HOME | DD

Description

I'll be posting my story here as well!  If you're interested in it, please feel free to follow my other account: ManuWrites

Thank you if you take the time to read it!

Previous Chapter:
Next Chapter:

All Chapters HERE.

CHAPTER 46: ONE TALE

                “You’ll have to indulge my senile storytelling,” Gabrielle’s previous statement had gathered all gazes on her, “since the ‘beginning’ isn’t easy to parse for me.”
                She then sipped from one of the cups on the table. She was no longer able to taste how dreadful Kadem’s homemade drinks were, “A little context is needed, however. You may not remember your father, Malia, but Arthur Daimonlance was quite the dazzling figure: a gifted magician, a respected warrior and an eloquent gallant. It’s no wonder the Eirian princess fell for him, sealing an unprecedented alliance between the two strongest immortal clans. It’s no wonder, either, how much of an aggravating obstacle he was for your Uncle Amos, the unremarkable second Daimonlance prince.”
                Malia frowned without meaning to. It was true she didn’t remember her father, and she had never spared him much thought. What she did remember was the quivering of her mother’s lip; Clarissa was a dignified queen, graceful and immutably elegant most of the time. Only the mention of Arthur’s name could elicit brief glimpses of unrestrained emotion from her, enough so that even a clueless child like Malia had noticed them.
                “Don’t make that face, this trite family drama is relevant to my birth.” Gabrielle forced a smirk, “Amos eventually poisoned your father, but I guess we should praise him for resorting to fratricide only as his second recourse. His first plan was to beat him with military might, by commanding an army made out of fallen demons.” Gabrielle turned to meet the twins’ indignant expressions at the mention of such a notion, “I know, I know, Amos has never been the brightest of thinkers. But he did put effort into it, I’ll give him that. It took him a couple of years of failed horrifying experiments to accept that there was no way to bind demons to his will, nor to merge demons with immortals successfully.”
                “…Merge…?” Malia’s perplexed whisper was much more subtle than the disdain Hedera and Licorice were unable to contain.
                “Oh, you want the gory details?” Gabrielle teased them, “Amos deduced that if you could get an immortal to carry out an order, then by making a demon part-immortal they would obey too. The first experiments were rudimentary enough: cut off the leg of a servant no one will miss and try to attach a demon limb in its place with healing magic. Needless to say, that didn’t work. Inseminating female immortals with demon seed was an even messier affair, but just as much of a failure. It got worse when they-”
                “We get it.” Gorken cut her off, saving his friends from having to speak out.
                “Weak in the stomach, are you?” Gabrielle adjusted her cloak, “Very well. I’ll get to the point. I was there to hear the screams, to see the butchery, to smell the drying fluids on the stone floor. I don’t recall whether I was originally an immortal, or a demon, or if I was born this way. But as far as I can tell, I was their only success.”
                Malia stifled a gasp with her hand. Kadem started picking up the plates, her somber calm a sign of the silver witch already being familiar with Gabrielle’s story.
                “The thing is, horrendous means are justified solely when you are victorious. People are much less likely to wave away savagery and depravity when they think it wasn’t ‘worth it’. Amos couldn’t let anyone find out about his pet project, or even the immortal court would shun him. Which is why he got rid of all evidence: they dumped wagon after wagon of incriminating waste in the Gray Forest, amidst the woods that supposedly made travellers lose their way and disappear, hoping no one would ever find it. They must have thought I was one of the corpses, and how to blame them? When they buried me with the rest I thought I was a corpse.” By then no one dared to interrupt Gabrielle’s account, “I came into this world being able to see, and hear, and feel, but not move. It was when my body was embedded in earth that, slowly, I could do more than endure my entrails ravaging each other. I could blink the worms away from my eyes, I could wiggle my fingers, I could draw breath voluntarily. My longing for death lead me to crawl my way to the only part of the forest that felt like nothing… This very lair.”
                The dark woman gazed at Kadem, who was almost done cleaning up the table, “Back then our sweet silver witch wasn’t as sweet. She was a sleeping lump of tangled hair that didn’t as much as acknowledge my existence… but she didn’t throw me out. For that, I am grateful. Little by little I came to my senses. Despite having no identity, no memories, I discovered I knew how to eat, how to speak, even how to read some of the parchments loitering this place. I spent my days here learning, page after page, about magic and demons and the war happening within my flesh. Magic and the nature of a demon are inherently incompatible, so a hybrid such as myself would never have peace, never last. In my silent years of studying I also picked up on how to hate: resentment is an acquired taste, and a prime motivator.”
                Gabrielle pointed at Malia with a feeble finger, “That’s when the hole in the great stone wall and you, my student, come into play. What were the odds that the hollow tree I ended up in would hold the notes and memoirs of the magicians who enchanted the wall? Frankly, I didn’t care. I had the information I needed, and the mission to take revenge on the shadowy faces from the fetid dungeon that had been my womb. I carved my little crack and I infiltrated the northern palace, I watched, I probed, I explored. Killing Amos in his sleep was a tempting option… but I wanted more. And then I came across the small unruly princess, the daughter of the man Amos had never surpassed, the biggest threat to his claim to the throne. If he hadn’t yet poisoned you as he had your father, that meant something prevented him from getting rid of you. You were the perfect pawn.”
                Gabrielle paused to glance shortly at Gorken, “I allowed you to see the crack I kept concealed with my magic, to ascertain what you were made of… and things couldn’t have gone better for me when you made quick friends with a human boy. It was simple enough to give you a reason to hate Amos, since his own hatred of you made him predictable, and so by the time I had propitiously supplanted one of your tutors, I stopped hiding the hole in the wall from the castle guards. Gorken survived by sheer happenstance, but that didn’t affect my plans. I trained you, I chiseled you into a warrior worthy of facing a general… and before I could have you expose Amos and humiliate him, destroy everything he had built for himself… my condition caught up with me. Light bending magic was the lone one I could handle, since it requires minute and precise amounts of magical energy, but even so my body collapsed. I was constrained to go into hiding by my deteriorating flesh, and before I could return to Kadem’s home to recover, I crumpled in the forest.”
                The hybrid woman lowered her glowing eyes, “When I woke up and reached this place I found that over two years had passed, the silver witch was awake, and you had already been here. And here we are.”
                Gabrielle raised her head, “This information may hold no value to you, but it’s all I have to offer.”
                “…So… So you… You’re dying?” Malia asked miserably.
                “Well, yes, that’s the nice way to say that I can no longer stop my organs from bleeding and rotting and doing all kinds of unpleasant things.”
                “…Then… when you healed me in the dungeon…” Malia’s stomach was frozen and on fire at the same time, burning her throat and chilling her veins, “…It’s my fault you’re-”
                “Spare me the guilty performance.” Gabrielle shook her head, “When will you stop pretending you’re a saint? Didn’t you hear my long-winded anecdote? Surely you have plenty of grievances to bring up before you worry about my wellbeing.”
                “When will you stop pretending you’re a villain then?” Malia shot back, “You say it was all for revenge, that I was a pawn… But that doesn’t change who you are to me. You’re my master. I remember clearly… everything you taught me, everything you did for me… The shy kindness and concern you lousily hide beneath acrid words. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t even have met Gorken… And the first thing you did when we reunited was save my life by forfeiting yours! What grievance could I conceivably bring up with a straight face?”
                Gabrielle averted her eyes, “You’re still as dim-witted as when you were a child.”
                “Yes, I am indeed.” Malia stomped towards her master, “I’m dumb and foolish and idiotic and all of the colorful insults you’re so good at reciting. I’m also grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I’m grateful that you’re my master.” The princess put her arms around Gabrielle, locking her in a tight hug, “Thank you. I’ll say it as many times as it takes. I love you, and I’m grateful and I want to help you. I won’t let you die. We’ll think of something, you’ll see.”
                Gabrielle flinched, feigning the intent to resist the embrace, but she couldn’t keep up the act. Even her decaying skin could sense the warmth of Malia’s, the strength of her loving arms. The master noticed for the first time that her student was now almost as tall as she was. She had never known the temptation of being comforted, the seducing power of reassuring words and soothing gestures. Gabrielle almost succumbed to them, almost melted in the arms of the little girl she had once offered a hand, long ago.

                Then she recovered her composure, “Suit yourself then. There’s no point in arguing with simpletons.” Her voice nearly broke, but not quite, as she clung to Malia’s back with gentle hands, “…Don’t expect me to thank you.”

Description

I'll be posting my story here as well!  If you're interested in it, please feel free to follow my other account: ManuWrites

Thank you if you take the time to read it!

Previous Chapter:
Next Chapter:

All Chapters HERE.

CHAPTER 46: ONE TALE

                “You’ll have to indulge my senile storytelling,” Gabrielle’s previous statement had gathered all gazes on her, “since the ‘beginning’ isn’t easy to parse for me.”
                She then sipped from one of the cups on the table. She was no longer able to taste how dreadful Kadem’s homemade drinks were, “A little context is needed, however. You may not remember your father, Malia, but Arthur Daimonlance was quite the dazzling figure: a gifted magician, a respected warrior and an eloquent gallant. It’s no wonder the Eirian princess fell for him, sealing an unprecedented alliance between the two strongest immortal clans. It’s no wonder, either, how much of an aggravating obstacle he was for your Uncle Amos, the unremarkable second Daimonlance prince.”
                Malia frowned without meaning to. It was true she didn’t remember her father, and she had never spared him much thought. What she did remember was the quivering of her mother’s lip; Clarissa was a dignified queen, graceful and immutably elegant most of the time. Only the mention of Arthur’s name could elicit brief glimpses of unrestrained emotion from her, enough so that even a clueless child like Malia had noticed them.
                “Don’t make that face, this trite family drama is relevant to my birth.” Gabrielle forced a smirk, “Amos eventually poisoned your father, but I guess we should praise him for resorting to fratricide only as his second recourse. His first plan was to beat him with military might, by commanding an army made out of fallen demons.” Gabrielle turned to meet the twins’ indignant expressions at the mention of such a notion, “I know, I know, Amos has never been the brightest of thinkers. But he did put effort into it, I’ll give him that. It took him a couple of years of failed horrifying experiments to accept that there was no way to bind demons to his will, nor to merge demons with immortals successfully.”
                “…Merge…?” Malia’s perplexed whisper was much more subtle than the disdain Hedera and Licorice were unable to contain.
                “Oh, you want the gory details?” Gabrielle teased them, “Amos deduced that if you could get an immortal to carry out an order, then by making a demon part-immortal they would obey too. The first experiments were rudimentary enough: cut off the leg of a servant no one will miss and try to attach a demon limb in its place with healing magic. Needless to say, that didn’t work. Inseminating female immortals with demon seed was an even messier affair, but just as much of a failure. It got worse when they-”
                “We get it.” Gorken cut her off, saving his friends from having to speak out.
                “Weak in the stomach, are you?” Gabrielle adjusted her cloak, “Very well. I’ll get to the point. I was there to hear the screams, to see the butchery, to smell the drying fluids on the stone floor. I don’t recall whether I was originally an immortal, or a demon, or if I was born this way. But as far as I can tell, I was their only success.”
                Malia stifled a gasp with her hand. Kadem started picking up the plates, her somber calm a sign of the silver witch already being familiar with Gabrielle’s story.
                “The thing is, horrendous means are justified solely when you are victorious. People are much less likely to wave away savagery and depravity when they think it wasn’t ‘worth it’. Amos couldn’t let anyone find out about his pet project, or even the immortal court would shun him. Which is why he got rid of all evidence: they dumped wagon after wagon of incriminating waste in the Gray Forest, amidst the woods that supposedly made travellers lose their way and disappear, hoping no one would ever find it. They must have thought I was one of the corpses, and how to blame them? When they buried me with the rest I thought I was a corpse.” By then no one dared to interrupt Gabrielle’s account, “I came into this world being able to see, and hear, and feel, but not move. It was when my body was embedded in earth that, slowly, I could do more than endure my entrails ravaging each other. I could blink the worms away from my eyes, I could wiggle my fingers, I could draw breath voluntarily. My longing for death lead me to crawl my way to the only part of the forest that felt like nothing… This very lair.”
                The dark woman gazed at Kadem, who was almost done cleaning up the table, “Back then our sweet silver witch wasn’t as sweet. She was a sleeping lump of tangled hair that didn’t as much as acknowledge my existence… but she didn’t throw me out. For that, I am grateful. Little by little I came to my senses. Despite having no identity, no memories, I discovered I knew how to eat, how to speak, even how to read some of the parchments loitering this place. I spent my days here learning, page after page, about magic and demons and the war happening within my flesh. Magic and the nature of a demon are inherently incompatible, so a hybrid such as myself would never have peace, never last. In my silent years of studying I also picked up on how to hate: resentment is an acquired taste, and a prime motivator.”
                Gabrielle pointed at Malia with a feeble finger, “That’s when the hole in the great stone wall and you, my student, come into play. What were the odds that the hollow tree I ended up in would hold the notes and memoirs of the magicians who enchanted the wall? Frankly, I didn’t care. I had the information I needed, and the mission to take revenge on the shadowy faces from the fetid dungeon that had been my womb. I carved my little crack and I infiltrated the northern palace, I watched, I probed, I explored. Killing Amos in his sleep was a tempting option… but I wanted more. And then I came across the small unruly princess, the daughter of the man Amos had never surpassed, the biggest threat to his claim to the throne. If he hadn’t yet poisoned you as he had your father, that meant something prevented him from getting rid of you. You were the perfect pawn.”
                Gabrielle paused to glance shortly at Gorken, “I allowed you to see the crack I kept concealed with my magic, to ascertain what you were made of… and things couldn’t have gone better for me when you made quick friends with a human boy. It was simple enough to give you a reason to hate Amos, since his own hatred of you made him predictable, and so by the time I had propitiously supplanted one of your tutors, I stopped hiding the hole in the wall from the castle guards. Gorken survived by sheer happenstance, but that didn’t affect my plans. I trained you, I chiseled you into a warrior worthy of facing a general… and before I could have you expose Amos and humiliate him, destroy everything he had built for himself… my condition caught up with me. Light bending magic was the lone one I could handle, since it requires minute and precise amounts of magical energy, but even so my body collapsed. I was constrained to go into hiding by my deteriorating flesh, and before I could return to Kadem’s home to recover, I crumpled in the forest.”
                The hybrid woman lowered her glowing eyes, “When I woke up and reached this place I found that over two years had passed, the silver witch was awake, and you had already been here. And here we are.”
                Gabrielle raised her head, “This information may hold no value to you, but it’s all I have to offer.”
                “…So… So you… You’re dying?” Malia asked miserably.
                “Well, yes, that’s the nice way to say that I can no longer stop my organs from bleeding and rotting and doing all kinds of unpleasant things.”
                “…Then… when you healed me in the dungeon…” Malia’s stomach was frozen and on fire at the same time, burning her throat and chilling her veins, “…It’s my fault you’re-”
                “Spare me the guilty performance.” Gabrielle shook her head, “When will you stop pretending you’re a saint? Didn’t you hear my long-winded anecdote? Surely you have plenty of grievances to bring up before you worry about my wellbeing.”
                “When will you stop pretending you’re a villain then?” Malia shot back, “You say it was all for revenge, that I was a pawn… But that doesn’t change who you are to me. You’re my master. I remember clearly… everything you taught me, everything you did for me… The shy kindness and concern you lousily hide beneath acrid words. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t even have met Gorken… And the first thing you did when we reunited was save my life by forfeiting yours! What grievance could I conceivably bring up with a straight face?”
                Gabrielle averted her eyes, “You’re still as dim-witted as when you were a child.”
                “Yes, I am indeed.” Malia stomped towards her master, “I’m dumb and foolish and idiotic and all of the colorful insults you’re so good at reciting. I’m also grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I’m grateful that you’re my master.” The princess put her arms around Gabrielle, locking her in a tight hug, “Thank you. I’ll say it as many times as it takes. I love you, and I’m grateful and I want to help you. I won’t let you die. We’ll think of something, you’ll see.”
                Gabrielle flinched, feigning the intent to resist the embrace, but she couldn’t keep up the act. Even her decaying skin could sense the warmth of Malia’s, the strength of her loving arms. The master noticed for the first time that her student was now almost as tall as she was. She had never known the temptation of being comforted, the seducing power of reassuring words and soothing gestures. Gabrielle almost succumbed to them, almost melted in the arms of the little girl she had once offered a hand, long ago.

                Then she recovered her composure, “Suit yourself then. There’s no point in arguing with simpletons.” Her voice nearly broke, but not quite, as she clung to Malia’s back with gentle hands, “…Don’t expect me to thank you.”