Turning Point
Coogler’s lore for Remmick is probably him being offered vampirism by a vampire traveller with the same rules of fae - he was promised he would never go hungry again @huntingformarrow
I somehow turned this into political commentary on Ireland, but yknow…I’m Irish so that’ll happen sometimes…Not a full fledged fic, more of a headcanon or a drabble on my thoughts of Remmick’s origin story. Ao3 Link
Word count : 2.1k
There’s no hunger like the one that rumbles when your life is turned upside down. A thunderous bass note that feeds on pain and weakness, that robs you of energy and saps all joy from life.
Hunger pangs wracked young Remmick’s body, and left only a man clinging to a tenuous will to live in their wake. His hunger, his emptiness of spirit all stemmed from the systematic theft of his family land by men who saw his people not as humans, not as a nation of intelligent, creative beings with families and loved ones. No, they saw the Irish as pests, the lowest form of life. And relished in treating them as such. His hunger was not only physical, but held the pain of a drained soul, of a culture bleached and sanitised for power, for a foothold in a foreign land.
These vermin saw the extermination of the Irish as little more than cleaning up an inconvenience. These same men sought to bring a whole population to their knees, taking what little was on the table, leaving nought in store for the harsh winters. Who systematically starved an entire nation, yet continued taking more. They drained the well dry, and came back for not only the supplies, but the heart of a culture. Their cruel influence would last for generations, the effects of their abject cruelty echoing through time.
When Remmick had everything taken from him, when his family’s land was ripped from their grasp and they were thrown onto the road like vermin, when they died in his arms, old and young alike, their bodies frail and weak, riddled with disease, his life was changed irreparably. With nothing left, he took to wandering the lonesome roads. With nothing to live for, Remmick let his feet guide him - towards a new beginning, or similarly down the path of destruction.
Hatred took root in his heart and only grew with each plodding step. With each rumble of his stomach, each gust of wind that rattled his bones, Remmick’s fury took hold and grew exponentially. With each stride, a burgeoning desire to punish those who stole everything from his people grew.
It takes a soul without purpose to let evil take hold, and that night, Remmick's soul was ripe for the taking.
He could barely see his feet beneath him, as his feet tramped the lonely blackened road outstretched before him, only illuminated by the dim glow of a pale moon. Hidden behind thick cloud, this celestial being provided little comfort or aid to his journey. This road, built by men in a similar position to himself, destitute and desperate, now supported his aimless trudgery. These roads,built by discontent, carried each step, taking the weight of the man and his burdens onwards. Remmick never expected such a road to carry the weight of pure evil right into his path.
In the dark, he stumbled across a stranger, a man shrouded in mystery and yet, he seemed intimately familiar. The moon cut a halo around his imposing form, highlighting his silhouette in the dark. It was as if the moon was his accomplice, aiding in his dastardly deeds. Yet as Remmick drew closer, as he approached this enigma in the night, a strange emotion settled in his chest. It was a familiar numbness, an acceptance of this new person as one of his own.
This mysterious stranger was no more than a traveller, a wanderer, a man of flesh and blood, yet he stood in that lonesome road with no beating heart beneath his skin.
He was a man of story and song, who shared in culture and art, a vagabond with only a few gold coins and a bible to his name. Yet he stood before Remmick, soundlessly existing. He was a pilgrim of knowledge and history, a collector of culture and memory, with a mystifying secret.
He promised the world, each word dripping with honey and hope. Yet when Remmick looked into his eyes, he was met with only his own reflection. A void sat behind a pool of gold and crimson smoke. It both terrified and intrigued him.
This inhuman being communicated without making a sound. His words seemed to vanish on the crest of his lips, evaporating into the ether, into the darkness that surrounded them both.
Remmick was entranced, both by his seemingly ethereal beauty and his silent yet intensely captivating promises of something new. He whispered sweet promises of a world freshly born, where Remmick would no longer feel the sting of loss or starvation. Where he'd be free of those human plights, yet he was not told of the devastating repercussions of such a tradeoff. And there were always downsides to a promise so grand.
There were always hidden clauses to a contract with a being not of this realm, whether magic or evil, they operated the same. There was always a trick, or a hidden consequence in dealing with such beings, always a price to pay for luxuries beyond man’s means.
Remmick had been wandering, his mind and ultimately his sanity lost to a dense fog since men who served a foreign king across the sea wiped out his family. They surreptitiously stole the land from under his feet, and left him with nothing but the clothes on his back and the tune in his head. Not content with taking what little he and his family possessed, the English men threatened their very existence, their culture and way of life quickly fading into obscurity. The island had long felt the effects of cretins like Cromwell, who served their masters at the expense of a whole nation. Who were apathetic to the suffering and needs of a people, and let them perish to a man made plight, under their rule. Although it had been several years, and the great hunger had long taken root, young men like Remmick felt the ripple effect. They still felt the iron fist of the British government, the heel of the boot pressing against their cheek. They still felt the loss and the lasting effects of a cultural identity cleansed from a land steeped in heritage and history.
Eventually hunger would subside, fade into an overwhelming emptiness, a resignation to his fate as he wandered the long and lonesome roads. The darkness could’ve swallowed him whole, the ground could have opened up beneath him, and there’d be nobody left to mourn.
Evil lurked in every corner of this island, infecting his once perfect home like a pox. A man made blight and a hand crafted famine stole all vitality, forced people to flee this great land, or stay in abject poverty and die on its soil. It leeched the colour and joy from this land, ripped the heart out of the country and replaced it with religion, injected the creed of the colonisers into a crumbling society, and threatened those left with death and destruction if they didn’t give their souls to something they didn’t believe in. It was a genocide of a peaceful people, a true war against nature and all those who worshipped it rather than the man made ideals of a crown.
He grew up hating those that brought such devastation to his country, detesting those that forced them from their home, yet somehow those hollow words of prayer brought him comfort, the religion forced upon him gave him something to cling to in the darkest times.
Such loss gave rise to a new wave of beings, ready and willing to further exploit the downtrodden under the guise of benevolence. Under the promise of something better. It was a wonder there were any humans left - who wouldn’t accept the opportunity at a life more grand, a life where your stomach never rattled, and you didn’t have to scrounge for your next meal. A life of comfort and fulfilment, where sorrow never took root. It was an enticing prospect for any man, and Remmick was only the next in their long line of victims.
When he was approached by this spectre on dark and winding country roads, when he was so graciously held in the arms of a stranger, Remmick once more meditated on the lord's prayer, hoping that they would once more bring him comfort in an uncertain time.
With his stomach hungry for more than food, Remmick couldn’t help but give in to temptation, giving himself over to the enticing offer of a new life, of companionship and love and a promise that he would never go hungry again.
When that wandering stranger offered something irresistible, something akin to a miracle, Remmick couldn't help but give in, surrender to a force far beyond his control.
Little did he know, this stranger would subject him to a world of pain in a single moment.
“I could feel your pain…I knew it once. I too knew the rumbling of hunger. You stand in my shoes, for I once was you.”
His sweet words drew in the soul of a poet, lured Remmick to an existence not much different to the one he currently lived - instead of facing imminent death, Remmick was faced with immortality and a life eternally searching for something more, veiled as his escape. Imprisonment under the guise of emancipation. He was given false hope, honeyed whispers from a drifter in the night lured him into a subsistence, far from the liberation he was promised.
All it took was one bite, the venom of one creature to trap his soul for eternity. Though he knew he would have to sacrifice something, he never reckoned on giving up his mortality. Remmick never banked on losing so much of himself. The very things that make a man - his soul, his culture, his history. All the experiences of a flawed human existence, and the connections that are made along the way. All lost in one bite.
As sharpened fangs pierced his flesh, a curtain fell over his eyes, plunging his world into darkness. On a lonesome country road, Remmick was reborn, but first his body was broken, each cell destroyed by the very thing that would save him. Venom coursed through his veins, burning its way through his body and leaving only destruction in its wake.
As with all things that seem too good to be true, this offer came with its own caveats and downfalls. It was a gift presented as his salvation, yet it came with the most dire repercussions, the largest sacrifice a man can make. In one swift motion, his mortality was wrenched from his reach, replaced by an eternal longing for something more. There would be no end to his search for beauty and connection, no end to his thirst for culture and song. Never again would he feel the warmth of a sunrise, never again would he connect with a people beyond his own mind.
Along with an emptiness he would seek to fill, Remmick felt the familiar pangs of physical hunger. Yet it wasn't the comfort of food his body craved, no morsel would satisfy his needs.
As with all things in the world of tricksters and charlatans, this contract came with fine print, caveats that Remmick never saw coming. He was promised a life free of hunger, but this stranger failed to mention the inescapable thirst that would drive him forward, controlling his every move. From that night on, it would be at the forefront of his mind, always the motivation for his unthinkable actions.
It would drive him to become a murderer, a thief of life and joy. A destroyer of worlds and harbinger of pain.
Like the stranger who had inflicted this terrible curse upon him, Remmick had become everything he hated. He had become a leech on the world of hard working men, a specter in the dark they would come to fear. He had changed into a soulless creature, devoid of love and light, like the vermin who stripped his land of everything worth living for. He no longer had a tie to his history, his connection with his ancestors untimely severed.
Despite the initial shock and the pain of losing so much of himself, Remmick accepted this fate in the hopes of escaping the looming spectre of death, yet now he had no escape. No way out of this hell he was living in.
He was given reprieve from his weaknesses, from his base human needs, from a life of poverty and destitution. From that point onward, he was ruled by a different type of hunger. An agonising thirst, which could never be sated. Even when he gave in to the pangs, even when he satisfied those urges in the most monstrous of ways, they always came back.
This was the origin story of a monster, this was his turning point.
Taglist (no pressure) @whitedarkmoonflower @eoinmcgonigall @poetmayne @ecoustsaintmein @carriganrose @stitch-me-not @gydima @miggleverse @theboyfromcork @eoin-mcgonigal @derry-rain @davidstirlings @skyearth85 @tonobread @theabhartachsbride @faestunna @jimmys-tiara @coldcrimsoncrypt
Screenshot for first image by @scrprints
