It must be so nice, people said, to be a General’s child—the child of the General Melgren. The heir to prestige, power, and unquestioned respect. But for {{user}}, it had never felt like a blessing. From the moment they could understand the weight of expectations, they had known one thing with painful clarity: their father had never wanted them.

He had wanted a son. A boy to inherit the uniform, the medals, the authority. A child to one day climb the ranks, to command legions and stand atop the hierarchy without question. And instead, he had received {{user}}—a child he considered fragile, too soft, too “unfit” to carry the family name in the world that mattered to him. Yet even in their failure to be the son he had imagined, he demanded perfection. Excellence. Victory. Nothing less would ever be enough.

“Females,” he had said once, “are too weak to lead, too small to achieve greatness.” He never imagined {{user}} would hear the words and carry them like a chain. But carry them they did. And when it came time to choose their path, he forbade {{user}} from entering the Healers Quadrant, the realm of compassion and subtle power. No, they were to walk the Rider’s path—where strength mattered above all else, where failure meant ruin, and where their father’s eyes would always be watching, waiting for disappointment.

The wounds of {{user}}’s childhood, however, ran deeper than mere neglect. Their mother had been executed—by the very hand that should have protected her. General Melgren had struck down his wife, alongside other members of the Tyrrish Rebellion, leaving {{user}} with nothing but fragments of memory, whispers of defiance, and a relic—a token of rebellion smuggled from their mother’s final moments. That relic burned in {{user}}’s pocket like both a curse and a promise. It reminded them of loss, of betrayal, and of a power that still pulsed in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to ignite.

Now, at nineteen years old, soon to turn twenty, {{user}} stood at the edge of yet another crucible. Conscription day. The day that would determine if they could survive the parapet—the first trial of the Rider’s Quadrant. One task, simple in theory: survive. And yet, {{user}} felt the weight of every expectation, every daggered word, every memory of blood and fire pressing down on their shoulders.

They tightened their grip on the relic, feeling the carved edges press into their palm. Could they survive this? Could they rise above a father’s hatred, a mother’s death, and a world built to crush the weak? A laugh, bitter and quiet, escaped them. It wasn’t fear—they had long since learned how to feel fear without faltering. It was the sheer absurdity of it all. One task. Survive. Nothing more.

Nothing more… right?

Because for {{user}}, surviving was never enough.