| Brief Biography: | Coming to realize his existence in the early years of the human and monster war, floating alone in a clouded and formless realm, he watched the material world. A silent observer behind the glassy veil of humanity and monster-kind's window panes, mirrors, and polished metal. It was through these windows that Antiqua would learn about the world; Language, physical form, emotion, and other social machinations of the outside people. Although a monster himself, it would be ironic that a human would be the one to teach him kindness.
With the advent of physical form Hastings began to learn how to venture into the world that, until now, had only been a distant and untouchable dream.
However, once he had taken his first steps into the world, he was overwhelmed. The ground beneath his feet, the wind blowing briskly against his skin, he could feel the wonderlust of discovery coursing through him as he began to wander the streets of the human world. A choice that would haunt him, as he had not yet learned to take a true shape beyond a waveringly featureless, gaunt, and pale humanoid form in mimicry of humanity, something truly monstrous in the eyes of onlookers. Although he bore them no ill will, like a child he was eager to mingle with the unknown. But from the villagers he learned of fear and malice, feeling their distrust of him as if they were his own emotions long before he was grabbed and taken to the town square. Quickly set in the stalks and pelted with rancid vegetables and other more damaging objects to serve as a warning to any other monsters that might attempt to infiltrate them. Yet among the stream of obscenities and hatred he felt within the crowd of observers, he could sense a single mote of sympathy. Shame even, as he scanned the gawking masses to rest his own eyes on a young girl. It pained her to watch the weak creature in such a state, returning after dark to meet the strange visitor. She had stolen the key, removing the locks and freeing him in the night, apologizing for the fear of the adults before running home.
With nowhere else to go, and without time to express his thanks, he followed the girl to her home. Although he dared not enter her home, he did not leave it for some time. Returning to his own home through the reflection in a nearby window pane to contemplate and recover from the ordeal, but the act was never forgotten.
Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months stretched into years as Hastings began a new quest. Although he felt a kinship with monster-kind, he could not ignore the boundary crossing kindness of the girl who had saved him and began to express it to those who needed it. Be they human or monster. Learning to take the form of what onlookers would wish to see to mingle among each race, he guided the lost and discarded to safe havens in the wake of battles between the two sides and aiding both, offering soft council to those he needed an unjudging shoulder to cry upon, leaving gifts of food or other necessities for the misplaced of the war. He was not naive enough to believe his efforts would end the conflict, but he could at least alleviate some of the universal suffering that only escalated with time. All the while he would return to the home of the girl that showed him his first act of kindness. Acting as perhaps a guardian angel for the child who had grown into a young women under his unseen care. Indeed, he felt obliged to repay her act in some way of his own, but he could feel the responsibility he felt for her beginning to subtly but surely become something... new.
He could not escape the growing sense of venerable attachment, try as he might to return to his altruistic wanderings, he was drawn to return to her side more with every passing day that he spent abroad. He regretted at this time his choice to keep his presence hidden from her, and would not dare reveal himself now and chance her becoming accused of collusion and harboring of one of the enemy. He could feel the same soul of kindness that had helped him still within her, it had been tempered with the pain of age. She had lost a brother to the war, and her remaining parent (a descendant of the towns founder and now chief landowner) was falling victim to to their failing health and was now devoted to the protection and care of her own. And as much as it pained him to admit, the significant other whom had begun to court her was able to do a much better job of her and her father's care then he could hope. And so it was that he once more ventured out into the world to bring the aid he was no longer needed to provide beyond the scope of the village. It was however while he was bringing this aid to beyond that he discovered a terrible revelation. He had encountered several poisoned soldiers bearing an uncanny resemblance to the symptoms and progression of the illness wracking the body of his distant loves father. The poison was meant to be substituted for medicine, a medicine that his beloved's courtier had been administering to her father.
In a fit of frantic and appalled revelation he raced across the land to return to the place he had come to know as his second home, but for all his prayers of haste; he had arrived on the eve of the poisoned father's funeral.
With a guilt heavy heart he watched, hidden in plain sight as the murdered man was lowered into the earth. Saying a few words to the mans credit, he left for the place he called home where he would have his final revelation. It was that night that the women he had guarded for the bulk of his devoted existence took ill. A sickness identical to that of her father.
He had not had time to confront the obscene excuse for human life who poisoned the old man. But upon hearing the words of the visiting doctor, the guilt he had harbored since his arrival began to seethe. Changing, remolding, and polluting itself into a hatred that visibly seethed beneath his malleable body. Once an observer, Hastings left the haven of his mirror to make his presence felt. He had little doubt to suspect that the girl's betrothed was now poisoning her as well. He would confront him, tell him that he was being watched, praying it would be enough to shatter his nerve and force his exit from their lives. But cornering the vermin as he was preparing the next dose of 'medicine', was too much. For whatever reason he had done these things, to inherit the land, uncover some family treasure, or simply for the pleasure of the deed, Hastings hatred churned itself into a righteous fury, twisting his body into an avatar of his own anger, mingled with the 'monster' that the man saw him for. For what few seconds the man had left to see.
With a rattling and inhuman bellow of untempered rage he tore into the man, spreading him across the floor and walls in a spectacle of red and screaming that would have churned the stomach of any who set foot in the house on that night. All it frightened however, was an angel. A scream in a voice that he had come to know over many long years rose up from behind him. By the time he came to his senses, turning his gore and viscera spattered visage to face the source of the sound, he had only begun to realize the magnitude of his mistake. In mortal terror and anguish, was the women whom he had sworn to protect in payment for her kindness.
A fine way to return her kindness, murdering her own love -however undeserving as he was- on the night of her father's funeral. It was not only the perception of him that made him retain his horrible form from that day on, but his own. In that moment, he had become a truer monster then he could have dreamed. Let alone who had killed not only a man, but the remaining kindness in one he had held so dearly to his own, now broken, heart.
Crushing guilt now weighing upon his chitinous shoulders, The kindest thing he could do for her now, was to disappear. Bounding through one of the fragile windows he had once occupied, he vanished into the night with fading weep of the women he had wronged as his only guide.
With his ability to shape-shift forever damaged, he could not continue his quest of aid, and still in mourning for his actions, he found refuge in slumber. It was little comfort to him that he could still return to his mirror domain, but it was in this domain he remained, undisturbed and somberly content.
Years stretched into decades. Decades stretched into centuries. Centuries stretched into millenniums.
And there he slept, as the war raged and ended. His mirror withstanding the ages until the present day, hanging in one of the Underground's obscure collections until the recent age...
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