Title: The Forgotten Children
Author: Bleeding Heartgrenade
Rating: T
Author's Notes: I haven't actually completed the game yet, so I don't know the finer details of the story, but here's my shot at an Ico-ish tale.
Disclaimer: Ico in no way belongs to me. It belongs to Sony. Not me. The lyrics are from 'Poison' by Groove Coverage
Prologue: 'Your cruel device, your blood, like ice, one look could kill, my pain, your thrill...'
How it began
" Shadows…?"
"Wha-What are they?"
"NO!"
"Dearest…!"
"Argh!"
"Yorda! Let go of her! Give back my Yorda!"
"Yorda!"
Imagine … the greatest fortress in the world. Turrets and towers. Bridges and battlements. Pillars and pulleys. Castles and cranes. Windmills and walkways. All curving up and down and from side to side. When a light shines, the walls glow with beauty and the white doves coo from the trees in the courtyards. The light appeared and glowed inside the castle.
But whenever a light appears, a shadow is made.
The shadow in this castle was deep and drowned those who entered it. In a high tower of the fortress, in a circular room, devoid of windows, a woman sat in a throne, carved elegantly, made of dark wood. There seemed to be claws shaped in the timber, and they stretched above the woman's head. The woman was pale-skinned and wore black clothing. Her jet-black hair waved wildly around her head and her eyes were dark and narrowed. She sat proudly on the throne, because she was a Queen. Leaning on one of the arms of the throne was a sceptre made of black, twisted metal. At the top of the sceptre was a clear ball of glass. In it, white balls of light floated serenely, bumping gently on the clear surface.
In the mysterious Queen's arms was a bundle of dark cloth, and an ethereal light glowed from it. A tiny newborn child slept in the cloth, gently inhaling in and out, creating little puffs of breath in the cold air. She was Pure – there was no doubt. Her tiny fragile form emitted an aura of innocence and peace, whereas the Queen's aura was sinister, almost evil. The Queen stroked the child's forehead with a long, clawed finger.
"She is mine," The Queen said, and an outbreak of squeals, shrieks, and snarls erupted near the door. The Royal Lady glanced up, glaring at the oak door leading to the lower floors. A hulking mass of shadows was crawling on the floor. White lights glowed inside the silhouettes. Strange shapes rose up, and howled.
"I SAID NO!" The Queen raised her left hand, and it began to glow red at the fingertips. A sparkling ball of energy formed there, sending scarlet bolts of electricity ricocheting off on the grey stone walls. The moving shadows whimpered and sank into the floor, leaving the room empty. The ball of energy dissipated and the Sovereign stood up. She clicked her fingers once.
Immediately, shadows seeped into the room, soaking in through the floor and dripping down through the walls. They left black, gaping portals in the surfaces of carpets and stones. The shadows took shape. Wings unfurled. Talons sprouted. Legs extended. The shadows knelt on the floor. All of the dark, empty eyes were fixed on the Queen.
The Queen looked around at the Shadows, her soldiers, the Spirits of Darkness. In the head of each one was a light, glowing brightly. The lights were souls, stolen from the villagers who lived out on the fields beyond the woods, away from the castle. The lights in the Queen's sceptre were also souls and they gave the Queen's staff power. The Dark Queen held the child tightly, as she stood before her minions, because she knew every one of them was thinking about stealing the girl's soul.
"Listen to me," she said, and every Shadow knew it was a command. "You have done well to bring this child to me. I know this child's soul would make you strong-" her eyes flashed at the shadows as they shifted, their glinting, slanted eyes peering up at the infant "- but she shall make me strong!"
The Shadows began jabbering among themselves, and their Ruler glowered at them. At once, the Spirits fell into obedient silence, and the Queen spoke again;
"When this child is old enough, I shall take her soul and her body. It is more powerful than mine. Her body is young. Too young right now. You," She looked around at the Shadows, "Shall watch her. Make sure she does not escape. If any one of you should steal her soul -" and here she looked piercing around the room, into each, soulless eye "- I shall destroy you all."
The Shadows shifted, uncomfortably. Then one of them crawled forward, and bowing low, it spoke in a voice that had words that no normal human could understand. However the Queen was not a human at all, so could understand.
"More souls, you say?" The Queen looked down at the living Shadow, made of darkness. It nodded, the soul within its head bouncing. The Spirits needed souls to live and move. If they did not have souls, they disappeared into nothingness. The problem was, they could only go so far from the castle before the souls broke free and they and the Shadows vanished. Also the Spirits needed new souls every so often because they slowly devoured the souls they captured. However the Queen had been planning what to do for a long time.
The Queen turned, and lay the sleeping child down on the floor by the throne and picked up her sceptre. She marched to one of the portals left by the Spirits in the stone wall of the throne room. The Shadows scattered as she marched through them. The Queen clicked her sharp fingers, and the swirling darkness of the abyss cleared, and the portal became clear and glass-like. And, looking into the portal, the outside of the castle was shown, as though the supernatural gateway had become a window. She snapped her fingers again and the image changed. Now there were valley and hills and fields, and many, many villagers. There were people talking and working in the fields.
The Queen smirked, and pointed her sceptre at the image. The glass ball began to glow black, and the souls in the glass ball began to tremble. Black lines, like fingers reaching outwards, spiralled slowly out of the sceptre and sank into the window-like portal. In the moving image, a fierce wind rose, and the people ran against the gale and ducked into their houses. Rain began to lash down on the villages and the trees groaned and lashed their branches against the ground.
The Queen raised her sceptre into the air and chanted in a strange language; "Riapsedd nas senkradd esruce bd nat nemrote cafs nomedo tn rutis luost neconni."
The portal gave out a strange noise, like the sigh of the cold autumn wind through the willow leaves. The clear surface faded and returned to swirling blackness. The Queen turned, and faced her soldiers. The Shadows peered up at her.
"I have placed a curse on the villages of this land. I have cursed them so their women shall bear children with demoniac powers. The villages in which these children are born shall suffer great misfortunes, and the villagers shall believe that the children are to blame. They shall bring them here for sacrifice. The human soldiers in my service shall go and spread the rumours of curses in the villages. I have prepared the coffins for the children." The Queen gave an evil smile, and the Shadows chattered excitedly. "And to make sure those brats don't give us trouble, the curse suppresses their demon powers. And you can feast on their souls!"
The Shadows leapt into the air in feverish joy, babbling and shrieking, waving their smoky arms over their semi-transparent heads. The Queen walked to the throne and scooped up the baby girl from the floor. She held the child out to the Spirits, which reached out as one, and took hold of the infant. The child awoke, and began to shiver. The Shadows proceeded back to the portals. As they and the child sank into the darkness, the little girl let out a piercing wail.
The Queen sat down on her throne. The sceptre was still clutched in her hand. She still had trouble believing her luck. The child had been found by the Shadows on their usual soul hunt. It had just been born to a peasant woman. The child's name was Yorda. Naturally, her father and mother had been killed by the Spirits of Darkness and then the Shadows had argued about who got the soul of the child. However, one of the Queen's human soldiers had been passing and ordered the Shadows to take the child back to the castle. They did so, though reluctantly. And now the child was in the Queen's grasp.
'She shall think I am her mother,' The Queen thought gleefully, ' and it will hurt her, and make her despair.'
The Queen knew that to take over someone else's body they would have to have little or no hope, and be consumed with sorrow and loneliness. She was going to make that girl, Yorda, suffer everyday of her life. The Queen stood up and walked out of the room and down a set of winding stairs on the battlements of the castle. Looking west, she saw the fields and villages beyond the forests on the cliffs opposite the castle. Dark clouds seemed to be gathering in the sky above the land and rivers and villages, an ill omen. The Queen's eyes flashed darkly and she walked on, over the stone battlements. The clouds rumbled and a fork of lightning spiked down and set the forest aflame.
And two days later, Yorda's miserable cry was mirrored by a young father, raising his newborn son up into the light of day, and seeing two small horns sprouting from his small head.
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