The Color Of Betrayal: The Story Of A Boy Named Riven
By: LadyNightSky
Summary: AU, slight OOC. We all know that who Riven is on the show, but what's his story? His history? Who were his parents? His first love? Where did he grow up? The history of Riven
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A/N: One day I just got sick of not knowing exactly what happened to Riven that made him so surly. Rated T for expletives and "mature content." READ AND REVIEW!
Disclaimer: If Winx Club were mine, Riven would have his whole history played out. Since it's not, I settled for the next best thing: writing his history out. Point is, I don't own, nor do I claim to own, Winx Club.
Chapter One: Of Handshakes and Confusion
January 14, 1994; Realm of Olympas; Royal Palace
"Riven! Riven!"
Riven turned around just as Reya launched herself at him, pushing him back onto the cold stone floor of the castle.
"Gerroff me!!! Rey, gerroff!" he yelled as she continued hugging him. She stopped, and looked up at Riven, her huge violet eyes puzzled, golden curls flying out of her usual neat braid.
"But big brother, I haven't seen you in-"
"I'm seven now Reya, too old for hugs. I'll have to shake your hand instead." he said, and air of importance lingering about his tone, jumping up from the floor with as much grace as he could muster.
Riven stuck out his hand, and Reya looked at him questioningly.
He sighed. "You shake it, Reya. Honestly, you're such a little girl."
Reya grabbed his hand, then pouted.
"I am NOT little! I'm five and a half now!" she retorted hotly.
He rolled his eyes, enjoying the part of older brother immensely.
Just as he opened his mouth to argue back, a tall figure swept around the corner and gathered him into a suffocating hug.
"Mama!!! I'm too old, don't-"
"Nonsense, Riven! No one is ever too old for hugs." his mother said with her wide, sparkling grin, though this smile seemed kind of strange to Riven, with none of its usual lightness and laughter. She stood up, straightening her emerald green, silky robes.
Duchess Anaxandra of Tremreal was a striking woman, with the large, violet eyes that Riven and Reya had inherited, and waist-length, wavy blonde hair. She was tall and slim, with a dainty face and a witty manner. As the Queen Tara's Lady-in-Waiting and a Duchess in her own right, the only woman in the realm that outranked her was the Queen herself.
Reya was the spitting image of her, and even her personality took after her mother's. Both were rather coy and mischievous, and knew how to get exactly what they wanted. They were social butterflies that laughed louder and smiled wider than anyone else.
Riven, on the other hand, was nearly always serious. He was rather introverted, and preferred horses and swords to socializing, even at his young age. His hair was violet color that nearly matched his eyes, which the Duchess attributed to one of her grandfathers generations ago, who had also passed on his unique hair color to the Duchess's distant cousin, King Fatalis of Olympas, husband of Queen Tara.
Reya and Rivens' father, the Duke of Tremreal, was outshined by his wife most of the time. He was shy and retiring, though his handsome face and fabulous riches had attracted many woman friends besides his wife. These ladies would pout and fawn over him until he made his escape to his library.
He was a kind, gentle father to both of his children, though Riven sometimes was secretly disgusted with him. The Duke didn't ride or hunt or fence, which in Riven's opinion, even though he loved his father, made him soft.
A few weeks before, Queen Tara had commanded that Duchess Anaxandra and her daughter come with her to her summer retreat.
They had just recently returned that day, and the moment Reya's feet hit the castle grounds, she'd gone in search of her beloved older brother.
Now, Riven brushed himself off fruitlessly, trying to get his mother's feminine perfumey smell off of himself. Before he finished, his mother grabbed his arm with an uncharacteristically rough gesture, briskly seizing Reya with her other hand.
"Come, dears, the Queen has demanded that we go see her. All three of us. Together." she said.
Again, Riven detected something off about her. She was acting like that time she'd had a fight with his papa and chugged down an entire bottle of that purplish stuff that smelled funny and that his parents said made you "intoxicated".
They walked along hallway after silent hallway. The castle was still and musky, and Riven found it highly unsettling. There was no one in the halls. No guards, no ladies, no noblemen, no one. The castle was usually bustling and crowded, but now it was silent as a tomb, as if it were holding its breath in preparation for something dreadful yet to come.
Anaxandra stopped Riven and Reya in front of a large, imperious oak door with a massive doorknob in the shape of a snarling tiger, its fur on end and its magnificent teeth bared. Reya shrunk back into her mother's skirts, frightened. Riven gripped tighter onto his Mama's hand, wondering what they were doing in this part of the palace. He'd never been near this door before, obeying his father's command to never come near any of the doors with knobs in the shape of tigers, the official Seal of Olympas.
He heard his mother take a deep breath, then release it in a whoosh of air, briefly releasing Riven to adjust her emerald gown before grasping her son's hand once again.
Raising her head high, chin up, shoulders back, she called out in a clear voice, "Duchess Anaxandra of Tremreal, Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Tara of Olympas, daughter to Duke Lorenge of Municpul, requests entrance."
The doors quivered slightly, as if thinking, then slowly creaked open to reveal a cavernous chamber.
Riven gazed about in wonder and fear as his mother led him into the room. Paneled entirely in golden wood, with eight diamond chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling, the room was arranged in a circle. Rows and rows of wooden seats encircled a lone desk in the very center of the room. Balconies filled with chairs extended halfway up the room's walls. Every single seat was filled, and everyone Riven knew, from the stable boys to the King of Olympas himself, was there.
He spotted his father near the center of the room, and silently asked him what was going on. The Duke didn't meet his eyes, instead focusing resolutely on a square of blank wall across the room.
Riven looked up at the balconies, and saw ladies whispering to each other behind their sheer fans, and noblemen with their heads together, murmuring. A few caught him looking, and glared coldly at him. Ashamed, Riven was about to look down when a familiar hairdo came into sight.
Lady Sanni, she was called. She wore her powdered white hair up in a beehive, and was as unpleasant to look at as bread dough, which she pretty much resembled. Sickly pale and fleshy, her facial features were deep-set and much too small. A large mole had taken up residence on her left cheek, and she wore an uncomfortably tight neon-yellow gown embellished with "too much lace and not enough taste", as Mama would say, every time she frowned at Lady Sanni in private disapproval.
The one thing Riven remembered most about her was her squealing, unnaturally high, girlish voice. He thought back to a few days ago, when Reya and Mama had still been gone. He'd been playing soccer when he accidentally kicked the ball into the woods surrounding the palace. Running into a thicket of trees to fish it out, Riven had come across an air vent from which female voices had floated out. Intrigued, he'd crept closer, and knelt on the ground, listening to the Ladies, and had recognized Lady Sanni's voice.
"…the poor, poor Duke. I always said that wench was a slut, haven't I? I bet that brat Riven of hers is the King's bastard, be hanged if he's not. Poor Majesty! That whore probably used a Seduction Potion on him too! The Duke now, I believe he's always known. I'll be sure to comfort him when the ho is shown for who she is." Lady Sanni had simpered, a satisfied tone to her high, grating voice.
"Now, now, Sanni, I'm sure Anaxandra will have a fair trial." another Lady had responded.
The high voice had snorted, then had said, "Don't be a fool. The Queen is furious already. I wouldn't be surprised if that bitch is banished. One of us will take her place as head Lady to the Queen, I wager."
Riven had stopped listening after that. He hadn't understood everything the Ladies had said, but he knew enough to guess that they weren't being very nice to his Mama. He'd silently grabbed his ball and slipped back to the castle, forgetting about the soccer game completely.
Riven was brought back to the present when a round, stern-faced man sitting in the very front row, next to Queen Tara, cleared his throat importantly and stood up. Riven saw his mother frown at the little man.
"Ladies and gentleman, all rise in the presence of His Majesty King Fatalis III of Olympas and Her Majesty Queen Tara of Olympas." the man called out.
Everyone in the room rose simultaneously, bowing or curtsying in the general direction of the still-seated rulers of Olympas. Reya and Riven did so, but their Mama merely raised her chin up higher. Riven was about to ask her why she did not curtsy when the Queen suddenly turned her head and sent an acidic glare at Anaxandra. The entire populace of the room turned to glare too, but Anaxandra still did not bend.
The King, seemingly oblivious, nodded his head, and the air of the room immediately relaxed as everyone resumed their seats in a great scraping of chairs.
The man continued. "We are gathered here on this fourteenth day of the first month of the year nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-four to pass judgment on the Duchess Anaxandra of Tremreal in the case of Lord Riven's, current heir to Tremreal, fraternal parent. This case has been ordered by Her Majesty Queen Tara, who thus states that Her Grace the Duchess used a potion to intentionally seduce His Majesty King Fatalis, from whose induced union with the Duchess was produced Lord Riven."
Here the man paused, allowing for the appropriate gasps and whispers to break out among the assembled nobility and servants. When the crowd calmed down, he continued.
"Her Majesty suggests that, if found guilty of using a potion to seduce the King, Her Grace the Duchess should be executed by the means of hanging, and should die known as a harlot and a scarlet woman, a common whore not worthy of her title, which should be stripped from her."
A sharp intake of breath came from Riven's mother, and he looked at her in panic and confusion. He had only truly understood the part about her dying, and he didn't like what he heard.
"Let the trial begin!"
A/N: Sooo…? Did you like/hate? Drop me a review.
