LEVEL ONE ARABIAN ROGUE
" my life is no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. yet what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?"
- david mitchell, cloud atlas

Atlas is a moderately sized individual, but all his edges are sharpened and worn by years of abuse and exposure to the elements. He has some of the characteristic fine features of his breed— the gently dish-shaped face, the high seat of his tail— but lacks in others. His neck is thicker muscled and its arch is a bit short. His chest is deep and wide, and his musculature sits more densely on his hindquarters and shoulders than one would expect from a normal Arabian.

His mane and tail are both golden, though they appear to be out of different qualities of the metal. His tail is a beautiful deep, shining amber, thick and rich and high lifting; it is heavy with hair and full of gentle curls and swirls which become more intense with higher humidity. His mane, having since grown back from being chopped off, is a paler, more haggard gold, creamier and more blonde than deep. It is a bit short and uneven, though it, too, will curl if prompted by the elements.

His pelt is a gradient of deep brown sugar at it’s darkest parts lightening to a shimmering beige at his cheeks, chest, and the curve of his rear. It is more of a matte color, darkened by his sooty gene, and speckled with faint dapples that catch the light as he moves. Between his hind legs the skin is pink fading to a small patch of white on his stomach; the tip of his muzzle is also pink, and his golden head is adorned in a thick, white blaze. Like a map of stars over his pelt, he is speckled with small, but bright, birdcatcher spots. His eyes are a deep coffee brown, and rimmed in thick black, giving him the impression of wearing eyeliner.

The exception to his golden color palette are his legs, which are dyed a dark seal brown and barred in something close to black; it matches the thin dorsal stripe running down his spine. He has one slip of white on his rightmost hind foot, making that hoof a lighter color of chamoise pink; his others are a silvery-shadowed brown color.

He wears a simple, greyed-out, ripped-edged scarf around his neck, the remains of Nashira’s cloak from so long ago.

Atlas was hewn from the stone of effortless nobility on the edge of the dull blade of his naivete. It took Nashira almost quite literally reaching down to pry and hold his eyes open for him to see how catastrophic things were around him. He has been through so much since and vowed to never go back; he will not close his eyes again, no matter how much he wishes, no matter how painful the visions are. He remains this way to this day, a silent observer, quiet in the crowd, but always watching, always making a note, of inequalities, injustices, and how he can best help those in need.

He has promised himself a life of social celibacy but Atlas is nothing if not weak. Every time he swears he has built up a wall between himself and any viable connections with people outside himself he sets to work pulling it down crumb by crumb; he frequently tries to test himself by approaching people he has interest in and more often than not finds himself giving just a little bit: just a smile here, just a conversation here, and so on it grows until he is more actively seeking their attentions, only until his heart is, once again, crushed and, once again, he commits to steadily building up that wall, and for good, this time.

And though his efforts are futile he protects himself with good reason. Twice now has his heart been all but physically ripped from his chest and crushed on the ground before him. As the saying goes, though, a zebra cannot change its stripes, and Atlas cannot change the innermost parts of him, which is formed to love and be loved. He forms an immediate bond with anyone who seems to need his assistance and is nothing short of blatantly self-sacrificial. He is often quiet and soft-spoken and allows himself to be tread over like a cloak covering a mud puddle for the betterment of others.

He has born witness first hand to the sight of the wealthy living by the lifeblood of the poor and will chop his own legs off before he again lives beyond his means, or at the detriment of any others. He will return to the desert and eat dirt and drink droplets from the crevasses of cactus leaves before he sustains himself on the generosity or offerings of another. What little he can provide for himself on the meager fundings of his work is good enough, and though he will offer favors until his body is empty, he will never take advantage of the help or assistance offered by another. If he had all the wealth in the world he would hand it out to those who need it. He is not often taken by flights of vanity but something within him craves something to call his own, thus his slightly subconscious obsession with buying a nice cloak; part of him feels he’s replacing the remaining artifact left to him by Nashira, not in a negative way of removal, but more of causing it to arise anew.

One thing has not changed from his time as a youth, and that is his mental resemblance to a sponge. He picks up new topics of understanding quite quickly, including languages and different crafting arts. The stars of Novus, once new and foreign to him, are now as known and familiar as the air he breathes. He directs himself by four different key stars, however: his southern star, Azimal; his northern one, Atlas; to the east, Nashira; and Nathely glows red in the west. He will never forget himself or those who guided him, and so in that way will never get lost.

His humor is a bit strained, and some would say just nonexistent; he has a wide-eyed, eternally surprised way of looking at the world that makes everything seem surprising and new, but too raw to be funny. Even as a young boy growing up in Zukai he was never one for jokes or pranks, and even now to get more than a polite chuckle out of him could be considered a feat. Atlas has seen too much of the terrible truth of the world to find much amusing, and he is always prepared for things to turn sour; as such, he tends to take things too seriously. He dislikes seeing others take risks for the point of a laugh and absolutely does not find humor at the expense of others to be humorous at all.

He has experience with leadership but found it wanting; being in charge reminds him of graves in the sand, and though his mind is quick and clever and can parse strategy together under pressure, he feels he does best when given orders. His ideal position in any sort of structure of power would be just as he was born: the second, the right hand to whoever bears the true responsibility. That being said, he has a strict moral compass and would not hesitate to speak up or refuse a duty should whatever the command he was being ordered to follow cross those lines.

Azimal was having tea with his mother the afternoon before his seventh birthday. His eldest son was set to turn two shortly and both of his wives were pregnant with more children; his mother was, in one breath, congratulating him on his genetic success while in the other cautioning him against spending more time than was necessary with Nashira.

As he was assuring her his bond with Nashira was nothing more than that of master and concubine, his mother began to struggle for breath. Within moments there was blood pouring from her muzzle and she lay still and pale on the floor. Azimal called for the guards and a medic and received no response. He checked the hallways— they were silent, but something was off.

Panicked, he ran to his chambers and found them empty; he checked Nashira’s next, and they were the same. Distraught and terrified something had happened to his best friend, he went to his wife’s section of their vast manse—

Where he found the room upheaved and covered in shards of broken pottery, and stained with blood. The bodies of Sadal’s room guards were prostrate on the floor, still struggling against their open throats as two strangers went about ransacking the room. Another, cloaked, stood over the dying guards; it took the shocked Azimal moments to realize he was looking at Nashira.

His entrance caused a stir and all eyes turned to him at once. Nashira assured the other two she would handle it as she wiped her bloody knife on her cloak, turned, and advanced. Azimal backpedaled, stumbling over his words, in a terrifying, if hilarious, replication of their first meeting.

Nashira forced him beyond the room and into an antechamber. She bid him take off his cloak, his gold, and his jewels, which he did. She asked if he knew what was happening, and he said no. She lunged forward, blade held aloft, and Azimal was certain she was going to slit his throat—

—And in one deft motion, she sliced his brilliant golden mane from his head, leaving an ugly, chopped up remnant. She sheathed her knife and covered him in her own dull, bloodstained cloak. She told him the time of the Sand Czars was done and instructed him to leave the city— caravans of freed slaves would be crossing out of Zukai by the tenfold— and never to return, insisting this would be his only chance to live.

Azimal never thought to ask about Sadal, his brother, his father, or his false son. He simply asked if he would ever see Nashira again.

She kissed him gently on the head and said, “Not in this lifetime.”

And so, as Nashira turned back with Azimal’s gold and trappings to tell her co-conspirators another Sand Prince was dead, Azimal fled as the palaces of the Sand Czars burned and the slaves lifted themselves up in revolt. He crossed over a burning bridge, attached himself to the nearest traveling party, and, with a broken heart full of fear and pain, headed out into the deserts beyond.

It was not long before he realized he would have to change his name, though no one spoke to him much for the first few days. It was not until his thirst and exhaustion finally got the better of him, causing him to stumble and fall, that the self-proclaimed leader of their little party paid true attention to him. When prompted, he mumbled out a word: Atlas. Like the star maps he so favored, probably singed and still strewn across his workstation ensconced within his dead father’s ravaged astrarium.

He was not of the same endurance caliber as those around him; they knew how to survive in harsh circumstances, and had, indeed, weathered worse; Azimal— Atlas’— hooves and lips cracked and his tongue swelled and he grew faint with hunger. The others insulted him, taking him for a palace lush, some taboo jaunt for a Sand Czar with socially unacceptable tastes; though they goaded and teased him, they did not leave him behind. Another young stallion close to his age— he called himself Nathely and bore the marks of an owned soldier— was assigned to his care.

Nathely was charming and handsome, kind and jovial and golden in all the ways Atlas was not; under his watchful eye Atlas made a quick turnaround. Once he was of slightly sounder body, he began helping the slaves-turned-nomads: he could navigate by the stars where many of them could not; his knowledge of mathematics helped in rationing food, and though it paled in comparison to some of the elders, his medical knowledge came in handy, as well, especially in identifying strange plants they found as they traveled.

They had no real destination. Zukai was the only true city in the area, standing alone as a bastion of wealth and bloody prosperity against the sea on one side and the endless desert on the other. None of them could turn back; the chance that the rebellion had failed would spell death for all of them, now— even Atlas, who had long since come to terms with shedding his nobility. His survival would mark him as a co-conspirator and he would die along with the others.

They became a small family, and he and Nathely became incredibly close. Nathely often called him his brother, and Atlas, who was certain he was just trying to fill the gaping hole left by the absence of Nashira, beamed and basked in the praise. The two frequently scouted out dangerous surroundings to see if it was safe for their band to pass through.

The Azimal of golden baubles and silk coverings was long dead. Atlas traveled with Nashira’s worn cloth and wrappings of bug-eaten linen, covered in dirt and sand, scrounging for survival in the desert. At night he and Nathely would range miles ahead of the party in the cool of night under the stars; Atlas would name the constellations and Nathely would make new ones, silly ones— ostriches with flowers in their hair doing a dance, or crocodiles in silk pajamas playing cards. Atlas committed each one to memory.

One night, Nathely said they should name stars for themselves; he claimed the north star was Atlas’, even though Atlas’ insisted it already had a name. But, Nathely, insisted, it was his guiding light, and so it deserved a proper name. Internally, Atlas figured that if the north star was named after him, the southernmost star, the furthest one behind them, should be named Azimal; he picked a bright white dwarf in the head of the northern constellation to be Nashira. To Nathely, he identified a burning red supergiant in the heart of his birth constellation, though he left out most of the significance save its powerful brightness.

In the early dawn, they came across an oasis, filled with pure water and green grass and colorful fruit. A blessing, it seemed, and Nathely proclaimed it so, already turning round to gather up the herd and bring them forth. Atlas was struck by how peculiar the oasis seemed— look, he tried to point out, there are no living things; no sand deer and no birds and not even any flies. The water is still and too-blue, the plants, unidentifiable even to Atlas, smell nauseatingly sweet. Nathely assured him he was simply a worrywart; he was so confident, so sure of himself, that Atlas’ anxieties succumbed a little. He told Nathely to stay and relax and recover, that he would go round and fetch the herd and bring them up.

“Ah, brother,” Nathely said, “you are a lifesaver.” And he began gathering a pile of colorful fruits. As Atlas descended over a large dune and the oasis fell out of sight, he watched Nathely with a smile on his face and a flutter in his heart, as the red in his glorious mane caught the sunlight.

It took a full day and night for Atlas to return with the rest of the herd. When they arrived at the oasis, Nathely did not come out and joyously greet them as Atlas had expected he would. He tried to warn the others to wait while he scoped it out, but they were tired and travel-weary, and, like Nathely, the sight of the oasis lifted their spirits. They descended upon the verdant paradise with shrieks of delight and cries of relief and glee. Some set upon the pile of fruit still resting where Nathely had begun stacking it; others dove right into the water.

For a moment, everything was okay, and Atlas let himself relax; but in seconds the happy cries turned into pained, horrific screams. There was an awful smell in the air, like soured meat and acrid smoke and something so strange, so awful, it outweighed the sickly sweetness of the trees and their bounty. The water became a thrashing, tumultuous mess as equines struggled to escape it. Some were struck and smothered by the desperate flailing of others; Atlas and those on the shore tried to help, tried to reach forward and pull them out, but after helping free the first few, every time they grabbed flesh or hair it would fall away in their mouths and they would have to spit it out. Dark clods of what Atlas thought was sand or stone began to color the crystal blue pool, but as he looked closer he realized they were pieces of pelts and muscle and sinew attached from it.

In the end, only about half of the equines who plunged themselves into the water came free, and of those half, two succumbed to their injuries soon after. Another who had drunk the water instead of diving into it was fading fast, with rivers of blood streaming from their nose and mouth in an eerily familiar situation which reminded Atlas hauntingly of his mother’s death.

As things calmed and the survivors wailed, wept, and dealt with the shock of the event, Atlas searched the foul oasis; with the chaos calmed and the stand of fruit trees empty, he was able to find, to his continued horror, Nathely’s body, half entombed in sand, with an empty spot where his throat should have been. There were no bugs to consume his flesh and the remainder of his face was screwed up in a tortuous expression of pain.

Distraught, heartbroken, and in terrible shock, Atlas stumbled back to his companions to find them each in various stages of ill health. Those who had eaten the strange fruits were complaining of heavy limbs and slurring their speech; some of the younger ones were already laying in the sand, eyes blown wide, catatonic.

Atlas did what he could as his second world rotted around him. He ran to fill skins with water, to flush the toxins from their systems; he brought clumps and mouthfuls of edible foodstuffs, to strengthen their constitution. For two days he ran, scurrying here, sprinting there, to try and stave off the inevitable, all the while the cursed oasis lingered on the edge of his vision, disappearing and reappearing with the movement of the sand dunes.

On the third day, he stopped running and began the arduous task of digging graves in shifting sand.

Atlas lost count of the days. He could no longer remember how old he was, and, truth be told, he didn’t care. He spent his countless hours wandering the desert, alone. There were a number of other nomadic bands also wandering, and not all of them unfriendly. He could not, however, bring himself to take of the resources he knew all too well were quite limited; instead, he greeted and bid goodbye to them in the same breath, parting with the knowledge to avoid the cursed oasis. Garden of Endless Sleep, one of his herdmates had called it in her final breath, and so it became.

His long, lonely travel eventually led him to the sea; feeling there was nothing left for him in his homeland, he sought a ship bound for anywhere else. He found one whose navigator had come down ill, and offered to fill the spot, passing a quick quiz posed by the captain to earn himself a slot aboard.

The passage, like the rest of his life, was dull, and nothing noteworthy happened. It did not bother him. After all, he had experienced in his life, a little boredom in semi-comfort was not unwelcome, so long as he performed his job and earned his keep.

Eventually the stars began to change, as is the custom when one traverses the world; at the point they became unfamiliar to Atlas, they read like home to the captain who was a native. She explained the land they were coming to was called Novus, and spoke about the differing kingdoms. She waxed slightly poetic about the legend of Tempus and his children, and though Atlas never had an ear or mind for religion, he listened intently, as he realized perhaps the only trait he had retained since his seemingly distant youth was his penchant for learning.

They docked at the Dusk Court, or so Atlas was told. He paid little mind to the brief introduction given by the captain, feeling content to begin wandering again once his hooves touched land; though it seemed as soon as he did, he was struck with issues of the wardrobe.

Nashira’s cloak was long in the tooth and by then rendered barely a scarf, tied together in fraying knots, grayed with age and ridden with holes and tears. He felt strangely naked in this new land with little more than a bandage wrapped 'round his neck, and so he sought the market to purchase a new one… and many beautiful cloaks and capes were to be had, masterworks of craftsmanship that caught the eye and seemed to be spun from gold… and priced just as high.

With not a signo to his name, Atlas was plumb out of luck. He was not a creature taken to vanity, yet it was this one stroke of such which kept him rooted in place. Word of mouth led him to a job as a scribe, writing bills of sale for an auction house; it was meager pay for good, honest work, and the auctioneer was so impressed with his penmanship that he gave him a small bonus.

And so the time has passed. Atlas has settled himself into life in Terrastella; he busies himself with work and leaves little time for socialization. He occasionally visits the coast to feel the salt sea and hear the whisper of the wind, but it makes his heart heavy for the land he once left. He intends to save money until he can purchase a new cloak, and then set his hooves back on the solid and solitary path once more.