It looks like the board finally got its act together and started getting things up and running. I actually didn't realize how popular this fanfiction was until I decided to look it up on the app. Chapter 6 was finally fixed which is one of the most difficult chapters for anyone to read. It has its moments of sisterly love, so check it out.
Miquella's heart pounded and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he followed Godwyn towards the Queen's Bedchamber. He kept asking Godwyn, who was with Malenia the whole time, "Is she better now?"
Tricia replied, "She did very well. She was asleep the whole way through, so didn't feel any pain."
Miquella was elated to hear his sleep spell was of some use, and his imagination began to run wild. He thought of the other issues that Tricia had brought up during their long conversations and what he learned during his readings. There was the issue of the rot contaminating bandages, which caused reinfection. The wrapping and rewrapping of injuries took a significant amount of the perfumer's time and was the main reason why Malenia's "bad days" often turned into weeks. There had to be something the rot could not contaminate that could also be used to treat Malenia's wounds.
Miquella looked at Tricia, who paused and began to shake.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said.
"Okay. You should come. I'm sure mother would want to thank you."
"I-I um... don't think so."
"It's alright, Miquella. Today was the first time Tricia had ever met a goddess. It's a bit overwhelming."
Even Miquella himself was intimidated by Marika. She was as far beyond demigods as demigods were beyond mortals. And for Marika to appear suddenly, unannounced, as Tricia was already exhausted from the lengthy surgery on Malenia's arm, was overwhelming. She had barely grasped what was happening when Marika asked her if she was finished. Thunderstruck, Tricia croaked out a barely audible "yes." Marika then glided past her, looked at Malenia, and perhaps said something (though Tricia wasn't sure), before leaving with the unconscious child in her arms. Tricia couldn't even describe her if she wanted to.
Something was terrifying about the encounter that Tricia had decided she didn't wish to see the goddess again and asked to be excused.
When they arrived at the threshold of the bed chamber, Miquella paused and looked up at his brother as he now was the uncertain one.
Marika sat on the stone bed with a scroll on her lap and her eyes closed as though in a deep, contemplative thought. Her mind drifted to and from a certain level of consciousness; first to being aware and then to an almost dream-like meditation where she saw revelations of the things both within and beyond the fog. Not even the wisest could say what it was within this matric; things that were, things that are, and things that were yet to come to pass all revealed themselves at once to her.
And yet, within the deep confines of her mind, there was a far more simple, and relatable aspect to Marika. Though she remained a practical stranger to Miquella, he had heard her laugh and seen her cry. There were things, more earthy things, that she enjoyed. She had an addiction to the written word and a hunger to absorb every shred of knowledge contained within their pages. And she remembered everything she read. Her entire bed chamber was stacked full of old stone tablets and numerous scrolls. Once, she went into a rage when she requested a particular text and what was presented was a piece translated into the common tongue. A goddess who knew all languages, couldn't be bothered with translations that often lost their meaning.
Godwyn greeted her first with a bow.
"Mother? I brought Miquella as you asked," he said. He approached Marika and placed a kiss on her cheek before he beckoned Miquella to come.
While Miquella saw his mother almost every day, in intimate settings such as this, it was rare.
"It's okay, darling. You may enter," said Marika. Her voice sounded cold and detached. Almost like she had requested a small trinket, but wasn't entirely focused on it.
"Go on," said Godwyn as he placed his hand on Miquella's back to encourage him. "It's only Mother."
When Miquella came close enough for Marika to take his hand, and run her finger through his blond hair, he noticed the form curled up under a blanket next to her. The moment he heard a whimper, Miquella burst out with an excited, "Little Sister!"
"Not so loud," said Marika. "She's not fully awake yet."
She turned her attention to Malenia and said, "Shhh... It's okay, beloved. Miquella and Godwyn are here."
"Hello, Little Sister," said Godwyn as he rubbed Malenia's head. "How are you feeling?"
Malenia opened one eye, looked at her brother, but then scooted up closer to Marika. She was shivering as the spell's influence wore off and she tried to touch her shoulder. Marika stopped her and readjusted the blanket to help keep her warm.
Miquella was horrified when he realized that Malenia's shoulder was nothing more than a cauterized stump.
"What did they do?" he gasped.
"It's okay, Miquella," said Godwyn.
"No. No, it's not. It's not okay. It's never okay. You can't do anything to help her, can they?"
"Miquella, we don't know much about what's wrong with her."
"It's called scarlet rot. Some spells work on it. Perserving boluses..."
"Miquella, they've tried. They've tried everything," said Godwyn. He looked at his mother to see whether it was okay to say more. She nodded. "It's caused by an outer god. It sometimes happens to Empyreans. They become vassals for other gods who look to impose their will."
"Is it bad?"
"Not always," said Godwyn. "Our mother is one. And she's not so bad. Right, Mother?"
Marika raised an eyebrow, not sure how she ought to take that.
"Come here," said Godwyn picking Miquella up.
He placed Miquella next to his twin. Miquella laid his head against her and said, "It's okay Malenia. I'm here now. I won't let anything happen to you anymore. I promise."
Godwyn watched them, barely able to hold back his tears.
He loved the twins since the moment they were born. It wasn't uncommon to find him asleep on the floor or in a chair with one twin in each of his arms. Even the Carian siblings, who never seemed to agree on anything and had much to dislike their father and Marika for, couldn't help but take a liking to their half-siblings. There were a few jokes that if they ever wanted to keep the three from bickering, they just had to put Miquella in the room.
As Marika left, even herself too overwhelmed, she placed a hand on Godwyn's cheek and gave him a reassuring smile.
Marika, though, did not want the twins.
The Greater Will, frustrated with Marika's defiance and continual insistence on bending its declared laws to avoid consequences, sought to turn her into something far more compliant with its desires. It chose Radagon, a faithful servant to its will and one who shared many of Marika's desired traits where a merge between them was likely to be successful.
It threatened his children. It threatened Rennala, his one true love - and the one Radagon still loved. In all fairness to Radagon, what it inflicted on Rennala, was terrible enough to show that it would not tolerate further disobedience. Even as Radagon hated himself for doing so, night after night, he forced himself on her, until the two beings were merged into one.
The twins were the result of that violent union.
It didn't take long for both to realize what a failure their merge was. Yet, as all things went, they kept that a secret, lest the failure be known and the entire Golden Order, that held its "one god" doctrine as the foundation of its dogmas. Despite this, Radagon remained loyal, even as his own doubts crept into his mind. He soon enough pushed them aside.
Marika, fearful of the Greater Will's intent for the child she now carried, tried to destroy it by forcing it born early. Miquella came out first. So tiny that he might fit within the palm of Marika's hand and struggling to breathe. Then came Malenia, expelled out with the afterbirth and covered with sores.
Marika regretted at once what she had done as the true consequence of her actions was revealed: As one twin withers, the other grows stronger. Always feeding on one another in a parasitic relationship that walked this line of both abundance and decay that will never find its equilibrium in the world Marika created.
Outside, Marika walked along the balcony. The cold air drifted down from the Forbidden Lands and was a dark reminder of the days when she was in exile. Her sin was laying with the one they called the "Lord of the Good place" and bearing him sons. By doing so, Marika made him from one who ate and ran with beasts to a man who stood upright and soon adopted a new name.
How much she missed him. But when the Forbidden Lands were filled with the mummified remains of their enemies tangled in the thorns of destined death, the Greater Will declared his purpose fulfilled.
The stars were now still in the clear night sky, forcing Marika to realize she had made a mistake in underestimating the strength of Rennala's brood.
Soon the winds shifted to have a certain heaviness to where it was like a knife aimed at her back.
"Show thyself, Maliketh, that we may speak with one another face to face," said Marika.
The lupine creature, crouched on all fours slipped from the shadows. Her shadow. Each breath Maliketh exhaled drew a snarl from his salivating snout as he circled his sister like she was his prey. His black armor held a beast whose desire to devour her was never fully masked. A beast Marika had trained but never tamed to love her.
"I see nothing in thy hand. Where is the means by which I may separate myself from the crimson pollution of my other half?" Marika asked. "Hast my brother not found what I hath sent him to track?"
"I have not," replied Maliketh.
Marika put her hands on Maliketh's face and laid her cheek against his head. She drew a heavy breath as she stroked the length of his course fur.
"Tell me that thou makest a poor attempt to amuse me," she said.
"Thy servant hath searched far and wide."
"All valleys, mountains, and rivers? And the ocean depths too? Surely there be a place above, higher than the beast sanctums where neither thee nor thy kindred hath yet ventured."
"All have been searched."
Marika's fingers raked into Maliketh's coat and along the surface of his ebony-colored armor. Her muscles tensed and she shook her head in disbelief.
"Then come my fit again. Along with it all the regret that I hath not had my twin quartered for deflowering the harlot who dares call herself a queen! And when all was done, I should then have placed under the knife the ill-gotten spawn of that disgraceful union that they may all know death in the bitterest of ways."
"If it pleaseth my sister, I shall see it so," replied Maliketh.
Marika smiled and sat down in front of Maliketh.
"Humm... Shall I be no more the 'Bestower' but suffer the name 'Marika' be said in cruel despair. As terrifying and dark as name as the sinister queen whom my beloved Shadow brother had disposed alongside all her apostle children? Oft I thought that my own skin may one day be a garment upon the backs of the very children I had bore and sucked. If my shadow should be most willing, shall I then lay a mercy killing for my daughter so foully conceived that she may no more know the blight? Or her twin whom may one day grow greater than I? Or win the favor again of the Greater Will by disposing of the daughter who despiseth it? Even my own cherished golden-haired boy whom I conceived and birthed from my beloved Godfrey now doth stare at me with lusting eyes more than he doth to his betrothed," Marika mused. She began to laugh, "A bed of scorpions is my mind."
"Who concerns thy thoughts? I pray thee tell, Sister! Allow me to redeem myself in thy eyes," said Maliketh.
"Doth my shadow remember the day that we ran swift-footed in the pursuit of the Ancestor Spirit? And when we lost the trail I shot my arrow to the sky in anger only for it to return to the ground bloodied. I declared this day the day I slayed a god and now therefore I am one. At what point doth this goddess return now to finish her ambition?"
"Doth my sister wish I slay for her a god?"
Marika wrapped her arms around Maliketh's neck.
"Would my dear brother then become a baleful shadow if I did? It was better for my stepdaughter to take the fall and be torn asunder by her own shadow upon finding the treasure in Nokron so that it may fall into my hands and turn the tree, my seat of power, into a siege tower against the heavens. Alas, the Finger-Slayer blade is lost to me. So it is for thee to hunt among the slag of the crucible one who can forge a weapon mighty enough to fell a god. One misbegotten who had seen the secret crafts to refine materials from the treasured ancient scales of the forgotten Dragon Lord. Leave none alive who witnesses thy entry or exit. And bring him before me in chains that I may have him serve me until success."
"Marika's Black Blade shall see it done."
"I want to see my children."
Maliketh began to growl as Marika lifted her head. Yet, Radagon's voice echoed not with harshness or anger, but with a forlorn longing.
It was Radagon who returned to the bedchamber where the twins were sleeping and Godwyn greeted him with a bow.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and with a smile brushed the hair back from Miquella's eyes before he took Malenia's hand. He held it for a time, before he put his face in his hand and wept.
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow. -William Blake
Now, usually, I'm not big on begging for comments, but if you are seriously interested in this piece, it's important that you speak up and say so. It's going to ultimately decide on the future of this piece on this site.