Off to a family wedding this weekend but did not want to make you all wait that long for an update (big family = days of recovery). I hope not all are surprised by my choices thus far, I will explain as I did once before and hope you enjoy the journey of discovery as I reveal it to you. As to one question I was asked I think it deserves an aside answer.
The 200X series made a point of having that dash of realism, people can die, life is not always fair and so forth. I am keeping that as I did before, and if you have read Champion you know that main characters are not safe anymore than side characters.
As before I do not own any real estate in Eternia, but I think they have built offices in my subconscious cause my dreams are full of castles, dragons, and He-Man...
996AH Ram Temple in Sands of Time
"I told you it was too much Sorceress. She is not ready," Anna could not remember ever hearing the Faceless One sounding so affectionate to her. There was reprimand for the Sorceress, but the tone towards her was the most gentle she could remember since she was very small.
She remembered being sung to sleep most nights when she was 5 years old and the nightmares would not let her rest. The Faceless One had always been there in the dark and sung songs without words that always banished the memories far away.
"Time has run out Faceless One, we both know with Snake Mountain exposed and what he will find there, Skeletor may regain his memories the Elders took from him," that part had been in the journal too. Anna thought it odd that the Council of Elders was not even mentioned in the history books that survived Skeletor's purge of the old libraries. Like the Senate had not wanted people to know about them either.
Anna felt a cool hand brush her brow and she opened her eyes to see Frosta smiling down at her. She held a finger to her lips and looked over through the door to the room of she had been in before. The stone was still wrong to her, but again she felt safe here.
She saw the shadows of the Faceless One and the Sorceress facing each other over the table that was still in the room. Anna wondered where she was, but again she saw the room had changed to the needs of its occupants. It was truly a good piece of magic!
"Enough, we all knew time was against us, we should be glad your spells slowed him down a decade," the Mystic Warrior slipped into view between the two masters of magic. At that moment the tension could have been cut with a sword. The Sorceress seemed to curl her wings about her, and Anna felt it was disgruntlement to be talked to by one so young compared to her.
"That is part of the problem Andrea, the Faceless One and I both agreed the spells could be breached by him, but he waited until now for some reason, and we are no wiser for it no matter how often we cast for reasons," for the first time Anna saw the emerald fire even from her bed that Adam had spoken of in the journal. As if thinking of it was a summons, she felt it still in her hands. She looked at the worn cover and wondered what Adam would make of the present Eternia.
"Ladies, no matter the reason, we all agreed that the day that this happened, Anna would get all the answers we could give her because she deserved to know why Frosta and I risked everything to find her," Stratos seemed a rock all in that room turned too. Even the Sorceress for all her serenity seemed to draw strength from the presence of the former lord of Avion.
"As always bird-man you cut to the heart of the matter," Frosta saw all the room turn to her as Anna watched them see she was again awake. Getting out of the bed, she felt much better for having rested and saw that food was on the table now as well. She felt a draft and turned to find a blank wall where the room she had just rested had been.
"This room is at its limit with all of us here Sorceress and you need to return to Grayskull, leave the rest to us, you will have more than enough time soon enough to truly be with your granddaughter," the Faceless One did not seem bitter about the end of Anna's time here, but Anna felt a trickle of fear. They were all making choices about her life and not even asking her if she wanted to do anything right now!
As if unbidden the words from the journal floated through her mind. What you are saying is impossible, I am no hero... Adam had learned the hard way about this choice, she need not. Suddenly she understood why he had left the journal and why she was allowed to read it. He had known! Not once was it mentioned, but he must have known evil would return and a Champion would be called!
"Yes Anna, Adam did know and you were offered the unique perspective to learn from what he chose to give to the next Champion of Grayskull," Anna's blue eyes snapped up to look into the now glistening emerald orbs of the Sorceress. Suddenly the room felt warm to her. All around save the Mystic Warrior, Anna felt like the had touched something personal in each of them.
The man had been dead nearly a thousand years but he could still affect people like this?
As if the memory had broken a spell, Stratos offered his arm to the Sorceress and in a flash she became the hawk Anna knew she could be. Frosta and the Mystic Warrior hugged Anna and all four left the room quickly. Anna was left with the only person that had been with her the most in her weakest moments.
Nearly a thousand years of life had not prepared the Faceless One for this feeling in her heart. On one hand, her mind knew this had always been coming, and it was only natural to worry about what was to come for her charge. On the other hand, she did not want any harm to come to this child anymore. She wanted to hold her and comfort her all of her days until she could fall in love and live rather than face the battle to come.
Is this what it is like to be a mother? The thought floated in her mind as she saw the questions forming in Anna's mind. Mostly she stayed out of the young girls head out of respect, but the questions were loud, blaring, and honestly all expected. Some would be easily answered, others only experience could teach.
Suddenly she saw Anna at 7 years old and scraped her knee after falling down the stairs. She had been afraid to cry out in case she was being weak. Anna was like that now, trying to hold in all the understandable frustration, anger, and fear to seem strong. The Faceless One restrained from embracing the young woman. This was not the time.
"Why?" the question encompassed so much that she applauded the child's succinct method to begin. If she could have, she would have smiled at the innate ability of Anna to get to what she wanted. In the decade of training she had been amazed at her ability to learn and adapt.
"The Elders Power is where it began I suppose, they foresaw Prince Adam would become He-Man, and in the end he foresaw evil would return," she gestured for Anna to sit and eat. The slip of a girl nearly collapsed into the wooden chair and ate mechanically as she listened, always grasping the worn journal in her left hand.
"When you were born, the Sorceress was given a vision, that you would be the next Champion of Grayskull, but only as things fell apart did we see the danger to your family, as I have taught you, visions of the future are not fully detailed or fleshed out," she omitted the seemingly remarkable ability of the Mystic Warrior to be an exception to that rule. She saw Anna nod for her to continue, but her blue eyes were putting pieces together. Sighing she went into the part she disliked to thing on.
"Stratos and Frosta have lived apart from most of Eternia after the first time they 'died' from what most would call natural causes," Anna cocked her head but did not interrupt her. The Faceless One herself had carefully questioned the duo when they turned up at her door after she had seen at least the bird-man die surrounded by his family. Unlike herself and the Sorceress, they did not have magical means of extension to explain their resurrection.
"You should know they both woke up at what was once called the Well of Darkness with no idea how they got there, the Sorceress and I could not see the event no matter how much we tried, but Adam did something there and all of us you know now save the Mystic Warrior, were there," the Faceless One smirked as she remembered her first good deed as the puppet of her father. She had no doubt that event was in the journal if she knew Adam at all.
"Our best guess is they were tied to what happened to Cringer, we even suspect we ourselves were but have not fortunately had it tested, beyond that all I can tell you is since their return they have not aged a day," that too was unexpected, because while Stratos seemed to be the age he was when Adam undid Hordak's work, Frosta was in the prime of her life as well, when back then she had only been a teenager.
"When we saw you were in danger and so young, we sent the most experienced we could to save your family, the Mystic Warrior wanted to go herself, but her particular methods would have drawn attention from Skeletor," at this Anna stood bolt upright.
"YOU KNEW HE WAS BACK?!" Anna flushed in rage as she leaned forward, her simple tan tunic and pants were her more normal clothes rather than the cloak from before. She was shaking as she tried to cap her anger, the journal was still in her hand, and for a moment the Faceless One thought she saw a spark of emerald, but dismissed it as imagination.
"Yes child we did, but who would you have us tell?" she let her own frustration with the situation stand as her defense. It had been only a week after the newly born Mystic Warrior had been chosen and had her first vision, and it was the rebirth of Skeletor! Scrambling they learned too late that it was not the future that had been seen, but the present.
"Surely someone would have stopped him..." Anna's voice trailed off as she no longer saw the room around her and in her mind fires and ash were predominant with all too familiar cackling laughter. The Faceless One dismissed the images from her own mind and memories as chills went down her own spine.
"You know as well as I that no Senator or King would accept our word of that villain even with who we are, worse was the realization that somehow Skeletor was informed of this age," the shock reversed the flush and Anna fell hard into her chair. Truly at the time, the Faceless One had been like her. Even now, neither she or the Sorceress knew how that was possible.
Her staff blazed to life and she looked deep into the energies knowing what she would see. She expanded it out so Anna could see it as well. Snake Mountain returned to view for the first time in almost a thousand years.
"This place is creepy," the child like voice did not seem right to be coming from the hulking furred creature. He seemed a cross between a man and a shadow beast. Truly it was not that far off, Skeletor had wondered if he could make something like Beast Man but with far more reliability than his old minion. The result had not been perfect but it had advantages.
"Do not fear this place of all places you mangy fur-ball, this is my new capitol," Skeletor felt his eyes glow with rage at all the time lost. He remembered so much more than what these fools called history. The smooth walls of the main hall were as he remember he and Kobra Khan had forged so painstakingly. He saw the roundels were still intact even after all this time! A snort of laughter left him as he remembered his walk over the historic lands of the palace of Eternos.
The Senate had styled themselves as aristocrats and used their interpretation of Randor's court as their model. Whatever hatred he held for his old enemy, at least Randor had insufferable honor to call his own. Those insignificant fleas had been all too happy to follow his suggestions, never questioning why they accepted him into their inner circles.
Such weak minds bent only on self satisfaction are easy to use for his own goals. All the while he had wreaked his vengeance on Randor and his spawn. One thousand years exiled from Eternia and he awoke in a lab with his ram staff in his hand and the technicians dead. That last part still troubled him, but now that he had his fortress back he could focus on finding the power of the Elders again.
At last they rounded the final curve and he saw some things had changed. The throne was not the skull one he had forged in his own style, but the raised chair of Hordak with the symbol of the Horde still emblazoned on the high back. He remembered all too well the last time he had been here.
Hordak had used him! He had used him and discarded him like a doll. The rage burned in him, but now he was returned in triumph, Hordak was dead and he had survived to again succeed where even the warlord had failed. The bonus in it all was now there were no interfering fools called He-Man or Masters to stop him.
He had seen the record for the Mystic Warrior, he also noted the timing of who he had recognized as that irritating Man-at-Arms. Something about that visit had restored him or something had inspired a fool to do something they really should not have. It did not matter, laughter bubbled out as the master of Snake Mountain took his throne.
He saw his minions lounge much as they had so long ago. They were not as bright as some of them had been, and in the case of the dark furred man beast that was saying something, but they would do.
Laughter echoed around the throne room as Skeletor let his joy loose on this rare occasion. Soon he would tap into Serpos, with no Snakemen or Hordak, all of Eternia and its power would be his! He had only one obstacle truly left to ultimate power, something he knew should be in his head but was lost, the location of the Elders' power. It was a blank spot in his memory.
He could remember scheming with Evil-Lyn or Triclops to pierce its defenses, but its name and location were just gone. Worse these simpering fools had also forgotten about even the Elders themselves! Only that insufferable He-Man remained, and even then only as a child's story.
He would find it, and he would slam aside its defenses with his power combined with Serpos and any other talisman he could lay hand to. No more delays, or heroes to stop him now!
Anna and the Faceless One sat quietly as they absorbed the images. Finally Anna saw her dismiss them and set the staff aside. Her pale white hair framed her empty face, but Anna saw even her master in a new light.
Adam had not held back in how she had once been Evil-Lyn, and after all she had done as a minion of Skeletor, he had given her justice and even forgiveness. It was difficult to see how he did that, but only knowing her as the Faceless One colored her view of this woman. More than that she knew there had been something between Skeletor and Evil-Lyn before their new roles after the Mystic Wall.
It was there in Adam's words, but he never guessed or suggested, but watching her now, Anna could feel something more than worry in the Faceless One.
"Was he ever different?" the question leapt from her mouth before thought completed it. Anna regretted it but did not take it back. The empty expanse looked at her and she wondered if an answer would come.
"Yes, he was different before Skeletor," there was no bitterness in the voice, but the name sounded dead to Anna. "Keldor was ambitious, handsome, and for all his other faults, a man. He wanted Eternia and ultimate power, but I think he just wanted a legacy to call his own on his terms." The Faceless One now faced the fire in the hearth.
"Skeletor however...he wanted revenge and power. Nothing else mattered to him much until Hordak threatened his plans. He was a monster and reveled in it, so far as I could see Keldor died the day he became Skeletor," the difference in the names was stark to Anna. No one else might have noticed, but the Faceless one scorned Skeletor but still held affection for Keldor.
Anna herself knew that if given a chance she would not forgive Skeletor, not after all she had lived through and seen. There was nothing that would get that from her to him.
"You should not think that child, you will begin new training under a far more strict teacher than I now," she felt worry fill her heart at that. Who could be worse than the Faceless One?
Laughter came from the shaking shoulders of the woman in front of her as she held her side in her lavender robes.
"The Sorceress wanted you trained here for two reasons Anna, one was safety, Skeletor might have remembered Grayskull and having you there would have been too easy for him to get rid of all his problems at once," the Faceless One got her laughter under control and again faced Anna straight on. "The other was she wanted me to raise you because when the time came, she could not see you as a little girl, but a fresh recruit and maybe she wanted you to have a mother you could turn to when you needed one."
The last was said quietly but for one moment Anna saw her life her very differently. The Faceless One had not been training her out of any instruction, it was what she felt was good for Anna to know. She had been preparing Anna for the world outside the temple as best she could and helped Anna understand the dangers if she messed up. She IS my mother!
The clarity of the revelation shook Anna to her core. She barely remembered anything about her biological mother save the terrible night she was taken away. That night would be with her forever, but as tears began to form in her eyes, she realized she had purposely always called this woman that raised her the Faceless One. She had been keeping that small barrier between her and the truth.
The woman who gave her birth had done all she could to keep her safe, and lost her life for it. No one could take her place, but this woman had raised her and cared for her, and asked nothing in return. Even now she knew that her new destiny was not the desire of this woman.
She rose out of chair and stood before her, seeing her really for the first time and all her time here as it she should have long ago. She flung her arms around the startled witch and hugged her hard.
"You are my mother, I am so sorry it took me so long to realize it," her voice broke as she realized how much she took her life for granted here. It was coming to an end and she did not want to go! She felt the strong arms of her mother embrace her and the two sat in the firelight as they knew a parting was coming no matter what either desired.
The Sorceress dashed the pool away. The rest was a private moment she need not see. She smiled wide that Anna had finally understood what the Faceless One had done for her and accepted. Not even the isolated witch had fully grasped until far too late what she had become. It had been unintentional, after all if they could have, they would have save all her family, but this was an unexpected light in the darkness.
The castle rumbled quietly as energies shifted. The shattering of the spells hiding Snake Mountain had set off a storm in the magics of Eternia. Skeletor was gathering his forces and preparing to do as Hordak had done. That would take time at least, but not as long as she would like. The Faceless One had hit the rub of this horrifying situation.
How did Skeletor possess knowledge of this age? How did he return when he certainly had been stone dead when found? Where had his staff come from he now carried? None of these they could answer, nor find any clues. What is more is the knowledge that he could have marched from Eternos to Snake Mountain and begun this ten years ago.
It did not add up and she worried that the answers would reveal an even greater nightmare.
