AN: Replaced 03/27/08. Wrote again due to an oversight, liked the new version better. Obviously, the outcome will be the same.
The first thought Cain had when he stepped into the massive hall of the Northern Palace was that it was a good place for an ambush. The second was wondering why there were so many pillars. What good reason could the architect have had that would have necessitated so many columns? Basic laws of building would only show the need for maybe a third of the amount that were in the room.
He made sure to keep DG on his right, where he could better protect her. When she suddenly stopped, her attention caught on something, it took less than a second for him to realize it and pull to a halt himself. His gaze went immediately to her, and then slid up to rest on what had drawn her eyes.
It was a portrait of the queen. Painted nigh on twenty years before, although it was altered from the way it'd been the first time he'd seen it. Not that he could place his finger on how, exactly. He didn't look away as he stepped closer, not even when DG realized that the woman inside the frame was her mother.
Raw's own revelation to the fact surprised him, but not overly so, making him look over at the Animal. He knew that Zipperhead had reached the same conclusion over the identity of DG's mother when the Mystic Man had mentioned her 'lavender eyes.' Although he couldn't be sure if the other man still remembered that fact. The Viewers being such an isolationist group in the O.Z. probably was to blame for Raw's sketchy knowledge about the Queen.
The portrait reminded Cain of how deeply the changes were woven in the O.Z.. The beautiful raven-haired queen of the light had been replaced during a violent coup by her cold-hearted power-hungry eldest daughter. Central City had faded from a shining beacon to a decrepit and corrupt place. The Tin Men were either banished, tortured eternally or killed, long replaced by the Sorceress' Longcoats.
He'd been just starting off in his career the last time he'd seen the portrait. An optimistic and lighthearted young man, deeply in love with his new bride and ecstatic over the coming child he'd been told about the week before.
'You knew my mother.'
Cain couldn't help the twinge of guilt that caught him when he remembered he'd called Zipperhead a convict. And wasn't surprised when the very same turned around to remind him of the fact. He personally wouldn't have forgotten being so misjudged, so it made sense that the other man felt the same way. It just wasn't done to insult another man's honor, his father had taught him to behave better than that.
DG began another one of her lilting remembered stories, counting out the meter with her hand. He drew his eyes away from the portrait, finally, to look at her. Better keep his mind on the present, and off the past. When she suddenly turned and bolted, his eyes went against his will back up to the painting, before Raw followed. Zipperhead and he shared a glance, before (with yet another look back at the framed picture) he followed DG…the princess.
She led them up a flight of stairs, through a corridor and finally into a room, where she suddenly halted. Furball and Zipperhead followed, with Cain close on their heels. As soon as they were all inside, they fanned out. Zipperhead aimlessly wandered, Furball headed for DG and Cain began to scout the room. He looked in every direction, even up at the ceiling, where there was a colorful mural of animals painted in a lush forest scene.
When he finally was sure that there weren't any Longcoats hiding behind the curtains, or about to pop up from the dust covered bed (he would've been able to see bootprints on the dust covered floor) he immediately turned towards DG.
The way she sighed, when Furball described her mother waiting for her return, made Cain look away. Only to find Zipperhead looking back at him, the same unsure expression on his goofy face as he knew he had on his. He didn't know how to handle a woman's emotions, other than anger or lust, they always seemed so much more complicated than his own. His mouth opened and closed slightly as he tried to figure out what to say to her, but nothing came to mind. Flexing his fingers didn't help either, and he kept finding himself picking up one hand to reach out to her, before he realized what he was doing and put it back down.
He turned towards Zipperhead when he spoke, but while mildly amusing and sad at the same time, what the man did wasn't all that important. When Furball spoke next, however, it was. The Animal was extremely upset, to a degree Cain hadn't seen before. In fact, when he grabbed DG's hands and began pulling her up and out of the room, he nearly ran into the ex-tin man behind him. Cain had to step backwards to avoid the collision.
DG asked Furball to tell her what he meant by 'bad things,' but he seemed scared out of his senses. When he turned to look at Cain, who was still standing behind him, Cain immediately ordered him to tell her what she wanted to know. He was sure to temper his usually steely tone, the furry man-creature did not need harshness at the moment, just a little authority.
Furball's expression didn't change, he was still afraid, but he still did what was necessary. He headed towards an old mirror against one wall, the other three following, and began pulling at the diaphanous cloths draped over it. Once it was clear he placed one hand on the edge, and bowed with pain. After a moment the mirror's surface changed from reflecting the room as it was, to reflecting as it had been.
Cain stood riveted, his attention narrowed in on the picture glowing on the mirror's surface. It was of the Queen, and of what Cain knew must be DG as a child, lying on the beautifully carved bed that was in the room. The Queen's voice floated almost eerily from the mirror, singing a song he'd heard DG hum absent-mindedly more than once during their travels.
The image of the Queen he'd always held in his mind was of a dignified and aloof woman, everything royalty was in the stories his mother had told him as a child. But here, she was just a mother, singing to her child. The contrast was a startling one, he hadn't exactly thought she was a cyborg, but he hadn't really thought about what the royals were really like. They just…were.
Zipperhead remembered then that the child was indeed DG, and that he'd known her then too. She however seemed more fixated on the kiss the image of her mother had given her as a child. Her fingers trailed over her cheek, as if trying to feel the soft touch from over a decade before. He wasn't sure if it was better to have forgotten everything rather than remember the horrors as well as the joys.
After the Queen left, it wasn't more than a moment before she walked in. A cold young girl, spouting lines from a long ago supposed prophesy. He didn't place her really until Zipperhead whispered her name, making Cain's eyes dart between the other man's face and the images playing out on the mirror's surface. He could do no more than swallow and blink when DG realized who exactly the Sorceress really was. Her elder sister.
The girl, Azkadellia, continued slinking towards the bed her sister lay sleeping on, still repeating the prophesy. When she finally reached the edge of the bed, she stretched out her hands over her sister, and unleashed a mass of darkness towards the smaller child. The younger DG gasped away, choking from the magic wrapping itself around her throat. After a minute she stilled, and her older sister put down her hands, a self-satisfied smile on her icily blank face.
"She tried to kill me!"
He was quick to correct her, it was important that she realized the truth. Now was not a time to coddle her, allow her to think that she escaped unscathed, or that her sister didn't cold-heartedly suffocate her as a child. She needed to know how far the Witch was willing to go. There would be no mercy, no quarter, just death.
Her denial had just slipped off her tongue with a shake of her head, when the Queen returned to the room. And with a suspicious glance at her departing older daughter, moved towards the bed, at first slowly and then at a dead run. A sound, seemingly torn from her throat without her will, escaped the Queen as she threw herself beside her child. Crying and apologizing for not being able to protect her.
The sound of her words settled around his heart like a vise, momentarily stopping his breath. She hadn't been the only one unable to save her child from the Sorceress, just the first.
Her cries stopped suddenly, as if she made a decision and knew it had to be carried out swiftly. Mouth open, snow white tendrils of pure magic weaved themselves from somewhere deep inside, flowing into the mouth of her daughter. It was like watching the Sorceress work in reverse. Instead of pulling the life out of another and into herself, the Queen was pulling her life out and pushing it into her child. Silver threaded its way into the dark strands of her hair as she acted, just before she collapsed, gasping from exertion.
The Emerald of the Eclipse? Damn it, where had he heard of that before?