Black Crowns: Hallowed Be Thy Fall
A Hellaverse (Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss) Story
Episode 1:
House of Woe
"One must wonder, that for all the places a sinner could go, it is always here – Pride." Her lips were chapped red from the odd chill that accompanied the far rim. Often, this cold signified the distance from the Angels and their light, their warmth. "Tell me, you are here because you are… the Hero they call Daän? You have a reputation to be proud of. What did I do to deserve your interest?"
"I'd hardly call it interest." Daän answered simply, his steps toward her were utterly silent. In fact, she had been humming a small tune to herself and abruptly stopped, at the mere feeling of the atmosphere having changed around her. The ever intrusive presence of another with ill intent against her. Ever since the fateful day that brought her down here, she had almost a sixth sense for danger. And indeed, Daän was dangerous.
"What would you call it then, punishment? I was born the way I am. All I ever wanted was to be like them. In many ways, when I did walk along them, I was more pretty and loved than any of the others." The sinner's face had grown only briefly sad, the expression disappeared just as quickly as it was carved upon her flesh. The default had returned, something that was equally seductive as it was fearsome, ferocious even.
With a beautiful visage of a woman for her upper half, the rest of her body was serpentine. One could almost mistake her for the artistic portrayals of a Gorgon. Slowly, she dared to turn toward him and the more she sized him up, the more her own confidence had grown.
Atop her head, a levitating crown of obsidian black. It was the one thing the two had in common. She glanced over Daän with scrutiny, not initially impressed with the reputation that had been so fixed upon him by the exaggerated words of others.
"My, my. They weren't kidding. You really do look like you got lost on your way to a medieval fair." She could not help but tease him, a hiss having escaped her pale lips in the process. "For anyone to wear such garbs down here… well, perhaps you are compensating for something. Truly, from one Black Crown to another, you should maybe modernize a smidgen."
"It's utilitarian."
"Which means?"
"It gives up aesthetics for practicality. It is made to deflect blows and not look entirely too pretty."
"Oh, you poor, blue bastard…" The disappointment was hardly easy to deflect. "You really have no idea who you are stepping up to."
She stepped away from the precipice of the large cliffside that overlooked a sizable part of the industrial Pentagram City below. From there, all the illumination of amber hues and stark reds failed to reach them, leaving the two black-crowned sinners in a shade of dark blue.
"I do, actually. Many speak of you, the Lady by the cliff. A lady that was once the 'Great Terror of all Mothers in Greece'." Daän struck his breastplate. His armour clinked loudly with a metallic rattle. Layered, overlapping plates that continued over the shoulders. His arms encased in riveted vambraces and reinforced gauntlets to shield his hands. "Otherwise I wouldn't have come wearing this. Even if you end up being all talk, I couldn't risk it otherwise."
Across his waist, a fabric belt of teal. A gift from an acquaintance supposedly brought him good luck from any one he dared to face. It complemented the blue tunic beneath, with a touch of ornate, goldish-yellow borders. It was a splash of nobility to his otherwise metallic ensemble.
Daän took several measured steps toward her, inching nearer – even though he rather be moving in for the kill now. A long and thick sword was gripped in his hand. He was of height and a lean build, to see him carry it without much effort spoke volumes about his own willingness to actually use it. Indeed, it was more like a hunk of sharpened steel rather than a gentlemanly sword. Not something seen so often in the flamboyant Pride Ring.
Her eyes widened slightly at the sound of his steps. Before, he was as silent as a mouse and now, he taunted her with his presence. All the weight from his weapon emphasized the clinging of his legs, protected by cuisses on the upper thighs and poleyns at the knees, above greaves that covered the shin.
"You're a handsome one, beneath that rag across your face. I can just tell."She had fought many Heroes, in life and in Hell. Laid them down, all of them, in more ways than one. "It would be far easier to solve our problems in a more… pleasurable manner. Who knows? You may even find yourself falling in love with me? You'd hardly be the first Hero to do so."
"Not going to happen." Daän hesitated. "And you've not seen my full face, yet you think me to be some handsome rogue or something?" His eyes had fixated on her hands, waiting for them to turn from delicately human to some bear-like, monstrous claws.
"I am a seductress and a devourer. If Heaven wished to make me another way, I would have surely been that way. Instead… I am here. Punished by the laws of my own creation." A soft, sad smile of realization made her drag her sight downward to the soil. Now, it was back at him with keen interest. "Before I carve your face like gyro, mind showing it to me, blue one?"
"Hrm." It was the least he could do, after all. As he removed one hand from his weapon, the blade's tip dipped to the soil and nearly landed with a thud. His silver-white, steel-capped finger pulled down the bandit-like cloth that obscured his face from the cheeks down. It was of a similar color to the small black crown that levitated above his head like a corrupted halo. "Surely, you'll be disappointed."
"Not at all." This admittance was shown in her eyes, which were far more open now, before the word had confirmed it further. "A face of pale blue, nearly grey. With ashen hair, bristly and likely cut by your ownself or a blind wench. A battle-weary, muted expression... Ah!"
She realized who he was and almost felt giddy about it. The fact that, of all people, he had come to kill her. Fellow Black Crowns were always a surprise. A cameo, a gift that reminded them of the world they are now damned to never see again.
"Of course, Daän could never be your true name, blue one! Ha!" And what a silly corruption of a name it is. "You may cut your curls and wear anything but a winged-helmet, as was your calling card, of yore… but you will always be who you really are, deep down. No amount of prostrating, repenting and retribution will ever fix that."
Daän quickly tugged the cloth back over his mouth once more. He allowed her to get over confident, he could see it in how she squared her shoulders and coiled the serpentine half closer to her torso, readying an attack.
"If you know my name, then utter it!" Dared the blue one, his hand now returning to the hilt of the sword alongside the other. "Otherwise, I'll cut you down before you can get another guess."
"Hmmm… there is a chance I could be wrong." She tapped her lips with a finger, suspiciously more taloned than before. "But I've seen your face on many statues. That cold, calculated indifference… The way you gaze toward the ground without acknowledging your own great deed. And yet, you were considered the greatest of our time."
"Honestly, it didn't get me too far." Daän's eyes narrowed. She had stalled him long enough. He was sure this would be the last time he'd don this armour. Peace would follow soon after. A peace well earned for himself and the others. "In the end, I'm down here, with you. Just like everyone else."
"Don't consider me your equal or peer!" The voice of his target amplified itself by multiple volumes, enough to shake the cliffside they were on. "You became a wretched whore like all the others! You came here to take my life, sell my Black Crown, all to save your own."
"Came for more than that, actually." This was a fight for a home, as well, after all. Years of wandering Pride had gained him nothing. It was time to take and conquer. "I came for your cathedral."
"For my Cathedral of the Mount…? My House of the Vow?" The reply was tinged with something deeper than betrayal. It was dismay, that of all things, he sought to take this from her as well?
On the opposite side of the cliff lay her dwelling. A faithful replica of her place of death. The edifice was constructed of dark stone, veined with shimmering quartz that so jealousy wished it could capture the light of the Heavens, but that light never shined here. Only briefly, when the Exorcists would emerge from their portals and ravage the land.
"You little foolish cunt." The talons of her fingers grew more apparent. So it had finally come to this. "You had all the time in the world to be with your lover before your death, I had not that comfort. I knew you were a whore for money, that slayed beastly sinners as you once slayed them in mortal dwellings of yore, and now you wish to mock me as well? Is a lady not allowed any sense of dignity in death, anymore?"
"Hrm…" Daän sighed. "It's by no accident that I have a reputation for taking heads. You must understand, it isn't personal. I simply need your cathedral more than you do."
"The only accident that is happening here… is your severed head falling into a vat of acid!" She spat venomously. Her form elongated, becoming taller, more menacing. Her fingers extended like sharp tendrils and a wickedness, born of pure hate, flushed through her eyes. "And I will wear your fucking moron face like a party mask while it happens!"
And like a snake that launched itself from the foliage, she attacked.
Daän huffed as he sidestepped the first strike. The bestial claws came close to shredding his flesh. His amour allowed him enough protection to raise the sword and slash toward her. But, before he could even cut her tail, she had slithered away.
A fool would pursue, but a true fool would make the unsteady retreat to the cliff side, should her aim be to push a less skilled hunter off balance and make them fall to their own death.
Instead, he stood in the same position and prepared, readying his stance for a parry. He knew that she was faster than him and likely smarter too. It was exactly why he brought his armour again, as regrettable as it was to his reputation.
"Come on…" He just wanted to get this over with already. What took her so long? "Attack already…"
Slowly, her face appeared again, like a corpse rising from the soil. She swayed back and forth as the rest of her body zigged and zagged. Then – without any warning, she gilded across the glass-littered ground in a single swoop.
Her claws scraped against his breast plate with a wretched sound, like a thousand rakes against a chalkboard. It was enough to make his own stomach tighten. Both of their heads rattled with the resonance, but Daän broke through the mind-fog induced by the sound first.
With his entire body weight, he slammed the sword in an arc, into the ground. She just barely dodged it. With the sword's tip still planted in the ground, Daän let his momentum carry him forward, as if his sword were a pole vault. As soon his feet landed, he swung the sword again in yet another arc.
This time, he only missed by an inch. But the gust of force it produced made the serpentine bring her hand to her face, relieved she had not actually been cut. The warmth she felt trickle down her face was but a single tear, the realization that this really was her last fight.
"You should run back to your nuns and fuck off!" A roar came from her. Before he could reset and swing the sword again, she wanted to at least draw blood from him. He wondered if the claims of her claws were true, that they could have torn through any and all conventional armour. She very clearly was among the apex predators of living creation.
Daän knew he wouldn't be able to swing in time, even though the sword now was prepped and geared just behind himself. All he had to do was twist his torso and let the momentum carry it through in a horizontal slash.
He had to hope this blow would not strike his throat. She swept at his neck, but misjudged where it was behind the cloth. Just as intended, the bandit-like cloth had been torn but his own neck was fine.
Just as quickly as she swiped at him, another set of claws glistened and ran across his chest. The armour's true properties became clear in that moment, as the angelic-silver did more than just negate any damage.
Her talons splintered and were bloodily turned into shredded nubs. The ends of her fingers bled all over him. She did not even realize what had happened until, like clockwork, her other hand returned to try and finish the job. They glanced across the same surface of the torso-plating and they, too, became nothing but a mess of mutilated claw and talon.
Daän was painted red from the failed attack, while his target just now realized the extent of the damage upon her own digits.
"My claws! My hands! What bullshit, literal-plot armour are you wearing?!" Fury could not describe her scorn, it was hardly a strong enough word. "You cowardly, piece of-"
Daän aimed his massive sword at her with a heavy horizontal swing. Her limber, serpentine body allowed her to duck below it. The two of them both swore everything went into slow motion for a moment.
"Dammit!" Daän missed his chance by missing that swing. It would have cleaved her right in half. He had no choice but to attempt a back swing, but it was slower and with less force. The Black Crown of Blue felt like he was swinging it through water. But there was still, the ever smallest chance, it might just strike her or make her pull away.
Instead, she caught it.
With her mouth.
It cut through her cheeks, nearly severed her tongue, but snake teeth bit down hard into the steel and prevented it from budging any further. What a dreaded monstrosity she was, to have such a large, powerful jaw hidden in that beautiful face!
As her fangs bit deeper into it, the sword cracked. From the middle of the sword all the way to the hilt. And now, truly, Daän felt like he was trapped underwater with a crocodile that had death-spiraled his sword.
The snake-sinner transformed further before his eyes. Scales that could glint the harshest of sword strikes, her jaw now bristling with even more dagger-like teeth. Beneath the now rugged hide of a monster, a surge of muscle rippled beneath her scales and her whole body began to spin like a top.
A whirlpool of raw strength, each rotation gathering momentum. The wind around them churned violently like a vortex, a maelstrom centered around the fight itself. "The sword, an artisan masterpiece, once brought to Hell by a sinner that was said to have once slayed a dragon, was now in her jaw's grasp, like a twig ready to be broken."
The metal of the sword groaned in lamentation. The stress upon the cracks shattered the whole thing. Shards of steel scatter in all directions, even knocking out one of the stained glass windows in the House of the Vow.
Steel and shards, everywhere. Like the dreams of many warriors that had once tried to slay this monster, in life and in death, here in Hell. In all of this chaos, he briefly saw her eyes, now more reptilian than beautiful – gleaming with a savage triumph.
All that remained of the sword was now a single shard of cracked steel, having turned it into a glorified dagger with a heavy handle. No, it was far more like an embarrassing prison shiv now.
"Gaah!" As she screamed at him, an equal amount of bloodied teeth and sword-chippings flew at him like small projectiles. A single strip of steel punctured his cheek, just below his eye. The sight of him bleeding, even a little bit, gave her such joy. "Ha! What a Hero you are! A Hero who hides in the armour of angelic steel!"
"You had a fair chance." Daän noted simply. "Nearly had a gash at my neck because of you. And I'd say you made this all a lot harder for me."
God. Fucking-dammit. The Black Crown of Blue examined his miserable excuse of a weapon with pity. For himself and the man, once the greatest swordsmith of his time in his life among living creation, would no doubt be heartbroken upon knowing the sword that once felled a dragon was shattered by a lesser draconid.
He then looked back up to face her, but she was gone. Daän barely caught a glimpse of her tail slithering into the House of the Vow, the elusive Cathedral of the Mount. It was almost appropriate that this battle would end there.
With nothing to lose other than his life, Daän followed the scale-laden trail to the entrance.
Stained glass windows looked down upon him, mockingly. They were as intricate as the web of spiders and somehow, remained utterly lifeless and entirely somber. The entrance itself was a massive archway, lined with hellenistic statues of creatures from both land and sea of the mortal world of living creation… and the heroes that slew them.
For every place not carved of marble or stone, it would be ancient driftwood, etched with runic esoterica that Daän could barely transcribe and translate. However, he surely knew someone who would enjoy deciphering all of these. He just had to win this battle in order to live another day and see them once more.
Inside, the inner cathedral was vast and solely illuminated by candles that offered an unnatural, white flame. It seemed that the Black Crowned Great Terror had partaken in her living-day's past time. The slaughter of children.
Daän's stomach churned at the sights. Bloodied cribs of all sorts of terrors. Sinners who were unfortunate enough to not be baptized, who had somehow, been born under the wrong signs, the wrong moons. One must ask, what could a child, ever so innocent, do to deserve a place such as Hell?
The most unnatural of chills crept through his body. All he had was this dinky broken blade and armour. The Great Terror knew that after destroying her claws against his armour plates, that she had to be precise and aim her talons between them. Alternatively, she could always aim to sever his unprotected head from his neck.
The place was rank with the smell of nature and death. Cold stone and aristocratic marble carried the same stench of the ages after a while, there was a dank wetness to everything and a remarkably muddy-aroma.
The vaulted ceilings above were supported by columns that resemble the trunks of titanic, petrified trees. Vines as hard as bark had grown around them for centuries. The Great Terror had many nostalgic fixations, Daän noted.
At the far end, an altar of black marble stood before a window with a panoramic view over another part of Pentagram City. The stench of blood and gore became overwhelming the more he approached it.
And to his great surprise, sitting solemnly behind the altar was the Great Terror. She nursed her destroyed fingers and lazily attempted to reattach a claw that would stick for a moment against the bloodied mound before falling off.
"Tell me, blue one, did you take a moment to see my story in the stained glass that you so callously passed?" She asked with a soft tone, any hint of seduction now gone. Her bestial form having reverted back to her near-human one. "Instead, only now and unlike before, you look at me like the woman I am…" At this proximity, he saw her eyes' natural shade of amber. So close to the tanned skin of great beauty that now pursed into a pout.
"Sorry… you just…" Daän squatted beside her, his guard let down and open. A sign of trust, almost. If sinners such as them were even capable of such a thing. "You look so much like the woman I loved when I was alive."
"She's in Heaven… is she not?" She could see an all too familiar pain in his eyes too. "I can tell. Your eyes… silver like your angelic armor. Like an angel's spear. You've looked up to Heaven so long, yearning for her, that your eyes are stained."
"Silver…?" Subconsciously, his finger tapped just below an eyelid. Above where he had been punctured by the destroyed sword's shrapnel earlier. "No. More like mercury."
"Mmm… toxic." The Great Terror noted. She looked as petite and small as her own Black Crown now. "The times we lived in, they were much more romantic. Heroes were Heroes and the greatest of them all were called Gods. Even if they were just Angels playing and toying with mortals."
"Some things never change. They can never make up their mind." Daän exhaled and with it, his own armour seemed to relax as well with the rest of his body. "I'm much like you. Actually, all of us Black Crowns are."
"And what is that? A legend, a beast, a hero, a killer, a monster from the Old World? Before the Heavens deemed us all their own saints, while casting the rest of us as demons?" Spitefully, she retorted with her own truth she carried in her heart. It was hard to say she was wrong in being so bitter.
"No, I was toyed with by an Angel calling himself a God at the time as well." Solemnly, he accepted reality easier when expressing it with another. When alone, he would still debate it. "Now they say… he was worse than the devils ever were."
"That same kind of devil took my children away." The soured expression on her face said it all. "In revenge, I've been eating the children of living creation. The mothers of those children hated me, but worshiped her. If only they knew… That I was the first mother to mourn the loss of her kin."
"With that in mind…" Daän nodded, but couldn't help but hold onto his own conviction. "And what of the sinners? You eat the young ones and let them die twice? Doesn't that make you a monster just like the one that took yours?"
"No…" Her brow hardened and her voice cracked. She shook her head, the locks of hair briefly fell over her face but still failed to conceal righteous anger. "It makes things fair. Yes, that is what it is… and I shan't stop any time soon."
"Some mother you are. No sympathy for others. Just yourself." Daän gripped the remnants of the sword and simply did what he came here to do. He stabbed her. Just below the ribs. Perhaps he wanted to see her die slowly. Some sort of retribution for all the young sinners that were eaten by her. Maybe he just was as malicious and driven by anger as she was.
Either way, something unexpected happened.
"Gahgh…" The armour burned him. And steam poured out from every facet of it, as his own skin was scorched. "Aghh! Dammit it all, that fucking hurts!" He felt like a crab being boiled alive in its own shell.
The burning only subsided when the serpent-lady pulled the shiv from her abdomen. A steady stream of blood flowed out and with it, the surging, boiling pain from inside Daän's armour ceased entirely. Like the heat inside had been operated by a switch somewhere.
"Aghhh…" Daän collapsed to his knees, he quickly stripped himself of much of the armor, however it still was uncomfortably hot to the touch. "How could it be…?!"
"You thought a sinner like you could wear angelic armour without consequence?! You really are a stupid boy, whose blessings only made you all the more arrogant and ignorant…" The Great Terror gritted her teeth. Her true form merged from behind the altar as Daän crawled away, still peeling himself out of each piece of angelic silver. "A sinner using the tools of Angels… ha, you were begging to get burned!"
Reptilian fingers grew out from her bloodied phalanges, with new, sharper claws than before in black. Amber, tannish-gold scaled flowed over her body in waves. Here, in her temple, her home of grief and nostalgia, she was even more powerful.
"Come on, come on, come on! You're not a child, but I'll still eat you! Oouhh, you have all my tastes and kinks!" Her taunts echoed the more she grew, the more monstrous she became. "Just like my lover from Corinth! Lycius thought nothing terrible would ever happen to him, either! But ouhh…I'd rather entertain the company of you, monster slayer, than any supposed messenger of Heaven…" Her eyes, which were now more like glowing coals of fire, fixated on the stained glass stories that adorned the walls. The nostalgia became misery quickly. "Look what the Heavenstook from me!"
Daän was still, mostly, fixated on removing himself from the armour that had betrayed him at the most vital moment. The stained glass figures showed a rather typical marriage ceremony. A handsome, knightly man swayed by a beautiful, tan woman.
His skin was no longer being charred and he was able to listen to the commentary she provided as her devilish form slithered closer and closer.
"There! You see that one! There I was, pregnant, barefoot on the cliffside of Corinth! My beloved Lycius!" As she passed by the candle-stick holders of white, smokeless flame, an occasional glimpse of her human face appeared. "Oh, my Lycius, how he loved me for my heart and not my looks. How he wished me to be happy! To bear his children!"
Daän scooted away mostly bare. All that was left on him was a single gauntlet, which he discarded. Now, he looked the part of a thief, the kind that would come to this temple to pillage it. It was a reflection of what he was truly doing, after all. Clad in black and a now burned, nearly regal blue tunic – he looked remarkably vulnerable now.
"Oh, the Greek boys at that time, they loved a lady who wasn't as bland as white marble~" Her gloats and boasts accompanied the story of her sorrow. "And here, at this stained glass image! Look at the contrast! He was pale for a coastal man, but ahhh… it made his eyes shine so bright. As much as his smile. And our children! They looked as though they were kissed by the sun!"
Tears. Why now, of all the times, tears dripped down her scaled face?
"Oh, Daän, even the gods of our time loved me. But jealousy… jealousy does something terrible to people." Her sighs were soft weeps. "I didn't want to lose my dear, Lycius… I wanted us to have the most grand of bridal feasts. At the top of the cliff of Corinth. The temple! It looked just like this one! And we feasted, and feasted. Our children were so overjoyed…"
With nothing practical to use as an actual weapon, the most he could do was grab the long, tall candle holder and thrust it toward her like a spear, to try and halt her advance. But even once back up on his feet, his body shook with pain. Steam still wisped and flowed from his body.
And with each jab toward her face, the set of four candles would reveal that somber, sad, human face again – only for the monstrous one to take its place upon the retreat once more. And the whole time, she was more engrossed in her own memories of sorrow than the fight itself. Only occasionally did she whip her tail, which made a startling cracking sound that could rival lightning. When the candle-holder came too close, she merely swatted it away with a clawed hand.
"Daän, are you even listening to me?!" But only temporarily did her wrath reach him again, before she was engrossed in the stained glass imagery. However, she paused when she came upon one that had been partially shattered. It was a ceremony scene of them drinking from goblets at the actual wedding, their names likely ordained on them as tradition called, as he said his vows to her. "I know you know what I mean, Per-" She had nearly called Daän by his real name.
"Go o-on…" Daän attempted to lower his voice a few octaves to still sound tough, now that he lacked anything and all actual protection from her claws. The surging pain throughout his body made his voice crack comically, like thawing ice, instead. "I-I'm listening…"
"I loved him so purely and he did not yet realize it… I made a deal, a pact with that trickster and…" The sound of her gulp was like a dab of water striking cold still water. Even it sizzled in this tense ambience. "He was so bold as to fly between Earth and the Heavens with wings on his shoes… What a flamboyant cocksucker."
"Yeah?" Daän lowered the candle holder some, partially because he did want to hear her out – but also because the pain had weakened his body significantly. "What did he do for you, exactly?"
"I wished for only one thing, Daän… For Lycius to love me."
"But…"
"It was the words I used. Which I deeply… so fuckin' regret now." With how the Great Terror brought her clawed hands together, it resembled a pose of repentance. "I called out to the Heavens… 'Woe is me! I love this man and yet he loves me not! I will give my entire existence to just have him, and only him, no one else, ever, to say my name in complete joy!'"
"Hmmm…" Putting the pieces together was easy for Daän. "What did he ask of you in return?"
Having stopped her approach, the tears stopped flowing as well. The Great Terror had already mourned this specific part of the story the most, that she had not a single one left to spare.
"He asked to merely come to my wedding. As a guest."
"And let me guess…" Daän sighed. "He called you by your true name."
"Yes…" She admitted. "And just like that, I disappeared. My existence was sold to him along with my name when I made that pact. My dear Lycius died from shock alone."
"And now you built a temple to that misery…" This helped Daän understand why this place was just as much a shroud as it was also a shield. "You've been mourning him, mourning that moment. But there is one thing that doesn't add up…"
The two sinners' eyes became sharper than ever.
"And what is it?"
"Did you need to make that pact with the trickster devil because Lycius wasn't one to love a beast that ate the Children of Corinth? You sold your soul and name to a demon, masquerading as a messenger of the gods, so that he – in turn, could sell Lycius to you?"
Fury.
Fury and hate in the greatest form of resentful discord. A chaotic flurry of swipes cut the candle stick holder into pieces. There was nothing to stop her from playing with her food now.
"It was the kind of love that could only exist between a man and a monster! I was born this way, why is it that all you Heroes can never stand to see a lady happy?!"
She dipped her talons into his skin, again and again. She clawed, rendered, ripped and tore into him. Alas, there was conviction in each mark. It was not enough for Daän to die quickly and suddenly, to be blinked out of existence as she had. No, she wanted him to bleed from a thousand cuts. And a thousand cuts she would give him.
"The Heavens stole my children, so I stole the children of mortals! And what of it?! Humans fight their pitiful, terrible wars all the same and if not me, another army from another city-state would have come and smashed their heads against the rocks anyways!"
His blood began to paint the walls of her temple of misery. The House of Vows now glistened from within in crimson enjoyment.
"You came for my head, yet you knew nothing of my story! Even when it is encased in the walls all around you, you don't even know my name!"
When he crumbled to the floor, a bleeding mess – her tail whipped him into one of the pillars. The whole place nearly fell and crumbled just then. Another blow like that would have folded him flat like paper.
"And yet, history remembers you! Names things after you, writes poems and stories about you! And what did you do? You were a famous slayer of women too! She may have been a beast like myself, but we were all more human than any of you! We cried, while you… 'Titans of Culture' took on adventures!"
He pulled down the black garb, peppered with blood, from his face to spit some out. As Daän crawled away from her, she lashed at his back again and again. There was only one way out of the cathedral; the trail of shattered glass and steel shards from his sword, from the fight outside earlier.
"There is a reason you are here and your lover is in heaven! No lady deserves a Hero like you! We are the ones that raise your kids when you leave them to be bastard-orphans! We ran banks and your governments while you marched off to die in war or expeditions! And history forgets us?!"
The shards bit into him, as did the stripped steel. He spotted a large piece of a glass shard, picking it up only for it to cut his hand. It failed to provide him with a viable weapon, thus it was discarded immediately. As he looked upon it again, glistening with blood, he realized which scene this shard came from.
The goblet ceremony scene.
Quickly, even with her tearing his back into bloody ribbons, he tried to piece it back together before him. It was true, history had forgotten her – but he promised himself, if he learned her name, he would never let himself forget it.
"Yes, go ahead! Put it together and see for yourself! They dared say I was not worthy of love, for I was a serpent and he was a man! But I was created by the same creator, with sentience, with love! Why am I so damnable then?!"
Every shard rearranged cut him deeper. But finally, Daän had constructed it. One goblet read Lycius and the other…
"All I wanted was him to say my name!" She cried, as she ravaged Daän's back once more. "And you! You bastard… You know exactly why I can't say yours!"
The two stopped. Frozen in time.
"Daän… he has stolen your name too…? Hasn't he?"
"No." Daän answered. "I sold it to him. Unfortunately, you and I made the mistake of trusting the same devil, calling himself a messenger of the Heavens."
"All these years… and that devil has come for me. With you as his champion." The Great Terror raised her bloodied talons for a fatal swipe that would sever his head. "I won't let him have your name either. By killing you, I free you of his demonic pact…"
And she could have done it. In a single swipe. But as she stood over him, she saw past his shoulder and on the floor, laid out in plain sight was the glass art scenery Daan had pieced together, of herself and Lycius. Shattered like the vows exchanged.
Before her heart could harden like stone, she realized her own name was visible alongside Lycius' on the goblets.
"No, wait, Per-" She would have stopped him in time, if she just severed his head without trying to speak to him first. As always, men of their time hardly ever listened to what a lady had to say. Even if she were to disappear, her hate for men such as him would always remain.
"Lamia!"
And with the uttering of her name, she disappeared.
Fully and entirely.
Her Black Crown clicked and clacked as it dropped on the stone floor, only to roll away into the dark. Each roll it made, each little scrape, echoed all the way back to Daän as he caught his breath, bleeding all over himself.
The crown disappeared into the shadows, but was still audible. Until a booted-foot stopped it.
"What a lovely show!" The voice from the dark called out. A voice well versed in unsettling charm. "But tsk, tsk. So rude, my dear friend, to speak of someone while they are not gone. And so crudely!"
Daän did not look toward the dark, instead, he glanced away from the voice. Indeed, there was naught even a hint of Lamia there anymore. Only a trail of golden scales, scattered throughout the cathedral.
"She's gone…"
"As was her fate. After all, she knew fairly well what she wanted. Otherwise, why would she be so precise with her words?" The trickster taunted, as he reached down to grab the crown. Stepping out from the dark into the white-candle light, he placed the crown into a pouch at his side, which clanged with other otherworldly ornaments of the same sort. "As for you, my dear friend, you should be more careful talking to other Black Crowns. Especially when you are in my liege."
"Yeah, yeah… I know." Callously, Daän stood and brushed the dust from his body that had not stuck to his bleeding wounds. "She nearly said my name, but she didn't."
"I know it to be ironic, as a gambler and a scoundrel, but when I own your soul and your name – it is only mine as long as my tongue is the only one that can say it." Lectured Hermes, who was no longer the youthful messenger with winged sandals that had once appeared before them both in the world of living creation, centuries upon centuries ago. "After all, you came so far, it would be a shame if everything ended suddenly. Like her own story. Lamia was… interesting. But trust me, this end was fitting for her. Hmpf! And she called this place the House of Vows? More like House of Woes."
The demon, whose head was also Black-Crowned, was overwhelmingly the colour of purple. Purple was the colour of Greek Royality, after all. And what other colour could ever benefit the Olympian champion of heralds, thieves and pacts? Of commerce and negotiations?
There was a privileged, gentlemanly aura to his power-veiled, courteous smile. When he was not in motion, he was like the most grand of statues, every pose a classical one that emphasized his regality. When in motion, his body moved with dynamic curves and impossible ease.
The trickster's face was calm and composed. Serene, as he had gotten what he had wanted, as always. His hair, a darker shade of purple in short curls. His head bore feathered wings, which folded out and poked from beneath his petasos, a wide brimmed hat that was common among travelers and messengers in ancient Greece.
From his belt, which held the pouch of Black Crowns, was also a small pendant of a staff entwined with two serpents and topped with wings. His garbs are that of a god of merchants, a drapery of fine cloth that wrapped over one shoulder, then around his torso and finally, at his waist – the excess falling over his thighs.
His face had aged past youth some, but only slightly. Enough to make him resent the very fact.
"Got some explaining to do." Daän dared to confront him. He pointed toward the still heated angelic armour that was scattered across the House of Vows' grounds. "I stabbed her and the damn thing nearly burned me alive."
"Oh, simple explanation, that." The voice of Hermes is deceptively gentle and yet, still, he managed to weave his words with ominous undertones. His soft spoken timbre and deliberate cadence had the occasional pause, to add further gravity to even simple words. Even Daän often felt that he was being spun by his sinister charm at times. "Be lucky that it merely only burned you some. I could do something much worse."
"Be so kind to just tell me what the hell happened." Daän really hated how Hermes could switch from amiable to threatening in the span of a single breath. "I've killed other Black Crowns before while wearing it. Never had that happen to me before. It even burned me through the blessed tunic…"
"Ah. You think that just because that tunic has some threads from the Golden Fleece, that you are free from the Wrath of Heaven?" Hermes' sardonic smile punctuated the question further. "Angel's armor, which I so graciously went to Heaven to retrieve for you, will incinerate the wearer if the wearer sins. Or rather… if they believe they are sinning."
"Excellent security measure. Is that why the Angels are such zealots? Full of hatred and all?"
"Precisely." Hermes enjoyed how quickly his little friend caught on with these things. "Lamia made you question your own heart. When you stabbed her, you half thought of it as an evil thing. Even though she ate so many, so many helpless children. In Hell and above. Tsk." It was impossible to tell if the trickster, the Deal-Demon, shook his head in true disapproval or not.
"So, what? I get a conscious on occasion and the armour nearly cooks me? Would have appreciated knowing that before I started doing your bidding." Daän even dared to raise a finger to him.
Without any worry or caution, Hermes simply grabbed the petite Black Crown that floated above Daän's head. He played with it like it was a small trinket and not an identifier of a very certain kind of sinner, demon and angel.
"Yes, that is how it is. Honestly, when you so full-heartedly begged for my help, I believed you a sinner of strong conviction. Thirsting for revenge and retribution. The fact that you'd hesitate to kill a Black Crown… Well." Still smiling, Hermes sounded utterly full of bemusement and barely restrained joy. "Most of my champions turn to ash eventually in that armour. But you… there is still something, deep inside of you, that truly believes in what you and I are doing."
Daän exhaled and shrugged his shoulders, following Hermes as he began to walk toward the entrance. The two both stepped onto the ceremony-portrait beneath them and shattered it further as a result.
"Let me be clear. Lamia was a tragic being from the very beginning. I should know, I loved someone like her deeply at one time."
"You're kidding me. You? Hermes? Loved?"
"Of course, I did." A rare frown came from Hermes as he led Daän to the hall of statues. "It was a lovely nymph. One of the many sentient creations of Heaven that lived along humans, but worshiped as a demi god by local religions. Alas, she feared me, due to my… dealings with Heaven."
"How did you run into Lamia?"
"When my nymph friend hid away from me, making herself invisible… I was distraught. Until, one of her own girlfriends had propositioned an interesting power play, that I simply had to play into." Obviously, the recounting of this made him just as happy as the events of this evening had. "This nymph, she was turned into a serpent by Hera. She was more beautiful than Hera and had gorgeous children that would grow up to be even more grand."
"And?"
"And?" Hermes asked as if it wasn't obvious. "Hera was a jealous bitch. Tsh. Turned Lamia into a serpent and stole her children. Lamia was a sorceress before that all happened, as many Nymphs are. In return for undoing the invisibility she granted my lady friend, I would turn her into a gorgeous human woman to win the heart of the man she so wanted for herself."
"You were simping for a nymph and decided to just ruin everyone's life in the process?" The disbelief in Daän's pained face was evident even behind the cloth that obscured most of his expressions.
"Ruin? Hardly. Lamia made my love visible again so that she could not hide from me. In turn, she sold me her soul and name. All for the heart of Lycius."
"Charming, how exactly did she even know of Lycius?"
"She still had some prowess as a sorceress, even in serpent form." Hermes recalled with an articulated explanation, as if he had explained this story many times to others. Or simply recounted it often to himself. "She could astral project when she slept. When she dreamed, it literally would bring her conscious soul elsewhere, as an unseen observer. During one of her, let's call them 'spirit journeys', she had seen this cunning Corinthian youth, Lycius."
"Love at first sight?"
"If only it were so romantic. Tsk. She found him again, as the woman you first encountered earlier. Beautiful. She was once a Queen, after all."
"No need for the extra details."
"Oh? Struck a nerve? Sorry, speaking of tanned queens from those lands must really boil your blood. After all, we are doing this all for your beloved Andromeda, are we not?" The two share a distant look, before staring off into nothingness aside. Daän hated how well Hermes knew his heart. "My apologies. Let me continue."
"Yes, please do…" Even Daän could be sarcastically enthusiastic. He truly had hung around with this old goat of a phony-messenger for far too long. "How did she come to Lycius? Doubt she just appeared, jumping out of a cake."
"She pretended to bump into him on his travels, on the way to Corinth. She asked, 'What, you will just leave a beautiful thing like me here?! All alone?' and when the lad looked back at her, one glance, he had truly fallen violently in love with her. Now, some of that was my doing, of course…"
"As always."
"Together they walk to Corinth and they live as man and wife, in a temple much like this one on the cliffside. But just being married in name alone was not enough, they planned a true ceremony. Lamia was hesitant, she not only had no one to invite, but she also knew that I was to be her sole guest." Hermes walked along the statues of Greek Heroes, gods and demigods. His hands in the fold of his back. "Lycius eventually convinces her, for his love is so pure and true. I forgot what name he knew her by at that time… But I always thought her true name, Lamia, was among the most gorgeous a lady could be fairly named."
"Why do I get the feeling you were the one to hop out of the cake at this particular ceremony?" Teased Daän, much to his unlikely ally's delight.
"More or less, that is what happened. They agreed to marry, but on the condition Lamia invited no one. Truly, she had no friends or family left anyways. And she had spent decades vengefully eating children to spite those who did have families. Yet, Lycius was convinced she was of a good heart. He did not know that while he was away and inviting his kinsfolk to the wedding, she was using her powers to summon invisible servants in the form of snakes to decorate their home."
"And then, the trickster Hermes arrives at the marriage feast, unannounced."
"I can't help but be flamboyant at times, a bit of eccentricity keeps things exciting."
"Were you wearing those silly little boots with the wings?"
"It matters not if I did." He actually got flustered at that. "Either way, I fit right in. The modest home had become a temple. A palace even! How could anyone have predicted such a magnificent palace could exist in Corinth? Even strangers from the coast came to see who could possibly be living there."
"Then at the feast, you just decided to ruin it for everyone?"
"Lamia had been ignoring me all night! And well, I was rather sour. My nymph friend, who she helped me find, had not returned my advances…" Hermes knew that Daän abhorred the implications of what may have happened to her. But that was precisely why he mentioned such a detail. "When Lamia finally spotted me, she ignored me. My dear friend and champion, I do not – like – to be – ignored."
If not for his own light blue complexion, Daän would have gone a few shades paler as the story reached its conclusion.
"So, when the music and feasting came to a stop, I gained everyone's attention. Then she was unable to ignore me any longer! Lamia had dared to tattle on me and told Lycius to try and throw me out! Lycius came to me and dared ask what my reason for being there was and I said, 'I had merely come to deliver a single poem!'"
"He didn't recognize you as Hermes?"
"He thought me a common peddler or merchant from Corinth. Ha!" That was probably the intention. "I stood on the banquet table and announced to all to hear, contemptuously… 'From every ill of life I have seen on this day, I have also seen – that a serpent has made you its prey!'"
"What did Lamia say?"
"Nothing, she merely cried. And then I pointed to her and said, 'Alas, it is you! The serpent, whose true name is Lamia! The Great Terror of Corinth!'" With a hearty chuckle, Hermes nearly fell into a laughing fit, but managed to catch himself before he could let out a pained cough. "In that instant, she disappeared! And from the shock alone, Lycius pathetically fell to the floor dead! Cold as stone."
"Fucked up." Daän shook his head. It was all he had to say. Meanwhile, Hermes was far more fixated on the statual ornamentation of the temple entrance.
"Hmm, it seems she summoned snakes to make much of this place and its decorations too. Can't teach an old snake new tricks, I suppose." Hermes took to the statue of Jason. He matched the pose and examined it. "All these statues… of Greek Heroes who felled women. Beast and beauty alike. But here is Jason, who merely just cucked his own woman. I guess that makes him a monster to Lamia as well."
"It really is all a game to you?" Growing more frustrated, Daän didn't know how much more he could hear. "Fuck off. Leave me be for now. And if you come back, at least bring me something more useful than this armour!"
"Hmmm…" Hermes pretended not to hear him. "Before Medea comes by, let's not show her this. May bring back bad memories."
With a mere touch of his finger, the statue tilted in place and collapsed. Into dozens of indistinguishable boulders of marble rubble. Broken as if it were measly glass.
"Hey. Stop ignoring me." Daän attempted to step between him and the rubble, but instead, Hermes turned to the statue of Perseus, as if his voice had instead come from the inanimate object. "Seriously, you think this is funny…?"
Like a pensive philosopher, Hermes stood with his chin resting upon his closed fist. Eventually, he nodded toward the statue in recognition for its overall 'vibe'. The notion had encouraged Daän, in return, to look upon this artistic representation of himself.
The statue was not by any means as ego-driven as the others. The Hero Perseus was rendered with the severed head of Medusa, held out and away from him. His face turned down, almost as if in shame or repentance. His head crowned with a winged helmet, the rest of himself nude, besides an iconic blade in his other hand.
The sword had a sickle protrusion along one edge, near the tip of the blade. In life, Hermes had gifted it to Perseus in his quest against Medusa. And now, he would give it to him again.
Having reached out to grasp it by the blade, the marble structure became angelic silver in an instant. Blood drizzled down the elegant hand of Hermes as he pulled the blade from the statue's grasp. Behind Daän, the angelic suit of armour had turned to stone. As was the law of equivalent exchange.
"Our pact is only just beginning." With the sword still cutting into his hand, Hermes presented it handle-first to Daän. "Bring me the rest of the Black Crowns, you will get your revenge, sanction the safety for you and the other fine lady, whom you have ironically become so dear to… and, most importantly-?"
"And?" Without a moment to hesitate any further, Daän took the blade. A further fulfillment of their mutual promises. "Say it. I want to hear the final thing, to be sure. To be free of regret or worry, while I do your bidding."
"And you will fly with me to Heaven, for one meeting and only one meeting, to see your beloved Andromeda." No smile was ever smiled as wide as Hermes' now. "The Gorgon-Slayer, the Great Hero of all of Greece. Now but a sinner in another God's Hell. You have my sword, Harpe, once again. May its angelic silver serve you well. For soon, the Black Crowns of Hell will no longer be numerous. But the ones in Heaven, oh, they shall come and face you soon."
"Thank you…" Daän could feel his whole body shake as he examined the blade. The sickly blood of the trickster still staining it. "I will fulfill my end of the pact. With full payment."
"I know you will…" Bleeding hand tucked to his lower back once more, Hermes turned to leave.
And just then, he stopped, recounting his steps backward. But still, he did not turn to the sinner formerly known as Perseus again. Although, he did speak once more, for the final verse of this meeting between them.
"My only advice, dear friend… is to learn to keep your chin up, kiddo."
"Hrm… Don't call me kiddo." Warned Daän, as he looked up from the blade to find Hermes gone. His eyes peered and scanned, taking everything in. It was as if he was never really there.
The only proof was the sword, Harpe, in his hand. Daän moved to leave the cathedral. Only then, as he passed the statue of himself, did he notice that its face was now facing upward, toward the Heavens. With a prideful smile.
Outside, an unnatural whisper whined through the wind. The haunting voice of Lamia. Singing the tune she had hummed before being interrupted by Daän at the start of this dreadful tale.
''She was of a gordian shape, and a dazzling hue,
Vermillion-spotted, golden, green and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
Dissolv'd or brighter shone, or interweathed
Their luistres with the gloomier tapestries
Indeed, she was a beauty, even as a beast
Yet she vanished, upon being named
by Hermes~"
