Unspoken Virtue

Unspoken Virtue
Part 1

         The whelps are a humanoid race that appeared some 400 years ago on the outskirts of a developing nation in the jungle. They were known to be friendly forest people. They built themselves a temple and helped lost travelers as well as mingle with humans, but they'd always return to their settlement. They are a sensual loving race of emotions. Their bodies are controlled by how they feel. The more confident the bigger they are, the more protective the harder their skin, the more depressed the smaller they get. Over those 400 years human settlements and towns then eventually cities were built around their jungle.
         A duke ruled the nearest city to the whelps and hired a team of archeologists and historians to study the whelp's temple. What they found were a people of short memory and fascinating lives. The whelps are an all loving, altruistic, peaceful race of people, but because of depression and loneliness they've gained memory loss. None of them remember what the writing in their temple says or why they built it. Some cannot remember their own youth, but they are still happy to be together.
         The whelps have strange capabilities. There are always 2,500 of them at all times, when one dies another is usually already pregnant. If none are pregnant or get pregnant, a baby whelp will just suddenly appear on the temple grounds. They age rapidly, by the time they are seven years old they have the body of a teenager. They stop aging around the time they look thirty, which would be by the time they are teenagers in years. They cannot be taken out of a certain diameter from the temple or they'll suddenly die of depression. They can get angry, even bring themselves to harm or kill others, but will then slowly grow depressed and die. A sign of major depression is when they lose their voices. The study leads to the duke sending a brigade to ransack the whelp's settlement, taking all the treasures and important items of their temple then enslaving their race. They were a perfect race to be enslaved, if kept happy and stupid people could control their bodies, they love people unconditionally, and if they're insubordinate they can easily be killed and replaced.
         Koya was born as the seventh child to a breeding whelp mother and an unknown father. His six siblings who had already been sold all died mysteriously after he was born. He was adopted by the Duke's magistrate and head of the town watchmen, Lord Kell and his wife. His wife picked Koya out since Koya had the same nearly jet black hair she did. The next day Koya's mother died from grief in her cage.
         Koya was the second whelp bought by them, he was to be their son Aiden's servant and caretaker since the wife didn't want to be motherly. She preferred the high life of parties and dances. So as Koya grew up to being a toddler event though he was younger with baby Aiden he was the one who took care of him. He'd read Aiden bed time stories, sing him songs, and even sing him the song he remembered his own mother sang before he was taken from her. Aiden grew up thinking it was always his mother that sang him those songs and read him those stories since in his memory he saw the black hair.
         When Aiden was nearly four years old, his mother died of illness. This left Aiden as a troubled child, feeling like the world hated him, and there was Koya who was basically his big brother size wise at this point. He and Lord Kell took out their frustrations on him. They'd have fun torturing Koya. Koya grinned and bared the pain knowing and understanding what it was like to lose his mother. It wasn't fair, and he still loved them both despite the torture. Even when Kell killed his other whelp out of rage when his wife died, Koya stayed loyal and loving. The other servants, who were human, were getting wary of Kell.
         As Aiden grew up, he was getting smarter and more logical. He'd also become more sinister in his ideas of how to hurt Koya. But one day when he was going to do something horrible to him he heard Koya sing that song...the song Koya's mother sang and he remembered in the back of his mind. That person who held him, who read him stories, who bathed him, who sang him and rocked him to sleep wasn't his mother. It was Koya. They may have had the same hair, but one thing Aiden forgot were those beautiful glowing blue eyes and that lovely song. Aiden hated everything he did to Koya and from then on did everything he could to comfort him when Kell was cruel. It was the perfect cover. Kell already thought his son was being crude to him too.
         Aiden would sneak Koya food, let him use his personal bath, teach him how to write, etc. He'd tell his father he was using Koya as a practice dummy, when really he was sword fighting with Koya. Making him stronger and teaching him how to dodge and take a blow after sword practice. He'd give Koya lessons from school on math and science, how to identify herbs, and more for survival. They grew to love each other, as brothers and something more. And in return Koya would be there to comfort him after rough days of practice or school. And even sleep in bed with him with the door locked under the stars. The other servants never bothered to check because they had either quit their jobs and left or just didn't want to incur Kell's wrath.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Koya-Sketch-2-544833781

          Kell was having his own issues going on. Ever since his wife died he had grown more insane, and noticing changes in Aiden's demeanor towards Koya set him off. He was slacking in his work, and the town watch had to lead itself because without his direction they were kind of in disarray. He'd drink himself stupid and stumble home. One night when he did, Koya was cleaning his bed chamber. When Kell came in and saw Koya making his bed, all he could see was his wife's beautiful black hair. And he forced koya down...and did things to him. Beginning gently at first then harsh and terrible as he sobered up and realized it was Koya. By the time Koya realized he was sprayed out in the hall on the floor, he crawled his way to Aiden's room. When Aiden helped him inside, Koya could no longer speak.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Koya-Portrait-544795856

         Word began spreading around the city of Kell forcing himself on Koya since his servants had heard them that night. It made him paranoid. He wanted to kill Koya, but whenever he saw him he saw his wife and didn't have the heart. Though he had made his tortures much more severe than ever before; he chained Koya to the entrance hallway when he found out he and Aiden were close. Koya from then on could only reach his room, the dining hall, bathroom, kitchen and entrance hall. Kell made sure Aiden went straight to school every morning from the back entrance so he'd never see Koya unless they were all in the same room. Nearly all the other servants were gone now.
         Around this time a scientist and old friend of Kell began to visit. He was hired by the duke to study a way to militarize the whelps. They planned to hallow out their minds using alchemical and magical methods. They were going to make their thoughts and emotions fully controllable, and thus their bodies as well. They'd hoped this would also stop them from dying of depression whenever they did something horrible or leave the vicinity of the temple. The scientist, Gibson, really wanted Koya for some reason, but Kell always refused. Koya was sort of a memento of his wife. Now that Kell wanted Koya dead, he let Gibson have him without hesitation.
         At Gibson's lab beneath the duke's archives, the researchers were actually not evil at all. They were actually some of the archaeologists and historians of the expedition to the whelp's land. They hated what happened and had managed to get some of the artifacts of the temple before the ransacking took place. They studied them and understood the whelps were much more than they seemed, they were once beings called Devas. They found the whelps have a genetic memory that was broken. Whelps under hypnosis or having their minds searched with magic held memories of lives they didn't live, the further back the less easy they were to access. Gibson and his team's real plan was to revive this genetic memory using magical and alchemic means. As a front they'd drug and induce mindlessness onto whelps whenever the duke asked them how their research was coming to simulate what the duke wanted.
         A few poor whelps died in the experiment which they were so sorry for. They desperately wanted to redeem themselves for opening the floodgates for the whelps to be used like this. When those memories they excavated are revived it increases the whelp's capabilities tremendously. Whelps usually couldn't grow past ten feet in height when they were really confident, and when they were protective their skin only toughened to be like medium leather. Thanks to this experiment these emotional swings increased their power a lot, for good and bad. Now when a whelp was depressed they'd die faster under the mixture's influence because they didn't have emotional control and were scared already. That's why Gibson needed Koya. Koya was a confident whelp, strong willed. He'd been tortured nearly his entire life, deflowered, made to subsist under conditions that would have killed other whelps long ago, but thanks to his love for Aiden, and his own self-confidence, he was alive. So Gibson injected Koya with the strongest form of the serum, trying to explain what they were really trying to do. Koya did his best to listen but the serum caused horrid mind trauma and kept him from focusing for days. Koya slept terribly in their cells, having dreams and nightmares of his own past, and pasts he never experienced before.
         After a few days the duke caught on to them. Someone reported to him that some of the researchers were not scientists but the archaeologists of the expedition. He sent a squad to kill them and burn down their facility so none of their research got out. But thankfully Gibson had planned for this. The cages they kept the whelps they experimented on in were built over a sewer line. Before the building collapsed one of the alchemists released a lever that dropped them all out into the sewer that night. Koya led them all out, his powers already growing in him, they stumbled their way through the dark.

http://sta.sh/0156v9eo2fta

         On the other side they managed to get out at the edge of the city. The duke's archives were still on fire and guards were sent all over to find the missing whelps. One team managed to track them to the edge of the city. Koya, confused, and angry grew two twelve feet in height in seconds. Something no whelp has ever been able to do. He rushed the guards and knocked them all down then forced the gates smaller entrance open with his bare hands. He lead the twenty or so whelps out to the roads then the jungle, back to their home. Koya had never been and most of the others hadn't either, but their reviving memories lead them back.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Kota-Koya-544873389

         There they cleaned their home a bit, and decided on their next actions. Koya was their leader now. He couldn't speak but he could still direct through sign language and writing. They found out that kissing and sharing one another's DNA transferred the lesser serum between them, allowing more memories and powers to be revived. Koya's being the most potent. Je was careful not to give too much because they were still shaken up and not able to control their emotions well yet. They decided the best course of action was to slowly take their people back and give them their body's serum so they could have the power to defend themselves and be left to just love each other and the world again. They were smarter now though too, and knew it would never be the same. But they would still vie for peace and love as always.
         They began doing small infiltrations into the city. They'd pretend to be dying whelps on the street to listen out for information.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Koya-Sketch-1-544811274 (Bottom left)

No one suspected or cared about dying whelps. Whenever a whelp was dying of depression they'd just leave their bodies on the streets to die alone usually. It was the perfect cover. They'd then use the information they heard to come and steal back whelps.
         The humans of course tried to come and take over again. Koya and the others would set up traps, leaving infiltrators in the woods till nightfall, hung or in pits in non-fatal traps. Then the whelps would come in cover of darkness and use sleeping herbs on them and take them back to the city after taking their weapons. If any got into the temple grounds, Koya and the others would grow in size and strength then capture them.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Koya-Sketch-1-544811274 (Top left)

They'd put them to sleep and if they couldn't convince them they'd just let them go after taking their weapons. Some never told the duke what happened. And the duke being the pompous man he was didn't want the public to know so his image wouldn't be shamed.
         While they did these small operations, Koya was trying to learn what the temple was for. All the riches and knowledge that was stolen was partly just decoration. The real treasure lay in the art on the walls. It was a temple of meditation. Koya saw himself in a past life sitting and meditating about himself, his actions, the universe, and humanity. And he did the same now. Sitting on a lotus mandala he learned to control and calm himself. He taught himself how to hold his emotions, to keep himself, to want nothing. It was difficult; it would take years of practice to find his center. But still thanks to meditating he learned how to nearly completely control the limits of his body's power as it was then. After days of practice he found himself seeing into his mind's eye the face of Kell, hearing the voice of Aiden being hurt by his own father. Even since Koya was gone he'd sometimes hear Aiden being hurt through the sewers thanks to his excellent hearing. Where Koya would grow angry, he still was, he instead chose to be protective. To want to help Aiden, not hurt Lord Kell. In that state, he grew to twenty-five feet in height.
         He decided it was time to make their presence known and to rescue Aiden. They'd heard that a special shopping day was being held in the city's square. Koya went there, everyone just figured he was an everyday whelp. Then people noticed he didn't have a tag. Before he could be capture though, Koya saw Kell's manor in the distance and grew right in the middle of the city square for everyone to see.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/I-m-coming-Aiden-549237546

         He grew to his full twenty-five feet height. His care for everyone around him made him weigh only as much as he did t regular height. So he could leap onto buildings and bound without destroying anything or hurting or crushing anyone. His want to protect Aiden and the people around him made his skin as tough as tree back and his muscles thick. The city guard chased him through the city, firing canons at him. One nearly hit him but he punched the canon ball into the ground, breaking one of his knuckles in the process but he didn't care.
          He walked right up to Kell's manor. Kell was standing on the balcony watching the scene half drunk. Koya stared right in his eyes and let him know he was the bigger man...by not even thinking of hurting him.

http://juacamo.deviantart.com/art/Koya-Sketch-1-544811274 (top right)

Then he held out his hand to Aiden's window who jumped out. He cupped Aiden lovingly nuzzling him, then walked away. Once the main forces of the Duke's army were coming, he ran across the city. He ran right to the main gate and leaped over it. Then turned around, he lifted his leg making everyone panic and run away, then kicked down the wall to prevent anyone from following once he knew no one was in the vicinity of the wall's collapse. Then he ran into the jungle with Aiden back to the temple. Finally free with his love.