PAGE ONE: No transcript remaining. Astraeus writes on a piece of parchment, hands it to a hawk/eagle, who flies off with it. He is pictured stepping forward to face Steinheart, his eldest children/knights, and Aethenea. Aethenea is perched on top of a hill/rocky rise that mimics an amphitheater. The basic gist of the original transcript is Astraeus reflecting on the fact that he has no regrets for his approaching death, more that he regrets he can’t be there to see Gaea grow up. But he knows she’ll outlive those who’re about to put him to death.
PAGE TWO:
ASTRAEUS: Live, Gaea. Live for me. My legacy. KISHI: Oh, Ancestors... Astraeus, no. No no no no no no no no no! STEINHEART: Astraeus Firestone, former General of Warfang...you stand before this Council charged with heresy. How do you plead? ASTRAEUS: Guilty, Honorable Patriarch. STEINHEART: ...very well, then. You are convicted of high treason. To disobey the Matriarch’s High Laws...is to ask for the death penalty. Do you accept these terms? ASTRAEUS: I do. STEINHEART: Do you have any last words? ASTRAEUS: ...I pity you.
So this was originally how Astraeus’s death was going to be potrayed and how it went down. Much of it will still remain the same and those aren’t really spoilers, so I’ll discuss those here:
Matriarch (Aethenea) does not approve of her oldest surviving child mating with Astraeus when word reaches her, and demands that Kishi return to the clan to present herself and her mate, if only to part on good terms. Kishi does so, and Astraeus follows. The two are treated well enough, though Aethenea makes her displeasure known that Kishi ‘did not ask approval’ before choosing Astraeus. Kishi further adds ‘insult to injury’ by announcing she is with egg. When the egg hatches, out comes Gaea, which will eventually lead to similar events as these. In the end either Steinheart or Aethenea will be the one to land the killing blow, with Kishi arriving only just in time to try and stop it. And by ‘just in time’ I mean just in time to see Astraeus die.
Yeah. Gaea’s story is real, real dark, y’all. B)
TRIVIA:
Astraeus was originally going to be Terrador’s father, with Kishi as his mother. Eventually I decided this was too ‘Mary Sue’ for Gaea’s story and changed it.
Originally Kishi wasn’t the one from The Deep Vale; she was born in Warfang. Astraeus was born to one of Kishi’s sons and a wandering Fire Dragoness, resulting in a hybrid who’s egg killed the mother. Astraeus was originally able to breathe fire AND manipulate earth, making him one of the Untouchables in the clan. He fled to Warfang after his father was killed ‘during a hunting accident.’
Before leaving he had built a small hoard in a cave only he knew about, and Gaea found it during her youth. She would hide here for days at a time to avoid the clan.
As mentioned above, Astraeus was also originally supposed to be a General of Warfang’s armies. That was scrapped and he’s now instead the Smith of Warfang; he drafted the original design for Ignitus’s Armor, which was intended for Infernacus, but never finished. (As he was executed before he could begin building it.)
Instead, Gaea takes over, and builds Ignitus’s Armor, and creates a way to mass-produce the armor for the Knights of Warfang.
One of the members of the Council was the original Terrae: Gaea’s adoptive mother from The Deep Vale Clan. Terrae, from what I remember, was either supposed to have been Astraeus’s original would-be-mate, with Kishi stealing Astraeus’s heart, or something to that effect. In the original story she ended up picking the name ‘Terrador’ for the egg that would hatch into the Earth Guardian.
Terrae was a horrible adoptive mother, though she did show some concern from time to time over Gaea’s whereabouts, if nothing else than the fact that she knew Aethenea would be pissed if she got close to any of the purebloods.
Steinheart was originally supposed to be as villainous as Aethenea. He still does some shitty things for her, but as of Arc 1, Aethenea barely speaks to him, and vice versa. He was really cold and bland originally, now he’s a snarky old man with a soft spot for Gaea and her best friend, Fio.
Also this comic is like....many, MANY years old. Like, 2012? Somewhere around there. Euch. Hard for me to look at. D8
