Category: Resident Evil Village

Rating: M

Couples: -

Warnings: AU, mention of torture, Blood

Chapter: 41

Copyright: Characters & places © By Capcom, Plot & OC´s © by me

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"No. No!" Mother Miranda wheeled around. No! How could she have missed this!? There, in the castle, were intruders! She had been so focused on this battle and these children that she had forgotten to keep any of her senses on her daughters! How could she have been so blind!?

She rushed from the field, not even caring anymore about the few opponents that were left. Pushing herself to even greater speed, she tore through the trees between here and there.

No... She found her daughters in one of the courtyards, cornered in one of the passageways and surrounded by men. Donna had placed herself firmly between Alcina and their assailants. As for Alcina... Her eldest was on the ground, bathed in blood.

An inhuman screech tore from her throat, filled with every emotion that was flooding her entire body right now. Rage, hate and disturbingly, fear. "Not my daughters!"

Adrenaline fueled her and they died to her as easily as if she had not come from a battle. This time, she had enough sense to trap some of them. Stumbling, she snarled at the only man in a suit before rushing to the other two women.

"Mother! She..." Donna was shivering, remaining eye wide when it fastened upon her. "They..."

"Ssshhh..." She allowed the black-clad woman to run into her arms. "What happened here, draga mea?" One arm around Donna, she moved over to Alcina. "Alcina?"

"Mother! Mother!?" Flinching, she realized that she had not been the only one to return here. Glancing over her shoulder, she noted the formation of the triplets. Oh, she would have spared them this sight... and Alcina the knowledge her daughters had seen her like this.

"Get these into the dungeon!" She was snarling, but she wanted to spare them all some pain. "Now!" Blessed be Alcina's loyalty, that extended to her daughters.

"They shot her... she can't move..." Donna whimpered beside her. "She..."

"Ssh." She soothed her third daughter, wrapping her wings around her and pulling her along when she knelt beside her second daughter. "Alcina?"

What had happened here?

"Mother...?" God, how could she have failed her daughter to make her sound this broken?

"Yes... I am here, fiica mea." Pain laced through her heart when the other looked up. Not only was her midsection covered in blood, so was her face. Blood ran down from her mouth and nose, dripping onto the stones below her.

"Please... please make it stop..." Tears mixed in with the wetness from the rain and the blood. "Please, mother, make it stop!"

They had broken her. They had broken her eldest surviving child... and they would pay for that in due time. "Draga mea..." First, she needed to help her somehow.

"It hurts... please... it hurts!" There were gouges in the stone tiles, the claws of the Dimitrescu Matriarch having made short work of them.

"I will... I will." Softening her voice, she tugged the taller woman close, caressing her head gently. "But you have to tell me what happened. What did they do to you?"

God, she hoped the pain was not so severe as to render her unable to think.

"Nymph..." Alcina whimpered, pressing her hand into her middle, just above the blood tainting her once white dress. "Another nymph... hurts!"

Oh god... no... no... not that agony again! Her mind shot back to the files Karl had shown her. Alcina had screamed for hours before fainting the last time. The only reason she currently wasn't probably was because she did not want to upset Donna.

This was not how she wanted to have to deal with this again. "Draga mea..." She barely knew anything about the Nymphs! Was there even a way to remove them? Would she find out on time before it utterly destroyed her child?

"Please... please..." The elder Dimitrescu was clawing at her, claws catching on her priestly robes. "I'll be good... please... please stop it... please just make it stop... hurts... hurts... please..."

"Sshh..." She could only soothe the other woman, unable to do anything to help. All her power and still she was powerless. Years, decades, nearly an entire bloody century of study and she knew nothing!

Over the rain came the sound of beating wings and turning around she noticed a large shape of amber. Frederika was carrying her uncles to the castle, landing heavily in the flowerbed. The two men had barely jumped off when the form rippled and shrunk until it was only the small shape she had chosen for herself.

Karl was carrying something that looked like two fused helmets, but Mother Miranda had only eyes for the amber child, vaguely see-through even in this small shape.

"How does one remove a Nymph?" No pre-ample, no beating around the bush. She had to save her daughter, that was all that mattered.

"Not." The older Nymph looked haunted as her eyes fell on Alcina's whimpering form. The only reason the air wasn't being rend by screams might well be the fact that the tall woman was burrowing her face into her mother's stomach. "Nymph... Nymph only remove... when done... or mother dead..."

"No..." Donna whimpered. "She won't survive this!" What use was all the healing in the world when the mind was broken?

The Priestess shivered in horror, trying to ignore the broken pleas of the woman in her lap. "There... there must be something! Is there nothing we can do?"

"We are Apodean Nymphs." The young girl evenly stated, voice even more emotionless than ever before. "Made this way. Look not us answer."