Vol. 4
Godwyn
The young prince slowly walked up along the gilded staircase, enlaid limestone that shone pale white and engraved along each flank in decorative designs of golden triumphants. His long and flowing hair matched their graceful color, yet he felt no such grace within. He felt troubled. Anxious.
He looked out from the stairwell over the kingdom below. Leyndell was a paradise of grace, and the Erdtree's ever growing light shone down like an ever-present sun. So why did looking upon it make his stomach turn into knots?
He cleared the last few steps, reaching the platform that led towards his mothers bed chambers. A pure white hallways of carved marble and ivory decorations from countless hunts. The ivory made him uneasy. It has always felt... wrong somehow.
Godwyn walked across in only his usual skirt, dark grey bound by golden rope to his waist, entering the passageway that fed into the bed chambers of his parents. He was further frustrated to see no sign of his mother. He had heard she had sent her champion and her armies north, but he hadn't heard word of her departure herself. How strange.
That was when the crying struck his ears. Soft, light sobs half choked back like grief that was guilted to be silenced. He turned and saw Lisee quietly holding her knees. Her dress was a shredded mess next to her on the bed, and blood dried to the insides of her thighs. The heat that struck Godwyn's mind was unbearable. It was fury and fire made manifest.
"Who has done this to you?!" He shouted before making an effort to contain his mounting rage. She was the least deserving of anyone now to feel its heat.
Lisee flinched at first but snapped out of her traumatized state as her red eyes soon met his golden. "I... my Lord..." The poor girl attempted to choke out words but found nothing accepting of the air beyond sobs and further gagged, shaking cries. The Prince did not leave her alone, wrapping his strong arms around her protectively as the poor girl clung to him in a heartbeat.
"It's alright... you are safe now..."
"No... he will do it again..."
"Who?"
"R... r... Radagon!"
...
???
"Yes. This world's history is fraught and feeble. Grim. Is the best word I could think of." The gentle voice of a motherly figure spoke. Sat in the far chair of the old council room that the young woman had known most of her life as the place she was given real work. Real missions.
Lives to save. Lives to change. Not merely a killer or a weapon.
"I assure you, Mother. This place is ripe for our aid! They need us!" A hand pressed into the wood material, careful not to shatter the wood with her motion.
"Be that as it may, who even is there to save in these cursed lands?" The motherly figure asked dubiously as she indulged in a couple of puffs on a hand rolled cigar. It was lit by the snap of her fingers as sparks of pale flame briefly curled across the air and ignited the well packed material.
Briefly, it showed a woman of incredible stature. Thick, curled, and heavy blue hair that sat over her shoulders like a mane or a wreathe before falling along her body in rippling waves. Deep nearly pitch black skin that seemed flawness at a glance. The image of a well blessed woman or a curvacious mothehirly figure. Her eyes, however, betrayed the true inhumanity. They were a deep and flowing gold that seemed to always be changing, like gold dust laid on molten tides. It was beautiful, but the sight to any other would render them speechless.
"Marika." The younger voice spoke as they rose from their chair. "I don't think this woman is acting entirely of her own accord."
"A bold claim about a woman that turned an entire species into a source of her ascension. What makes you so sure?" She puffed slowly on it, allowing the heavy and thick smoke to drift from her lips and out of her make shift lungs. She had no need to breathe and often forgot to exhale beyond speaking.
"I... I have a hunch." The younger voice answered sheepishly.
"A hunch, hm? A hunch is how your aunt ended up crazed for billions of years. A hunch is how we nearly lost one of your grandmothers to total oblivion." She dragged another time, letting the smoke spill from her nose this time.
"A hunch was what made you resort to making me, Mother." A quiet stare from shadow soaked, glacial eyes. Six wide eyes, two glacial, two purple, two red. Each seemed to carry unique trains of thought behind them.
"... That was..."
"A mistake? An accident? Maybe it was fate?" The younger voice barked.
"Now young lady, You-"
"No. I won't just sit idly by and watch your concepts of fate and their machinations drige yet another person, another kingdom to the brink of insanity, and beyond!" She shouted angrily. The walls, dimly lit ash, audibly bent when she yelled. "I will not have a repeat of Londor and Priscilla. We will not wait until all has been lost and ruined, cast to one of our pre-existences just because you want to let life simply play out on tracks that not even the people have the breaks for."
The young woman turned and marched out furiously, slamming the door behind her. The motherly figure sighed in quiet resignation. Her daughter was so stubborn these days. Once, she had been such an eager, dutiful puppy for her. Now she was so stubborn and bullheaded, yet she had a heart befitting her station. She was a bit irrational, but she only got in such a way when someone was hurt or hurting, and she seemed to always find a way free from the worst consequences.
A small hand gently rested on the figures shoulder as a far deeper voice came from another woman. "It will be alright." Her image briefly showed as she snapped her own fingers and lit a small cigarette off her own, dark and black flames. She was short, barely below five feet tall with long and heavy red curls. A pale complexion that did not easily aid one in a point of origin as her lips were slightly large, but her eyes seemed to always be in a state of a scowling stare. Her icy blue eyes had this chilling glow to them. She seemed like the anthithesis to the other woman of beauty. Where one was tall, curvacious, motherly, and plump, the other was tiny, with noticeable dense muscles beneath her black button-up. One could easily assume her flat chested in that shirt.
"It will all be alright, my sweet lie." The voice echoed.
The motherly figure leaned over, resting her cheek against the rough feeling of the others' hands. Hardened calluses from eons of battle. "I must give these hands of yours," she whispered with a kiss on her lover's palm, "a proper scrub."
"Hm." Was the only response.
She chuckled warmly as she stood from her chair. "Oh my harsh truth. You make it very hard not to start calling you grumbles."
The other figure pouted slightly but made no mention to protest. "Whatever you feel is most fitting, my sweet lie."
"Mmm, well. That will always be far too good of a pet name for us, my Harsh Truth. You escape being Madame Grumbles today." She caught a little smirk on her lover's lip and smiled herself.
Still, she worried deep down as to what drastic methods their daughter might go to now that she had impeded her ideas. She had a plan formulating, but her daughter was quite the wild card. A distraction for a couple of centuries would give her time. Time to plan.