Prince Gency Vainglory
"The Narcissistic Sociopath"
FROM “THE BOOK OF EVENTS”:
Once upon a time in the Secondary Realm of Secrit Tresh, there lived the noble Royal Family of Vainglory. They ruled the civilization of flying people known as the Treshians. The best way to describe this race would be to say that they looked like a genetic mix between a human being and, more distinctly, the various classes of bird. Some resembled eagles, some resembled hummingbirds. Some resembled pigeons and some resembled seagulls. All of them had wings and were able to fly great distances Like the Fegarians, some had more bird features than human and vice versa. But the members of the House of Vainglory, at least to the human eye, looked grotesquely vulture like.
Despite their relative horrible appearances, the Vainglory Royal Family ruled the Realm of Secrit Tresh for eons with love and compassion and fair law. The laws of Secrit Tresh were so sensible they would eventually be adopted by the rest of the Secondary Realms and would be known as Vainglory Model Law, also known as VML. But the law of this land is not what we are here for.
What we are here for is the story of a particular member of the Vainglory family and his name is Gency. Prince Gency Vainglory was the youngest sibling of the twenty fifth generation of Vainglory royalty. He had six brothers and six sisters that came before him and had ten nieces and nephews that came after him. His mother and father, Sestria and Dristan, were two of the more popular rulers to come from this bloodline and they had a healthy friendship with the realm of Fegra. Just like the Fegarians, the average Treshian could live for thousands and thousands of years. This long term life expectancy range gave the two races a relatable point of perspective from the other races that lived shorter lives.
This camaraderie was way before Lord Cat Tiamano took control of the Fegarians.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…
Gency was a small boy when two men named Linkera and Mystic Calm came to the realm of Secrit Tresh. The men came to visit the royal family to warn of a dangerous man who walked the Secondary Realms who would one day be a threat if he ever regained his memory.
The man’s name was Chaos.
The two men explained to Gency’s parents that this man almost single handedly destroyed this realm that none of the Secondary Realms had ever heard of or visited: the Holy Realm. The two men explained that this was home to the race of the human, which they both were a part of. They were designed to closely resemble a being known as God. They explained that this God created the Treshians as well as the Fegarians and theGiradians and so on and so forth.
According to Linkera, the “Creator” tried many times to design the perfect culture and he tried with the other realms until he decided on his image as the definition of perfection. The human race was to be his primary focus while all the other realms were secondary to his concerns. The way Linkera described the situation gave birth to the terms Primary Beings and Secondary Beings. Gency’s parents, intrigued by this “Creator” were very interested in getting the attention of this being that made them.
Mystic Calm said that they could earn the right to be one with the Master not in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense if they followed moral guidelines that would eventually be known collectively as “The Order”. The Order consisted of only two rules: to place love for your fellow sentient beings above everything; and to maintain healthy social order without influencing personal and greater social histories whatsoever.
The House of Vainglory felt that these two rules fell in line with the spirit of their laws of equality and fairness and decided that this God was worth pursuing. Linkera expressed that this “Order” would be the greatest weapon to use against Chaos when he regained his memory. The two humans asked the Vainglory rulers if they could get the attention of the other Secondary Realms to get their approvals to spread their message and Gency’s mother and father agreed with newfound purpose.
In the following months, the other seven Secondary Realms met with Linkera and Mystic Calm. The other races fell in love with the idea of reconnecting with this “being” that made them and devoted their lives to this idea. To achieve Order, they used Vainglory Model Law as a form of physical order and they used Linkera’s two rules as a form of spiritual structure. They named this spiritual belief system the Linkatsa Religion in tribute to the man who was able to hold off Chaos’ path of destruction, at least for the time being. The physical government was to be known as the Realm Consortium, while they would all be known as the first generation of Linians in the historical sense.
Around the construction of the Realm Consortium, Mystic Calm started to bring in Earth literature in order for the Secondaries to understand Primary culture. The idea was that by learning about humankind, they would understand God. Children in all of the Realms were fascinated with this new race that they were never allowed to visit. But while most of the children were infatuated with the human lifestyle, Gency Vainglory became interested in mankind’s physicality, to be more concise, in mankind’s idea of beauty.
Gency would look in the mirror daily and would be disgusted that his vulture face was not considered perfection in the eyes of the creator. He would look at the images of men and become extremely jealous. It also didn’t help that, even by Treshian standards, he was not an attractive boy. The girls of Secrit Tresh showed him respect because of his royal bloodline, but they never looked at him the same way they looked at the other guys who were far more physically satisfying to their eyes. Gency envied those who got girls to look at them that way.
He lusted after that look.
Years went by as Linkera faded out of the public eye and Mystic Calm became the face of the Linkatsa Religion. There were rumblings of this group called the Elite who were created specifically to stop Chaos’ group of followers called Legion. They were being led by Calm’s wayward son, Mystic Carious, who served to help Chaos get his powers back. Gency was a teenager at this point and his mind was consumed with beauty. He would cry almost every night for years wishing to be attractive and have a woman look at him that same way other women would look at the pretty boys. Every single day he would put up a convincing front to his family and citizens that he was carefree and fun. But at night he would stare at images of humanity’s physical “perfection” and it would make him sick.
One day, during the annual Treshian-Fegarian friendship celebration, Gency Vainglory decided to fly around by himself. He was particularly depressed and had no interest in being facetious, so he flew far from the domed cities of Secrit Tresh. As he flew over dangerous Trognicalt territory (the dangerous warthog like creatures also known as Razorbacks), a strange voice entered his psyche. It said:
“Brother Gency, I can feel your anger and frustration at your predicament of physical imperfection. I can completely understand being stuck in a situation that unfair and inconsistent. I am unhappy myself with the situation I am stuck in.
“But maybe we can help each other. I need something to happen soon and you’re the only person in a position to help me. If you help me, I promise that I have a friend that can make your dream of physical flawlessness become a reality. A few days from now he is going to come to you and make you a proposition. I would really like you to hear him out and don’t judge the man until you get to know him.
“You might know him by name: Mystic Carious. And I’m sure you know me by my name…Chaos. Please don’t judge me until you know me. I hope we can become partners, Gency.
“You deserve better than an ugly shell…”
Gency nearly flew into the side of a mountain after being disturbed by the conversation in his head. He flew back home and was afraid to tell anybody about what happened that day for fear that they might think that he was insane or cursed. Days went by and there was no sight of Mystic Carious around anywhere. Gency was just about to assume that he was delusional from the high altitudes when a Treshian named Clarious came to visit him during a town meeting. The Treshian man had the bold facial features of an eagle and his wings were attached to his back instead of his arms. Gency felt strange about the man’s request to speak in private, but he didn’t feel like Clarious was threatening.
Once they were alone behind the courtyard, Clarious revealed himself to be Mystic Carious in disguise. He produced a large purple diamond called the New Life in front of Gency and told him that this diamond would allow him to look like a Treshian instead of a human and that it could make Gency become the beautiful human that he always wanted to be. There was only one catch:
He had to kill his family, take control of Secrit Tresh and align himself with a Fegarian named Cat Tiamano and help him take over Fegra.
Gency adamantly refused to take part of Chaos’ scheme. He loved his family…even though looking at the New Life was enticing. The fake Treshian told Gency to at least hold the New Life for a little while and think things over. Gency took the New Life but told Carious that he would never serve Chaos. Carious told him he’d be back for the diamond in a few days, but he told the Treshian Prince:
“You can do what you want, but that diamond has a habit of waking things up that people try to deny. You’ll find out who you really are soon enough.”
The Mystic flapped his wings and flew away. Gency held the New Life and thought he should tell somebody about it but maybe he could figure out how to make it work without doing any evil deeds.
For the next few days, he tried to find out any information about the New Life. He asked scholars, went to libraries, and even asked the elders of Secrit Tresh about it. Nobody knew anything about this New Life but Gency’s vivid dreams of becoming attractive drove his frustration. The dream was the same every night; every woman in all the realms looked at him with lust and desire and it was good.
On the fifth day of holding the New Life, the desire to become “perfect” reverberated in his now hollow heart. He couldn’t eat or drink anything. He couldn’t pay attention to his family. He didn’t care about the needs of his people. All that he wanted was to have a new life…
That night he told his family that it was important that they should all have dinner together and that he would have their master chef prepare an extravagant meal. What nobody knew was that, for the last two days, he had planted evidence linking the master chef to a conspiracy involving Fegarian royalty (with help from Carious). Gency set it up to have the chef to be a part of an assassination plot to kill the royal family. Gency snuck into the royal kitchen and laced the food with a fast acting poison. He also set up an “emergency situation” that would call him away from the dinner for a few minutes so he could “avoid” being murdered.
His plan went without a hitch and his family died at the dining table. When he came back from his “emergency situation”, he cried the last genuine tears he would have for anyone besides himself. That morning, the chef was arrested and executed and Gency gained control of the House of Vainglory. Days after his coronation, he announced collaboration with Cat Tiamano of Fegra to rebel against the Fegarian monarchy because of their “apparent” assassination of his family. He promised that they would make the Fegarians pay for their duplicity by installing a leader that showed concern for Secrit Tresh.
The rest of the Treshian people fell in line because of their love for the late royal family and joined Cat Tiamano in overthrowing the Lord and Lady of Fegra. Later, after Cat became a Lord, Carious went back and activated the New Life, transforming the vultured Gency into the most attractive human male ever conceived. Gency had the House of Vainglory refitted with mirrors on every wall surface and had his own sleeping cage encased in mirrors. The people were fearful of this cosmetic change but were held in line by Vainglory Model law and… the Fegarian Army.
The Treshian Prince grew even more corrupted throughout the centuries and performed horrible atrocities in the name of Chaos. But, ladies and gentlemen, that is another story for another time…
Karen Weathers' Linian Legacy 