Shadow of the Past - Things worth living for.

She woke up. She heard her groan and immediately ran to the bed where Asindesa di Vir lay. The Hellknight looked much better now, but she knew all too well how deceptive poisons can be. Many, after the initial very severe symptoms, was seemingly subsiding, although the real damage done to the kidneys, liver or nervous system sometimes showed itself after many hours or even whole days, when it was already too late. She developed several of these herself to get rid of enemies in the Fright Zone. Here, she had the latest medical achievements and healing magic at hand , but their doctor ... had a heart attack. For a long time, she refused to call for medical help from a nearby town. For most of your life, asking others for help has been a sign of weakness that others will sooner or later use against you. She was raised to believe that only the paranoid would survive. Eventually, however, she broke through. Asindesa di Vir couldn't die, she would do anything in the world to save her. She wasn't sure if what she did mattered. Medics performed transfusions and injected auto-healing systems, but they couldn't do anything she couldn't. So she had to wait. It was a torment. She could be extremely patient, such as when she waited in her cell for Hordak's sentence . She was patient now, too, but this time it was much more difficult. Previously, she had been waiting, like a spider, to weave her daughter into her web of intrigue and sacrifice her for her own selfish interest. Now she had to wait for the verdict of forces over which even the so-called gods had little influence. She knew the people of the castle were whispering about her, about what had happened there in the swamps of Kranor Rill. Soon the whispers will turn into rumors, and they will spread around the area, and she will have to answer questions about what happened to the other members of the expedition. This could mean serious trouble in the future. After all, she was responsible for the deaths of many prominent members of Carurystal society, though their deaths were not her goal. It's hard, she'll deal with it somehow, she lived thirty years in the Fright Zone, judges from a planet that had never known a real war could do nothing to her. All that mattered was Asindesa's life ... and of course that damned mission... Damned indeed.

She was now looking at the woman who had become so important to her. Asidesa Di Vir opened her eyes and when she saw her, she smiled slightly and asked.

"We won?"

She smiled the same way.

"We've lost horrible." She wiped the knight's forehead tenderly, but she got up and looked around the room.

"We are in your castle, I mean Lady Cala 's castle ..." she stated in a serious tone. "What happened to Sir Rakima ?"

She hesitated as she thought about her answer. She could have lied, said Vesk had fallen right after the Lady of Blades had lose consciousness. Nobody would ever know the truth. Instead, she said.

"I left him there. I had enough power to take only one of you. I chose you"

The Hellknight looked at her for a long moment before speaking.

"I see." She didn't add anything else.

She went out and ordered the servants to bring the broth with noodles, and after the meal she helped Asindesa Di Vir to wash herself. Then she went to her office for the first time since leaving on that futile and doomed quest. She wanted to make sure nothing important had happened while she was away. First of all, news from Lady Cala, for she could call upon her at any time to fulfill her… obligations to Creeping Chaos. After all, it's been almost five years since her awakening... But nothing of importance has appeared, not even encrypted with secret symbols known only to the servants of the being with a thousand's of thousand faces. Then she decided to eat something, more for appearances than for real need. Then she went to her private bathroom to finally wash off the stench of the swamp. On the way, however, she came across Leris . The half-elven maid was overjoyed to hear that her mistress had returned safe and sound from the voyage to Kranor Rill, until she cried. A sensitive, nice girl.

"Is everything okay?" Leris asked in a fearful voice.

"Yes, everything will be fine with Asindesa di Vir." she said, and felt a wave of relief finally wash over her. Leris nodded, smiling strangely sadly.

Asindesa di Vir decided to stay in Castle Grayskull after all, though she could have gone to any clinic on Carurystal. Who would refuse the Lady of the Blades of the Order of the Eclipse? The Hellknight had iron health and recovered quickly. They also spent a lot of time together. It started with the breakfasts they ate together. At first, they talked about everyday life in the castle, what it's like to work as the administrator of an ancient castle, and about their neighbors. Eventually the conversation turned to the history of House Grayskull , but she didn't know much about it, and what she knew she couldn't say. So she redirected the conversation to Asindesa's exploits during the War with the Swarm, though the Hellknight was not very florid about her achievements.

"War is mostly about waiting, getting into right place and chaos. Mostly chaos. I was just a bit luckier than my comrades who fell. The Swarm is… it is an enemy that no one can imagine without fighting it. He is not merciless… No more than a hurricane or a meteor shower. Innumerable components coming at you wave after wave. All you can do is killing them to the moment when the Swarm will find it too costly to fight. It's very... methodical work, without glory ... but there's never any glory in war, that's what they teach us in the Order from the very beginning. How was it with you?" asked the Lady of Blades, looking at her carefully.

"How was it with me?" she asked genuinely surprised. Asindesa laughed warmly.

"We in the order are not that much blockheads. I know what I see. I can recognize someone who has dealt with the military more than many so-called officers. You saw the struggle and death with your own eyes." the Hellknight said. She replied with a sad smile.

"Oh my dear. I have seen death and murder also beyond the fight. Many innocents died not only on my orders ... Like that unfortunate fool, Netossa's father. Hordak then yelled at me for a good hour before I told him that he had ordered me to get information out of this man at all costs, that was the results he should expect. Well, it didn't change the fact that I had tortured him to death… though I didn't really have to. I had many other options to choose from…" she thought bitterly. She spent the rest of the meal wondering what and how much she could say to Asindesa ... It wasn't until they were about to get up from the table that she spoke slowly and carefully.

"For thirty years I served in an army that was trying to conquer the world I came from. I was the right hand of the one who wanted to submit us to a tyrant more insane than the rulers of Azlanti."

The Lady of Blades regarded her carefully but not judgmentally . Finally she smiled mysteriously and nodded.

"I suspected something like that." said the Hellknight. She lowered her head, afraid of what would happen next. Rejection, revulsion… that Asindesa would leave and never see her again. However, the knight of hell got up and put her hand on her shoulder.

"I understand ... no, I can imagine that it must have been very difficult for you. When you're ready, you'll tell me everything." She smiled reassuringly.

The following days passed in a strange atmosphere, full of anticipation and unbearable, but also soothing silence. They didn't talk, at least not about important things, they just enjoyed each other's company. They ate meals together, drank tea together, showed her guest around the property. Finally, when they were at the top of the castle tower and she felt safe watching the leaden gray sea stretching to the horizon, she began to confide.

"I was once supposed to be a priestess… though that word wasn't used in my country. We lived in isolation, despised foreigners, looked down upon them as savage barbarians. My mother was a clan leader, one of the most important people in our society. She was, or maybe still is, I haven't heard from her for seventy years, a very principled and strict person. She hated opposition, treating everyone as her pawns in clan games that were pathetic and utterly uninteresting to anyone except her and a few other similar women. I was destined to be a priestess, and my sisters were destined to be commanders of the clan army and head of the Assassins. I was more talented than my sisters, and they envied me, but what I had, the position I could achieve, was not enough for me. I was born with the gift of magic, but on our islands I couldn't develop it ..." she said, thinking about the past, to which she practically did not return for decades of service in the Horde, only recently, on Carurystal, she began to think about it more and more. "It's because of these damn rains. They remind me of my Motherland"

"So you ran away," Asindesa stated , guessing correctly about her past. She nodded and began talking about her semi-happy life in Mystacor . That she had great talent and limited power. About the difficulty of accommodation and slow gaining of acceptance. About loneliness and frustration due to lack of purpose in life. About the invader's arrival and how she met Mikah . She spoke of the ritual, the effects of which she did not understand at the time, as if it were an accident, fearing that the Hellknight would connect the facts and understand who she had summoned then. With that, she ended her story. She continued it in the following days. She told about her service in the Horde, gaining position and power, about the spiral of evil she fell into. About the battle and how she punished Mikah for saying a few words of truth. Finally, the moment came when she had to tell about her greatest Sin. It was unusual for Carurystal, cloudless, stars shining, a single white moon full. "I guess it's a good time," she thought and, taking a deep sigh, said.

"I almost ruined my daughters life". she said, staring at the horizon.

"Is it in your state that you can have children?" asked the Lady of Blades in surprise.

"Probably not, though I honestly don't know. I never thought about it. No, they were orphans, one of the many I looked after, though these two were especially close to me... Unfortunately for them. One I treated well… only if she was polite and obedient. The second… the second I shoved and despised, humiliated and tormented her every time I was in a bad mood, and by the end i was always in a bad mood. Because of the ritual, I was in constant pain, jumping from euphoria to agony. But that wasn't an excuse, I was just taking it out on a helpless child. What annoyed me even more, the girls' friendship began to grow into something deeper. The loss of control infuriated me even more. I soon lost both of them." And she told about the final stage of the war, though he was aware that now her story was getting murky because she had begun to speak in generalities knowing she couldn't reveal the truth. She had finally arrived at that great moment.

"Finally, the one I despised so much was in great danger, and I did the one really good thing in my life and sacrificed… something very precious to me. And then I left my home and found myself here." She turned to Asindesa and touched her neck, disabling the holographic masking so that the Hellknight could see her true face. Then she did something incredibly stupid. "My name is Shadow Weaver and I am a war criminal." she said and looked down, waiting for a fair judgment. Asindesa di Vir touched her cheek tenderly to her surprise.

"We all deserve redemption. Everyone, you too Miss Daisy... Shadow Weaver." She said and kissed her. She responded to the kiss of the Hellknight and they began to make love. She had never done that since the ritual, and she hadn't even known she was capable of it. It turned out that her body feels sexual arousal much stronger than before. Her body was hungry, so hungry, unsatiated. After an hour they finished and lay next to each other hugging, and the stars were the only witnesses of what happened between them.

"I have to go. Asindesa said tenderly touching her neck. I'm leaving in the morning on this last mission of mine and will be resigning when I return... I'm sick of this pointless war." We will settle in this castle and we will be together until the end. I love you Shadow Weaver. She kissed her and left.

She lay naked under the stars for half an hour until she got dressed and went to her solitude to think things over. It didn't bother her that she didn't encounter any of the servants. It wasn't until she saw the glow of the fire coming out of the fireplace in her solitary place that she realized what had happened.

"Welcome Calamity" she said as she stepped through the black wood door.

"How nice to hear own real name, don't you think, my dear Shadow Weaver?" her charge asked as she got up from the chair. She was dressed in modest, almost crude, travel clothes . She understood everything right away.

"I see you've arrived early, unannounced." she said with irony in her voice.

"And you, in my absence, organized a trip ... met new " friends" ... I'm so proud of you!"

The tone of her ward's voice made her clench her clawed hands, but she told her all too calmly.

"I'm sorry about your dress. This loss must have hurt you deeply.

Calamity smiled coldly.

"In fact, there's not much left of it, unfortunately. Many "brave" Frog people also died. It didn't have to happen. If only you'd give me a moment to explain…" She spoke in her sweet, gentle voice as if she were talking to a nice, though not very bright, friend.

"The situation was quite tense if you remember." she drawled slowly.

"Ahh, yes, you had to save your fair knight. Too bad you don't like lizards. Sir Rakima regrets this immensely." Calamity giggled .

"What did you do with him?" she asked cautiously, although she knew what answer she would get.

"I was a bit nervous about the ruined dress, but you know that you shouldn't suppress negative emotions. But do not worry. His agony lasted only a minute, maybe a little longer. I'm glad the same didn't happen to your friend... I see a wonderful future ahead of her... But what kind of wonder it will be is up to you, my dear Shadow Weaver, because, as you know best, some of the wonders of the galaxy can break soul." Calamity giggled .

"If you do her any harm, I swear by the darkness of my soul."

The pupil in her ward's eye melted, giving her eye a purple color. She smiled broadly. The fingers of her left hand turned into bony claws, and a bone blade slid out of her right forearm.

"What are you going to do to me, my dear?" Calamity began with an evil smile on her face, but she didn't let her finish, she only threw a stream of black fire towards the "girl", but she jumped aside and, kicking off the wall, jumped towards her tutor and tried to slash the dark sorceress with her living weapon . It created a shadowy tentacle that grabbed Calamity so that she fell and drove the bone weapon into the wooden floor. She summoned with a dark spell an ever-hungry blade woven from darkness, with which she cut Calamity, but Calamity rolled aside and grabbed the leg of the dark sorceress, knocking her to the floor. Despite this, she hacked blindly, hitting her ward, but she drew her to herself. It is unknown how the fight would go on, but then there was a voice that pierced their souls and minds.

"Enough."

They immediately stopped fighting and rose to their feet. Leris came in, wearing the modest garb of a maid. Calamity sent her look full of pure hatred, but she realized that it was no longer Leris and fell to her knees.

-"Welcome, Creeping Chaos." she said, feeling genuine horror. Calamity got down on one knee with some reluctance.

"First you fight each other in the face like children and force us to break the will of a mortal, which we don't like to do, and now you kneel before us as if we care." She sighed and continued. "Do you have any idea what's at stake here? Especially you Shadow Weaver... Our dear Shadow Weaver... You have to understand some things." The Great Outer God explained in the voice of Leris . "You have far more to lose than any of our servants, so you'd better listen to me. Your journey to Kranor Rill was unforeseen, but in the end I'm glad you did it, because it saved my time, and I don't need to demonstrate some things to you. These swamps and what the Krellans created in the old days may play a key role in the great and glorious enterprise of annihilating the First Ones and eradicating this plague from the surface of the galaxy. That's why we decided to use the technology of their former enemies... Details will be revealed to you in due course, don't worry. Just know that the bloodstones will be rebuilt, albeit in a significantly cripled form. Leris said in a melodious voice .

"Asindessa ... please don't bring her into this.." she begged.

Leris shook her head sadly.

"Unfortunately, she was involved in this a long time ago. But fear not, for there is a chance that you will be together again... if you obey our orders." they explained softly, and Calamity laughed.

"Ah yes... It's a bit of my doing. You see, your stories have taught me one thing. Those who have nothing to live for are a dangerous adversary, but also an unpredictable ally." she giggled again, but Leris came over to her and pressed her hand against her cheeks.

"Do not think, our little Calamity , that you are so smart, because after all, you are a creature not much better than our dear sorceress, and you can even be so ... childish in your monstrosity. We know much about mortals and their souls, do not claim such insight. You extracted some information from your teacher, but did not you draw the right conclusions from it." She released the aristocrat and turned to her. "We directed the void kraken to force Asindesa's ship to land on Carurystal... The rest was up to you, our dear Shadow Weaver, though we hoped for a similar result, for our little Calamity was right . Those who have nothing to live for and nothing to lose are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Lucky for us, you have Adora , Catra and Glimmer, you care about them. But they hate you, they are not your future, you wish they never met you again. But Asindesa di Vir is your future, your hope. And you mortals are at their strongest when you have something to live for and fight for your happiness. We don't even have to threaten you or even set your loved ones on our little Calamity. For you see, your dear Adora, your dearest daughters... They have destroyed not one, but two toys of the First Ones. They won't forget it, they won't forgive them, you can be sure of that. They shattered so many of their centuries-old plans. This cannot go without repercussions. They have another toy so perfect that even they fear it themselves. But they will not hesitate to use it, even though the consequences disgust even us. There will be a hunger that cannot be satiated. Countless hosts. Pure will uncorrupted by the ego. But now we must leave you. But now we must leave you. This performance was very expensive for us. Unfortunately, I don't think Leris liked our company very much, but luckily you can clear your memory. She'll never be the same again, but it's better than nothing... Did you know she was fall inn love with you? - and then there was a shrill scream and the woman fell to her knees and cowered. She sighed and placed her hands on the unfortunate half-elf's head.

"I am so sorry darling" she whispered