Alturus Loriann Turtledove

  2500.04.26

  Sol 0

  Dukedom of Oracio

  Turtledove Estate

  Alturus Lorian Turtledove was born into a family of gravediggers and executioners. For millennia, his family had executed the judgment of the Familial Kings, Emperors, and Sol. The eldest son of the Turtledove name, all of that pressure fell onto his young, frail shoulders. And so, on the evening of his fifteenth birthday, his father, Lord Alderian Luctus Turtledove, dragged his son out into the lawn behind the family mansion. He guided the boy over to a great white oak tree that grew at the edge of a thicket. Lord Turtledove reached inside a small hole and plucked a tiny baby rabbit from its burrow.

  “When I too was your age, my father brought me through this rite of passage.” His father stated as they walked into a small rickety shed attached to the back of the mansion. “You have circled ten and five cycles around Sol, my son. Prove yourself for me and pick up the mantle of Executioner of the Familial Kings.”

  The man approached the stone altar that stood in the center of the small dusty room. It was a smooth, polished grey pillar that tapered out at the top. Along its sides were delicate patterns and symbols that were etched by hand. It was out of place in this run-down shed; engravings in an ancient text lined the surfaces. Delicately, he placed the small bunny on the altar. When its paws met the cold, hard surface, it began to shriek and move frantically. After a few moments, the bunny made a quick and desperate leap. However, a silent, invisible force arrested it within the air. Still crying out, the animal was guided back down to lie on the flat surface.

  On the far wall of the shed, past the altar, were various racks and shelves lined with gardening and woodworking equipment. The man turned to a wall of tools and searched for something. His hand hovered over each object as he considered the usefulness of each tool. After moving back and forth across the wall, his hand hesitated over a thin coping saw. Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around the handle and lifted the saw from its hanging hook. He focused on his son .

  “Like my father did before me.” The man began. “I am asking you to take this saw and slice the head off of this infant rabbit.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  A look of dread swept across the young teen’s face as he realized what was now to be asked of him. Alturus stood there staring at this man; no, this was his father. A father who suddenly felt dark and foreign, malignant. A mask of death coated his face, the love that usually radiated from his features now absent.

  Just moments ago, his father had warmly hugged him. A man who, as they celebrated the start of his tenth cycle, had caressed his mother. The one who, just minutes ago, had pecked a small kiss on the forehead of his younger sister. She had made a whiny plea that she wasn’t the center of attention like her brother. His younger brother had just rested on this man’s hip, laughing and dancing to the beat of the performers. Now they were here face-to-face. His father was demanding that he take the innocent life of this baby rabbit in a painful and gruesome way. A rite of passage that Alturus did not want and yet could not refuse.

  “You see, son.” Alderian, no, now Lord Turtledove, continued. His lips curled in a distasteful expression, his teeth no longer bare. “In order to be a Turtledove, or at least a man of the Turtledove name, you must break that innocence you were born with. You are a hunter, a killer. You are an executioner. You are the one who, without question, will hand out the judgment of the Familial Kings. You have to accept that path today. It is a long one-”

  Lord Turtledove paused for a second. His face broke into a look that young Alturus could not yet read. After a few moments, he continued.

  “Son, I truly implore you. Try to understand, we are born whole in this world. Pure, for that matter. You see, the only way to truly commit justice and prosecute those who do wrong is to have no underlying morality or guilt. There cannot be hesitation. There cannot be questions, nor endless bickering. We, ourselves, must break our innocence so that we, the Turtledove’s, can serve their majesty’s bidding. That is our duty.”

  The man’s grey, stern eyes met with bright, innocent brown eyes. Eyes that had never known pain or suffering. Those stern grey eyes would haunt Alturus’s dreams. They were eyes that would forever mark the day when a gulf had separated him from his father.

  “You have two choices, boy!” Lord Turtledove said, spit flew all over Alturus’s face. “If you are a son of mine, if you are a true Turtledove, you will take this saw and do this, or I will kill it and then kill all the others that were in that burrow. Do you want that? They will all die because you chose to spare this, this... thing. Do you want to be my son? Do you want to be a Turtledove!?”

  For a moment, a frantic, desperate expression had covered his father’s face. The man was halfway turned when, for the first time in the several-minute affair, Alturus spoke.

  “No.” Alturus’s voice seemed to emanate in a faint whisper around the room. A sound that filled every nook and cranny of the small shed. It permeated the entire mansion as servants, family, and guests alike looked around in alarm. It was a no that held an air of authority. It forged a gash between Lord Alderian and his eldest son.

  The thin rusty saw disintegrated into thin metallic powder and cascaded into the wind. A thundering crack echoed around the shed as the altar broke, split symmetrically in half. Between the two new pillars, a small hairless baby rabbit lay unmoving on the dirt. Lord Turtledove's grey eyes, in that moment, filled with unreasonable and unending fear as they stared into bright red eyes. Flares that blazed with the deep echoing light of the sun.