Vierapril 2025 Day 15
Apr. 15th, 2025 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gaiagesVierapril Day 15 - Alternate Universe
Time to delve into the villain AU.
Also on Tumblr
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The Villain AU basically boils down to…
"What would happen if Gale awakened to the Echo earlier?"
He's thought about this before, but if it were to happen… well, it wouldn't be great.
In the normal timeline, Gale gets the Echo on the Day of the Calamity, so five years before the start of ARR. At this point, he's around 120, so he's a bit of a late bloomer. In addition to the flashbacks, Gale's Echo made him stronger physically and magically—originally, his physical strength was about average, and that was a lot of the reason that he wasn't entirely accepted as a Wood Warder.
If Eir awakened to the Echo at 16 or 17, he would get his powers in the middle of Wood Warder training. By that point, he's already dealt with his awful mentor for a few years, but when he starts showing better aptitude with weaponry and hearing the Green Word, the opinions of him from both his mentor and the whole village quickly turn around. Eir was originally hated and seen as worthless, but suddenly, he isn't, and the switch is very quick.
Despite being relieved that people didn't hate him anymore, Eir wasn't thrilled with how easy it was for everyone to just… change their opinions, and he will dwell on this for a long while.
But first, there is still the issue that was in the regular timeline. There are only 12 Wood Warders in the village (two of each element), and if there are more males than spots available, the unchosen males would be removed from the gene pool, via either exile or execution. Because the village assumed they were weak and didn't need that passed on to the next generation, as everything is hard enough without having weak, useless villagers to care for. What a lovely place.
(At this point it's easier to link the village lore dump than re-explain everything about Wood Warders.)
So, when the boys come of age and finish training, there's only one Wood Warder spot available. In the regular timeline, Reyna set a trap for the previous Djt-Bidit to get severely hurt during a hunt, making him unable to continue his duties. So the two boys ended up with the same element of wind, making their bonds extremely strong, and Reyna was able to keep his eye on Eir and make sure no one tried to 'dispose' of him.
In this timeline, Eir knows he'll get the only spot, and of course, he doesn't want Reyna to be exiled, so he also takes the matter into his own hands. But what he does is… well, push their awful mentor into a ravine and leave him to die.
With that taken care of, they both become Wood Warders. But their mentor wasn't Djt-Bidit, the warder of Heavenly Wind; he was Djt-Setlas, which was Heavenly Earth. With Eir and Reyna being on the complete opposite ends of the elemental wheel, they couldn't hold a strong bond with each other, and very rarely saw each other or worked together—a big difference from the normal timeline, and ultimately the most important one.
As such, Eir was essentially left alone with his thoughts. Unfortunately, Eir's not the type that handles solitude well, and his thoughts go to dark places. He becomes bitter about how the village only seems to care about strength and nothing else; how poorly they treated him; how quickly everyone's opinion turned around because he could swing a sword; how the training tried to grind the both of them down so they were nothing more than emotionless protectors of the forest.
Couple that with Echo flashbacks he couldn't understand, nightmares of the Final Days and someone calling out to him, and just the solitude and danger of the jungle… after a couple of decades, Eir snaps, and it is bad.
After mulling over all this, the solution to all of his grievances is simple—burn it all down. Literally. He just sets the village on fire and kills most of the villagers, and most of the Wood Warders to boot. Since he has proper training with melee weaponry (unlike WoL Kris), Eir is incredibly powerful with his Echo, so no one can really stop him.
Eir doesn't kill everyone, however—there are a couple of kits in the village at this time, and even in this AU he doesn't want to hurt young children. Instead, he'll take them out of the jungle and leave them at the border with some supplies, letting them decide if they find another village to live in or leave the jungle. All of this happens when the kits are unconscious, so they don't know any of this. Granted, it's not like a small kindness can make up for killing everyone and burning down their home.
He also didn't hurt Reyna. Of course he wouldn't. Eir loves him and he's had a lot of time to realize that in his solitude. So after he burns everything down and takes care of the kits, he tracks him down (not too hard given Reyna would see the fire, after all) and confesses (a bit manically but let's not worry about that).
Reyna is, understandably, having a hard time reconciling everything that's happened. He had no clue about Eir's mental state and how he felt about the village—especially after he was accepted by them. He also loves Eir and despite everything, can't come to hate him regardless of what happened. Reyna ends up blaming himself for it all, because he didn't check in enough or didn't foresee this or whatever excuse his mind made up to reconcile the pain whenever you happen to ask.
So he confesses in turn, they leave the forest and abandon their forest names, and that's more or less all of the backstory. Gale has more or less lost it and decided the world's going to pay for it, and Laurent believes he has to protect Gale at all times, no matter how he acts (or the fact that Gale's more powerful than he is).
Even in this AU, the boys very much love each other and would never hurt one another—the stark difference with how they treat each other as opposed to the rest of the world is sort of surprising. But if one of them gets hurt, the attacker better start running and running quickly. Also, there's no 'saving' or redemption arc for these two in this AU. Gale has indeed lost it to the point that reason will not get through to him, and Laurent's denial and love of his partner make it so he never thinks about what's happening too much, even if he's not really that evil.
It's an unfortunate fate for the two of them, given how happy they are in other timelines, but not everything can have a happy ending, now can it?
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Time to delve into the villain AU.
Also on Tumblr
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
The Villain AU basically boils down to…
"What would happen if Gale awakened to the Echo earlier?"
He's thought about this before, but if it were to happen… well, it wouldn't be great.
In the normal timeline, Gale gets the Echo on the Day of the Calamity, so five years before the start of ARR. At this point, he's around 120, so he's a bit of a late bloomer. In addition to the flashbacks, Gale's Echo made him stronger physically and magically—originally, his physical strength was about average, and that was a lot of the reason that he wasn't entirely accepted as a Wood Warder.
If Eir awakened to the Echo at 16 or 17, he would get his powers in the middle of Wood Warder training. By that point, he's already dealt with his awful mentor for a few years, but when he starts showing better aptitude with weaponry and hearing the Green Word, the opinions of him from both his mentor and the whole village quickly turn around. Eir was originally hated and seen as worthless, but suddenly, he isn't, and the switch is very quick.
Despite being relieved that people didn't hate him anymore, Eir wasn't thrilled with how easy it was for everyone to just… change their opinions, and he will dwell on this for a long while.
But first, there is still the issue that was in the regular timeline. There are only 12 Wood Warders in the village (two of each element), and if there are more males than spots available, the unchosen males would be removed from the gene pool, via either exile or execution. Because the village assumed they were weak and didn't need that passed on to the next generation, as everything is hard enough without having weak, useless villagers to care for. What a lovely place.
(At this point it's easier to link the village lore dump than re-explain everything about Wood Warders.)
So, when the boys come of age and finish training, there's only one Wood Warder spot available. In the regular timeline, Reyna set a trap for the previous Djt-Bidit to get severely hurt during a hunt, making him unable to continue his duties. So the two boys ended up with the same element of wind, making their bonds extremely strong, and Reyna was able to keep his eye on Eir and make sure no one tried to 'dispose' of him.
In this timeline, Eir knows he'll get the only spot, and of course, he doesn't want Reyna to be exiled, so he also takes the matter into his own hands. But what he does is… well, push their awful mentor into a ravine and leave him to die.
With that taken care of, they both become Wood Warders. But their mentor wasn't Djt-Bidit, the warder of Heavenly Wind; he was Djt-Setlas, which was Heavenly Earth. With Eir and Reyna being on the complete opposite ends of the elemental wheel, they couldn't hold a strong bond with each other, and very rarely saw each other or worked together—a big difference from the normal timeline, and ultimately the most important one.
As such, Eir was essentially left alone with his thoughts. Unfortunately, Eir's not the type that handles solitude well, and his thoughts go to dark places. He becomes bitter about how the village only seems to care about strength and nothing else; how poorly they treated him; how quickly everyone's opinion turned around because he could swing a sword; how the training tried to grind the both of them down so they were nothing more than emotionless protectors of the forest.
Couple that with Echo flashbacks he couldn't understand, nightmares of the Final Days and someone calling out to him, and just the solitude and danger of the jungle… after a couple of decades, Eir snaps, and it is bad.
After mulling over all this, the solution to all of his grievances is simple—burn it all down. Literally. He just sets the village on fire and kills most of the villagers, and most of the Wood Warders to boot. Since he has proper training with melee weaponry (unlike WoL Kris), Eir is incredibly powerful with his Echo, so no one can really stop him.
Eir doesn't kill everyone, however—there are a couple of kits in the village at this time, and even in this AU he doesn't want to hurt young children. Instead, he'll take them out of the jungle and leave them at the border with some supplies, letting them decide if they find another village to live in or leave the jungle. All of this happens when the kits are unconscious, so they don't know any of this. Granted, it's not like a small kindness can make up for killing everyone and burning down their home.
He also didn't hurt Reyna. Of course he wouldn't. Eir loves him and he's had a lot of time to realize that in his solitude. So after he burns everything down and takes care of the kits, he tracks him down (not too hard given Reyna would see the fire, after all) and confesses (a bit manically but let's not worry about that).
Reyna is, understandably, having a hard time reconciling everything that's happened. He had no clue about Eir's mental state and how he felt about the village—especially after he was accepted by them. He also loves Eir and despite everything, can't come to hate him regardless of what happened. Reyna ends up blaming himself for it all, because he didn't check in enough or didn't foresee this or whatever excuse his mind made up to reconcile the pain whenever you happen to ask.
So he confesses in turn, they leave the forest and abandon their forest names, and that's more or less all of the backstory. Gale has more or less lost it and decided the world's going to pay for it, and Laurent believes he has to protect Gale at all times, no matter how he acts (or the fact that Gale's more powerful than he is).
Even in this AU, the boys very much love each other and would never hurt one another—the stark difference with how they treat each other as opposed to the rest of the world is sort of surprising. But if one of them gets hurt, the attacker better start running and running quickly. Also, there's no 'saving' or redemption arc for these two in this AU. Gale has indeed lost it to the point that reason will not get through to him, and Laurent's denial and love of his partner make it so he never thinks about what's happening too much, even if he's not really that evil.
It's an unfortunate fate for the two of them, given how happy they are in other timelines, but not everything can have a happy ending, now can it?
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