The sound of heels slowly clicked across the intricately tiled floors, the figures of a young girl and two guards in heavy armor shown through the pillars and arches. The two guards walked on both sides of her, their heads occasionally turning and exchanging fearful glances to each other.
After all, their only instructions were to not speak with her under any circumstances. At all. No reason to accompany the order. No reason as to why they had to accompany the child through their own home. No reason why this was their first time even hearing of another child in the house. Perhaps she was mentally ill, and had to be hidden in order to uphold their renowned family's status.
At last, they reached a larger room where moonlight filtered through the windows and on to a marbled desk. The woman sitting behind the desk unclasped her hands and straightened her back, then motioned to the guards to go. They happily obliged.
The two females stared at each other for a while. The young girl's passive eyes bore into the woman's calculating ones, as if they were sizing each other up for the first time. It would always be the first time for the girl; she never knew what this woman would do. She kept her gaze.
The woman was the first to break the silence. "You've grown into such a lovely woman, haven't you?" Her tactical smile swept into something more maternal, with traces of feral possessiveness.
The girl didn't say anything.
"You're beautiful, and so talented," She continued, the words flowing from her lips like water over pebbles, "You'll do well."
She tried to feel nothing, but there was this unsettlement at the pit of her stomach that gnawed at her like a growl of a beast from beyond the mist. Her feet shifted a bit.
"I want you to go to Tharsis," The woman beckoned to the map behind her, the pins marking the cities glinting at her mockingly, "You are an explorer who wishes to find the tree of Yggdrasil. You however, know what you are there for—do not forget that."
At first, the girl did not say anything. She had lived in this household for so long. She couldn't possibly distance herself away from it. This woman was the only source of communication she had too—how was she supposed to go outside and talk with strange people?
"Do you understand?" Impatient nails drummed the surface of the table.
Although the girl and the woman were not related by blood, the girl considered her to be her mother. And mothers always knew what was best for their daughter.
"Yes." She murmured. She didn't have a choice in the matter. Her mother knew best.
The woman raised her stick-like arms, a strange light beginning to shine from the tips of her fingers.
Yes… her mother knew best.
That was the last thought that went through her head as the room began to sway.
Her mother knew best.