tight noose of Gremainia, so my Father went deep into the forest and arranged with the local pack of wolf-people, werewolves that never changed back to human, and truthfully never really wanted to, to take me when I was born and raise me.
My Mother went into labor just as the capital was under attack. The warriors of our House fought a delaying action with the purpose of giving her and the midwife time. I was born to the sounds of clashing swords in the corridors of our fortress, with my Father holding my Mother’s hand in his right hand and his sword in his left.
Once I was born, my mother belted on her swords, took me in her arms, and snuck out the underground tunnel with the midwife while my Father joined the battle to give them more time.
As my Father died fighting, my Mother and the midwife came out of the underground tunnel into the forest and made their way to the pack. When they got there, the pack was waiting and accepted me, along with a magic scroll containing nearly all of my people’s history, and weapons crafted for me by the wizards and seers who foresaw a potential future when I might use them to reclaim Freedom for my people.
My Mother and the midwife left then to start the true resistance and I became part of the pack. The Alpha named me Raalcorr, meaning Warborn. An apt name considering my entrance into this world.
As I grew, I was trained in the ways of battle and the Rage. The Rage is the gift of the wolves which keeps them from being attacked by magical means, a lesson the sorcerers learned at a dear price when they tried to recruit them. As I progressed in my training, the Alpha warned me that there was a possibility of my turning into one of them. That were I to master the Rage, I would be turned into one of them. I needed the Rage to seek out and combat the sorcerers when it was time to go on the hunt so trained fearlessly.
Life with the wolves was hard, but through that I learned to be hard. I learned to be as unmovable as the mountains, but capable of bending as the trees. I learned hunting and the strategy of the pack. I learned the ways of the forest so no matter where I was I would not starve. I learned of family, love, and devotion. I learned of the four ideals of the warrior and defender; Freedom, Justice, Truth, and Honor.
From the scroll I learned of my past and of the treachery which brought the days of blood and pain to our lands.
When I was finally old enough, the Alpha of the pack told me where I could find the resistance and my Mother.
When I started gathering information for my war, I learned that Gremainia's forces managed to take the capital and kill all the defenders. Though she had hoped to take my Father and Mother captive and execute them in public, Father fought too fiercely and could not be taken, only killed, and Mother had escaped with me and had gone into hiding along with the wizards and seers.
Though she didn't get her perfect end to my family, her war of dominance was complete. The people were unknowingly controlled by the sorcerers while the Shadow Goblins and thugs acted as "police" and "agents" of Gremainia. Save for small bands of rebels aided by the wizards, no one truly considered fighting back. They were being told terrible lies by the Reach of enemies preparing to march on our lands and numerous and varied threats coming to destroy them. Everything from demonic dragons to plague was used as excuses for the excesses of power of the Reach. The peoples lived in fear and poverty, hating everything and not even knowing why while Gremainia lived in my family's fortress surrounded by wealth and comfort. People were starving, being murdered and even eaten by the Shadow Goblins while the thugs abused their imaginary power.
I found out that before my Mother had been able to do much more then create the foundation of the resistance throughout the kingdom, she had been killed when the Shadow Goblins raided a meeting of rebel leaders. She died fighting, giving the last of the Council of Elders time to escape and get into hiding.
When I saw the extent of Gremainia's evil and heard of my Mother’s death, I vowed to destroy her and release the people of Juris from this tyranny forever!
My first act of defiance against Gremainia's Reach was when I walked into a village from the forest with my swords in my hands and challenged the local guard to a battle. They believed I was mad, as there were twenty of them and only one of me; that they could see anyway.
What they didn't know was that I had met with a wizard hiding out in that village a month before and showed him the scroll. Only one of our wizards could have forged it and the weapons I wielded, and only the Prince of the House of Morgran would have possession of them. Once he accepted who I was, I told him of my plan to retake Juris.
The thugs were very cocky as I challenged them. They laughed and said I must have a death wish as when they were done with me, I would wish I was dead.
Even when the people of the village began to ring the square with drawn weapons, and strange expressions of determination and fearlessness, sensations they had not known for years, their leader simply called for the sorcerer to get them back under control. The wizard I had contacted though would not allow that to happen. It was his efforts which first broke the spell of despair lying upon the villagers, and mine which ensured it would not return.
I faced the sorcerer in that square and while he wove his spells of compulsion and pain, gave myself to the white hot fires of the Rage within my heart and roared at the top of my lungs, "For Freedom!" and charged! His look of sneering confidence vanished like smoke when his spells rebounded from me! When I cut his torso in half and took his head from his shoulders as he fell, the village erupted in cheers! It had worked! The Rage would keep those of us that were capable of learning its power safe from the spells! We could now fight back!
The leader of the thugs knew fear when the head of the sorcerer landed at his feet with a look of abject terror forevermore etched upon its face.
The thugs last moments were of the villagers they had tormented and abused rushing them howling their frustration and hatred. Then death.
From village to city we spread out, each person who had learned the Rage teaching it to others who taught it to others. Within weeks, the kingdom was coming out of the depths of the spells, people began fighting the thugs, killing Shadow Goblins, and laughing as they cut down the sorcerers. With the help of the resistance my Mother had started, weapons were distributed to as many as possible. Those who we couldn't arm received the weapons from the Reach that were being slain all over the land.
Gremainia watched her Reach being killed all over Juris by people who had only weeks ago been to afraid and beaten down to fight back, but now knew of the Rage and used it to combat the magics which had brought them so low.
Finally, we marched on Honora, a proud and strong people once more, killing all dared to stand against us. Without the power of the sorcerers, the Reach found themselves to be cowards who had no chance against us.
I fought my way into my family’s fortress and faced the last of Gremainia's sorcerers and Shadow Goblins, her personal guard and the most dedicated force she had, alone in the Great Hall. The Shadow Goblins attacked me, but had no chance. Without shadows to crawl into or spells to protect them, they were little more than nuisances I wove through them and carved them apart, their stinking blood covering the floor. The sorcerers fared no better when they tried encircling me. Even their most powerful spells rebounded wildly off of me causing them to do more harm to each other than to me. When the last of them fell with his entrails spilling around him, I and my fellow Juristans marched to Gremainia's throne room.
When we entered the room, she immediately tried one last time to tell every one of the dangers which she alone was keeping at bay. No one listened as she was taken, screeching and cursing us all, out to the wall of the fortress. The people gathered below to watch as she was bent over the wall with her head over thin air. I asked her if all of the death and pain she had brought had accomplished anything. She merely looked back at me with eyes filled with fear. I struck her head from her shoulders and watched as it smashed on the stones below.
Finally, Juris was free again.
It took several months of regrouping and work, but finally, the people were able to go back to living proudly again, the wizards and seers restarted their academy, and the Council of Elders was reformed, the Houses all being represented again. I was the one representative of Morgran. The last of my House.
However, after the abuses of power of Gremainia and her Reach, no one wanted to see another King or Queen on the throne. With the power of our wizards and seers, the people would be able to be in easy contact with each other. That, plus the unification which came from resisting the Reach, meant the people had neither need nor want of another line of royalty.
From then on, Juris became a republic, with men and women acting in the role of public servants elected by popular vote thanks to the new lines of communication provided by the spells of the wizards. Though the possibility for corruption was still there, no individual would ever allow another to be greater than them.
As for me, with my purpose fulfilled, I left the newly created republic to wander the world, free for the first time in my life.
My purpose in life is to battle evil where I see it, to protect whosoever needs it.
After I roamed Midgar for a while, finding occasional battles to fight and enemies to defeat, I found the Dragon Knights and therefore, I found new people to walk the path of defender with. I now fight beside them, defending Midgar, protecting the weak, and perfecting my power of the Rage.
One day I will succeed and become one of the werewolves, running through the woods at the full moon, reveling in all the sights and sounds only someone with those senses can appreciate and detect.
Man and Werewolf, I will spend my life fighting for what I believe and I will die fighting without shame. Only by meeting death head on will I know life.

............That brought a tear to my eye, it was just that awesome.

That was very well put...but I hope you get along with cats better than the other werewolves do...

Thanks.
And I see no reason there should be division. While I'm not quite there yet, I figure we all roar in the same direction, we all rip and rend the same way. Someone running away from us causes the same reaction. We slaughter all who prey upon the weak, for that action makes them our prey. There's really not much difference.

I think that was another example of Kai's dry humor.......

Ah, well my momma calls me son cause I'm so bright.