Legends of Iloy - 1 - Abedlaïkas and Everflame

Once upon a time was a princess. She was the most beautiful princess that ever existed, as she had a skin like copper and smooth like silk, with dark long hair braided with always-blooming red flowers, Asters and Anemones, Orchids and hellebores and, of course, roses. She had chocolate lips and eyes like emeralds, long and nimble fingers, slender arms and unending legs. You could have tough that she was frail, brittle even, but all that had tried to subdue her, to conquer her and to crush her, she had crushed, conquered and subdued back, with her sword and her armour and her oh so powerful flame. Clad in fire, she was a princess, and a protector too, protector of her mother’s and father’s throne and kingdom, pride of each man and woman under her wings. Her name had been lost to time, but we know her as Everflame. She loved her people and was married to the kingdom, and they loved her back all the same. Where she walked, hope sprouted like mushrooms after the rain, where she fought monster fell like flies in a fire, where she wept all living shed tears with her. The kingdom was safe thanks to her, and this stayed eternally…

"Is that really true grandma? She was really the most beautiful princess ever?" "Ahahah, I don't really know, legends are not really reliable. There is some part of truth in them, but remember those are very old tales. Maybe some of those things did not happen like that." "Okay. Keep going, please!" The grandmother smiled, and started telling this tale once more.

Until one day, a prince presented himself at the door of her castle. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Unlike the other prince, he had callous hands and trained arms, scars were scattered all over his skin. He was tall, nearly as tall as she was, and his gaze at this glint that only experienced hunters had, and his short hair was tied in a bun. Wary, her hand on her sword hilt, she looked at him but, surprisingly, he didn’t ask for her hand or anything. He knelt, one knee on the floor, his powerful hammerhead down in front of him. In a deep voice, he begged at the castle door, begged for help. His kingdom was assaulted by powerful fire beasts, monsters rolling down from the Surt, the long chain of volcanoes that threatened their land since time immemorial. He had heard of Everflame, the princess wilding fire, and begged her to help him save his people, his country. Touched by his display, Everflame went to her parents, asking them the Sunblade, the divine artefact that protected their kingdom. The king and the queen, however, refused, saying that she could not wield the artefact for another nation. Heartbroken, she said to the prince that she couldn’t help him and he went back to his land. As he was going, Everflame asked him to send her letters, as she wanted to know how the conflict was evolving. Three months later, as she was celebrating her eighteen birthday, she received a letter. The defence of the prince land had yielded. People were killed, burned or eaten alive. Tears started to flow from her eyes as, even if those were not her people, they were people, and she couldn’t stand suffering. The same night, as guards were relaxed from the party, she abused her identity as the princess and stole the Sunblade. The sword was stuck in a pitch-black rock, and only those worthy could wield it. When she put her hand on the hilt, the sword gave away, falling in her hand by its own will, as even if she was stealing it, she was taking it to save innocents.

This night, over her castle, a magnificent firebird appeared. Those few who were looking saw that a tiny figure was ridding th back of the bird, seemingly holding a pure sun ray on one of its hands. The firebird talked with her in a soft voice, resonating with the sword that had given birth to him, talking about the secrets of fire, of the sun and the earth, of their beating hearts and how to let them flow around her. They kept talking as they were flying to save the prince and his country, and the blade kept telling her that the princess needed to save everyone.

The prince, a great wizard and weapons-master, had been keeping the Great Bridge for two days and two nights, as people kept fleeing from the invaded land on the other side of the Lazy River, killing firebeast after fire beast. As dawn of the third day flooded the world with its light, giving despair in place of hope to those that wanted to live, another sun rose from the horizon. Covered in blood from head to toe, exhausted, bleeding and surrounded by corpses, Everflame looked at him and felt something moving in her heart, moved by his courage, his resolve. And so the sun fell, and the land was set on fire, and the firebeasts ran for their lives as the goddess of fire herself was burning them and fighting them. She saved the land, the kingdom, the people, everyone. At the end of the day, the prince had proposed a wedding. At the end of the night, she had accepted it. Her parent were furious, and ordered her to come back, but with the sunblade at her hip and the prince at her side, she feared nothing, and refused their order. She was banned from her birth kingdom, and it saddened her, and the people of her former kingdom, but with her lover to support her, she soon forget about this. They drove the beasts away, slowly taking back their land under the lead of Everflame. With each passing day she was becoming stronger and stronger, the sword teaching her more and more about fire, taking care of her and treating her like a queen. She and the prince were having a blissful life as everything worked out when they worked together. Finally, one day, they penetrated deep into the Surt and Everflame asked the other to back of, as she was the only one able to survive the fire of the earth.

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There, as the prince had told her, she encountered the king of the firebeast. A giant of liquid gold and steel, hitting a humongous anvil with a gigantic hammer. He saw her come in his lonely palace but didn’t attack her, and she didn’t attack him. He was forging something and she looked at him working, charmed by the way he moved. After each strike, sparks would fall everywhere and from them would appear firebeasts that rushed through the palace without looking once at the princess. Once he had finished his work, he ejected Everflame from his place, letting her in front of black rocks in the middle of the volcanoes. The prince and the princess talked about the incident, and they quickly came to realize that could the giant if they wanted peace to settle down. And so the prince created a plan to kill the giant. Each day, Everflame went to look the giant working, as he wasn’t attacking her. Slowly, she got closer to him, until one they, he started talking with her. With single words at the start, then more and more. She discovered that he was lonely here, that someone at stolen something from him. As time passed, he grew fond of the human, teaching her how to forge and use her fire and, one day, Everflame said she was in love with him. The giant wavered and they talked and talked. His voice reminded the princess of someone, but she couldn’t pinpoint who.

Finally, the giant lay his heart bare to her feet, as he was, too, in love with this human that could bend fire to her will. She took his heart and fled with it to her prince. She watch the giant dying, she felt his pain and sadness through the heart that she kept with her. She gave the giant’s heart to her princess and, as he was taking it, she felt frost swallowing her. The prince had an evil grin on his face and he took back the poisoned needle he had used on his wife. She pried the giant’s heart out of his hands and fell, curling up around it on the ground. She understood now. The voice of her blade, it was the daughter of the giant talking to her, hoping that the princess could save her dad. She felt now, the love that the giant had for herself. She fell now, in despair as she understood the prince had tricked her, as she understood that her heart was to the giant and his daughter, not to this evil princess. She died, curled around her blade and her heart, the two things that mattered the most to her. Too late, she was cold, only her own heart had a tiny flame left. Seeing this, the prince was overjoyed. Now, with the Sunblade, the divine artefact of his rival kingdom, with the Everflame, the heart of their princess, with Abeldlaïkas heart, the giant of sun and earthfire, finally, he could create the most powerful artefact! He ripped her heart out of her body, melted the blade and burned the giant’s heart, harvested his corpse and mixed all Together. In his brilliant madness, he forged something, a ring, a ring of pure gold and fire. For ten years he reigned by flame and terror, conquering all that stood, burning all that defied, torturing all that opposed. And one day, he died. Nobody knew what he died from, but his daughter, in her greed, took the ring and reigned at his place. She died, one year later, and since then, everyone that took the ring died in mysterious circumstances. More and more people talked about the curse, the curse of the unfound lovers that died from one another, of the Everflame and the giant that loved without knowing, that died without one another, f the princess and Abedlaïkas that forged together, that lived together, that died from the other, of the evil prince that was their downfall.

“...That’s all? What happened after that?” Asked the little girl. “After that?” the old woman smiled

In a forest, at the bottom of a river, something glistened. A young woman that fell on the river was started and soon recovered it. She put in on her finger… “And what happens next, you’ll need to wait a bit to discover it! Now, to bed!” “Ooooh. Okay. Goodnight!” “Goodnight.” The old woman looked through her window. What happens next… I’m curious to see it, too. Under her gaze, a city was extending in every direction, illuminated by an army of tiny light crystals.