bluminescence

Kaspar was born on the cusp of a new world within the mountains of Groscia, the vast expanse of an underground country. His parents were brought together by a program to encourage church sanctioned marriages. In exchange for a home, a safe haven from the economic turmoil fanning the flames of social upheaval, his childhood was sold to their military.

With three older brothers and two younger, all strong and broad shouldered just as predicted, Kaspar eventually and easily slipped into the background. They were all more like their mother, hawkish and ambitious with keen eyes and cunning mouths. Yet Kaspar took after his softer spoken father, even tempered and curious and far too honest. It didn't matter that Kaspar was the tallest, even his younger brothers knew he would do nothing in response to comments or duels.

His father came from a family of fabric flower craftsman, an art passed down for generations before him. Many such trades that rose with the indulgences of the rich were smothered alongside them when it all gave way to the bloodshed of the Avus. But his father continued to make them as a hobby, long after he'd traded that life for one in a factory and then that one in turn for that of a married man. All that was left of the beautiful art was an old and weathered leather bag full of old tools. Heavy black iron was used to heat and press curves into precut fabrics of whites, golds, and assorted luminescent hues.

Kaspar would watch him when he could. They only had holidays at home, after all. Home, it felt like it when his father was alive, though most of his life was spent in church run boarding schools. Training, becoming stronger, were all antithetical to Kaspar at his core as a person, and yet a necessity for his survival. Like his brothers, he had genes and natural ability on his side, as well as an entire project positioned to support his growth from child to an efficient and loyal soldier. His eldest brother lent it part of their name: blum. Kaspar's blood, pain, and physical limits were things he became accustomed to testing. Though the softest parts of him remained untouched, encased in an outer shell of attempted, often failed, perfection.

Love sparked briefly for him there, deep enough he saw a glimmer of hope outside academy walls. They dreamed of remaining in the same barracks forever, of forbidden things that could get grown men killed. But they were young and the reality of their situation seemed far away until it wasn't; a note discovered, a lover beaten and then expelled without exposing Kaspar as its author. Kaspar would never dare put his heart above the safety of others again. Years later, they didn't even acknowledge one another when passing on patrol in the depths. Kaspar's heart still skipped a beat despite himself. It made his whole year, since bittersweet was more welcome than the bitterness of not knowing if he'd lived at all. Kaspar barely noticed the distinctive badge of a married man, a signal for medical priority.

As the reigns of power passed from one Avus to the next, the theocratic regime only tightened and reaffirmed its grip on the country. If not permanently, then for at least many more generations to come. It was time to follow through on past promises to the throngs of loyalists that attended Kaspar's graduation. The graduates were not the focus of that day. They chose then to announce a war on the depths, to combat the deep dwellers whose ancestors had first resisted the light of Orm, a giant white-gold skeleton that had become their first temple, an age ago. They'd lived far beneath the cities of the Groscians, cultivating illegal wild groves of bioluminescent plants and often blamed for misfortune ever since.

For his whole life until he met them in the trenches, Kaspar was taught that the deep dwellers were thought to be subhuman, twisted, and violent. As a sharpshooter and a blum, Kaspar was swept from graduation at sixteen straight into the darkness of the depths. The tunnels were long and winding, dangerous even before considering the traps without knowing your way. Eventually Kaspar realized, once it was too late, that this was an extermination and not a war at all. After the tunnels went quiet and most soldiers made it home, Kaspar still remembers the faces of the dead on both sides. Though the lavish honor ceremonies that followed their victory are a blur. This was the next pillar to fall for Kaspar to continue on his path of disillusionment from the church he had been raised to love and obey.

The Vair, opera singers in the capital Vuglodir, had been celebrities for generations before Kaspar was born. His father even took him to hear them once in secret as a little boy. Only men were allowed to perform on the grand stages in elaborate costumes, by Kaspar's time they'd become less so. But the performers' beauty was still something for legends and art, a remnant of a lost and lovely world, and that is what he remembers.

It was ironic then, that Kaspar was put in charge of guarding one of the last of their ilk after the war. Without many viable alternatives, many continued their profession in private once it became illegal. They went against the grain, ultimately accused of not only breaking the law but also seducing other men. He still had hope back then, that the system would prevail and that his newly formed friendship with his charge wouldn't be lost. This hope lived on until his friend was snuffed out along with it. Kaspar held his gaze to the public gallows, watching as he was swallowed up in his own helplessness and the cheers of the crowd.

His career descended from there, but he didn't care. He was too important an asset, probably the strongest individual they had if push really came to shove. But with his soft personality, perceived weak will, and his many 'mistakes', he was shuffled around to wind up assigned as the captain of a surveillance crew for a mostly empty section of the city. Nicknamed the ghost corridor, because nothing ever happened there, Kaspar could finally breathe in a position he was assigned. His brothers brought his mother the prestige she wanted and thus Kaspar rarely saw her, or them, after his demotions. His living arrangements had been downgraded but despite the cramped space and the need to duck more often, he found a fraction more privacy in his life under theocratic, authoritarian rule. He was happier like this than he'd ever been with medals or honors or fighting.