Author's Note:

My main fanfiction, the Forest of Daggers, had several long sections at the end of its final chapters which were written entirely in code. I thought it would be a fun little thing that people would be able to crack easily, but it turns out that there were a lot of people who didn't know how to do so, and still wanted to read these hidden sections of the story, but weren't able.

I felt bad about that, and relented. So now here's this story decoded.

It is an entirely separate story that follows the journey of the main story's chief villain, and why and how she did the things that she did. Although it intersects in several places with the Forest of Daggers story, this is an entirely standalone story, and you can read it with no prior knowledge. There are some things which may be confusing or random, but not too bad.

Anyway, long-awaited secret ancient tragedy of an eldritch alien... GO!

Long, long ago, and far away.

In an age of blood and steel, where animals talked as men, and strange riddles were whispered in the dark, one war among many came to an end. A small tribe of warriors had triumphed in their grim toil, and rose to victory above the empires and the agents which sought to destroy them. By the blood of countless innocents, they won for themselves a land of peace and plenty, and decided to call it their home. There, they constructed a village out of crude materials and laid down their deadly weapons, hoping to put behind them all the war and the bloodshed of their youths. They took to living as hunters and fishers, as if to pretend that cruel instincts no longer inhabited their minds and bodies. They looked to each other, and began to love and mate, in the manner of simple folk.

But had they really put such ways behind them? In order to prove their change of heart, God sent to them a test: an enormous spacefaring vessel came hovering down to visit their planet. It was a fight they could not win, against an enemy that would not attack unprovoked. To continue their peaceful lives, all they had to do was treat this invader with dignity and goodwill.

But that was not the path they chose. Instead, they unanimously elected to exterminate the invaders. As soon as the spacecraft sent down its first explorers, the tribe attacked with all their might. But it was to no avail, for the invaders responded in turn, using powerful weapons to instantly decimate the village and its inhabitants, a massacre started and ended in less than 4 minutes. It served (unintentionally on the invaders' part) as a justice for the evil in the peoples' hearts, to avenge the dead innocents. They had failed the test and proven themselves evil until the end.

Now creatures armed with strange tools descended from the vessel, accompanied by silent, round, floating guards. They began to roam the countryside in an ever-increasing radius, looking to both satisfy their curiosity for the unknown, and stamp out any remaining pockets of resistance.

In a nearby field, two of the last survivors crouched behind a smallish rock, watching the proceedings in shocked awe.

And so begins the tale of ███████. Her tale is one which nobody knows and has never been told, for in order to hear it, one would have to piece together a labyrinth of rumors and memories of the dead. The origin of its transcription here is not known, but it has proven accurate. Let the curious read and be satisfied.

"What do we do?" ███████ asked.

"I don't know…" Her mate peeked out from behind the rock once more, squinting his tired eyes. "I don't know…"

The war, (if you could call it that,) had finished its first day, and now the night had come. The strange creatures still roamed where the village used to be, poking and prodding, driving tools into the ground, sampling fluid from trees and roots, sweeping the area with lights. It was hard to see from this distance, but it seemed that they were collecting things. Lots of things. Anything strange, anything interesting, anything alive. Anything they could find.

███████ looked at him, and he looked back at her, and they shared a moment of hopelessness, as they knew that they couldn't hide forever. "We can't run." He whispered to her, and his voice had an edge to it. "As soon as we move, they'll just give chase…"

She huddled up close to him. "So we fight." She whispered back. "If we take out a few of them, take out the scanning ones, divert their attention elsewhere, strike them where they are weak. Then we can run."

"But we can't fight…" He assessed. "You saw what they did to the village…"

"The larger weapons probably need time to come to bear." She reminded him. "Besides, we can fight better, and wiser. Strike quietly, and from nowhere, trick them into thinking we are somewhere else, and make them afraid to attack, for fear of hitting their own men. They aren't equipped for dealing with our skills." She kept her voice confident, for his sake. "I know we can do it."

"You…" He glanced over one more time. "You really think so?"

"I know so. You take the 6 on the left, I'll take the 6 on the right. Together we can win."

"…Okay." He finally agreed. "On three, okay?"

"And in case we don't get a chance later…" She pulled him close and gave him a brief, passionate kiss. "Know that I will always love you. To the ends of the world and beyond. Always."

"Always." He agreed. "One…"

"Two…" She nodded.

"Three." They said together.

He shapeshifted into the form of a large, fearsome predator, and leapt over the rock, teeth and claws flashing in the moonlight. Headlong he rushed for the 6 on the left.

But ███████ didn't go for the 6 on the right. Instead she used the distraction, shifted into the form of a small, speedy animal, and ran the other way.

It was a cruel and terrible thing to do, but she had no choice. They couldn't run without a distraction, and they couldn't have a distraction without a fight. So the only way, the only way for one of them to survive would be for the other to sacrifice themselves. And so she made the most difficult choice of all, and left her beloved mate to die.

And betraying him hurt her, hurt worse than she imagined it could. But this was survival. This was desperation, as it had been in days of war. She couldn't spare her life for another, no matter how much she loved him. As she heard the fight escalate and end behind her, as she heard his dying cry, she drowned her love and sorrow and guilt beneath the overpowering, singular certainty that it was necessary.

She would survive.

So she ran and she ran.

She didn't run fast enough.

And they caught her.