Once upon a time...Common Name: Murga (Hindi for Rooster)
Tianxia Name: Xiao Zhongzi (Little seed)
House: South
Rank: Messenger
Personality: Murga values truth above all else. He's not one for idle gossip, and if he hears something, he will persue the facts until he finds the truth. He also encourages bravery - Not charge into battle bravery, but doing the right thing bravery. After all, if you're brave enough to tell someone in charge that you failed an obviously impossible task, while others found a way to lie and say they succeeded... That takes some brass balls! While he may look cocky at first, Murga usually is the stoic type. He just happens to look pretty.
The Story: (This story is based on
The Emperor's Seed heart )
Once there was a pride, far and away, very like the Tianxia, though there were no Houses, only the whole pride. The Emperor of the pride was an aging leopon, cursed to be infertile like his brothers and sisters had, and his parents' love too strong to try and produce a fertile full-blood heir. Thus, even though he had a mate, and she was most beautiful, he had no children and thus no heir. With his time drawing short, he decided he would find an heir from within the pride.
All the cubs and pups of the pride were brought before the Emperor, and each given a seed and a carefully-crafted clay pot. Each cub and pup was instructed to plant the seed in the pot, water it every three days, and wait for it to grow. The cub or pup who succeeded in growing their plant would become his heir. In one year, they were to all return to him with their plants.
One cub, a little orphan lion, tended his seed every day, but nothing grew. He tried singing to it, telling it poems he heard from the bards, putting it in sun, in shade, anything. Nothing grew. The others, though, showed that they grew - Some became Acacias, others grew into shrubs. One pair of siblings even managed to grow some violets! But still the little orphan cub's didn't grow.
When the year was up and many of them had grown in stature with their plants, they returned to the Emperor's den area. The other juveniles laughed at the orphan, with his lack of a plant. He looked away in shame, and made sure he was the last one looked at.
Finally, the Empreror reached him. He looked in the pot, getting close as his eyes were starting to go. He then looked at the young lion. "My boy... What is your name...?"
The young lion looked down, shifting his paws a bit. "My emperor, I have no name. When I was young, my parents died, and the others in the pride deemed me unworthy of a name because of it..."
The emperor let out a hm, then turned to the others. "Clearly, then, I have found my heir. All of the seeds you were given, were ensured to be DEAD. Not a one should have grown, and yet I see trees, shrubs, and flowers before me..." He then turned to the orphan. "And one pot with no plant." He looked back to the stunned assembly. "You see, the seeds were a test! My heir would need to be of good integrity, they would need to be truthful and brave. This young lion was brave enough to come before me, and tell me his seed would not grow, while the rest of you went and found seeds that WOULD."
The others were dismissed, as the emperor took his new heir into the royal family, the first family the young lion had had in a long time, and with his new family came a new name - Murga, the brave and truthful little rooster.
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