When you were still a young girl, unknowing of the ways of the world, everything seemed bright.
Times were harsh, food was scarce, and you could not remember a time when the land around you was not covered in snow.
But at night your mother would tell you stories, would teach you things unknown to even kings and gods, things she used to protect you, to protect the village.
During the day, in between bouts of harsh labor, the labor of your people, you would play in the pure white snow with your brother, and rejoice.
But then they came.
Men in blinding metal suits, riding harsh trampling beasts, swinging iron swords about them.
You watched as they cut down the women who had raised you, the grandparents who had snuck you food, the children you had played with, the men who had provided for you.
You watched as the monsters came.
You thought you would die, and you almost did.
But you were pretty, and your brother was strong, so instead of death, you were given a worse fate.
Slave.
Thats what you are now, not sister, not daughter, not child, not person, slave.
Your mothers spell protected you, powerful magic that it was, but it was also rushed, and you were always surrounded by danger.
It did not (could not) protect you enough.
Even in death mama helped you - so that you could protect brother - but she only helped you so much.
Many years later, when you are a woman, the woman, reigning supreme over your once-captors you shall reflect on all you learnt from such fools.
You learnt that hope, that love, was for idiots.
You learnt that men were disgusting pigs who took and took and took and never gave.
You learnt that a sway of your hips and a spell on your lips was all you needed to kill them.
You learnt that to survive, to win, you had to be as they were - to be as they were but better.
Harsh.
Cold.
Unforgiving.
Cunning.
Ruthless.
You are better than they are, you are a goddess in mortal flesh, you are their nightmares, you are their dreams, you are the void that consumes them whole, you are death, you are time, you are the night, YOU ARE EVERYTHING.
And you cannot let them forget it.
As you stand in front of your opulent golden mirror, seeking counsel from yourself in your battle-dress, asking the only goddess you believe in what to do, you murmur:
"I am Ravenna. I am Queen. I will show them what it means to defy me."
And you do.
Even in death you laugh.
For you have hurt them more than they ever hurt you.