Teen Titans – Side Stories and After – Snippets; Foxes Upon Foxes and Magical Girls Galore
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A Look – Alike In That Still Portrait
This is Roku lamenting and comparing his son's face to Lori's – who he'd killed, and mainly madness ensues within the king's keep. Part of the later Richard Ainsley's quest, the Forbidden Myth. Read with caution. Lot of blame to pass off onto our protagonist…Raku wasn't always such a cutie.
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The face – off had left broken hearts and minds to litter the battleground.
Verra's spirit was as hollow as that gaze, he'd sworn to never show his charge at all. Not since, his last princess to protect had been massacred by the man of her dreams she'd never wanted.
Lorelai Ainsley had only one child. One child that swore his life to his father to save his own loved ones from danger by the dragon's claw.
By a purpose that the red lord had in fact perpetuated to bring the boy Prince Ainsley; adopted son to Queen Catalina Crescendo Daia, the very last, to meet his bittersweet end. At the feet of the one who had killed his real mother. Just as he'd been raised by the queen's acquainted relative to the south, he had not seen images of the woman even once. Only, when he'd found a place to hide inside the castle and had discovered a book with her face. A name, and a man who now tormented her heir of a now dead heritage.
Roku made sure to drag the boy's screams out. He'd punished the child for taking what didn't belong to him, for being too cautious when this new life was to be the boy's right. His prince and later, a king of something far more…
~ Prince Rokuro Noburo. ~
( Back then middle school me had misconceptions about titles and names in Asian culture. It should be "Noburo Rokuro or something in reversal, but this both; two first and second names so yeah. Just roll with it! Also, Raku stole the post from the dragon elemental of the east of fire, so he's basically stealing names anyway.) That was what the people chose to say, that he was the last son fathered by a very pleased, Lord Roku. A warlord, a dragon and something akin to an Immortal soul.
The Spirit Divides would not rest until the king was brought to stand trial. To lose everything, and Richard Ainsley? The boy who had only a smaller portion of Queen Catalina's land agreement in his pocket whence he rose to the task over governing it, granted if he were to wed his relative (yes old school) Alicia Daia? Well, he'd be given a cut - out future that would have been a box to him. Entrapment, as if this was easy to determine.
And no way out, while magic ran through his blood. His father's, as the man in the mirror resembled a person he didn't want to stare back at. Dark black hair as long as hers had been – though highlights of dark violet tinged it, as his mother's had sometimes been between all violet and aqua due to her powerful rights as a vassal to a foreign deity of water.
She was just as beautiful, just as strong, witty and also very kind to all living things she had since governed. Sir Veravakumu had spoken of such a person briefly on their travels when Richard's enemies had revealed the truth. When his aunt, Queen Catalina Daia had refused. When Roku had the boy to seek out the truth, to drink from his palm as the answers never came.
He was tossed into the dungeons to have his heart mangled, yet today was not as the last. There in the center of the dank, dark room, stood a strange, glittering mirror of ornate silver. It stood tallest of all contrasting the shades of grey across from the wall of shackles and manacles, yet reflected no light upon its face. The boy's eyes mirrored an owlet's. A curious sort as Roku brought his gloved hands to clasp calmly yet intently at the fifteen-year old's shoulders. He steered the boy on staggering limbs towards the shapely design, the mirror eying him back with a dead stare, so cold and lifeless.
The boy's throat became far dryer, and his eyes wanted to weep by what faced him.
A face of a girl, a clearly trapped one inside the mirror as the dragon's chuckle broke the silence of swinging torture devices and windless waves throughout the underground caverns.
"This being has the power to manifest what you fear to lose the most. A scrying device to I, yet you will be tested. We will see what steps must be taken for you to renounce your vows with the Star Capital's council and the Queen of Solario of the Southern Isles."
"I…Have no words." The boy was honest, and Roku respected that. Nothing he could do anyway, so why bother to bludgeon the kid with acting out?
Just as he'd see; the power this maiden held, the child of A' and also his captive. The Lady in the Lake stood before him, her presence masked in mists so surreal and a flowing robe and gown to the Eastern Sect.
She too held a mirror beneath the sleeves of her porcelain beauty. The mystery was not "where had she come from," yet "what bound her to this plane."
"Have you nothing to ask? Nothing to add before I am to show you that part of your self that you've hidden so well from me, little lord?" (Roku is sort of a figure similar to Slade with the dynamic being similar. Reincarnation trope. Also, "Little bird, little lord?" You got it?)
A way to make the man inside this chamber feel superior was to call his young underling something he surely could never be again. A lord, a king.
Nay. The dragon was immortal and so too were his children sired. He would live in his skin of a youth, maybe longer, maybe for an eternity and wallow in loneliness beside a king who could never be killed by the weapons of the greatest gods.
Too much power, and none of it now belonged to his living copy. Rokuro resembled his father in his youth, the castle crowd had said. That it was fate that kept them bound, not a curse. Not the unraveling of hope in the eyes of his dead mother. A mother who'd been forgotten and long lost to time's wailing sounds below.
"Whence that girl in the mirror looks long and hard into your soul, your fire within shall be, naught." The dragon promised and brought up a set of fingers...meant to be snapped and awaken the sleeping glass princess. "You'll not leave until it emerges. The true face that will stand at my side. You look too much as she; all of the hope in the world until she gazed upon my deformities. Until I took her head in my hands on one last breath…. Yet, you? Will not make a mockery of that past."
Binds came forth and held the boy to his knees before the mirror's sleeping host.
"No!" Richard begged, his eyes moist and frost coating the glass as his anxiety made such things appear.
"You'll not escape this lower divide. Not until I call for you. For only you, may have what I ask of. Only you, will one day mirror all we are bound to bring upon the lands your gods once worshipped." Roku slunk back into the shadows as his crying, screaming and shouting child only pleaded to find a way to fix things.
Richard bit his lip. To change him, a monster. Why…for that was surely too impossible! He was never the one to do it. Never the one to do anything so recklessly as turning a turned soul to the side of the just. None of them ever were. Just or unjust, for they existed due to a human wish. A wish to be present.
The girl in the mirror stirred as Richard gasped up, the tendrils at his arms growing tighter. With each labored breath, he had to stay calm. She, was a spirit like he; she would have a way to speak. A way…
~ You are not supposed to be here…. ~
Richard looked behind, yet nothing. What was the voice speaking to him just then? Was it a ghost from the dungeon's many victimized prisoners? A, last request?
"I…I can hear…. why? Why do you not see me?? I am in danger! Please! I am on my –
The vines whipped out and jabbed him in the legs, vision going muddy as toxins spelt out danger. Roku wanted him to look, so with shadowed eyes and bags from the toxicity in his veins, he looked at her. She was…. a child…A bit of drool at his lip, he seethed by the stab. It was turning to blood red, and then something in a color his eyes could not recognize.
Gathering his breath, he let the words seep out, as thin as smoke.
~I…. sorry…. ~
She was there, her hand to his sweating brow, though unable to feel. She…was…. Relaxing him, making his body feel her ghostly wraith's presence. Her soft eyes too delicate to be born of a vile thing…. no.
She was…. here against her will. He accepted that.
~ Richard…. child of the Coven of the Goddess…...you must awaken. You must face the mirror in my hand, to face what it is you wish to free by what burdens thou…. what is your desire to be? ~
~ I…want my freedom…. ~
Her eyes lit up an astounding pearl as did the mirror, and the world turned to a glassy finish. He opened his eyes, seeing, staring back at two figures.
Beings of both light and darkness. He crumpled his brows, the fuzzy picture impossible to see with the violent venom still in his body. ~ Me…...both –
~ Your fate, is complex. ~ The girl spoke, more emotionally granted than the face staring back. He'd been pulled into her shell, her prison, to speak. She was helping, and Roku would in hope…. be finished.
~Who, can I be? To defeat him? ~ Richard asked, wondering if Roku would learn soon after of his betrayal.
Would Arianna of the Star Capital be safe?
Ravenna of Asterion?
Victor Stonewall of the Court Guild to Princess Tara? Or even Garth Logar; the Changeling Clan of the good wood's last remaining, in - training priest? As for the foxes; Veravakumu and Kayumon? Malchior of Knoll… Or Wizard Gregory. And…and...
Would he not find it?? Arianna and he were to be…. but no. Alicia was not chosen, so he should have been overjoyed. Yet…here in his father' keep…only blood could tame blood. Alicia Daia, who was cursed by the dragon soon after Catalina had lost Richard the first ti –
He felt a twinge as the maiden in the mirror gasped, eyes on the boy's eyes as he…
He had unearthed a dark memory. She immediate began to cast, yet the two were separated.
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A crackle of glass broke the spell.
The mirror world had vanished. All that sounded was a few ragged breadths and the sound of a clanking metal chain hanging from the upper ceiling.
Roku came back to himself with the vines held over and criss - crossed across the mirror's surface. For good measure, yet he knew to only back away as the last sliver retained an image of the dark haired, red eyed demon that was a part of the boy' magic. His.
"So, you want this? Do you?" Roku stood over his glazed protégé, following two clouded blue orbs. His little subject would soon understand what early alchemy was capable of, as the boy was hoisted up by the man's strongest guards. He'd looked over at the closed eyes of the mirror child.
A' had discarded her. No need of food or any drink, she was after all…born of the reflection in the hearts of those whom owned a soul. She could not see, not ever again as the vines covered the last of that light, backing her away into the shadows. Frosted glass hid her face, for the world could not see her weeping in utter silence.
/
Richard awoke to his body feeling, cold. Sagging against a table of wood, the cuffs keep him shackled to it. The steel on his wrists led up and conjoined with some sort of device. Oh, to keep him alive. To use lightening to pull him from the grave.
Blearily, the dark-haired boy felt his hair topple to the side of the base he was resting on. It had grown in his sleep. Roku had tried to keep it to his liking and as a child of a daemon and dragon, hair was what kept the monster in power. The longer the whiskers on the beast, the greater its element over fire, in Lord Roku's case.
"Are you wide awake, my son?" The dragon spoke his own eyes bright enough to seen even in the darkness.
"I have a surprise for you, and I know about your debate to stay here. It was actually necessary – for I know now what that reason was that had you to believe your life so…incomplete."
Dragons…did they all speak in riddles??
Richard grunted, trying to rise as he slumped back down onto the platform. Head hitting the top with a clunking thud. *
He groaned. "What……. did you do…to her –
"SHE, was not supposed to show you pity." The dragon walked over as clouds of dust rose by his boot's pressure against the stone floor.
"She was trying to break from my spell by using your will against me. Yet, I have all I need now. The one you've kept was impossible to calm all this time…weren't…they?"
Richard's eyes boldly turned to the great evil's lips of a smirking tyrant.
"You harbor those of other faces, races that are not as your own. The light being is new; did you not wish to introduce –
"I…was saving them."
"HAH!" The dragon made the kid jump, even when he was bound to the floor.
"That aura was an ETHEREAL'S doing, CHILD!" Reprimanded the god of fools.
"You housed a being of innate purity, and not just any – exactly as she did…."
"I…didn't –
"You disobeyed my orders; you used a goddess to give yourself some room to, TUG!" The king grabbed the boy's head of hair and yanked him back. "NO! No no!!I…I….!"
"You did as she would have…you tried to stop it, but boy? Your sacrifice of a maiden; your real mother as you consider that foolish princess…she was the same. She was able to reach it…and you…have her power to contact the Ethereal that banished my power to control…as I wished for your birth, so that you would one day undo the spell…which was why I took from her…why I'll be taking back from you as you repay her debt back to me...with your devotion."
"P- please..." Richard babbled and felt his nose running in the process of his sorrowful plea.
"L- let….m- m – me g- g- go!"
" NEVER AGAIN." The dragon loomed over his son as breath as hot as smoldering ashes littered the child's vision. His own vision being of someone else's. What was that? Light AND darkness? Was he never cursed to choose??
"I made you before into my devoted pupil, did they smother that memory away within...I was there, and she was already as DEAD as that woman with a crooked halo." Hissed his father, speaking not of Lori, yet of his first. His rebellious mate. The one who had cast him out of her palace in a panic.
"Catalina knows OF my face…yet she will not wish to remember your own…" The sneering dragon pulled harder at the boy's mane, wrenching him to look up and at what his father had created by that memory of long ago.
IN a cylindrical tube, suspended in animation with bubbles pooling around a pair of stark-naked figures, Richard shuddered and felt his mouth fall open. Two! Two…one with a feminine body of slender grace and teenaged awkwardness left to mark her disposition. Plated with long, dark hair as his own, yet eyes as red as the blood of those slain in battle mercilessly. A harvest moon…
Beside the suspended female was her counterpart; an exact, young copy of the dragon. Both in body and maybe wit or favor. Powers, even. Richard swallowed; lips pursed in a line that was unbend. Dar hair as long as his and re eyes as her own. No such body, but the being mirrored him…Rok….
"Why…" Was all the prince could utter.
The dragon tugged the prince's hair up as reins to see just what his heart had bled dry and open; exact…. copies of his own face….in other images. He was…. scared. For the first time, the anger bubbled, he felt ill and retched onto his chest. Unclad of armor or cloth. A topic to be dissected as it kept happening...
The muck was not as he'd known, as the dragon had a cloth there fabricated in thin air to catch the rest. "Due to the procedure, the remainder…. the taint used to dissect what we needed to bring this pair into being, you did not purge it all. Yet, you made such an achievement for your king to praise..." He prided his work as Richard lay, mortified. He was not that. HE was NOT!
"They have been given names to keep you from betraying my trust, ever again. They will eventually follow your commands, yet for now they are deaf to them. I know; I weaned them on the malice in my heart to make it that realistic." The dragon leaned over and let his hushed breath turn the young prince's stomach inside out again.
"The girl is ageless and called " Roko." She is the cunning and sensual side to your "ego." While your male counterpart is of my blood. He will be " Rokou." My darkness, and he shall lead you to do as I wish it be done. All of what he is, you too shall aspire to be in my image."
"I…Was never with you! I am for the –
"Should I wake them? Have an example brought forth to quiet that protest you dare to spew at your king??" Roku let his eyes burn into the boy's flesh, making Richard sweat as the kid shook his head. Not here. He had to know how to…to…. erase these mistakes!
"They will assist you tomorrow, the first of your trials will be properly completed this time." The dragon said in a matter-of-fact tone, as any teacher might expect of their students to listen and sit in earnest.
Richard tried to stare into space, but there he saw it. Two, not one. But two faces in the mirror of his soul.
"They are also here for one purpose more, my child." Roku dipped his head to speak in the boy's ear in a heated whisper, a rather bitten back piece of anxiety in the kid's throat.
"The Ethereal is there, inside you. I want to capture and test its power. Take it as our little servant – and you will be the one to keep it safe and sound. These replicas will be sure to keep your mysterious "ally" company…"
Richard's eyes lost the fire as Roku had said. He could not die, so suffering to save another…. was it wrong?
Was he wrong for wanting to find a way, find why his will could only bend as Roku never tried too hard to crush his spirit…
Maybe, he was leaving the very best…for one fateful finale…
