silene viscaria
come dance with me, be my black-stained bride in the tainted wedding dress. – black mage/cygnus.
When the young dragon master comes back from the future with tales of the rogue Cygnus Knights and the tainted empress, Neinheart initiates a full investigation into matters. In times as crucial as these when something as historic as the Alliance is about to be created, such dirt and blasphemous lies against the empress cannot be made.
The suspicion starts with a feeling of dread when a sketch artist brings back a portrait of the tainted empress. The dress is familiar and the mere sight of the short, revealing garment his empress would never wear triggers the memory of being a young youth digging through Ereve's archive of historic text and records, searching for a basis of the future and trying to learn from grievous past mistakes.
A mere coincidence, he brushes it aside – he has to. But the inkling of thought remains.
As more and more reports come – the future is not the future but the dream of the Black Mage's, his ideal views of the world, his vision, his sick, twisted fantasies – Neinheart grows steadily worried and his self-denials grow weaker and weaker.
And finally a hypothesis he desperately wants to deny is formed. A conjecture on matters and all, yes, but he knows that this is the truth because nothing else would simply fit.
He's eliminated the impossible. The improbable remains must, then, be the truth.
And as Tactician of the Cygnus Knights and a loyal follower of the empress it is his duty to present the truth to her eyes.
Right now her eyes, the innocent sky-blue orbs not yet downcast with tired sorrow or world-weary pain are looking at him with confusion. "Is this a portrait of my mother?" she asks, glancing back down at the record on royal weddings where the former empress is giving a smile dazzling even in painting.
Nodding, he places the sketch of her tainted self. Cygnus winces at the reminder that there exists a cruel, twisted simulacrum of her in an evil dream of their hated enemy, her brows furrowing, before she notices the similarities. "The dresses . . . ." she breathes aloud, half in wonder and half in confusion. "But mother's was white. And longer."
He tugged back the records of all imperial marriages and flipped to the previous page. "Your mother married your father in the exact same location where young Evan stated that he found your tainted self," he ran a finger down the cramped handwriting to point out the location to her.
"I don't understand," she said.
"One of the gifts your father brought to your mother was an exotic bird with blue and white feathers. It was present during the wedding, held in a birdcage." Just like he had been. His dream self was a stubborn man with firm beliefs and loyalty to the true Cygnus, not the twisted fake she had become. He only wished he would be that strong.
"I-I . . . ."
"Empress," Neinheart closed the book gently. "I believe that the Black Mage dreams of you becoming his bride."
Because tainted!Cygnus x Black Mage is fun. Both Transcendent-y, both light-y figures in the past and tainted Cygnus is really pretty.
Apparently the flower language for silene viscaria means 'come dance with me'.
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