Coquelicot locked the door to her quarters in the royal castle of Mournvalley and let out a deep sigh she had been keeping in for the better part of a day. As the new queen, her job description had changed from an assassin of sorts to a military commander and then to a leader of an entire country and a diplomat in a very short time, and it was starting to take its toll on her. She yearned to return to the simpler days when she received a task that she simply needed to carry out as efficiently as possible, but for the good of her people and the world by extension, she had to stick with the plan she and Alizarin had created ages ago. There was no one else capable enough to lead the country into a better tomorrow besides her, so she didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter either.
Things had calmed down over the few months that had passed after Amaranth’s death, and relations with other nations had been established. The number of fat kings and pampered queens she had met since then was staggering, and she hated every single one of them. The old Coquelicot would have no doubt killed most of them on the spot, regardless of consequences, but now she had to consider their alliances with other nations, trade and just general good manners.
She sat down by her writing table, that was now filled with messages from other kingdoms and trade contracts instead of maps and names of targets that needed to be dealt with. After popping open a bottle of some newly imported wine and pouring herself a generous glassful, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, hoping for a moment of rest. Yet only a few seconds later she could feel one of her inquisitors approach the door to her chamber well before they actually knocked on it.
“My Queen, we’ve caught another assassin.” The inquisitor reported from behind the door.
Coquelicot sighed. “Of course you have, there are apparently more assassins in the world than there are stars in the night sky.” She commented mostly to herself. “You know the drill by now; skin them and send them back home in a bag.”
The inquisitor quietly left to carry out the deed, and the queen of necromancers returned to her thoughts. Though many countries across the world had welcomed Mournvalley with open arms, there were some that were less than pleased about their sudden entrance into the political scene. Some of them unpleased enough that they were sending an assassin after another in an attempt to end Coquelicot’s reign as soon as possible. Of course, none of the assassins had even the slightest chance and would always be captured before they even saw the castle or much less the queen herself.
“Can’t one of those cowards declare a proper war? I could really go for one right about now. Just blow off some steam, raze a city or two and maybe kill some of the royalty.” She muttered and swirled the wine in her glass. “Maybe a lot of royalty.”
“Pointless wars were not a part of our plan.” Pointed out a familiar voice suddenly.
Coquelicot wasn’t the type to get shocked by much, but hearing those words made her drop her glass and jump up from the chair. “Alizarin?!” She yelled and frantically looked around. “Where are you?!”
“Come on now, dear, you are better than this. You know perfectly well that I am gone.” Her late husband’s voice echoed from somewhere, seemingly without a specific location, almost like it was in her head.
The queen of the necromancers took a deep breath and tried to collect herself again before sitting back down. She took her crown off and placed it neatly on the table before grabbing a new glass for some more wine but wasn’t able to pour any because she barely had control over her shaky arms. The bottle slipped from her grasp and spilled over the documents on the table, eventually rolling over the edge and shattering on the stone floor.
“Fuck! What is going on?!” She exclaimed and kicked over a nearby chair.
“My guess would be stress.” Alizarin’s voice suggested. “You’ve had a busy few months and barely get any sleep.”
“Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up! You are dead! I saw your corpse and properly disposed of it.” She reminded herself, hoping It would silence the voice in her head. “I am not this weak!” She screamed and kicked her table, mostly just hurting her foot and not achieving much.
“It isn’t a matter of strength, my dear poppy.” The voice explained. “You are the most fearsome person I ever met, but you too are just a human at the end of the day. You have a limit just like everyone else, and I would say that if you are hearing voices, that limit is coming up fast.”
Coquelicot limped over to her bed and lied down, trying to force herself to calm down. She couldn’t believe that after years of working as an inquisitor and arranging a takeover of an entire country, it would be paperwork and courtesy meetings that finally cracked her. She tried to convince herself that she just needed some time out in the field, doing what she excelled at, but it didn’t work in the slightest.
“That might help for a while, but you know that is not going to last.” Alizarin’s voice commented. “In my opinion, or I suppose yours as well since I am just a figment of your exhausted mind, you need to talk to someone. Not only do you have the weight of this nation on your shoulders right after losing me, but it is a burden you were not supposed to carry alone in the first place.”
Trying to ignore the voice of her dead husband, Coquelicot picked up a book on some ancient necromancer lord she had begun reading months ago but never had the time to finish. She started reading a new page and after reaching the last line on it, she realized that nothing she had just read had actually stuck on. Even after two more attempts, she had retained nothing of the page’s contents, and had only skimmed through the words without paying attention to them. In her frustration, the necromancer queen ripped the book in half and threw the pieces at the wall on the other side of the chamber.
“Are you listening to me again?” The voice in her head asked.
Every time the voice spoke, Coquelicot felt pain, though not in a way she was used to; physical pain was nothing new to her, but what she felt was a new kind of agony, something she hadn’t built a resistance to. It was like both her heart and throat were being strangled, but both of them seemed untouched by necromancy. There wasn’t anyone strong enough to do that to her in the castle either, so she couldn’t understand what was happening.
“No one is attacking you, you’re doing that to yourself. Feelings are complicated like that.” Alizarin’s voice explained. “But as I was saying, find someone to talk to. Your urge to kill Anastacia for what happened to me may have passed, but that doesn’t mean you are over the entire thing– far from it really. You haven’t allowed yourself the time to process it, nor have you opened up to anyone.”
“I don’t need this, I have better things to do.” Coquelicot scoffed at the imaginary voice’s suggestions.
“Yes, you do need this, you are literally arguing with yourself. But I understand why, it is because you have no one to talk to. The red inquisition is gone and buried, you can not show any signs of weakness to your students or subjects, even my no-good brother is off somewhere in some faraway corner of the world, pursuing his research. Anastacia, your only equal, will not listen to a word from you, and that’s everyone worth mentioning in your life. Face it, Coquelicot, Queen of Mournvalley, you are alone in this world.” The voice stated boldly.
For a while longer, Coquelicot tried to catch even a blink of sleep before having to return to her duty, but any time she managed to relax and stop thinking about her work, her late husband’s voice was there to taunt her. Eventually trying to sleep became more tiring than actually working, and Coquelicot gave up. She had no idea how long it had been since she retired to her quarters, but that hardly mattered.
“I am done with this, there are new necromancers being born on a daily basis and I need to find them. I don’t have time for hearing voices.” She muttered and headed to the baths, hoping that it would refresh her mind even slightly.
“That’s alright, my dear, I’ll be waiting for the next quiet moment. I have all the time in the world.” The voice of Alizarin responded.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Far in the north from both Valor and Mournvalley, grew a vast and untamed frozen forest. Covered in pure white snow, the whole forest seemed like it was asleep. Every single animal was huddled up in their nests and burrows, just waiting for the long months of winter to be over. Only thing breaking the perfect stillness of the woodland was a small figure calmly walking in the freezing weather. Clothed in tattered brown cloak that was far too big for it, the figure traversed on the snow, leaving no traces whatsoever behind. Completely unhindered by the freezing gusts of wind, it followed a trail of fresh blood on the snow. Something had dragged itself through the woods, stumbling and slipping on every step while bleeding profusely, obviously in a doomed attempt to flee from whatever had caused its injuries. As the figure calmly ventured onwards, a new coat of snow started to fall on the forest. The traveler stopped briefly to catch a few snowflakes from the air before continuing. One step at the time, the bloody tracks in the snow turned into a messy crawl, spreading the bright red color everywhere, until finally the figure spotted the creature leaving them in the distance.
Laying in the snow without a cover, was something so malformed and hideous that no scholar could have guessed what it was even supposed to be. Covered in randomly spread out tufts of dark hair, warts and lumps, the pale skin of the monstrosity was something no one would touch even as a dare, and the horrendous hunched over structure resembled nothing that should have ever been born naturally. By its size, someone could have assumed that it was an extremely malnourished and disease-ridden bear, but that was as far as the similarities went. One of its forelegs was stunted, undeveloped and clearly nonfunctional, and the other one ended in a huge, four-fingered claw. Yet all of this paled in in comparison to the horror that was its face; one massive bulging eye that constantly spewed pus and a second, cloudy, much smaller one, accompanied by a maw of needle-like teeth. The hideousness of the creature was no doubt the reason it now had three arrows sticking out of its side. Presumably some hunter from the nearby tribes had spotted it lurking in the woods and decided to put it out of its misery.
With the last few ounces of its strength, the vile creature snarled at the figure that had pursued it through the forest. With one last swipe of its claw, it caught the rugged cloak and tore it from its wearer. Seeing what was under the cloth made the yelp in terror and whimper miserably.
Vilja stared at the creature and frowned. “What have they done to you, poor child?!” She bemoaned and snapped her fingers, making the arrows in the creature’s side turn into smoke and drift away with the cold breeze. She gently stroked the bumps along the beast’s spine and sat down in the snow next to it, allowing the creature to lower its weary head on her lap. “Sorry I can’t make your life any better, I’m not that type of a god, I can’t even save you now. Nor am I the singsongy type, so we’ll just have to wait for the dark to come in silence.” She explained as her long silvery hair began wrapping itself around the creature to embrace and calm it down. “I can’t even really avenge you. As much as I’d like to scorch the lands of those responsible, it’s against my nature. No one wants you to exist and taking revenge for someone finally acting on it, would put things way out of order. So what I’m saying is that I’m basically here just to keep the wolves away until you’re done. That’s the best I can do.” While prattling on, the goddess didn’t even notice the falling snow building up on her head, she was far too engrossed in her work and keeping the creature company.
Over the next few hours, as the creature’s breathing became more and more labored, Vilja kept talking about the things she had learned about the gods and their place in the world. The light snowfall slowly turned into a full-blown blizzard, but that didn’t faze her either.
“I don’t often have the time to visit the critters of the world that fall under my name, so this is… well not nice exactly, but you get the idea. A friend of mine has some kind of plan going on and I promised to help, I don’t mind but it’s time consuming and the flow of time is extremely confusing for us gods. Anyway, I have no idea if the fact that I’m here makes you lucky or unlucky. Just because I know who you are makes you extremely unlucky, but at least you don’t have to die alone like most of the things that belong to me. Almost all of them are completely unaware of the fact that I know each and every single one of them by heart and love them all dearly. Sometimes I think it’s just not fair that-“ She suddenly stopped her monologue. “Did you die?”
Vilja shook the snow off her head and stood up. A few drops of ink-like black liquid flowed out of the vacuous holes she had for eyes and fell on the snow, while her hair released the limp creature and let it rest on the cold ground. The goddess then plunged her hand deep into the carcass and pulled it out without causing so much as a wound. In her fist, she held a small sphere of light that had a slight purple tint to it. Vilja held it against the darkening sky and marveled at it for a while before remembering where she was and starting to tinker with it. After a couple of minutes of scratching, scraping and cursing, the goddess tore off a dark purple nugget of light from the sphere and tossed it into her mouth. Despite its small size, it had plenty of flavor and Vilja savored every bit of it. The light snack also gave her the energy to carry on with her already lengthy visit to the mortal realm.
The bigger orb of light lost its tint and changed into a white, much brighter color. Though incredibly beautiful and captivating, the white held no value to the goddess, so she simply crushed the orb with her fist and spread the dust into the wind. “Go become something better, something that doesn’t need me.” She muttered, took one last glance at the creature and began tearing a hole into the realm so she could return to her own.
Intentionally appearing a couple of hundred meters above her limitless forest, Vilja took aim and climbed through the gap. She barreled towards the clearing she and Sylvia used as the base of their operations at an increasing speed and did some small adjustments with her hair on the way down. Unfortunately, her target moved slightly right as she was about to land, and Vilja glanced off Sylvia’s shoulder and cratered into the ground next to her.
The surprised Goddess of Joy yelped and dropped the small lump of wriggling flesh she was carrying.
“That was unexpectedly cute of you.” Vilja laughed, lying in a small hole her landing had made and wiped the dirt from her face.
“Why are you so insistent on surprising me? Is this a mortal ruse?” Sylvia asked and picked up the lump before it could wiggle away. “How did you fare on your outing?”
“I found what I was looking for, bit of a bummer as always, if that’s what you’re asking. Did you miss me?” Vilja grinned.
Sylvia kneeled next to the lifeless body of the simulacrum prince and started moving its joints. “I always do, I have grown very fond of the ambient nonsense you cause in your wake. However, I have my ways of making sure the time keeps flowing.” She smiled kindly.
Vilja hopped over to see what her friend was working on. “You mean spying on Emilia?”
“Whatever could you mean? I merely make sure she spreads joy in the moments of her life where it matters the most.” Sylvia explained, choosing her words carefully.
Vilja laughed. “Riiiiiiiiight, you’re just making sure, miss I-cause-fires-in-people’s-bedrooms.” She mocked the other goddess over a recent incident. “Anyway, what are you working on?”
“This child of stone and metal appears to be in a functional state, breaking a limb or two barely slows them down, but the reason for its quietness is the lack of a source of power.” The Goddess of Joy explained and carefully slid her finger on the rim of a small round hole in the simulacrum’s chest. “This particular little one is much like the ones you could see during my days in the mortal world. The more recent ones are cold and unfeeling, they lack the spark of life and inspiration their creators once passed down to them, and would no doubt be wholly insufficient to end this one’s slumber.”
“Okay? What are you getting at here? I only know one other simulacrum like the prince and I sure as fuck am not going to take the part from him.” Vilja frowned and took the simulacrum’s hand.
Sylvia seemed almost offended by the suggestion. “I would never even dream of such horrors! The joy of your mortal double is intertwined with the machine she holds dear, it saddens me that you think I would be capable of taking that away from her.” She exclaimed and started to heat up her surroundings but calmed down before it became an issue. “My sincerest apologies for that… What I wished to imply is that there might just be another way. A certain loudmouthed goddess visited the mortal realm a while ago and recovered the core of nigh infinite energy and life.” The goddess continued and held up the pulsating clump of meat Vilja had brought from Ebonywatch.
Sylvia pressed the lump of meat against the simulacrum’s chest and wiggled it around to make sure it entered slot that was intended for the power source. At first the fleshy lump was reluctant to co-operate, but eventually had no other choice than to slip into the gaps in the simulacrum’s armor, and as soon as that happened, the grooves in the prince’s chest lit up in brightly. However, the usual light blue hue was replaced by a bright red color that slowly spread along the patterns carved into the simulacrum. The machine let out a droning hum and began to convulse violently and Sylvia had to lift her hand to make sure she didn’t break anything, since on the divine scale, simulacra were fragile at best. As the shaking and flailing continued, the missing parts were replaced by fleshy imitations that started as rapidly growing bone structures that somewhat resembled human limbs and then sprouted full of tendons and muscle that arranged themselves in fitting positions.
“Well that was gross, but I think it worked.” Vilja said when the simulacrum finally calmed down again. “Hello? Anyone there?” She asked and waved her hand over the machine’s face.
The simulacrum prince slapped her hand aside, quickly stood up and darted into the forest without so much as a glance at either of the goddesses, who were left stunned as the red lights disappeared among the massive trees of Vilja’s forest.