Chapter Text
She'd died.
It wasn't like bullet brain surgery didn't have risks... or the woman had planned to kill her from the start. A double tap, one to do the job, another to guarantee it. Or maybe it had been a mistake, and something had gone wrong? Either way, Taylor Hebert, Kephri, had ceased to be.
Just like that.
Nothing more.
A bogeyman.
Somebody who had thrown aside everything for the sake of the world.
If she had the chance to do it all over again...
...
Her new home was bathed in rays of gold.
Taylor wasn't sure how long it took for her to reattain consciousness; the process of developing from newborn to a stage in which she could properly understand what had happened took as long as any other normal child. For a while, all she had known was the tender warmth of contact mixed with the cold of a cradle, the gently flailing arms of siblings and the routine of sleeping, waking, crying and feeding.
She had siblings, two of them.
By the time she had internalised what was happening, she was used to it, before she could recall the knowledge of her previous existence, she had already become attuned to this new one.
A woman loomed above the cradle in which she lay. Taylor's vision was a little fuzzy, still; it had been clearing with time as her body grew in those months since her rebirth. Now she could see in much more complete detail the features of her mother... well, her second mother.
Beside her, her brother bumped a small, clenched fist against her. On her other side, her sister mewled loudly, cuddled into Taylor's side, a head of downy red hair tickling her skin.
A long braid of golden hair fell towards them, like a corded rope that led to heaven, one that Taylor's eyes climbed all the way up to the golden eyes staring down at them. There was a world weariness to them, beyond the harsh, stony gaze... a mother's love tempered by an existence that was clearly too long or burdened.
Taylor reached out, her tiny, pudgy fingers gripping the end of the braid.
Her mother turned her attention to her.
Taylor stared back and gave the braid a soft tug, not hard enough to hurt, just a small, gentle thing.
All of this was weird. This strange world, this rebirth after what should have been the end of a short, brutal life in which she had slowly cast away more and more of herself, becoming something so very different to how she had started. If she could have gone back, if her consciousness could have been projected from that moment the bullets hit to when she gained powers, how much of her life would she have lived differently?
Well, perhaps she had some part of that wish...
A second chance, just not in the world she had once known, adrift in a strange land.
But she could recognise that look in the woman's eyes.
Slowly, her mother reached down. The stretching hand grew larger and larger by the second, like that of some vast giant that could crush her with ease. But instead, it gently took her hand and slowly, carefully encouraged her to release her grip on the braid.
Taylor simply gripped the finger instead, and the entire time, she did not look away.
“... Stubborn.”
For the first time, there was the faintest hint of a smile there, a tiny lightening of the woman's heavy expression.
She did not know whether it was fond, or an admonishment... but after a moment, the woman evidently decided that trying to convince her to let go was pointless. Instead, Taylor was plucked up, her siblings began whining and squirming as she was pulled up, up high into the air and rested against the woman's front.
It was... warm.
Despite all the oddities, despite the incongruences and the bitterness of what had happened before, she couldn't help but close her eyes and just... exist for a moment.
It wasn't quite the opportunity to do it all over again, but it was something, right?
A warm hand on Taylor's back kept her in place as her second mother held her close as she whispered.
“Sleep, Maela.”
She wanted to laugh. The name almost sounded a lot like her old one...
“Sister, tell me again about the golden god.”
“Again, Miquella?” she asked, just the faintest hints of amused exasperation tinging her tone, even though she already knew that she would be telling the story again for him.
Her brother peered up at her from where his head rested in her lap, those bright golden eyes that the three of them all shared looking so languidly at her.
Following the completion of their morning lessons and their midday meal, the three of them had been granted just a little time to relax and play in one of the many palace gardens. Around them Erdtree leaves gently fell and trailed down, little vestiges of yellow and gold, the faint light within them dimming further upon touching the ground.
“I want to hear it again as well,” spoke her other sibling, Malenia, who glanced up from the book she had been reading to focus on Maela.
Her sister shared the same red hair... well, this second body of hers, and more than once the various dignitaries of the Leyndell court had confused the two of them for the other, despite them not being identical. From where Malenia had been resting just moments ago with her shoulder leant against Maela, she shifted a little to grow more comfortable.
“My siblings are so spoiled...” she sighed dramatically.
“How could we not be spoiled when you always have such amazing stories, sister?” Miquella retorted with that cherubic smile.
“And sister tells stories better than even big brother Godwyn,” Malenia pressed.
She was being ganged up on by the other two again, which to be honest, happened a lot when they wanted to hear a tale... and she caved almost every time.
And as the responsible one, it was her duty to provide their entertainment it seemed. Well, both Malenia and Miquella were rather mature for their age, but even then... she could only play at being a child so much.
Her tutors praised it, others regarded her with raised eyebrows.
She was the first of the three of them to walk
The first to talk as well.
She hadn't been able to bear just laying on her back, squirming about, useless.
“Very well,” she said, and from below and to her sides came a faint cheer as the other two celebrated their inevitable victory in getting her to tell the story.
It was long, it was heavily doctored... as always, she told it from a distant perspective of one who was imagining it up, as if it were a daydream she had once had and now told them as entertainment. The imagination of an idle child was a powerful thing, after all, but it was all there... Scion and his rampage, the emergence of a flawed and troubled hero who forced the warring fools to band together, and the forging of a great weapon and end of the conflict... and then, the betrayal.
Was it even a betrayal?
If it kept the world safe from what she may have become...
She'd fallen silent, but before the other two could interrupt her thoughts, somebody new entered the garden-courtyard in which they sat.
Godwyn the Golden, the defeater and friend of Dragons, heir to the Lands Between. His hair shone as brightly as the sun in the dappled rays that fell between the Erdtree's boughs. His figure was as imposing and grand as any hero of myth, perhaps because he quite literally was such a figure made manifest.
He strode along the paved edges of the garden, a dozen courtiers half his height following like hounds behind their master.
Was he heading to some meeting of state? If so, then he made his way rather casually, and paused upon spotting the three of them.
“My three younger siblings look so blissfully idyllic, sat among the flowers,” he declared, his voice booming as he strode their way. “Perhaps I should commission a painting to capture the image of this moment?”
It came out teasing, but the three of them had already been forced to sit for countless hours in their short lives for the royal portrait artist to capture their image, that the notion made her wince.
In a moment, Godwyn made his way across the courtyard and, having reached them, hoisted Malenia up. It took barely a fraction of the immense strength in his arms, and he threw her into the air before catching her. For all her relative maturity, Malenia squealed like any other six-year-old as he did so.
It was a game Godwyn had played with them each, the grand and stately brother had no problem putting any of them on his shoulders and carrying them about the palace, or indulging them.
Maela had been an only child in her previous life, to have an elder sibling was... strange, but not unpleasant.
And yet...
Her triplet-brother was looking up from her lap with a look that was a little too knowing, or perhaps, with an understanding that she didn't feel comfortable acknowledging.
She placed her hand atop his face to cover his eyes and stroked his hair, earning a petulant whine. She ignored it, and went back to watching as their big brother took a moment for his day to indulge the three of them.
In the gentle light of the minor Erdtree against her back, she would rather not think too much about the implications of Miquella's look.
“Father, I've done it!”
The childish joy that filled Miquella's voice was contagious. It made Maela smile just to hear it, to see the way her brother turned to look up at their teacher with that beaming smile as bright as the sun.
Surrounding his body was a golden glow, proof of the Incantation having successfully been called upon, the blessings of the Golden Order apparent.
“Well done, Miquella,” spoke the deep voice of their father as the man leant down, a hand falling on the Prince's shoulder and giving what looked to be a gentle squeeze.
The man, the source of the red hair that Malenia and Maela both shared, had the fainted of smiles on his lips, a rare expression when normally he looked so dour and serious much of the time. Faintly illuminated by the golden glow surrounding his son, for the first time she had seen in her life, he looked happy and proud in them.
Maela, who was standing not far away, watched as he gave affection to Miquella, and felt nothing but a strange void in her own chest.
The icon of the Golden Order sat in her hand, the glowing golden seal was faintly warm and comforting... but as she looked down at it, she did not see an opportunity, nor miraculous tool.
And once her father and Miquella were done celebrating his success, they turned to her.
“Maela, you still cannot begin to manifest an incantation?” he asked.
She looked down at the seal in her hand.
“... I cannot believe in it, father,” she finally admitted.
It was a comment that silenced the room utterly.
How could she believe in the power of faith, after everything she had experienced in her past life? How could anybody believe in it, knowing that for all its power, the Greater Will will not the sole example of its sort?
She'd given her everything, her youth, her humanity, and her life to bring down a golden order imposed by a higher being that granted powers to lesser's for the sake of manipulating them.
Scion... the Greater Will... what was the real difference, beyond one of them having a physical form and firing lasers?
Powers.
Incantations.
One of the same, just a different source; in the end, it was just clapping your hand and believing enough; the common people of the Lands Between didn't have the means to perform Incantations, only those trusted with a seal.
“You do not believe in what you see and feel, Maela?” her father asked. “You, who have always been uncommonly mature and wise for your age, cannot believe in what is proof before you?”
Her father's brows were arched, his attention was fully upon her now.
“I believe it exists; I cannot believe in the source of it.”
And to that, a pause.
“Incantations are the blessings of faith, granted by the Greater Will to mortal beings. The blood of a god flows through your veins, to not believe in it would be to reject everything that you are.”
Yes, she did have her mother's blood. It was undeniable, but...
“I do not believe in gods.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end at the look she was given.
Perhaps it was some mote of childishness that pushed her to say such, to reject the very notion that this world was built upon. But then again, she had always been stubborn, dying and being born again did not change that.
“... And what do you see when you see your mother, then?”
Her mother?
The Queen, the goddess.
The one who always looked so burdened, and who performed miracles the same way another may breathe or take a step, the one whose will and vision had created the world as it currently was.
“I see my mother.”
It was all she could reply with.
The man did not react to her statement, it was as if he had become a sort of statue that stared down at her from his great height. His expression could have been carved of the most exquisite marble for both its detailing and how little it reflected.
Behind him, Miquella stood, looking between Maela and Radagon.
And then, her father took a step forward.
Then another.
She tried to remain in place, her neck increasingly craning upwards as he moved closed, and knelt down beside her.
His hand found her shoulder as he stared, unblinking, into her face.
“... Maela, your... apostasy, shall never become known to the wider world,” he spoke, both a promise and an order. His voice was soft, but it held a steel that she had only heard before when some manner of royal proclamation went out, or when he was charged with the most serious of matters. “Are we quite understood?”
It sent a strange shiver down her spine.
“Yes, father.”
Would he, champion of the golden order, have struck her down there and then were she not his daughter?
He straightened, at once he was the towering man he had been before, and without a word he turned back to her brother, who had been standing just paces away.
Miquella had that same strange look about him that she had seen before, not focusing on their father, but on her, clearly parsing through what she had said.
“Miquella, we shall continue your lessons tomorrow,” their father declared, voice once more echoing off the walls of the cavernous stone room. He began walking towards the door. “Maela, it would behove you to continue trying to learn, even if you do not possess your brother's talent.”
There was... not a venom, but something very final lacing her father's words there. She wasn't sure if it could be called disappointment, or something deeper, but it was as if her failure to believe was a door to her father's heart that had just slammed shut.
Perhaps it had?
It had been foolish of her to speak up, to admit such... perhaps she should have just done as her sister did, and focused on some other pursuit.
Maybe life would have been simpler, but when was life ever simple?
Maela put the seal down on a table, watching as its faint glow dimmed to the barest light, leaving Miquella as the sole illumination beyond the weak burning of the candles.
Her father's commanding grip on her shoulder that day was the last time he ever held her.
Pling... pling pliiing...
Her fingertips slowly plucked at the strings arranged before her, she frowned intensely as she tried to make the music in her head come to life in reality, the half-remembered tune from her old life slowly taking form—
Plonk.
“Fuck!”
She almost wanted to throw her hands in the air at this entire enterprise; but stubbornly, she took a deep breath and made to start again.
“A true princess should never swear,” spoke a voice, and Maela nearly jumped out of her own skin at the interruption. Her heart leapt into her throat as she spun around, accidentally releasing her grip on the grand harp that had been resting against her front.
The heavy instrument rocked forwards, and perhaps it would even have fallen over were it not for the hand that reached out to steady it, one much larger and stronger than her own.
“You almost gave me a fit!”
Godwyn the Golden's lips quirked at her indignation, settling the harp back onto its four stubby legs where it could not fall.
“Did I? Imagine my own concern when I heard my youngest sibling speaking words she should not know, and which are only to be heard in the darkest and most ghastly backstreets of Leyndell!” he replied, kneeling down to that he could be on her level.
Well, she didn't want to admit how she knew those words because they would consider her to be insane, so instead Maela deflected.
“And what are you doing in those 'ghastly backstreets' to hear them then, big brother?” she replied, perhaps a little hotly and crossing her arms over her chest. She turned in her seat so that she could face him more fully.
To that, she received an amused, secretive look as he raised a finger to his lips.
“You can't tell anybody else, it has to be our secret, right, Maela?”
She narrowed her eyes at being treated like a small child.
Which, admittedly, she was.
But mentally she was much older than that, and whilst it was perhaps condescending...
“Fine,” she huffed.
“I must frequently go out in disguise, seeking out all manner of ne’er-do-wells. who would seek to do evil and harm in this world! And to make sure my adorable little siblings are safe, I must sneak hither and thither to find all such ruffians!”
Beyond the fact that the explanation was ridiculous, and that she rather imagined that the knights of Leyndell could more than handle some graceless commoners, something else came to mind.
“How can you possibly hide your identity, you're the crown prince!”
“I can be very discreet.”
“You're four metres tall!”
“I walk on my knees.”
She opened her mouth to retort, with just a little more heat and indignation than before, before her brother leaned back and boomed with laugher, the sound practically reverberating off the solid stone walls around them.
“Ah! Dearest Maela, if I were to hold you aloft from the highest point of the palace, your expression would have soured milk for a mile were it seen!” he boomed, which only made her glower more. And like a man a tenth his age, her indignation only prompted Godwyn to laugh harder, until it looked as if his ribs were hurting, judging by how he clutched his ribs.
By the time he recovered, Maela had thumbed him on the chest ineffectually with her balled fist a few times to get him to stop.
“Still, I did not imagine you would want to learn an instrument so young, most princelings must be rather pushed into it.”
She gave a noncommital shrug.
“I'm not very good at it.”
“Well, who is teaching you?” he asked.
“... I'm more just trying to teach myself.”
His brows raised.
“Maela, you won't learn very quickly without a teacher.”
Well, she hadn't really been so much trying to learn as just... playing around. She'd been steadily forgetting various tunes and pieces of music she used to love back in Earth Bet, and if she could just note them down or learn to play, perhaps she could keep hold of those tunes in her head?
All she had in this world from her old life was her knowledge and memories, but with time, even those were fading away, replaced with the new.
Evidently, some part of her expression reflected her thoughts, as Godwyn's face softened a little.
“Here,” he said, taking her much, much smaller hand and began setting it on the strings. “Turn your fingers more, you don't want them level to the string, you need them angled like this... a little more... like that, yes. Place with the inside edge of the finger. Now pluck it... you can pluck it harder if you wish. The strings are tougher than you think.”
She did as he instructed, somewhat dumbfounded as he provided her instruction, and it was only a few minutes later, after she had stumbled her way through a short piece, that she paused.
“You play, brother?”
A nod.
“I do,” he spoke, just a little softer than before. “And the flute, the lute and the fiddle. It was one of many pursuits I was required to perform as a child, although I only find time now for one or two of them.”
She supposed that the time of an heir was ever filled with all manner of tedious bullshit... everyone may know him best for his war with the dragons and, later, friendship with them. But behind closed doors and in the confines of the palace walls, she far more often saw her eldest brother surrounded by councillors and the scions of lesser noble houses than by himself, relaxing.
In some ways, perhaps she and her siblings had an easier, less pressured existence?
“Still, I am afraid that I must go soon, Maela,” he said, straightening up.
A hand found the top of her head. She looked up to focus on him now that he was standing as he went on;
“I'll speak with my old tutor, I am sure that he will be able to make some time to teach you as well.”
“You don't need to.”
“I don't... But if my stubborn little sister wants to learn, then I can but help her do so?”
She didn't refuse or turn him down.
In her old life by the time she was old enough to want to learn these things, her life had plunged into the madness of being a Parahuman, into the downward spiral that had consumed her existence and led to the circumstances that brought her here.
A few weeks later, a servant brought her a gift.
It was a bow that was also a harp, one that had been extensively decorated, and which had her name in runes carved discretely atop its shoulder.
“His highness said that a young lady must be able to defend herself, and thought that this would be a suitable way for you to continue your practice and learn the martial arts,” the delivering servant explained. “He said that he had seen this sort of weapon and instrument as he travelled down to Castle Morne, and thought of you. So he purchased it.”
Perplexed, all she could do was nod, dumbfounded.
... Guess she would need to learn how to use a bow now as well.
They were cursed.
All three of them.
... At this point, Maela had rather been waiting for the other shoe to drop on this blissful existence that she had achieved. Child of a Queen, scion of a (supposed) goddess. After her previous life, it was almost consoling to know that not everything would be perfect.
The nascency of her brother.
The rot of her sister.
And for her? Regression.
Maela held up her finger, gazing at the pair of creatures that had alighted there.
A butterfly had emerged and descended from Miquella and Malenia's hair. Miquella's had large, translucent wings that shone with a pale light, its tiny body was like a tiny star or mote of light. Malenia's meanwhile was a more ragged creature, an equal and opposite with brown, tattered wings tainted with red.
The sages, the clerics, and the scholars of Leyndell and the great centre of learning were flummoxed, the family was confused.
After all, how did her ability to control the butterflies that acted as the manifestation's of her sibling's curses represent 'regression' as a concept?
But they did not know the truth about Taylor Hebert, about the fact that before she was Kephri, she was Skitter, the foolish girl turned villain who controlled bugs. How ironic... the curse that had fallen upon her was a regression of her abilities back to that same ignorant girl back then.
Except, now, her power only affected the butterflies produced by the curse of her siblings, one bearing the curse of rot and the other with nascency.
“If you could do it again...”
“Sister...”
Malenia was crying, holding a hand to her eyes as she tried to wipe away the tears.
Maela stepped over to her automatically, as the responsible, mature sister it was her duty to take care of the other two, after all. For ten years they had been utterly inseparable, and that didn't change now.
She pulled her sister into a hug.
Her sibling flinched under her hand, she swallowed thickly.
“Don't, I'm rotting—”
“Sush.”
Malenia fell silent, after a moment, she buried her face into Maela's chest and wrapped her arms around her middle and cried into her dress. Despite Malenia's prodigal prowess in seemingly all things physical, and despite all the claims about her being some great future warrior... so many forgot that the three of them were all just ten years old.
And ten-year-old children could be scared, could require comfort... comfort that others were unwilling to provide. Their mother, both loving but also emotionally distant... their father the same in another direction... Godwyn was the closest they had to a truly loving family member. But he was abroad and hurrying back to Leyndell, and no councillor willing to risk troubling them.
Once again, it was up to her to try to manage her siblings, once more the adult in the room.
From across the room, their triplet joined them.
“Sister, we will find a way to make you better.”
Miquella sounded utterly determined on this fact. The blonde had moved to Maela's side and reached out as well to console their sister.
He was now the shortest among them, perhaps he had been the first to develop his curse, and that was why he had seemed to stop growing after a certain point?
“There's no cure, it's a curse,” Malenia mumbled.
“There must be something in this world that can help, right, sister?” Miquella glanced at Maela, a plea for support evident in his expression.
“We will find one,” she murmured as she held Malenia close. “Gods have been slain before, what more would it be to go against the curse of other beings? I'll keep the butterflies away, we'll find something with time, Malenia.”
Maela carefully took a lock of hair and crossed it over another.
In front of her, her triplet sat quiet, patient.
A scarlet butterfly pushed itself from the strands, at once falling under Maela's control and flapping away. This small, newborn scarlet butterfly joined the small cloud of them that Maela controlled at all times.
The two Empyrean sisters sat in an isolated courtyard, one of countless, that overlooked the city of Leyndell. In this private, secluded sanctum was a small garden of white and gold flowers, and despite the servants having swept it this morning, the flagstones were already littered with the fallen leaves of the Erdtree high above them.
For half an hour, they had been sitting here, Malenia looking out over the city and the body of the dead dragon Gransax, and Maela hard at work.
“Sister, I'm sure that's enough, you don't need—”
“I'm almost done,” she promised, and Malenia dutifully fell silent.
Reaching down for a brass pot, Maela removed one of the faintly damp, red tinged balls of moss from inside, and brought it to her mouth, biting into it.
It tasted... strange. Perhaps it was a result of the Dewkissed Herba and Sacramental Buds that made up the preserving bolus, but she always thought that it tasted like watery, bloody starlight. The secret of their formulation was one she knew, and she only trusted herself to make them at this point; trusted agents were sent out on behalf of the family to secure the rare, precious ingredients required.
All to make sure that she could continue to take care of her triplet.
Did she need to be the one to plait Malenia's hair?
No.
Did she want to be the one who did so?
Yes.
Even if she had to eat the faintly unpleasant medicinal balls, and had to keep the Nascent Butterflies of her brother close to best preserve her sister's life and mitigate her brother's curse... it was worth it for the way it made her sister smile.
No servant could risk the task, and even their demi-god siblings refused to take the risk of making contact with her... but Maela and Miquella made sure to continue treating their sister as just that; a sister.
Maela paused a moment as the outermost of her butterflies instinctually avoided a certain space nearby.
She glanced back to see their mother stood, leaning against the stone arch that led to this secluded overlook.
Their mother was stood there, watching.
The Queen of the Lands Between was as ever majestic and serene, her face set in that expression that Maela had gotten so used to over the years. A mask of control and utter confidence as she looked over them.
A hand extended, and in the small circle of flowers that occupied the balcony's centre, a tiny tree of light sprouted, rising upwards and casting its gentle warmth.
The gardens of the palace had numerous tiny, short-lived Erdtrees like this one, an incantation known to nobody but her.
“Our daughters looked so deep in thought, we wished not to disturbeth them,” their mother spoke, taking a step forward. Behind the woman, Maliketh loomed, the shadowed beast silent in the darkness.
It sent a reflexive shiver down the spine, the presence of the one whom had sealed Destined Death, and brought low the Gloam-Eyed Queen, so long ago.
“I was just braiding Malenia's hair,” she explained.
A hum.
Their mother looked over them both, those eyes as bright as liquid gold, considered them both for a long moment, and then glanced to the pot of preserving boluses to her side.
“I see. Preserve yourself well from your sister's affliction.”
Malenia stiffened, just a fraction, before she moved to stand.
Her sister was taller than Maela now, perhaps because of her more active lifestyle or just genetics... but now that they were side by side, the two princesses gave their mother a small curtsy.
And then, Maela moved to hug her mother.
Just like every time before, it took a moment for her mother to return the gesture, to bring her arms around her and hug back. It had always been that way, it was as if there was a moment required for the woman to remember that yes, she was a mother and a normal mother would do this thing, rather than doing so instinctually.
Perhaps that was the curse of so-called divinity, to always be different from others?
When her passenger had been taking over her, before the end, everything she had been doing had been filtered through that. Perhaps it was exactly the same for Queen Marika the Eternal, the mother who needed to pause before she remembered to hug her youngest daughter.
“Maela, you were too old to always seek an embrace,” her second mother chided, but there was also no attempt to immediately release her or push her away.
Maela looked behind her, made a hand gesture, but Malenia made no attempt to approach and join the embrace.
Instead, her sister stood there, polite, but the distance of just two or three metres felt as far as that between Stormveil and Caelid at that moment. Her sister's eyes averted, as if momentarily fascinated by one of the numerous butterflies under Maela's control.
No... not today, either.
After a moment, her mother placed a hand atop her head, rubbed it, and then nudged her, the usual signal that the time for family fondness was over. Maela stepped back to her sister's side.
“Your studies, do they fare well, Malenia?”
“Yes mother, the blind swordsman teaches me well, every day at dawn I wake, and he teaches me until the day is almost done,” her sister replied, just a little stiffly.
“Your destiny is to wield the blade, from the moment you first could grip a knife you strived; do not grow lax in your training, Malenia. Your name was granted to you as a gift, and for its meaning, you should ever strive.”
No praise for Malenia pushing through despite the nature of her curse or the damage it was doing to her body.
Just that proclamation.
She could feel the tension radiating off her sibling, she bowed her head a little in respect, but stood just beside her, Maela could see the way something in her jaw tensed a little.
“Mother, sister has been working so hard, perhaps there is something you could do for her curse?”
She hoped... without real conviction.
“You do a fine job of it already, Maela. Taking responsibility for others is a talent that any true lord should possess,” was the dismissal that she both expected, and which drove a painful spike through her heart. How could their mother dismiss her sister with such casual ease, as if it were no concern at all?
Couldn't she see her pain and suffering?
The answer was, of course she could.
So, was it a case of being able to do something but being unwilling, and thus being an uncaring goddess... or of being unable to do something but willing, and thus not as powerful enough to enact it?
It was painful to see the truth laid bare, but still Maela tried, even if every time the result was the same.
There was only so much more to be said; Queen Marika had stopped by only to see the two of them for a moment, and she left just as swiftly as she had come, leaving Maela and Malenia behind in that quiet courtyard.
For a moment it was silent, the wind whistled in their ears, and the distant sound of the trumpets and horns of pilgrims could just about be heard.
“... Mother always favoured you the highest.”
There was a bitterness there.
What could she say to that?
It was undeniable.
In truth, sometimes Maela wondered whether it was a case of her being favoured, or just that she seemed the least flawed of the three of them. She wasn't sure whether it was fondness, or just some approximation of it by their mother.
“She might, but I treasure you higher, you and Miquella,” Maela replied, voice soft so as to not be overheard.
Malenia looked away, out and over Leyndell as the last rays of the sun's light descended over the horizon. For a few minutes they stood like this, the cloud of nascent and rotten butterflies that Maela commanded dancing too and fro under her direction.
What a strange world this was...
It was so easy to forget sometimes, to try and throw herself into this life of a princess, one indulged and doted on by those that surrounded her. It was like a haven from the horrors of Earth Bet, to which she had given and taken so much at the same time.
Sometimes, she almost forgot that this wasn't her first life.
Memories of people she'd once known, fought with and alongside, all of whom she would never see again.
She opened her hand, palm up, and directed one of her brother's butterflies to sit upon it, and watched as it faintly glowed there.
“Whatever our destiny is to be, I would rather do it in the name of yourself and brother than anything else in the world,” Malenia spoke, with that same depth of conviction that Maela had come to expect from her.
It reminded her of somebody else, actually...
“And the same for you, dear sister.”
A feast of celebration.
“Here is a gift for Princesses Malenia and Maela, and Prince Miquella,” intoned a man, dressed in the heavy looking robes and garments of an envoy. It was impossible not to recognise the distinctive attire of one from the Carian line, which held so much sway over Liurnia.
The gift in question was a trio of blades, decorated so intricately with etchings and the deep blue glintstone unique to the Carian Conspectus... It was cruel, considering that their father had once been married to Renalla of the Carian Dynasty, and that his departure had caused her to enter seclusion.
Yet now an envoy of her line presented gifts to the children of her former husband.
In this feudal world, everything was so much different, operating from such a different normality to the world of her first life...
The envoy departed, conversation was had over the gifts so generously given, and Maela ignored it all.
Tiresome courtly events... she would much rather enjoy some seclusion and celebrate with her triplets in peace.
“... Sister?”
She glanced at Miquella.
Her sibling was looking at her, a hand had reached over to rest over her own. Amidst the polite conversation going on during the banquet, his voice was soft, intended only for her. On his other side, Malenia sat, eating with the same poise and perfection as when she wielded a blade... she had completed her knightly training just recently, and now comfortably stood as the tallest of the three of them.
Well, for now.
“Yes?”
“You are deep in thought again.”
It could almost sound accusatory, the way Miquella phrased his statement. Despite still looking so young, trapped in the tides of nascency, there was that same unknowable look on his face as he said that.
“Just thinking,” she replied, reaching down with a fork and lifting a slice of some manner of fowl to her mouth. It was delicious, as it so often was, and yet today she wasn't in the mood for it.
“This is a joyful time, and yet you dwell so deeply on other things,” he mused, still not looking away. “Tell us, what troubles you?”
“Just on a dream,”
“What sort of dream?”
He was pushing on it today, often he could be satisfied with just a simple excuse, but over time he had been more and more curious... or perhaps, more dogged in his pursuit of the truth.
“Just one from the past.”
Golden brows raised, a soft hum accompanied it.
“Well, dwelleth not, sister. This is a time of joy, everyone is here to celebrate us, what would they say if they were to notice their Gentle Princess looking so pensive?”
If only they knew the truth.
This was their sixteenth birthday.
She had lived this second life for almost as long as she had endured her first; soon Maela of the Golden Lineage would be older than Taylor Hebert. It was hard not to dwell upon that fact, on how the vast majority of her first life had been so idyllic, only to then fall apart.
Even now, she struggled to sleep sometimes, she still woke up screaming often, much to the concern of the servants.
“I think perhaps they might wonder about that title,” she muttered.
The Gentle Princess.
What a joke.
The royal court of the Lands Between had looked at Maela's choice to focus on the bow and academics, rather than the blade, Incantation or Sorcery, and decided that it must be a sign of some gentle pacifism or soft nature, rather than what it really was.
They didn't know that she could hit the eye of a sparrow in flight from a hundred feet away, or that she carried two daggers on her at all times in case of assassins.
Still, she was fine with the mask of the title.
People were so keen to avoid the wrath of Malenia, or the keen to hang on every word of Miquella, that she could slip by in the background and focus on what mattered; taking care of her siblings. Without the burden of expectations, she could continue to braid her sister's hair and warded way the rot, could still assist Miquella with things his nascency held him back from.
For a few minutes, she dined and drank and spoke with those members of the court who approached to speak with her specifically, few as they were.
She preferred it that way; Miquella was all the better a speaker, all the world seemed to fall over in adoration for him.
However, when next she glanced at her brother, it was to see him in a similar state to the one he had just broken her out of, and, seeing an opportunity, she took it.
“And now I find you deep in thought, dear brother,” she stated. Unlike her, Miquella did not turn to look at her, instead he remained staring off into the distance. She followed his gaze, and after a moment realised who it was that he was looking at.
Across the hall, the Carian contingent of the guests were seated.
Lunar Princess Ranni sat in conversation with a wolf-headed man; her shadowed beast was a far less fearsome thing than Malekith, it had to be said. Maela was pretty sure that for all his height and that fearsome sword she had seen him carry, Malenia would snap him in two.
And beside her was Praetor Rykard, a severe looking man with a crownlike coronet atop his head and a well-groomed beard that did little to disguise the emotions on his face as he spoke with a foreign looking beauty.
But the largest among them, and seeming object of her brother's gaze, was Radahn the Starscourge.
Admittedly, he was a difficult man to miss, both for his stature and the impact of his presence. There was something grand about such a figure, the one who fought the stars and won, who locked the heavens in place through sheer force of will and his own command over gravity. The man was openly laughing and making merry with a number of other great figures from Caelid, whose reaches south of the Dragonbarrow he ruled.
“He is magnificent, do you not think, sister?”
“... I knew not you had such a fancy,” she said, perhaps a little dryly. To be honest, her brother revealing homosexuality or bisexuality was the least problematic issue at hand here.
To that, a shrug was given in response.
“Be it man or woman, what does it matter if a consort is worthy? I sit sometimes as Miquella, and other times as Trina; there is no difference in the fancy I could indulge.”
It was strange to hear her brother speak like that.
“A consort? Brother, we are but sixteen, thoughts of betrothal should be far from your mind! And your own form...” she stopped there, glancing at him.
Miquella still looked so young... no, he still was so young.
The curse of nascency had trapped his form as that of a child.
There was a petulant bitterness there, Miquella glowered for a moment.
“What is the harm in my dreaming of something else? If yourself and sister may dream of falling in love, then why cannot I? I've seen the way you've haunted the upper landing to watch some of the knights spar in the western courtyard, admiring them as they sparred in the sun.”
Curse her brother's perceptiveness!
It was just a few times anyway, there had been a particular dashing knight with long hair and a fine physique who had caught her eye...
“The difference is...” she began, and then trailed off.
“... The difference is that you are grown, and I am trapped forever like this. Ever to be judged and assumed.”
She could hardly deny such, the knowledge that Miquella was her own age, and that his intellect outshone hers (or indeed, seemingly anyone within the Lands Between) did little to change the fact that his body had not aged a day since that day when they were just nine years old.
So she changed the direction of the conversation.
“You call him kind and noble.”
“I do.”
“I do not see that.”
Well, the Redmane General did have a reputation as a fair and honourable sort, alongside with being a great and talented warrior in his own regard. Across the land, many spoke that his only worthy rival was the previous Elden Lord, Godfrey, or perhaps Godwyn. Perhaps there was a kernel of truth there; it would be a fascinating match to watch her two half-brothers fight one another.
However...
“Do you not?” There was a hint of heat there, that teenaged irritation at being questioned in what was thought to be a great idea.
She gave a shrug.
“He is also headstrong and foolish, and he is despised by many of his own people in Raya Lucaria for having done so. The Karolos and Olivinus Conspectusus especially loathe and speak openly on his crimes in halting their beloved meteors and stars.”
“And? What of them; the four other Conspetuses have yet to attain ascendancy over the Carian, even given the withdrawal of the Lady Renalla from the majority of affairs.”
Taylor's plate was taken away, as was Miquella's; soon the sweet would be served.
“And he has doomed his sister to never be able to reach her full power. Lunar Princess Ranni, never able to partake in the light of the full moon again, caught between the new moon and the waning crescent he has imposed. Is that a kind thing to have done? He could have at least waited for one of them to be full; instead, in his headstrong nature, he had locked the heavens in place.”
Her brother's eyes trailed to said sister.
She sat, serene, between her two brothers, but there was a distance to her expression, as if she was continually in deep thought or consideration.
Miquella opened his mouth, but she was on a roll now.
“And most of all, tell me, what happens when, someday, Radahn perishes or decides to allow the stars to move once more? Does every star that would have fallen come down at once? What will become of the Lands Between when hundreds of years worth of meteors and comets come crashing down upon us? His conquest of the stars has stopped more from falling yes, but guaranteed that when they eventually do, it shall not be a gentle rain, but a downpour. Would you suffer that thoughtless action and 'kindness' upon yourself, dear brother?”
Silence reigned between them, even as the sounds of the rest of the hall only rose with cheer and chatter as the alcohol flowed.
A sweet was served, some manner of honeyed cake, still gently steaming.
Maela raised a silver spoon, but Miquella did not move, his eyes downcast and staring into nothing.
Perhaps she had gone too far in her efforts to shield him from some youthful crush taken too far. Honestly, they were teenagers; such a thing as a crush, especially on somebody so great as Radahn the Starscourge was understandable... But she remembered well enough what making bad choices felt like, what it was to rush into something when she was not ready. Hadn't that, in many ways, been the story of her first life?
She'd lived for over thirty-five years now between her lives... a little wisdom would come with such.
But still, she felt bad.
She opened her mouth and made to apologise, only for Miquella to speak first, returning his attention to his food.
“Sister is right, he is quite unfitting as a Consort to our person.”
It was perhaps a little cool, or was he embarrassed, seeing what he didn't before and now closing himself off from it?
Miquella took his first bite of her own honeyed cake, and remained quiet for the rest of the evening.
With maturity came duty.
The Lands Between were divided across countless individuals, broken up into countless smaller fiefdoms, and those fiefs answered to successively greater figures, until one reached the Queen. Traditionally, a child of the Golden Lineage, upon coming of age, would be granted some land to oversee, to learn the means and methods of Lordship.
However, such a thing was difficult in this current age, so segmented and parcelled as the Lands Between were.
The Altus Plateau was the domain of the Golden Lineage, save for a small enclave overseen by Praetor Rykard at Mt. Gelmir. Between various elder siblings and minor lords, there was little to not space for them.
Liurnia was divided into countless estates belonging to those of great acclaim within the Academy of Raya Lucaria, with the Carian family holding overall dominion.
Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, from Stormveil in the north to Castle Morne in the south and Fort Gael in the east, was a patchwork land dominated by lesser lords. Perhaps they could have been imposed upon that place, and lesser figures would have been displaced, but it was not to be.
Caelid South of Sellian had been granted to General Radahn following the Starscourge Conflict, and the rest was the Dragonbarrow.
But where, then, should the Empyrean Trio hold court?
The answer was the Consecrated Snowfields, and the ancient yet historied town of Ordina. A place where many of the liturgies of the Golden Order had long been debated, discussed and improved upon, ever wreathed in snow and cold fog.
“I know not whether we have been dearly insulted, or simply there was no other place in all the world...” Malenia commented, not a day after their arrival.
Holed up as they were in the grandest building of Ordina, it was hard not to find complaint in being shipped off to a place so deprived of many of the luxuries and indulgences of Leyndell, where the three of them had spent near their entire lives.
“Do not take on so, sister. We are not nearly so deprived that some time in the snow should lay us low,” Miquella commented, her golden-haired sibling sat at a desk, silverpoint in hand and sketching out some design or plan.
In a vase, a trio of golden lilies he so adored bloomed bravely in spite of the cold.
“At the least, we should have deserved a castle... the vast majority of your knights and escort hole up practically in squalor!”
A laugh was the response to that.
“What use would a castle be? What enemies shall we expect that will not be left frozen in the snows and fog here? The clerics of the town are old, wise, they spend their days discussing theology and cause us little trouble.”
Maela, sitting across the room with her harp, listened with half an ear to the conversation, half to her music.
In truth... she rather missed Leyndell... but so long as she had her siblings, it did not matter.
The only person she missed the company of was Godwyn, who had grabbed the three of them in a bonecrushing hug before their departure and imperiously commanded her (somewhat put-upon) music teacher to accompany them.
“And most of all...” Miquella paused, and then went on, in a softer voice. “This place is beyond prying eyes, there are many things I have long wished to investigate beyond the eyes of the court.”
To that, what could be said?
Life in Leyndell was restrictive, the strictures of royalty held them back... here it was the various Miquellan Knights (as they called themselves), their servants and the small number of locals for company.
Still, for somebody who needed competition and excitement like Malenia, this was a poor choice.
“You are not nearly so deprived, sister,” Maela added. “Castle Sol is not far, and numerous notable knights reside there, if you should like to test yourself. This land is harsh, I imagine there are far greater worthy challenges for you here than to be found in the Altus. Beasts and outlaws still reside in this land, away from our mother's eye.”
Malenia gave a nod of sorts.
“We shall make ourselves happy enough here; I simply begrudge that no other place could be found, one closer and more suitable for ones of our status.”
What a princess.
Well... they were princesses, admittedly.
“It is as it is,” Malenia admitted, turning and heaving for the door. “It is time for me to inspect the knights and ensure that this snowfield is safe enough for us. The two of you, kindly stay here until I can be quite sure we are secure.”
Amidst promises to do so between Miquella and herself, the door closed, and then it was just the two of them.
Beyond, and over the sound of the harp, one could hear the faint taps of Malenia's footsteps growing fainter and fainter down the hall.
“Sister worries for us; if this town has lasted for so long without problem, I rather struggle to imagine we will be troubled here.”
“Everyone needs to find a purpose in the world, especially so when one has the promise of eternal life. Be it organising our safety, hunting or honing her skills, sister will be fine.”
So dedicated to her duty... Malenia had always been their shield, raising and educating herself for the role, perhaps without even realising such. Now, she was one of the pre-eminent swordsmen in the lands and undefeated (at least, so long as you included a few qualifiers).
To watch her fight was to watch a dance as intricate as that of a water fowl, her speed and talents such that she had long since surpassed any teacher despite her tender young age.
Indeed, it rather seemed as if Maela was the outlier in terms of talents.
“What about yourself, Maela? What will you do in our time here?”
She hummed.
What would she do, indeed?
Tempting as it would be simply to live that life of a noble lady, indulgently playing and composing music, perhaps hunting on horseback with her bow, she rather imagined that would get boring after a few decades.
“Oversee the settlement, I imagine. Let me take the strain of overseeing the day to day.” Her lips curled up in a smile. “We all know what happens if I don't take care of you both. If it weren't for me bringing you sandwiches, you may well have starved to death already.”
“That only happened twice, sister.”
“Three times; you forget that time I found you fallen into a duck pond from exhaustion.”
“I was performing a life study and slipped.”
And to that, she laughed, a laugh that echoed off the cold stone walls surrounding them, the walls that with time would become their new home.
After a moment of being serious, Miquella's own shoulders began to shake as he restrained himself, but to no avail. His own soft, child-like laugh joined hers as they both recalled that day. It had been like pulling a blonde cat out of a pond, bedraggled and faintly shell-shocked at what had happened.
Their laughter subsided.
Beyond the window, Maela watched her sister lining up the various Knights sworn to the trio and began an impromptu inspection and training... out in the freezing cold.
Truly, burning passion could keep away the cold... and rot.
“We may need to expand the settlement, could you try to oversee that as well, sister?”
Well, she wasn't an architect.
But then again, simply deciding matters of layout was hardly beyond her education.
“Yes, brother.”
She did not move to depart and immediately set to the duty, being part way through her practice, and instead she continued to play. There was a peace and serenity to this land that was different to Leyndell, the ever falling leaves and golden light spilling through the Erdtree's boughs, and she rather felt like indulging in the perfect canvas of white and the sensations it brought.
Both Leyndell and Brockton Bay, back in her old life, had so rarely seen snow, or it had always melted so quickly...
For a little while more she played, until, done, she rose from her seat, and went to investigate what it was that Miquella was sketching.
The treated paper was lined, in great detail, with lines of from silverpoint. It was no idle sketch by any means, the detail and care that had been invested into the paper represented many hours of exacting and loving care.
“An Erdtree, brother?” Maela asked.
“Yes. One watered by our own blood, its roots joining and entwining with those of the ancient tree that once grew from the shores north of here.”
“... What is it you are planning?”
Golden eyes glanced up at her.
There was calculation behind them, a plan of some sort, and as the nascent butterflies surrounding them shed their soft glow, he smiled.
A smile that looked like it had waited many years.
Whatever genius lurked behind this notion of growing his own Erdtree, it was one that had evidently simmered for a long time, and only been sketched and realised now that they were alone and out of the eye of others.
“This snowfield is insufficient; there are more who wish to join us. The Lands Between are too small, filled with peoples who cannot find a place of their own...” he leaned back, and then, gently, gestured at the sketch. “A place for all, the Demi-Human, the Misbegotten, the Albinauric and the Omen. Those who cannot be accepted within the framework of the Golden Order, a place to explore something... different. A place for compassion, beyond the eyes of the Great Will.”
“You would commit heresy?”
“... I had a good teacher in such, didn't I?” he asked, looking up at her.
It was something that hadn't been discussed since that time, indeed, it had been years since their father had spoken a word beyond the required to her. She still had yet to find the faith to produce even the merest of Incantation, but still, she could not find it.
Indeed, her position had only strengthened with time.
And yet...
“You should not take from my example, dear brother. There is a reason why I am loved the least of the three of us by the people of the Lands Between.”
To that, a defiant shrug.
“I have seen the consequences of the Golden Order; its impotence to save our sister from her curse has already caused me to abandon its fundamentalism. Sister's wisdom has only made it more and more apparent that something different must be made. Something... different. Pure. A gold unalloyed with lesser materials.”
For a long second, Maela considered.
They were twenty years old, their other siblings hundreds, and their parents thousands.
The boldness of youth, yet to be tempered... and which she had known so well in her life as Taylor Hebert, and made so many efforts to consider deeply on in this second life.
“Do not rush, Miquella. One must plan everything carefully,” she said, not speaking to stop him but only bring it to mind. “... Have you considered a name?” she asked.
She did not question whether it was possible; in her brother she had little doubt, considering some of the wonders he had already created in his already limited life.
“Yes...” Miquella reached down, and after a moment, he added a name above the tree. “The Haligtree, the place where we shall investigate a new order.”
Hand in hand with her brother, Maela gazed upon his work.
“It grows so quickly.”
“The roots sink deep, and have bonded with those of the ancient tree that once stood here, burned and lain low by the ancient giants that once dominated this land,” Miquella replied.
In a field of flowers at the base of the rapidly growing Haligtree, the two Empyrean siblings stood, gazing upwards.
Before them was a tree, one already larger than any normal tree growing in the lands between. Be it in the ancient Mistwood or the countless small copses, glades and forests across the land, none but the Erdtree's or its lesser sprouts could possibly compare to the specimen of plant-life before them.
“I still question how you found this location, no more than an ancient stump rising from the sea,” she murmured.
Currently, the juvenile Haligtree rose from a mass of ancient, petrified roofs emerging from a small landmass just to the north of the Mountaintops of Giants... but with time, its roots would spread, soil would fill in the gaps, creating a small land all of its own.
“I recalled a book I read when I was four years, a history of the War with the Giants.”
“Your memory disturbs me at times.”
It was a golden age for them.
Miquella's research had yielded the first prototypes of Unalloyed Gold, delicate needles that had some small capacity to ward off malign influences. Weapons imbued with the same material possessed a certain faith and power of their own, and as the number of those flocking to Miquella's voice grew, day by day, more and more their small community grew.
In truth, Maela was occupied most days just with the day-to-day administration of things, but her efforts were yielding results.
Each moment extra her efforts afforded her siblings was another that they could strive, after all.
The Haligtree was growing so very quickly, just two weeks ago it had been but a sprout, at this rate, it may well pierce the clouds within a few short years—
“Sister, brother!”
Maela turned her head.
Malenia was rushing towards, rushing towards them, crossing the flower-strewn stretch of land with all the speed of a charging cheetah.
“Sister?”
“Brother Godwyn is dead!”
Her heart jumped into her throat, Maela's hand, half raised to greet her sister, paused in place.
“I... what?”
“The news just reached us, it happened some days ago, assassins wielding fragments of the Rune of Destined Death snuck into the capital and did it,” she explained.
Her sister's distinctive winged helmet disguised her face, but her jaw was set, she spoke in a tone of forced control that disguised greater depths of emotion.
It took a moment for Maela to realise that her vision was blurry with tears, rather than shock, and in the arms and comfort of her sister and brother, she allowed some small tears for the only other member of the Golden Lineage she had come to truly love in her second life.
Not a day after the news had reached them about the death of their brother, the full consequences of this news struck.
Maela held up her hand, staring at the circle and symbol depicted in light that hung above it.
The fragment above her palm was one of the great runes that comprised the greater Elden Ring. Some part of her instinctually recognised it; any child of the Golden Lineage had to memorise the various aspects of the Elden Ring as part of their childhood studies.
The Great Rune of Preservation, long associated with maintaining the state of the world, with the stagnancy that had overtaken it. How ironic, all this time she had been trying to preserve her dear sister from her rot and shield her brother from foolishness, and now here such a choice was here, made manifest.
And with it, came a message, transmitted not by word, or by instinct, it simply... was;
“Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices...”
What a joke.
Fight or die.
Become ascendant over the others.
And if you do not, you shall be devoured.
It was the same cruel, pointless cycle as before in another form, children of strength raised purely to become ascendant, until there was just one left. Okay, it was not quite the same, but it was close enough.
And it infuriated her.
She could feel the Great Rune itching at the back of her mind, like a gnawing worm trying to push her. It desired to be put to use, to be rejoined to a greater whole... were it not for the fact that Maela vividly recalled (and often, woke from nightmares involving) her passenger in her previous life, perhaps she would have fallen prey to the insidious anxiety it represented.
A tool to both elevate the demigods, but also drive them to fight one another, oh, what would Lisa have thought about such a system?
What form of lesser being to Scion was the Greater Will, or perhaps, how differently did it act?
When, later, she met up with her siblings to discuss the development, it was to find that, as she suspected, they too had been similarly graced.
To Malenia, the Great Rune of Decay.
To Miquella, the Great Rune of Abundance.
'How cruel you are, mother.'
For her brother, who she knew had secretly longed to escape his curse—
“The other demigods will devour one another. Do you two feel it as well? That sudden, insidious desire to take part in this madness?”
By their expressions and the way they paused, they had not, and it was only with a moment of reflection that they did. Miquella's expression pulled into a frown, and then a scowl.
“Mother desires us to fight until there is just one left; this entire time she has raised the Lands Between in preparation to slaughter one another and form some new aspect of her precious order. She wishes for the demigods to either become the new Elden Lord, rather than father, or else become Gods and replace her.”
“And for us?”
“We are Empyrean. We can be forge a new order, not as Elden Lord consorts to mother, but as gods in our own right. The only other like us is Lunar Princess Ranni, whose fate cannot proceed so long as General Radahn lives.”
Silence fell between them, as the question that had, for so long, gone unasked between them was left to hang in the air.
It was Malenia who was first to speak.
“I have forsaken that opportunity; whatever influence the Rot within me desires for this world is not anything I wish to see come to pass.”
“I don't care for divinity, it is just another form of the same order, and as we can all see, it is wrong in form. Any time one person stands above all others with power, it just leads to this...” she waved a hand. “To the Golden Order, to suffering. The larger and grander the organisation gets, the more ungainly. Especially with meddling gods or monsters.”
And to Miquella...
Their brother looked off to the side, gaze distant, Maela could practically see the gears turning in his brain as he considered the matter.
“Brother?”
“... Long have I considered godhood to escape my nascency...” he murmured, a soft admittance. “This burden that ensures nothing I attempt that ever truly come to pass is intolerable, no matter how high or grand my efforts or aspirations... but given our mother's desires for us...” Miquella looked up, fixing Maela with a look. “Gods have been slain before, have they not they, sister?”
He was asking her specifically, and some small part of her sank at the question. Those eyes were too piercing.
“Demigods, yes—” Malenia began, but she was interrupted.
“No. true gods, as we know them, right, Maela? Scion, those stories you've told us, they were all real, weren't they?”
...
...
She sighed as her shoulders slumped.
The perceptive little shit had known or suspected as much for a while, hadn't he? As Malenia looked towards her in askance, a response dying on her lips as she looked at Maela's face, she gave a single nod.
“How did you know?”
“Whenever you told us stories, it was like how soldiers would tell them, as if you were recalling from a distant memory, rather than something you had imagined. The details were too complete, the characters too real. No storyteller would ever come up with some of the small intricacies you mentioned, they are the domain only of real life, imperfect and flawed as it is.”
“But sisters stories were impossible, a different place...”
“A different life, one I can remember, reborn here.”
Malenia had paused utterly, and even if the upper portion of her face was hidden and disguised from them, she knew that for her as well countless pieces were suddenly falling into place.
“You were the first to walk, to talk, and so many other things,” Malenia declared.
“It's a lot less difficult when you've done it all before,” Maela admitted, and wondered, silently, whether this was the moment she had considered for so long.
After all, how do you adjust to the fact that your entire life, your sibling has not truly been such?
“Sister has done so much to preserve us, after being part of all that? Preparing us for the possibility?”
“Something like that. At first, it was just to entertain you both, but with time, as I saw more and more of the Lands Between and the Golden Order, the more I realised that it could well be one of the same, if a different form. Either way, now we have to decide what we do. Do we take part in this preposterous war of the demigods, which will lead to much the same order as before, or something else? I grow tired of this stagnancy.”
The question, she posed to them both.
In the silent garden of white flowers at the base of the Haligtree, there was only silence for a few moments as the other two Empyreans considered.
She could see the way they glanced at each other.
Between them, they could make an impact on this grand war; they were a trio of true-born godlings, after all. Miquella's voice alone could compel the weak, Malenia was matched only by Radahn and some small select few in terms of martial arts.
And she, Maela... well, it was not the same as Gold Morning, but she had abundant experience to put to use in this sort of situation.
If they wished, then they could take part in it; it was supposedly a matter of fight or die, after all.
It was Malenia who spoke up,
“We reject the path that mother has laid out before us, then. Allow our foolish, errant demigod siblings to war among themselves? They shall fight over Leyndell first, and exhaust themselves in their efforts to do so. And in that time, we progress and expand, our knights are already many, our position furthest and safest...”
“Yes, Sister. My efforts to research Unalloyed Gold progress well, we can seek a different path, an Age of Compassion and Unalloyed Gold, free of the influence of the Greater Will and its ilk.”
The suggestion put forth, the pact was made between them.
To seek an Age of Unalloyed Gold, free from the influence of the gods and Greater Will.