Author's Note: So I wrote this on my phone while working the Bus a.k.a. the Ambulance during my free time. Hasn't been cleaned up yet but figured I'd get some feedback before deciding to free this plot bunny or give em to the french couple down the block for stew.
Soaring buttresses pierced the heavens, alabaster stones hewn from quarries far and wide dragged and stacked on top of one another in a monument to the perseverance of man. Granite arches loomed over leser buildings casting shadows dark and wide, yet the grandeur from the singular tower raised high above everything else put everything around it to shame. Hewn crystals and gems larger than a man was tall floated on invisible winds, gently bobbing up and down casting radiant light upon the tower. In a previous life architecture had been a passing hobby of his, his jaw dropping at the site of the temples and wonders of the world that ancient man had assembled with primitive tools and knowledge. Even in the distance the grandiose castle looked to be larger than his previous school, but unlike his first home this castle was not brimming with life. It had not survived a thousand years of magicals pouring their hearts and souls into it, had not seen joy and triumph, had not stood defiantly as the bastion of Light and the bulwark against the Darkness. No this castle was much, much different.
Its design was more akin to a fantasy novel, almost picturesque in a way, but at its heart it was a monument to cruelty.
Death and bloodshed had been at the core of its construction, the ground bones of slaves the mortar that bound the stones. Thousands had endlessly toiled during its constructions, many dying where they worked, their bodies the foundation of the structure. Blood forever staining the soil from which crimson flowers bloomed. Their suffering and agony channeled into the castle granting it a level of malevolent sentience he hadn't seen since Azkaban. Even the road that he was standing on, its cobblestones pristine and unbroken, had seen numerous atrocities as people chained like animals were marched along the highways to their final demise.
And all for what?
A prison for a lonely inmate, the prisoner forgotten as the world passed her by. The ones that imprisoned her long since vanished on the winds of time.
A thousand and thousand more had braved the perils of the castle in an attempt to free her. Some drawn by tales of her beauty, others seeking the supposed riches contained within her castle.
Yet none had succeeded. Their bones, the fertilizer upon which the crimson flowers bloomed, their armor and weapons rusted and left to rot and rust, the only things to remember them by, and a testament to the fact that time conquers all.
Well that and their agonized moans, the horrifying spells around the castle itself acting as a soul trap siphoning off their energy to gorge itself.
Stepping off the road he came upon a young man barely old enough to be considered one, all things considered, in this primitive world. Roughspun wool clothed his ethereal form, a rusted and pitted sword next to him, as he futilely attempted to hold his guts in his eviscerated abdomen. When he had first began all this millenia ago the sight before would've sickened him, but time had numbed him, and as he had seen worse and worse things, horrors that even the chthonian gods would've balked at he realized that Death was simply an end to the suffering. Placing two fingers upon the man's brow, his eyes lit up at the realization that someone could see him, hear him and most importantly touch him. It was in that brief moment, right before he could ask, "why" as most spirits were apt to do that he caught sight of the fiery emeralds under the dark cloak. Whatever he was going to say went unheard, his voice hitching at the sight of those eyes, and he never had a chance to speak again as his entire body faded into mist.
The black cloaked figure continued onwards stopping at the next victim, this one a boy. Garbed in tattered remains of what could've been imperial finery, he was face down in the mud, a dozen or so krises buried in his back. Touching the back of his head he saw the vicious attack play out, the young nobleman having set out to free the princess like in one of his storybooks only to have the dozen retainers he had brought with him, betray him, steal everything he had and leave him to die slowly in the ditch.
He shook his head at the boy's naivety. The real world was nothing like the story books he read. With naught but a thought the boy's ethereal body vanished into mist.
The next ghost he came upon was just one of the thousands that he had come across. Pinched and vaguely ratlike features, his shifting eyes sought a way to escape from him, no doubt already knowing what his end would be. He tried to run, but none can escape him, not even the Gods, so what chance did this mere human have? Barbed chains shot forth from his hand digging into the man as he was dragged and forced to prostrate himself before him. "Please I didn't know. I didn't know…" Heedless of his cries his fingers touched the man's brow. Rape, arson, murder, burglary, thievery, highway robbery, sodomy, crime after crime, heinous deed after heinous deed, his soul laid bare. The cloaked figure said nothing, rendered no judgment as that was not what he was there for. All were equal in his embrace. "I would have never done those things if I knew!"
With a gentle almost soothing voice the cloaked figure spoke. "None of us knew, you made your choices and it is too late for regrets. All debts are squared away in death."
The criminal faded from view still begging for his life.
On and on he continued sending the souls of the departed on to their final judgment. Under normal circumstances he would not need to do this but because of the nature of the enchantments upon the land this job required a bit of a personal touch. Some came to him willingly all but begging for their torment to end, the soul siphon everything but gentle. Others attempted to flee like the criminal did, only to be dragged back. After the third one it became apparent that there was no escape and they grimly stood there and waited to be sent on their last journey.
Once upon a time this duty had gnawed at his soul, the suffering they endured and committed, the innocence of children taken violently ripped from them. The elderly were easier to deal with, having lived full lives, but he still remembered holding a spectral babe, still and silent in his arms as its mother wailed and begged. They say time heals all wounds, but to him it had simply made him numb to the pain.
Seeing the dead suffer a twitch sent through his immortal form, a desire to dispel this affront to his domain, yet at the same time he was unable to, bound by chains of his own making. If one were to look under the hood they would've seen a frown cross his handsome face.
He was Infinite, Immutable, Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent when it came to his domains. He was the End of All, the Dragon of the Apocalypse, yet for all his strengths, to use them openly was to invite chaos into the mortal worlds.
The self-made rules that bound him also bound the other Endless from directly interfering, an accord that they had all stuck to for time immemorial, and not just the language of the agreement but the spirit of it as well. Chaos, Order, Life and Death, they didn't know who came first, who was the strongest or who was subservient, they simply were. The oldest Aspects of Existence, the Endless from whom sprang the lesser Aspects, Love, Evil, Sin, Fate, Magic, Disease, Time, etc.
Once upon a time he had been forced to directly interfere when some of the lesser Aspects had descended upon a mortal universe and set themselves up as Gods. War, Sin, Disease, and Gnosis had played havoc on the world until he descended as Ynnead, and wiped out the entire universe to reset it. The lesser Aspects fled to Chaos thinking that she would protect them from his wrath, only to find out that She had not been amused in the slightest at the amount of damage that they had done to her plans. When he had arrived it was in time to see Chaos deliver a backhand strong enough to be felt across the entire multiverse as she almost took the head off of War. She had not been amused either when Order came to her for reparations and she had been forced to remove her influence completely from one of his experimental universes.
Just the thought of that experiment sent shivers down his back. A world of complete order, no feelings, no color, it was a world inhabited by unflinching automatons that could not be called sentient. Even Order had been horrified at what his creations turned into, no drive, no imagination, he had been forced to swallow a bitter pill and admit that he needed Chaos. After that the 2 had stopped any fighting when it came to their contributions to the mortal worlds preferring to let their indirect influence affect the mortals and not to interfere with each other.
Any other wandering thoughts were banished from his mind as the last of the dead were sent on their way. He would have to return here eventually to send the dead back on their way, but until then he would take the time to learn the lay of the land and explore the castle.
Passing through the ancient wards that surrounded the fortress he descended upon the mortal plan, taking a deep breath of fresh air for the first time in centuries. Long black hair was held back by a silver circlet of laurels. Blackened steel trimmed in silver; an underlayer of chainmail overlaid with a steel cuirass and pauldrons protected his torso as cuisses, poleyns, greaves and sabatons protected his lower body. Over the armor he wore a hooded and sleeveless open black robe that showed off powerful arms protected by vambraces. He was armed with a sword on his hip, and a spear in his left hand, its leaf shaped head an intricately hewn diamond of countless facets, capable of bending light to his whim. Emerald eyes of baleful fire, held a coldness to them, hinting at barely constrained power. Everything from the cut of his clothes to the fineness of his weapons and armor screamed power and authority, his orders absolute and to be carried out without questions.
With a simple thought he cloaked himself from mortal eyes, studded sole boots clicking against the marble floors of the castle. The farther in he went the more he was disgusted at the creators of this place. He had been right in that the castle had gained sentience, a malevolent genius locus of hate and despair. Even though it could not find him, it knew enough to tell that something was treading through it, and it began to awaken defenses. Steel golems fashioned in vague parodies of knights souls of fallen Dames and Knights forever bound to unflinching steel, shuffling flesh golems that moaned and groaned, their parts in various states of decay as they spewed noxious gases, other nightmarish horrors wandered the halls meant to keep anyone out and the prisoner within.
They posed no threat to him, being unable to find him, and even if they did their weapons were incapable of hurting him. Frowning as he walked further and further his hand touched the walls and sent out a tendril of his power. The entire castle screamed in agony as the walls pulsed and writhed, the stone illusion giving way to the flesh that lay underneath. Disgusting. He thought stomping down on the urge to incinerate the entire structure and leave nothing behind. At the base of the tallest tower a giant stone sentinel stood guard. His eyes tracked its movement, the entire construct moving with a dancer's grace, something surprising considering the sheer size and weight of the construct. The entire room was devoid of magics, the hall it resided in large enough to not only house the construct but also allow it to move freely, a quick check told him that the room was almost a kilometer in length and width. He had to take a moment to double check that number before shaking his head, why would anyone make a hall that large? If anything they should've put the construct outside the castle gates where it could freely roam.
Either way it was an impressive piece, he hadn't seen an iron Colossus constructed to this size in a long time, but then again when you're a mad king and devote your entire kingdom's economy to imprisoning your daughter gathering 150,000 pounds of pure iron and 1,000,000 Gold coins certainly seems feasible. It was too bad that the construct was made to stop something on an entirely different order of magnitude as he simply walked past it.
Out of everything that he went through today he would easily admit that climbing up the spiraling staircase was his least favorite thing. In the beginning he had thought to simply fly straight up the tower, ignoring the fact that the entire thing was rigged to drop boulders down on anyone stupid enough to try the simply solution, but he had decided to do it the mortal way and walk.
How he regretted that decision.
By the time he finally got to the top night had already fallen, he couldn't imagine a normal human traversing the entire staircase in one go, especially since the spatial magics within it kept lengthening the tower, preventing you from getting an idea of the true size within.
Honestly at this point the creator should've just used a move mountain spell and made this into a floating city. It would've probably been easier to hide a castle in the clouds than it was to animate and control all of the defenses.
Oh well, to each their own he guessed. At the top of the tower an ordinary wooden door greeted him, lacking any sort of decoration or ostentation, he found it lackluster considering the trouble that one would need to go through to get to this point. Phasing through the door was a simple thing, as there were no wards or protections on it not even ones made for mortal beings.
Nice flooring. He thought pausing to run his hand along the warm grain of the hardwood. Call him weird but floors like this rarely stood the test of time and on more than one occasion when he visited ruins the floor had given way under his weight. Mahogany?
It was surprising to find the room itself was not warded, personally he would've left the door unwarded and charmed the floor to swallow anyone stupid enough to step on it.
In the center of the room was a large circular crest of royal purple and gold, four arrows pointing inwards to a star with half circles arrayed around the base of each arrow.
The walls were split in their design, the lower half of them wood paneling made of the same material as the floor while the top was purple the same shade as the crest on the floor on one side and on the other it was stone. From the stone hung banners with the same crest on them. The most prominent feature though was the large window, easily larger than he was tall and wide enough that if he were to stretch his arms he would barely be able to touch the sides, it was here that he found the only magic in the room. Warded to the nines it would've prevented the prisoner from jumping to her death or escape, allowed her to see out but never let anyone see her, and to block out the weather so that it wouldn't affect the room.
How sad. He thought, running his hand along the side of the opening. To see the world but never interact. From the window he had a perfect view of anyone that might dare to brave the road to the castle. To see heroes try to free you, hope blossoming in your breast at the thought of freedom only to see them cut down before they even made it to the front door. Truly you had a cruel father.
The room was simply furnished with a bed, a night stand with a single silver bowl and a basin of water, a vanity and mirror, a table with a single chair and a bookshelf. While simply furnished everything was well-made and pristine, belying the age that they actually were. Looking around he wondered where the prisoner kept her clothes, and other baubles. This couldn't be it...could it?
Going to the bookshelf he removed one of the books, noticing how worn it was, the pages smudged with oil from her hand, the leather on the hardcover having developed a patina. The title had almost completely disappeared, the pages brittle. Looking at the shelf he saw tattered remains of books, it was curious that out of all the things here that knowledge was the first to fade away. With a simple gesture he restored the books to their pristine condition, and in a moment of something...pity?...generosity? He reached into his robes and removed a book that he had kept with him for a long time.
The Tales of Beedle and Bard fit snugly on the shelf.
He ignored the gasp of surprise from behind him, no doubt the prisoner had never seen a floating book before. "Hello?" The high soprano of the voice drew his attention to the lonely girl in the tower.
A young girl no older than 12 stared up at the book in amazement. Clothed in a loose fitting chiffon toga belted at the waist with a simple brown leather band, long blonde hair framed a regal face. High-cheekbones and an aquiline nose accented eyes the color of the azure sky. If he were mortal he would've been entranced by those eyes, enraptured by their starlike twinkle. Though young, not even a teenager yet he could already see the beauty that she would become and why people risked their lives to claim her.
Of course those that did probably expected a woman and not a child, the magics of this place slowing her growth.
Or at least he hoped that they had set out to claim a woman.
There was a special place in the Underworlds reserved for pedophiles.
Walking around her he began to leave the room, unintentionally passing by the mirror.
Another gasp greeted him, and he whirled around to find the girl staring at the mirror. Turning towards it wondering what she saw he was dumbstruck to find his cloaked form standing next to her.
Tentatively the girl reached out her hand trying to grasp his robe but she phased right through him. An expression of sadness took hold as tears pooled in her eyes.
To be alone for so long. To see someone for the first time in millenia. How sad. Looking down at her crying form, memories of his own previous life resounded within him, his children long since lost to time staring back at him. Daphne. He thought of his own wife, her raven locks flowing freely in the breeze, the fierce expression she wore while they rained down fire upon their enemies. The joy of children that they raised together, and finally the sadness at her passing, her mortal body old and frail while he remained young and powerful.
He had abandoned his children afterwards forever hearing them curse his name as they grew old and withered. They thought he knew the secrets to immortality, that he refused to share it with them. They claimed that he did not love them, spat on the fact that together Daphne and him had reshaped an entire world to ensure their happiness. They had wanted for nothing growing up, but in the end as Time caught up to them they cursed him.
His youngest daughter, the apple of his eye, wanted nothing to do with him as her own daughter, his granddaughter lay dying in a bed, cursing his cruelty that he would not give up the secrets of immortality to save his family.
And in the end...he simply walked away.
Looking at the lonely girl in the tower he felt a desire to whisk her away from this horrid prison, and for a moment he tried to, reality bending to his will as a meteor formed high in the heavens ready to crash down with righteous heavenly fury. But then he stopped...Fate crashing into him, wrestling for control of reality as she saw him as a threat to all her plans.
Fate and him had never gotten along, especially after his first life, but at this moment she reminded him of the Compact, and that to meddle so directly was to invite the others to do the same.
Rather than backhand the other Aspect of Existence like he had been meaning to he instead banished her from his presence. Fate while powerful was still lesser than him, having splintered off from Order long ago. Not to mention that when annoyed he tended to kill off her champions before their time and trying to resurrect them under his watchful eyes ended up being a bigger headache than it was worth.
With her gone, he simply reached out and lay a hand on the girls shoulder, squeezing it gently, reassuringly, trying to tell her to hold onto her hope and that tomorrow would be better. She reached out hesitantly, grasping his fingers smiling at feeling human contact for the first time in a long time. Bending down to her ear he whispered, "It's going to be alright...Salem."