This rewrite turned out to be way more drastic than I thought.
Shaula's heels clack throughout the hallways and corridors of Medusa's hideout. Lair. Whatever the hell she called it.
It didn't matter now, she was dead.
She was surprised.
At first, rumors had spread from witch to witch; the second of the Gorgon sisters was dead. It had been hundreds of years since Arachne had disappeared, and now another was gone. This fact brought a smirk to Shaula's face. She was the only one left.
There were still things left unanswered, though, there were still rumors left to confirm. Her fingers scrapped along the streaks of dried blood that adorned parts of the walls. How long had she been dead? There was no corpse, none that anyone was able to find. No roaming soul, no snakes, nothing. Shaula took matters into her own hands.
Two figures emerge from the periphery of her vision. A subtle twist of her arm allows a chain, beset at it's end with a sharp point, to fall into her hand. Turning her head, she makes no attempt to portray herself as weak.
"Show yourself."
Her command echoes throughout the dark and decrepit hallway, tumbling throughout wildly. Nothing responds.
The two figures march at the same pace, and it is only after they emerge into the light does she recognize them. Their eyes are not that of a normal human, but are instead occupied by the astrological sign for Scorpio. Their frail bodies are clothed only in orange tunics, and rags that they wear from their necks. My soldiers. Convicts she found on the run. No one would miss these miserable goons if they happened to go missing. She sighs, before turning to run her hand over streaks of blood on the walls.
"Report."
The taller one speaks first, he makes no real attempt to show emotion, his speech is completely avoid of anything that would show his feelings; he has none now. Why would he need them?
"We have not found Medusa, Shaula-sama."
Shaula turns her head to the shorter one with a disappointed expression. "Anything of note that I should obtain?"
He shakes his head. "No, Shaula-sama. Whoever was here, they took anything of note. There are scattered pages and knocked over vials, but that's it."
A sigh escapes her mouth. Damnit. She expected to find at least something relating to Medusa's sudden disappearance. Her feet quickly stride over to where the two brainwashed criminals she currently controls stand. They don't understand what they're doing. They don't know why they were just sifting through the lair of one of the most dangerous witches to have ever walked the earth.
They don't know why she's placing the end of her pointed chain at the nape of their necks.
They don't know why everything is black.
Their corpses are now sitting slumped on their fronts, blood drips onto the floor, it barely makes a sound. Shaula smiles, satisfied. Her venom works better than she had anticipated. Of course, these were weak, miserable souls, but that's all she needs.
The wings in the west and east were searched by them, all that remains is for her to move forward. There is no point in wasting time, this place unnerves her. So, she sets off, and her footsteps become the sole sound throughout the compound.
It isn't long before she finds herself in a large room, almost circular in design. In the middle sits a crystal ball, at one point, at least. Now it lies in pieces, scattered throughout the room. Similar blood stains line the room, with no notable patterns. Nothing to track. She walks into the center, observing the dark corners of the room where the support structures lie.
Why is she even here? She sighs again. Chasing phantoms, how sad. She wasn't going to obtain anything of use by running after the ghost of her dead sister. At the very least, it proved the viability of the traitor venom she had been working on. So, she turns around to leave; but something is off...
Goosebumps arise on her arm. There are few things that scare her, but being watched from somewhere she cannot see is one of them. The chain falls into her hand again as she turns her head to observe her surroundings.
"Hello..?"
The voice is meek, quiet, barely audible were it not for the capacity of the room to help echo it.
She wheels around to try to find the source of the noise, all she can discern is that it comes from behind one of the pillars that are throughout the room. She extends her hand to the right, as a magical symbols fly throughout the air.
"Show yourself, or I'll blow this place to pieces."
Nothing responds. She decides to make due on her promise.
Magic Mandalas!
A few beams of concentrated energy tear throughout the air, coming into violent contact with one of the walls. It explodes in a great gout of light and smoke, coming to rest is the flow of dust and debris. She finds no torn biological matter in the wreckage, she must've missed.
Finally, something appears, out of a column from the right.
A person?
She raises an eyebrow at the shivering mess of a person that emerged from behind the shadows. He's clad in a stained black robe, it clings to what little muscle and fat he has on his body. Slowly, she marches upon the child, who can only weakly raise the black sword he seems to wield.
Now that she is close, she sees what he is. A crying child, no more than eight or nine. His face is marked with scratches and dried tears. His pink hair is unkempt, his gray eyes are twitching with fear. Her hands slump to the sides.
"Put the sword down. Who are you?"
What dread was in her has been swept from her. She's surprised the child can even hold up the sword or speak, with how emaciated he is. But what is he even doing here?
The arm he uses to hold the blade falls from it's position, and the sword crashes against the ground, a scraping noise accompanying it. The boy can't seem to look her in the eyes, he shoves his head to stare at the ground. A minute or so passes, and Shaula turns on her heel.
"If you aren't going to tell me anything, than I'm leaving."
She tilts her head back at the child, whose only response is to tremble in place. The sight unnerves her in a primal way, something is visibly wrong with him. Her shoes tap against the cobblestone floor as she sets off for the entrance.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"W-wait!"
She exhales in an aloof manner, as she turns back around. The child is nervously looking at her, his liq quivering, his eyes watering. He doesn't even shy away from her as she quickly steps back in front of him.
"P-please don't go!" He begs, his voice weak and watery. Her expression is one of boredom.
"Why shouldn't I, if you aren't going to be helpful?"
The room is quiet, the only audible noise is his cracking voice; he can't find the right words to answer. The blade speaks for him.
"DAMN IT CRONA! KILL HER!"
The rattling voice that resonates from the blade shocks the boy, while confusing the witch, who raises an eyebrow. A demon weapon? It doesn't sound very threatening, especially not when wielded by the twig with flesh that stands in front of her.
"W-w-why would I do that? Maybe she can help us, I don't know..." He mutters, as he nervously rubs his arm.
Shaula raises a finger, an attempt to get a word in, before the blade simply grunts and melds out of form, it turns into a stream of black mass that retracts into the child. What the hell is this? At least she has a name now.
"Crona. What are you doing here?"
He jolts in place at the uttering of his name, and all he can do is nervously shove his two index fingers together. How does he respond to that? He doesn't know her, he can't figure out how to deal with it.
"I… guess I've always been here. M-mother lived here, so I guess I did."
"...Mother? Who was your mother?"
He looks back up at her with gray eyes, a bit more steady now, and nods. "Uh-huh. Lady Medusa..."
Shaula's eye twitches. She's a bit more intrigued now. "You… are Medusa's child? Where is she?"
"I don't know." He half-heartedly responds. "A bunch of people came over, I heard yelling, and then..."
His head bows, and he idly kicks the ground, nearly tripping over himself doing so. With her senses a bit rattled by the atmosphere that permeates this accursed place, Shaula gently extends her hand, as Crona looks up confused.
"Come with me."
He blinks at her in shock for a few moments, before meekly raising up his hands and waving them. "Ahh, I can't! What if Lady Medusa comes b-"
"She isn't. She's dead. Besides, at this rate you'll starve if you stay here any longer."
Her words cut their intended path, not helped by her blank expression. While she said it partly to convince the child, she hopes that her words make it clear that this isn't a choice. This demon child is coming with her, whether he wants to or not. What she'll do with him is the question.
The child clutches his hands close to his emaciated figure. He wasn't told a whole lot about the world, but he supposes she's right. How long does he expect to last like this? Plus, any estimation of survival has to take into account Ragnarok not bullying him to death. Crona nervously extends his hand, before long it gently rests in Shaula's open palm.
He almost jumps back as her hands encompasses his, and her thumb rubs over the entirety of his digit. It's not exactly comforting, but it isn't rough. She's curious what children are supposed to be like. So tiny, so fragile. The witch steps up to her feet, before looking around her and slightly tugging the child towards her. The child's hand tightly grips onto her index finger as she leads him out of the place, neither of them making any attempt to mention the corpses of the convicts that lay in the middle of the hallway. The only way to go is straight ahead, into the bright light that bleeds through the crude opening of the facility.
…
Her house sits in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn't it?
Solitude was what she was forced into, given Death's no tolerance policy towards witches. Whatever, it didn't matter. It was nice and out of the way, far from the prying eyes of humans. For now, she has the child to deal with.
Both of them are sitting cross-legged across from each other in the middle of her living room, other than a couch, there is no furniture. Her arms gently rest in her folded knees, as she patiently observes Crona, who idly pecks at a bowl of ramen. She studies his mannerisms; how he moves his arms, how he breathes, and he sits. It's all so mechanical, so fidgety. He's afraid of something, but she has no clue of what. Medusa? She's dead.
He sets the bowl down slowly, before mimicking the way she is sitting, his drab eyes slowly looking her over. The silence continues for a few more minutes, before he finally says something.
"W-what are you going to do to me…?"
Shaula sighs before resting her chin into her open palm. "I don't know."
He seems almost relieved at her indifference. He seems to consider another question, before hastily retracting his motions, which she quickly notices.
"You're wondering who I am, aren't you?"
Crona nervously nods.
"I'm Shaula. I'm a witch." She shrugs absentmindedly, what else is there to say? She has no clue if the how he would react to find out she's his aunt, so it's a detail she leaves out. Her eyes fall back on the child.
"Medusa never loved you at all, did she?"
The little one jerks back at the words. He's young, and he reacts like a child would: defensively. Shaking his head, he feels drawn to defend Medusa in some way. "No, no, it's not like th-"
"When was the last time she fed you?"
Her words cut daggers in the boy, who is slowly becoming deeply unsettled. It hadn't been that long since this whole mess happened, but he couldn't really answer that. Almost instinctively, he found his hands traveling to his ribs, which jutted against his pale and thin skin. The lump in his throat is growing, as Shaula shifts herself to be right in front of him.
Really, it was a bit of a gamble to suggest his mother was abusive, but she figured it out easily enough. The sheer state he was in, combined with the way he talked about her when she asked was enough for her. Their earlier conversation when they first came to the house was brief, but told her all she needed to know.
Besides, she knew who Medusa was, probably better than anyone did.
She gently grabs his hands away from his chest and brings them to rest in her own. A wide smirk is what she envisions as she goes to softly smile to him. Shaula supposes she's figured it out. He seems to crave protection of some sort, so why not give him that?
"I'm not going to hurt you. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Stay with me."
His hands nervously shake in her grasp. How does he react to that? Lady Medusa never taught him about this. The offer Shaula presents, as she mentally notes, is hard to resist from any way she could present it. It's practical, at the very least; what the hell is this twig of a child going to do on his lonesome?
All he can do is meekly nod, something resembling an awkward and forced smile flashing upon his face. It's just a mimicry from what Shaula is doing; that's all he knows how to do, follow instructions. Be dependent. The idea is not so poisonous to him, though. He realizes what she does: what else is he going to do? Besides, she seems nice enough. The only person he ever relied upon, or really knew, is dead, and he doesn't find himself all that torn up about it. His smile grows shaky, as she pulls him into a tight hug that seems to calm him. He can't recall a moment where Medusa did that for him, and he finds himself slackening in her embrace.
"Good boy." Shaula coos, as her hands rub through his unkempt hair. He seems convinced, enough to stay for a bit. What she'll do with him, that's the question. Picking up her sister's scraps isn't exactly what she had planned, but she felt it as almost her duty to take him in. After all, he'll prove himself useful in some fashion soon enough, especially once she figures out what this black blood nonsense he keeps talking about is.
That's all the hug is for, reassurance. It's a pity play for her to bargain with. Is it genuine? She mentally confirms that it isn't supposed to be, even if he seems to buy it. Still, she can't help but see something in the kid, something she's all to familiar with: loneliness. She does her best to shrug the new mysterious emotion off as best she can, there are big plans ahead that she has to prepare for, that he has to prepare for. She'll have to figure out what the hell that thing inside of him is, whatever Medusa was planning with it.
A weak sigh escapes her lips, as the boy rests his head into her shoulder. At least they each have someone to talk to.
...