Introduction
Ballad of the Skylark, Verse One
Upon the ground of the broken land
Once ablaze within the sky
Two armies fight against themselves
For reasons that are unknown
On one side are the black clad knights
Fighting for the Goddess
On the other is the soldiers grabbed in white
Heretics and heroes to the common person
Swords have clashed,
Blood was spilt,
Yet still the war spiraled on and on
No end in sight, neither far nor near
The innocents were numbered none
Casualties visible left and right
Above them all, their Goddess laughed
Controlled by her Puppet child,
Spun by strands of hate and envy
Their cruel amusement stretched four thousand years
Until every citizen was dead
Yet no, they did not stop their playing there
They brought back those with a hint of sin
And left their souls in limbo
Wives who simply lied sob to hold their families
Husbands who fought for safety wander in horror
Children, innocent child, exist without a future
Alas, our Holy Mother has turned devil
Controlled by her masterpiece creation
We all must wait until she returns to norm
Or will we wait for all eternity?
The purple-black veil of night stretched in the heavenly sky, the moon blood red as it looked down upon the crimson fields like an eye. The field, with grass covered in a sheet of blood so thick one could no longer feel the softness of the ground, was home to the perpetual battle the little girl had spent centuries watching. The girl, with her hands clasped over a small black book, was seated atop a hill; her knees pulled up to her chest with her head resting on the kneecaps. Her eyes, purple of such intensity that they could have easily been called black, watched emotionlessly as the ghost soldiers gathered in the empty field below.
She could barely have been older then ten years with a round face surrounded by blonde ringlets that were such a pale yellow that they may have been platinum or white even. She wore a simple farm girl's dress of a white blouse and black skirt. Her features were so colorless, the pigmentation gone from her skin completely and her body lacking fat or mussel. Resting in her hands was a small, black book filled with arcane scripture. It was, in truth, a dark magic tome. Her bare feet were coated in blood from the once emerald grass, as were her bland clothing so that her shirt was almost black from bloodstains. Her dark eyes closed and she gave an empty laugh like rattling bones.
"Centuries have passed and yet the armies still do battle," she said to the moon, neck bent backwards and a malicious smile stretching her once innocent face, "Don't they realize who the victor will be? The goddess's army will turn out as the winner, as they always have done." Her voice was a monotone, devoid of all life, emotion and vibrancy. Her voice was one that should never have belonged to a child.
She watched as one of the commanders, dressed in white armor, yelled out demands to his soldiers and they fought their battle, clear expressions of hope on their faces, which were as pale and eeriely thin as her own. The opposite force was lead by a woman with unwashed raven hair; clad in black armor that covered her torso and her legs hidden by a skirt of similar color with a long slit up the right side, revealing ivory skin. Her soldier's half-heartily battled with looks of boredom on their faces.
The little girl laughed again, putting her head back on her knees. "They want to break their curse so badly," she whispered, still no emotion entering her voice, "That they have lost their strive for battle. The white knights still cling to the dream of hope, like a drowning man to the branch that is about to snap. I pity their souls." She stood at last, clutching her tome to her chest. She was not very tall or impressive as she watched the battle take place below. It was true; the black-armored soldiers were winning by a considerable amount. The white soldiers were all terrified, their battle skills dropping horribly and the commander was clutching his sword in a white-knuckled death grip as he bravely fought back the assault of the black soldier's cavalry.
"Bravo, Captain Lock," she said, her clapping mocking their valiant efforts, "You can die with honor . . . again and again. Though how much honor can you get by being a traitor to your creator?" She tossed back her head and laughed a bitter and mirthless laugh.
"I amuse myself, I admit it," she whispered in a deadly quiet voice, "Though true amusement left me but a thousand years ago, when the blackness of death engulfed my soul." She turned on her heel and marched down the hill, not bothering to watch the final moments of the battle. She knew how it ended.
Lock would go up to the raven-haired commander of the black knights, who would give a banshee-like battle cry and swing her own sword, which was three times smaller than his massive broadsword. He would laugh and thrust the sword into her leg, crippling her. As she screamed in pain, she would draw a dagger from her sleeve and throw it. The dagger would become embedded into Lock's forehead, and he would die in that moment. The other white knights, seeing their fallen commander, would go to murder the woman and succeed, though their lives would be lost by the near rabid remains of the black knights. The knights would not know what to do, so they would take their own lives.
The girl had made it to the bottom of the hill when she heard the raven- haired woman scream in pain and terror. She gave a bitter chuckle and looked up at the sky and the blood red moon. "Good-bye, Captains Lock and Miranda. I suppose your battle will again take place same time, same place after the moon rises again."
She walked along the field, which was as red as the blood that soaked human flesh. Numerous other battles had been fought atop these lands, and each one ended in a slaughter. The black clad Holy Knights of the Goddess always won. She amused herself for a moment, thinking of a tale her mother had told her eons ago (true, it had only been two thousand years, but it felt much longer). The tale was that good always triumphed over those of wicked heart and soul: the white knights would defeat the black knights and the lands would return to the peace they once had. If this philosophy was true, why had these lands become limbo?
Limbo. According to the mythology she had heard before her demise, limbo was the place between heaven and hell where lost souls were doomed to live eternity less they finally found their place. This description fit her land perfectly. Soldiers, nobles, innocent children . . . All wandered the land without purpose, without meaning, without peace. There were some like Lock, Miranda and their soldiers who were forced to perpetually relive their moment of death and there were others, like herself, who simply wandered the blood-drenched lands. Those souls were the lost ones. Then, the final class of the limbo's citizenship was the Statues.
Their moment of death was frozen forever. They simply stood in place, though they felt everything around them. They could see all, hear all, feel all, but they could not move. They would have been greatly pitied, had their fates been the best of all. Which would any chose? To wander the lands without meaning, to continually see death and carnage, or to remain still as living, breathing stone? A tough question with bitter answers, she thought for a moment then let the topic slide from her mind.
The girl's thin lips parted, revealing white, even teeth and her shoulders shook with horrible, silent laughter. She could no longer tell what emotions were, but there was an ache in her heart that any other would call sadness. She would have cried, had she still possessed the ability to express emotions. It had been death that had created this shell of a child. Eternal hell had taken something that was once pure and innocent, such as a child should be, and twisted that innocence into the flesh puppet that was she.
She didn't even seem to have a name any longer. The name of the girl she had once been was embedded deep in her consciousness, and it was rare that she could summon it up. Now was such a time, when she recalled those simple syllables that had been her identity. The girl looked up at the sky and said softly and dangerously, "Lady Goddess, you ruined us all. I sought peace in death, but you knew my plan didn't you?" Her shoulders shook again in her mocking laughter, "You knew that I would do that and you stopped my gentle journey, so I would have to suffer like the rest of your little pawns."
Her hands were clenched into fists with the nails dug so deep into the skin that vermilion blood dripped down the palms, adding the only bit of color to her lifeless body. Her tome had fallen to the ground and spilled open, revealing the ancient language of the Druids and Shamans. "I . . . I just wanted peace. I wanted away from everything. You took away my death; you took away the death of a child. That . . . is worse than giving the child death. I wanted to sleep . . . I didn't want to live. That was what the dagger meant!" She took a deep shaking breath before speaking again, her voice still devoid of emotion and life but hardly above a venomous whisper.
"I so wanted to escape the hell you gave our world, your world," she breathed, "I wanted to see my mother again. Now, you've made me a shell where I can no longer feel any love towards my . . . my mother." Her voice cracked and she collapsed to the ground, the blood staining her hands and blouse. Her body shook with silent sobs, her tight throat constricting her breaths, which were jagged. It was rare that she had this much emotion in her, she liked to think of herself as empty.
"I can't see your face anymore mother," breathed the girl, staring across the ruby fields with her head resting on the ground. The blood stained the side of her face and had turned her hair crimson. "I don't know your voice any longer; I can't see your smile, feel your warmth. . . You escaped the goddess's punishment. You got to go to heaven; you got to go to peace with father. But your baby girl was left alone, and she so wanted to join her parent's embrace again that she killed herself. Now, she repeats her tale to empty ears, because all she can feel is an empty void where her heart once was." The girl touched her chest, where one's heart is and closed her eyes.
"I bare your name, mother, I was named Karen after you, but you are an angel, and I am a ghost. We can be no different." She closed her eyes.
"Mother . . . "
The sickle moon hung over Castle Pherae's grounds like an omen, the slimmest bit of moonlight pouring onto the rich castle garden. The flower gardens were the pride and joy of the Lady Eleanora, second only to her treasured son. Tonight was a humid night in summer, the flower-beds a riot of color and the heavy scents of the jasmine, honeysuckle and lilies clung to the air. Yet most of all, the garden was deserted for such a late hour, it was peacefully quiet and a meditative place of solitude.
A man of about eighteen walked along the small stone pathway that cut through the emerald grass and multi-colored flowers, his sapphire eyes scanning the dozens flowers and plants. He was small built but muscular, his hair a violent shade of crimson and untidy, as though he had run his fingers so many times that it would no longer lay flat. He had a traveler's look to him, judging from his tan skin, though his clothing was that of a wealthy man. This was the Marquees-to-be of Pherae, Eliwood. In three days time – his nineteenth birthday – he'd become the successor to his father's throne.
The Knight Lord heaved a heavy sigh as he stared around his mother's precious garden. A thin smile stretched his face and he laughed lightly, remembering how Lady Eleanora had scolded him as a child for accidentally crushing some of the tulips and banned Hector from ever entering it. The memories didn't last long, though, and Eliwood's thoughts quickly turned to ones of his upcoming birthday.
He could not express in words his feelings towards his birthday, for it would mean a good few months of taking orders from the snippy and gossipy advisors of his father's court. Everyone in Castle Pherae seemed intent on telling him the same thing over and over again; that he needed a bride. His mother was one of the top supporters of this belief, much to his distaste. His face went crimson at the most recent discussion that had occurred between the twosome.
"I hear Marquees Tania's daughter is stunning. She's a Valkyrie, you know, a powerful one to, from what I've heard."
"Mother . . ."
"What's wrong? I thought you'd be happier. You're nineteenth birthday is in three days. I thought men loved attention and people catering to their every whim."
"Whoever told you that was only referring to the minority."
"You sound just like your father! We were wed about your age, did you know? I still remember . . . He brought me out to the gardens, blindfolded, and told me that he knew I loved flowers. Then he showed me everything. He had them all planted, just for me, and he told me that he couldn't have found a flower beautiful enough to match mine, so he got all the different kinds he could find."
"I remember, Mother."
"You fell in love with another woman, didn't you? On your travels?"
"What! No, not at all!"
"It's all over your face. Tell me, who is the lucky girl? It was the Princess of Caelin, wasn't it?"
"It's nobody! Certainly not Lady Lyndis!"
"Now I remember! It was that Dancer, Ninian wasn't it?"
The conversation had ended there with Eliwood leaving the room. He absently fingered the silver ring on his finger, looking at it without really seeing it. It was his only physical memento of the turquoise haired Dancer, her Thor's Ire ring. It was delicately cared, ruins inscribed on the insides, a large, circular diamond was embedded into the center with two smaller ones on either side.
He smiled sadly, slipping the ring off so he could inspect it more carefully. The ring's magic, coupled with the mystical powers of Ninian's dances, had saved his neck several times. He missed her greatly, but knew that she had done what she needed to do. The return of the Dragons had been stopped, though at the cost of the young couple's love. Sighing bitterly, he stared up at the crescent moon.
"You appear troubled," said a woman's soft, raspy voice from somewhere behind him.
He turned sharply, his eyes falling upon the form of an old, bent woman with iron gray hair bound beneath a black veil. She dressed as if she had just come from a funeral, her dress and shawl both of the same shade of ebony. "You startled me, ma'am," he said, bowing in respect slightly, "Can I ask you name?" Eliwood had never seen her before in the castle, though he knew that she couldn't have gotten into the gardens without permission from Eleanora or another high-ranked noble in the castle.
"I . . . no longer have a name," she answered in the same weak voice, gathering her skirts in a low curtsey, "My name was once Skye, though, and you can address me as that, my lord. I have seen proof of your bravery and power, though, and I am requesting your assistance in a great task."
"What do you mean by 'you no longer have a name?" he asked, examining the woman's face behind the veil. He couldn't make out much except for her eyes – slanted, with the ends curled up in an odd way. The irises were a very dark shade, possibly dark brown or black.
Skye smiled slightly and continued speaking. "I am but a shell of my former life, a spirit given a temporary form of life. My people . . . my own daughters even, are trapped in the limbo our world has become. You know what a limbo is? The place between heaven and hell?"
Eliwood nodded, though he wished he had his rapier with him, or even a lance. Something about the woman unsettled him greatly. "I know what limbo is. So, you're . . . a ghost?"
"In a sense . . . yes I am." She clasped her hands together, as if praying, her knuckles painfully visible against her paper-thin skin. "Please, milord, please I beg of you and your army to help the cursed."
He shook his head, taking a step back from her. "How are we to help the dead? We're not saints or . . . or gods, we're just humans. And besides, my 'army' was disbanded a year ago. I wouldn't want to call them to arms again."
"I can understand your hesitation," croaked the woman, "As for your first question . . . They are not truly dead. They are souls, trapped there by a curse. Some wander without purpose, others have to replay their moment of death. Can you picture that?"
He didn't want to. "Alright, I can understand your situation, but I really can't see what my army or I can do for you."
"Break the curse. Then they can finally go onto death, or return to the lives that were cut short. I beg of you, I would give you anything in my power to do so. Anything, money, power, love . . . Nothing is too great."
There was a long pause in which he thought about her offer. His voice was soft when he answered her. "Can . . . Can I see Ninian again? She was a woman I knew . . . a year ago."
"Yes," wheezed Skye, nodding her head, "I have little time left in my conversation. I can send you and your army to the land, including . . . The Dragon Children you knew. Ninian and Nils, those are their names."
"I agree to your terms," he answered swiftly, though wished he had thought about the offer a little longer.
"Thank you so much, Lord Pherae."
The flower garden faded into blackness in sharp blobs. Eliwood blinked frantically as his head swam, but in a few seconds he was out cold on the ground.
End Chapter One
