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Ok so...

A couple months back, I was thinking about how various chracters in the Dark Crystal universe would fit into @ben-the-hyena and @dracocheesecake’s natives au. More specifically, the UrSkeks and I thought about the Darkheart.

Now, for those of you who haven’t read the Creation Myths comics (which I recommend you go track down a copy of if your a fan of The Dark Crystal), the Darkheart was an UrSkek who was banished to thra along with the other seventeen other UrSkeks for having “darker natures”. But he still missed his homeworld, and so sang an UrSkek song in order to try and contact his people. Many trine later, at the Second Great Conjunction, he heard the song again from a gelfling song teller named Gyr, who had overheard the song on his seattavels long ago. It reminded darkheart of the pain and sadness he felt for being banished from his homeworld. This, coupled with Raunip calling him and the other UrSkeks out on ther hypocrisy, clauses him to snap and lose his composure during the conjunction. Which in turn causes the Crystal to reject all of the UrSkeks, splitting them into mystics and skeksis.

As you can tell, The Darkheart is a pretty interesting chracter and I wanted to include him in the Natives au. However, since in the Natives AU, the skeksis and mystics aren’t two halves of the UrSkeks, are, as the name of the AU suggests, natives to Thra, and UrSkeks are a hybrid species of Skeksiscand Urru, I spent some time wracking my brain over how Darkheart would fit into the Natives AU.

After some thinking, I came up with, not one, but TWO chracters that are this AU’s Darkheart equivalent.

The first Darkheart is a recurring character archetype of both skeksis and Urru myths, legends and folktales. From which of the two cultures specifically the figure originated from is a topic of much heated debate among the literary historians of Thra. But what is known is that mentions of a figure known as the Darkheart in early texts (referd to in some translations as ‘The Darkened One’, ‘The Poisonous’ or ‘the Heretic’ etc) started some trine after the second conjunction and since then tales of the Darkheart have become quite popular in skeksis and Urru folktales, literature and theatre. Such popularity has resulted in the Darkheart character to find its way into gelfling tales. Even some podling cultures have their own versions.

With the character of the Darkheart being so widespread across mutiple cultural mythologies, there are multiple interpretations and variations of the tale and the chracter itself. (With the version I wrote being just one example of many, many, MANY alternate versions)

In most stories, they’re an antagonistic figure ranging from a simple trickster to an embodiment of pure evil. Some stories don’t focus on the Darkheart as a main chracter but as an minor chracter for heros such as Jara-Jen of gelfling folklore to fight against or out wit. The ultimate fate of the Darkheart is almost never a good one. With them either being slain by a hero, being destroyed by a fault in thier own dastardly plan or, at best, being defeated by the hero who spares thier life and instead makes the darkheart thier slave humble servant to atone for thier villanous existence (the latter ending usually pops up more in tales from skeksis culture)

when it comes to the physical appearance of the Darkheart, there are some recurring features between the diverse range of versions; sharp fangs, tall, elongated body, spiked hair, multiple limbs, a tail and some form of supernatural powers, usually manifesting in the form of a glowing eyes, a hypnotic song, and of corse a literal black heart visible in thier chest. Some scollars have pointed out parallels between the physical characteristics of Urkeks and those of the Darkheart character. Parallels of which I’m sure are a complete and total coincidence and in no way had any part in the perception, oppression and eventual enslavement of UrSkeks by Skeksis and gelfling *cough* *cough*

The second darkheart on the other hand, was a real urskek who lived some time around the first and second conjunction. It’s entirely possible that the Darkheart of myth was very very loosely inspired by this one (somewhat like how Jesus Christ of Christianity was loosely based on a man known as Jesus of Nazareth. Or Robin Hood possibly on a man called Robert Hod of York). Though, obviously they weren’t evil and, In many ways, more similar to the canon Darkheart: they were banished by thier people from thier home, she’s joined by other UrSkeks who were also cast out by thier society for who they were, and they eventually met Aughra during the first conjunction.

But, of course, the story of this Darkheart. Or rather, the story of MalVa,* is probably one for another day... ;)

*lol get retconned son