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The Queen

Always look for what lies behind those eyes...

Death is not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. Neither is accepting it when it happens to others and especially those close to you. If time travel existed within the realm of my powers, I would do everything to go back and save them before he could get to them. Before he could change them, before those other women in their town hung one, shot another, drowned the third, and burned the last at stake. All four girls, and they died though not entirely as the...powers that they had possessed lived on. To stop all of that, of course, would require the travel back to many millennia past and that is not something that most would even be willing to risk. For all of my powers, that is beyond my realm of influence. Do I miss them? Yes. Would I be willing to alter the very thin fabric that holds our world together? No. I prefer my bitterness and anger regardless.

I'll be blunt and state this simple fact that so few are willing to admit to: nothing lives forever. Everything shrivels and dies. That includes hope, that elusive spark that can change and incite and drive in those who are on the brink, the precipice, if you will. One of the most simple things I've learnt over the years is something we, both humans, faunus, and otherwise, choose to neglect is simply this: when bent too far, when pushed too far, everything and everyone breaks. The lines get drawn farther and farther away every time and every moment that passes in the waiting for an absolution is wasted. Chances dwindle, and options become scarce. Therefore, what I ask you to consider is what have we left to do when this point is reached or passed? Furthermore, are there sometimes moments when we have no choice in what we have to do or do we always have a choice?

To verge away from philosophy, let us discuss the basic politics of the four major kingdoms in this world. Commonly, they are referred to as Atlas, Vale, Vacuo, and Mistral though those are not the full names. Officially, Atlas is the United Kingdom Of Atlas - which has a government council with twenty departments, six hundred members, and aid from and association with the military and the kingdom's huntsman academy. Arguably, it is the most powerful of the kingdoms. Vale, following in suit, is officially the Unified States Of Vale and has a somewhat smaller government council and no military with the council mostly separate from the academy. As for Vacuo, it's full name is the Vacuoian Federation and, while having a relatively strong government council, is known more so for having hearty deposits of Dust. No, I am not going to explain Dust beyond it being one of our most precious natural resources and that its trade is, in many senses, monopolized by the Atlas based Schnee Dust Company - although that is not to say that the Government Council Of The United Kingdom Of Atlas hasn't placed increasing sanctions on the company over the years. I digress, and to finish Mistral is officially the Republic Of Mistral with a huntsman academy and government council just like the other four major kingdoms.

For a brief history lesson, the four kingdoms have been around for so long that many cannot remember that, despite learning about prior ancient civilizations, they have not always existed. In fact, the kingdoms as we know them today were not established until after the Great War - the war that tore apart kingdoms and families and yet still ended in change that was long overdue. Before the Great War, all four of the major kingdoms had a royal family and the monarchical rule was absolute except for in one kingdom. Vale, Mistral, and Vacuo had rather normal histories with the subject of their monarchies and absolutism but Atlas is different. For starters, the United Kingdom Of Atlas wasn't known as that until after the Doppelganger Treaty was signed by all of the kingdom's provinces a few years after the Great War which created Atlas as we know it today and also established its progressive constitution that was markedly liberal in its ideas - for the time even radical.

The United Kingdom Of Atlas was known as the Kingdom Of Mantle during and before the Great War and had a constitutional monarchy in which there was a royal family with much power, yes, but also a parliament which I suppose one could think of as a rudimentary version of the government councils that currently operate within each of the kingdoms. Of course, the government councils all have various heads of state - Vale and Atlas have a president while Vacuo has a prime minister and Mistral has a chancellor. That, however, is off topic. The royal family of the Kingdom Of Mantle was the Ciel family and the family was, to the surprise of some of the other kingdoms, remarkably cooperative in the establishment of the United Kingdom Of Atlas though this likely had something more to do with Lena and Jacob Ciel wanting to retain their heads rather than being out of the goodness of their hearts. They, five years after the Great War ended and having ascended to the throne at the very beginning of the war at the ripe ages of twenty and twenty four, had a son by the name of Edward Samuel Ciel who, twenty four years after that married a member of the kingdom's military and had a daughter - Emmeline Cecilia Ciel. By the time she was thirty eight, both of her parents were dead and she was a general in the Atlas Military. She was also involved with a Schnee, which could be viewed as ironic or unironic considering the status of the Schnee family and the status of hers. At that point, sixty two years had passed.

Eighteen years later, Vale's huntsman academy, Beacon, fell to the grimm and a woman with amber eyes, a woman that I won't dwell on. At that point, the kingdoms had all gone through changes and that included the people within them. Human beings and the faunus are not static creatures, rather, they like to push the limits, they strive towards change and one of the most admirable, and frankly annoying, things about them is the drive that they so wholeheartedly possess. That, however, does not make them infallible. People die every single day and those deaths are not strictly natural. Some die by their own hands, others die at the hands of others but in the end everyone dies. As I said before, hope is a fickle friend and it cannot and should not be relied on. The one thing I must impress upon anyone that perhaps will listen to me is this: Don't wish too much, and don't let hope blind. I speak from experience. The view, I admit, is cynical but that does not make it any the less true. Human beings especially are incredibly arrogant and seem convinced that so long as our sun is still burning and our shattered moon is still in orbit that dust will blow. That is not always the case. Like it or not, everyone is scarred or flawed in some way - no one is without weakness, not even me. But if you don't give away your weaknesses, no one has to know about them. I certainly don't let people see my weaknesses.

Now I'll briefly delve into the realm of legends, fairytales, and even religion. Though there are many religions in our world that claim monotheism, polytheism, or atheism, there is one that is actually true. The tradition that states that the world of Remnant, our world, was created by two brother gods, an older and a younger, is true. It is also true that they created sorceresses and one male sorcerer who gave much of his powers to the four girls that I mentioned as having died earlier. In short, that single sorcerer created the four maidens of the seasons: One maiden for Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The one that was hung possesed the powers of the Spring Maiden; The one that was shot possesed the powers of the Winter Maiden; The one that was drowned possesed the powers of the Summer Maiden; The one that was burned at stake possessed the powers of the Fall Maiden. When I previously stated that their powers lived on, I referred to the fact that their powers transferred to a woman between the ages of seventeen and thirty five after their deaths and the women that killed them received their powers for being in that time frame. Now, that is not to say that that time frame can't be evaded through forcible aura or power transfer but, with such technology being ethically grey and controversial, I will veer away from that.

There was a woman, the mother of the girls, who was distraught by their deaths and sought revenge. She went to the younger brother god, the evil one, and he agreed to help her. They even fell in love and granted her powers of creating the so called monsters of destruction that plague our world and have since mankind existed. Unable to rob the future for whatever fate it held for her and unable to destroy her, the younger brother god used the last of his powers in one final act with his elder brother, the good one. Together, they cursed the man who had given the girls their powers in the first place and they set him to reincarnate until he defeated their mother, their distraught mother who only wanted what she viewed as justice though that concept became warped and she finally conceded that she was after revenge, not justice.

Never, no matter who you are, confuse your vengeance of lust for it as a form of justice. That is more than just a slippery slope to fall down. I should know better than anyone. I was human once too.

In each of his reincarnations, his soul would merge with that of a like minded person and, after about seven or eight years - give or take, that person would become him and he would continue his fight against the woman again though he, by the time it had been eighty years since the Great War, seemingly failed every time. Most people would have lost hope, but he, for some reason, persisted. In many ways, doing such was admirable but it was only a thorn for his enemy. Not only did he reincarnate, but the two brother gods also created four relics which were hidden by the man and could only be accessed by maidens.

But, some of this is only legend. I can tell you, however, that the maidens are real with absolute certainty though that is all I will directly confirm.

I am no longer living...I am merely a trapped spark that lies buried and sealed but that does not mean that I am powerless. My name is Salem.

So, as you continue you on through our world of love, politics, war, family, anger, remorse, sadness, happiness and the full spectrum of emotions, I ask you to consider the words that General Emmeline Ciel so eloquently phrased that have been quoted by so many others - both allies and enemies - over and over: "When the first shots are fired, who will you able to trust?"