So it's been forever since I wrote anything, an absolute lifetime since I wrote anything about Queze.
A lot of the imagery in this little post has been floating around my head since Queze's past
was first developed but has only now been put done in any real solid form.
I hope you enjoy and if you want anything clarified or are curious about
anything pertaining to Queze's past, feel free to comment and ask, I'm happy to divulge!

Queze resisted the urge to shift and instead settles his hip back against the uncomfortably solid rock beneath him. He’s not yet ready to lull into sleep; there is something that requires his attention first. Thinking has always been work for Queze. He knows where his strengths lie and feels no guilt. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier. Notions come to him simply enough, but the moment he tries to grab one it would slither away on its belly, off back into its hole.

He let out a frustrated snort, the warm air swirling round behind his mask against the skin of his face before escaping from his false snarl to float up in the cool night air. Memories of incense and black smoke tug at his nose and his heart, calling him and with a sigh he lets himself be led away. Remembering seems to be all he ever does anymore.

Back to the sleepy haze of fever. The far off ebb and flow of heartbeat. The dizzy circling of thought, lazy vultures riding furnace-hot thermals. He lay like that forever, dreamless in a void of black so bright it was like obsidian had eaten the sun. It was there that he came to know himself, his name, his purpose. It was to that panicle of his psyche to which Queze returned now.

All he has are the words of his father, the gravely recount of his return to find the serpent curled upon his son’s chest.
“He rose up as I entered the room, slowly. He looked from the corner of his eye at me…His eye told me you were His. The priests came, made offerings until blood ran down the steps of the house. Three days later the snake dropped gracefully to the floor and left. I watched it dance away down the steps. Then you woke up.”

What Queze did remember was swinging his bare feet over the side of the bed, having the soles of his feet meet the cooling slick of red. His steps were weak and he stumbled, catching himself clumsily on one open palm. Standing there in the doorway, feet and left hand dripping, he looked down at the silky little line of red weaved through the dirt at his feet.

Looking down at the chasm of red now was like looking down at the snake track again, only this time it was no jungle vipers inch wide trench, it was The Serpent’s Mark. Wide beyond measure and deep as a hungry mouth, it belched up black smoke. That smoke was one so apart of him that Queze didn’t need to smell the sticky sweet aroma or feel the heat it carried to know it. He’d felt its’ caress thousands of times, bent double over the flames and filling his lungs eagerly as the meat sizzled and popped. The High Priest of The Serpent had told Queze, on the day the serpent left, that the Gods treat men like bits of obsidian stone.

“When they have a job that requires doing, they take a stone and hammer away at it until it breaks.” At this the old husk of a man had pointed sternly to the twin pinprick scars at his collar. “Some pieces are keen and good, those knives are put to great uses. My job is to take you and polish you, use all I know to make you shine, make you sharp. If I do this, they will wield you to your end.”