Larger than life and almost straight out of most nightmares , Reliquary is far from his namesake .

Standing at twenty three hands , he towers over most , a creature that has crawled out of the divine fires that burned his life to ash around him . He's crowned with gold around his head , a halo of light that mocks what he's become . Angels are terrifying beings , creatures of power , and he is no angel , but perhaps can be related to them with his many eyes . Five , to be exact . Golden with black sclera , all his mucous membranes are black , and his bones are gold and heavy , showing through semi translucent skin at his lower legs and ribs , at his face . He's graced with fangs and sharp teeth , with a look of terrifying larger than life power . Four ears , long and agile , twist on his head ( golden at the very ends ) , while his wings are long and leathery , all four of them a mess at his sides that spread wide and encompass what feels everything around him .

He's dark in hue , with flashes of gold that crawl over his wings , veins that crack and crawl over the leather . Cloven hooves dig into the ground he stands on , while a thick draconic tail drags the ground behind him , golden spikes jutting up at intervals along it .

Perhaps the most mortal looking thing on him is the normal mane along his neck , thick and wavy . It's all capped off by a golden glowing semi halo that is out of his control , a perched crown almost atop his head that glows and gives him an even more ethereal look that seems like he crawled from the depths of Hell more than anything , a fallen Lucifer .

There are times when he gives off clouds of black that fall from the veins on his wings , and it's an aesthetic smoke that fades after a while . He has no true control over when it happens , just as he has no control over the constant glow of the golden halo overtop his head .

Reliquary has been alive a very , very , long time . He's seen too many things , felt too much pain . He's walked through the fires of the gods and come out the other end entirely changed . He's faced the wrath of the divines , and in the end , has only seen the world crumble as they continued to slaughter their people .

It's safe to say that Reliq is very much walled off after losing the love of his life millennia ago , and losing someone else he had grown to care about centuries ago . He had once been a soft and gentle man , wise in his teachings and learnings , basking under cherry blossom trees and watching them grow . Learning the world may not be so bad , until it had all been ripped away from him so violently .

He's jaded , distant . Blunt . The finely tuned darkness that lingered in the beginning of his life has never truly vanished , it's merely an accessory now . A trait of personality that's more cynical of the world than anything else .

Meeting him can be an uneasy experience , as he does not really speak all that much anymore , he stares , observes . He watches the world , sees as it ticks down , watches the countdown for another supposed divine intervention . But coming across his path , you may think you've stumbled across a deity all in himself . He's almost larger than life with the way he holds and presents himself , the air of how his head is held aloft , his very presence .

Underneath that cold demeanor is somewhat of a soft man , a fool that once dreamed the world could be full of light and love and laughter . A damned creature that basked in the warmth of light and wished life on everything , spoke it into existence .

Somewhere deep deep down , it's there . The fool that wishes and yearns for a connection , for love . For a glimmer of hope that not all is damned in this being of existence , that his being is not just to be frozen in time and to watch the world fall apart again and again and come out unscathed on the other side .

It takes a lot to get him to open up in any way , and he's long dropped the facade of being happy and foolish . Wise he is , but he is every inch nihilistic at the moment when it comes to mortals , and his own being . He does not know why he still exists , why he's still around , but he will not bleed that nihilism around himself . He keeps it to himself , but it can be seen in a snarky smirk or a remark that seems a little more scathing than it should be .

The world was young when he began his life . He had a mother , but his father was unknown , and no one could pinpoint who it was , either .

Reliquary was not born with that name , nor was he born with the looks he now has . He was spilled into a world that was rife with war , that was cold and dark , split in the middle with black and white . Light and Dark . There was no middle ground , only the clashing beliefs of two growing empires in a land that was young and suffering .

He grew quick and mean , quickly surpassing the height of many that were around him , to their shock . His brutality was unmatched , and it didn't take long to start staining his hooves with blood that was taken in more than just spars.

Baring a name long forgotten , he rose to the top of his vagabond herd , reining them in and leading a charge against the Lights of the kingdom . He was no king , but he was no mere herd leader either . He stood under no King in the Darks , he only took what he wanted , and caused strife and horror wherever he went . Kidnappings were common , with the many that were taken used in the herd for many things , namely to keep their own hooves clean of certain tasks . When the taken had spent their usefulness , they were disposed of on his orders .

There were no attachments , there was no love . It was kill or be killed , and his herd survived in the harshest corners of the kingdom by taking what they could and moving on before they could be pinned down in any manner . His name became a horror story to tell foals at night to get them to behave , he became a bounty . A legend .

Then it all ... changed , as the story goes . Capturing a mare that had more bite from the Lights than he ever thought capable , he was fascinated by her . She was everything that Lights were not , not that he had seen , and the possessive side of him reared itself . Imagine his surprise when he could not break the strong will , and instead , found himself attempting to impress her , learn about her . What started as a kidnapping ended as a change of heart , with him taking her and leaving the herd , breaking away from them and leaving them to scramble and find a new leader while he ran far from them with her , as far as he could . As they both could , away from both Light and Dark .

The tale turns tragic , as all tend to do .

The lands angered the deities , whoever they were , and finally , divine intervention was required . A fire , unholy and holy all at once , that could not be put out by any natural means , consumed the entirety of the lands . Within the flames , he lost the one he had changed his heart to follow , and he lost his way . He lost his very life . It's strange , to burn alive in the fires of the divine , to suffer beyond mortality , to be consumed from the outside in .

The lands perished , turned to ash when the flames died out at long last , blown away on the winds , along with many , many lives . He doesn't know how he lived , if he's honest . But he does know he came out of the fire , but not the same way as he went in . The flames had burned away his outer being , and seemed to turn him into something else entirely . A face he could not recognize in his reflections once he finally saw himself .

Everything changed from there , as the days turned into weeks , months , years , decades . Centuries . The world turned , and Reliquary , with it , never seeming to age a day as he stepped along paths that perhaps he had once forged years and years ago . He was detached , lost , a ship without a rudder , aimlessly at the mercy of the tides of the world that took him along with it .

Different on the outside, his inner demons seemed to always linger and catch on his thoughts here and there , even if he made appearances as some sort of saint to those that he heard of him . They were dark things that clung to him like tar , and yet many knew of him now . Of the new him , the gentle him that had struck out and made a name for himself in many lands , a legend . His name was whispered on the winds , but none knew his origin . Knew what he once was . He began to lose the memory of her as well . Lost to time . He's seen empires rise and fall, watched them turn to ash . Breathed it in and exhaled it onto the winds and watched it simply drift away , aimless. Time began to blur , to mean nothing to him .

His wandering had him in many places , and yet in only one , did he find an attraction . Love is hard to find when it's ripped from you , but he found a sort of solace , in a mute mare that was gentle and soft , just as the years had turned him into . He was tender , loving , hummed for the years of peace , and basked in the light that bathed him . There was a magic in the air , one that he took into his very being , one that allowed him to breathe life into whatever he touched . A fitting role , for a man that was so in love with life and all things gentle and light .

The world seemed right again , seemed ideal . He even had a family , a small daughter that laughed and danced in the sun , bright eyes . A brighter heart . A hope in the world that perhaps it would be alright . A fool .

Yet that too , burned away into ash . Peace does not last in this world , he would never be allowed it . Nothing is permanent . As the world burned this time , the flames did not touch him , even as he stepped away from them , back onto a path of being alone . The soft part of him , the one that came alive at having a family , having a familiarity , is what burned that day . He did not turn into a dark creature again , but he would no longer be so foolishly idealistic .

His magic began to twist inward , and what breathed life now stole it away , put it into a limbo . Not a creature of death but a demigod that could not stand something as foolish as light and laughter and the smiles on faces that did not know any better .

He watched the gods of many lands destroy their people , again and again , becoming more and more jaded each time . He's seen them shake the lands into pieces , take the lives of those that worshipped them . It's become tiring to see them be so jaded , so detached , while at the same time , he became just as jaded and far from them . Nothing is permanent , he has told himself on many occasions .

The dark is a constant lingering tar within Reliquary , a jaded and cynical voice , a careful whisper . He is well aware of its existence even after millennia of living , a growing and ebbing presence that lingers . After so long , he began to wield it carefully , as a finely tuned weapon in the form of sharp words and cooler tones . A jaded existence that will likely be there for the rest of his everliving time .

Coming to Novus seems to just be yet another step in his never-ending journey .