Prysius

Prysius the Stone Giant was the son of Pryiam, the first of the Geniersegunda, the children of the children of Genevieve. Pryiam, who is both male and female, conceived of Prysius from its own being. It sprung forth from the center of the Stonestar, a fully realized stone colossus. Prysius was giant made of the same boney rock as Pryiam, and built like a man, an image of a man drawn from the dream-thoughts of Maria Calla that carried into Genevieve and into Pryiam.

Prysius was born before the creation of Ao, and so came into being in the total darkness. He stood on Pryiam, alone in the universe, except for his mother-father and his grandmother, Genevieve. Prysius, despite his size, was gentle and quiet, terrified of the darkness and terrified of being animate at all. The bounds and constraints of life were unknowable, and Pryiam's child's mind was not conceived in such a way that it could understand much of the world that it was brought into. And so, scared in the darkness, Prysius, moments after his creation, let out a great howl of anguish.

And the howl was so horrible that it terrified Genevieve. And so Genevieve lashed out at the darkness with all of her power, and in doing so, tore the head from Prysius, sending it crashing down into the surface of the Stonestar, creating five great cracks in the surface of Pryiam that would later be filled with the blood of Prysius' sister, Celeda. The body of Prysius remained in the center of the Stonestar, his rocky remains surrounding the perfectly straight, exposed spine of the giant. Prysius' corpse became the Spire, the great mountain at the center of Pryiam, and his remains acted as the spine of Sylvieria.

The death of Prysius resulted in the birth of Thaeron, the Reaper of Fear, the first of the Four Murders that ultimately resulted in the creation of Athira, Death Itself.

Genevieve was so racked with guilt from slaying Prysius that she marked herself with a symbol of remorse, a tattoo on her sternum below her throat, because Prysius had sprang from the same breastbone of which Pryiam had.

The soul of Prysius, Prymus the Stonebuilder, eventually left Prysius' corpse and joined Genevieve in the Court at the summit of the Spire. He forgave his grandmother for his murder, and removed the yellow eye from her chest, casting the ink from the Court, where it became Aszwal, the yellow-eyed owl that haunted Sylvieria as the embodiment of guilt.

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