RP:A Contract of Queens

From HollowWiki

Frozen Graveyard

"Faimiaelakora."


The permafrost, an element stalwart and unshakable, shudders for the first time in its ancient memory.


"Faimiaelakora. Heed my call."


A sky already black with storm clouds darkens to an abyssal shade where it churns above Frostmaw's ruins.


"Faimiaelakora. Your children bleed and die to call you."


The wild dancing lightning of the storm stills, slinking back into the safety of its clouds as if too fearful to descend to the land below.


At Satoshi's feet lie the remains of two ice devils, their spined forms maimed and rended, left to sprawl in twisted shapes before her. Their blood soaks the snow, staining it a near black and spilling the concoction into the deeply engraved lines, runes, sigils, and marks that serve as a summoning circle. Two days Satoshi has spent carving the markings into the ice, double-checking her work and knowledge, ensuring their perfection, and all the while murmuring the words she needs.


Stolen from a memory that is not hers, the knowledge has been regarded with wariness and inspected from a distance for months, until the magus has assured herself as much as is possible. Wetutherag's was a mind so soaked in treachery that nothing he spoke or thought can be considered truth. To unwind his memories was a heavy undertaking in and of itself, only worsened by the constant, insidious, and impatient whispers of Bozrah and Asorial. -They- wanted this done long ago, to rush in without thought or precaution, to make the call and risk her existence on a whim.


Satoshi may be a capricious creature in most cases, but beneath that quick smile and casual air, there lurks a predator of infinite patience. She would never have lived as long as she has by acting on every wish or whim. Instinct runs deep, demanding caution and care in this situation. For nearly a year has she waited. Since defeating Wetutherag. She has waited. Waited and worked.


And now is the time. Once more the magus speaks to the circle, voice as quiet as snowfall but as unrelenting and dominating as the glaciers themselves, "Faimiaelakora. You will answer."


In a blaze of sanguine... it cannot truly be called light, for it creates no illumination yet is illuminated itself as if burning with a fire from another world. The shade of crimson is much more akin to the abyss, devouring the light into itself and thus growing in strength and clarity. It rises up in perfect order through the lines in the snow, to slither with searching fingers for one tiny crack in the design. One flaw, one weakness. One mistake. That's all it needs... All the way around it travels and fills the circle in its search.


Satoshi waits and watches, face unreadable and body statue-still.


Without warning the non-light howls. An unwordly scream that stabs into the heart of every living being to hear it for miles around. It is a cry breed from the pits of Hell and mated to the howls of tormented spirits. Animals in the surrounding ruins and woods flee for their burrows, the people of Frostmaw hug weapons and family closer without understanding why. The land itself shivers and groans, dreading the sound.


And Satoshi simply smirks. She feels the primal fury of the sound pierce to her frosted heart, she feels her instinct shout for her to turn tail and flee, yet she stands firm. She does not fear the scream. It is a sound she has been waiting to hear. For it means the One called is unable to escape her design.


Onward the wail goes for moments more before the Lady of Frostmaw scowls, head tipping to one side as her narrowed gaze fixes on the center of the circle. "A tantrum is most unbecoming. I expected better."


Quicker than thought, the outspread non-light retreats to condense at the circle's middle, a roiling sphere of shadow, blood, and worse. From its turbulent center extends a foot, bare of shoe or cloth, seven toes and single heel unnaturally smooth spikes. Following is the connecting leg, home to a line of matching spines, a limb nauseating to behold for its disjointed elegance with knees folding in reverse and carrying more bends and joints than any living creature. None of it is covered in true flesh, instead encased as if in ice--not the black ice of Wetutherag nor the ethereal blue-white of the ice devils, this shade is a filthy mockery of ice, perfectly smooth yet so tainted with foul grays, sick browns, vile purples, and corrupted blacks as to be a hellish color all of its own. When the second leg steps forward, the being is fully visible, for its full height is only as far as its hips reach--or rather, the scorpion-like tail that arches out from its tailbone. If it had ever been of human construct, it has been cruelly twisted and broken into the entity it is now, for its spine has been rent downwards to leave its torso hanging between the legs. An arching back allows its bare-breasted torso and head to extend up past the knees in a contortionist's nightmare. The only part of its structure that appears normal is the placement of its arms, just the same as any human's would be, spared the grotesque shaping of the rest of the body... and thus all the more obscene, when the creature places its palms on the ground and trots forward a pace, legs and arms moving in a fluidly lupine stride.


Satoshi takes the sight in with emotions still held behind a blank mask. She had known what shape the being took and braced herself accordingly, yet it is still a shock to the mind to behold its motions with the eye. To behold it is to behold blasphemy itself. Every line, joint, spike, and gesture of it is wrong, in every sense of the word. Satoshi is one with a will of true-steel, and still she feels the waves of revulsion roiling within her. Wetutherag had been a trial to look at but this... this is far, far more. It is as if her very soul is being groped and violated by unwanted black hands.


And the creature knows it. Where a face should be, there is nothing, save for a single ragged slash vaguely reminiscent of a mouth, stitched closed with thick black twine. Upon turning its blank face toward Satoshi, that mouth stretches to sickening lengths in a macabre smile.


"You fear me," it mocks in a voice as sweet and soft as any flower maiden singing in Spring. The stolen voice of innocence works in perfect discord with the rest of its structure.


Satoshi's ears unconsciously fold back upon hearing the voice. The creature's smile twists and widens, stretching the cording to its maximum. With a force of will, the Eidolon brings her vulpine ears forward once more to join the rest of her body in a position of regal arrangement. When she speaks, her voice betrays nothing of what is going on in her mind and heart, it is clear, concise, and almost mocking in tone, "One would be a fool to not fear you. And yet I called you nonetheless. That tells you enough. Faimiaelakora."


The creature flinches as if struck with a burning whip. Except that a fiery lash would hurt far less than hearing a creature of the living realm speak her name. "How did yo-"


"You know full well how. Do not play stupid."


Of course Faimiaelakora knows. Standing before her is the elementalist that had dared to devour the essence of her mate. The secrets of the Ruins King would be an open book to his slayer, and so too would Faimiaelakora, wife of Wetutherag.


The Ruins Queen nods her elegantly horned head, sending sparse lanks of greasy, matted blond hair slithering with the motion. "Yes, it tells me enough. You are either bravely foolish, or foolishly brave. Both types have called me before and I have eaten them each in turn."


Satoshi simply blinks. She was being baited, she knew, and she also knew that acting as if it bored her would be as fatal a move as rising to take the bait itself. Instead, the magus doesn't react at all. "I congratulate you on your victories of the past. I did not waste time and resources calling you for a chat among ladies, however."


If Faimiaelakora had eyes, she would likely have narrowed them. Who is this creature? With ease, the Mother of Ice Devils can look into the hearts of mortals, and yet, this one she cannot. There is nothing there to see or take hold of. No emotions, no stray thoughts. It is like trying to grasp the glass-smooth face of a glacier, leaving claws to scrabble uselessly for purchase that isn't there. This one is a wall. A well-prepared wall.


No wonder Wetutherag had fallen to her, the arrogant bastard. All he'd seen was a small, frail fox that could call idly upon snow and ice. He hadn't seen the waiting beast beneath, the avalanche biding its time until it could be unleashed. He hadn't seen the Snow Maiden.


How many others have fallen for the mask of innocence and harmlessness?


Once more in the honeyed voice of a maiden, the devil queen speaks, "What do you want, in calling me?"


A sigh, small and nearly meaningless. "You know that answer."


It is true. Faimiaelakora had read the eidolon's wishes when she'd been summoned, for the wishes are part of the circle itself, unable to be brought to life until the caller's desires are stated clearly. It is the first step into seeing the heart of her capture.


"Ah. Trying to fix a failure, are you?" the creature purrs through stitched lips.


As much as it pains her to admit, Satoshi nods. "Not to bring back what I failed to protect. But to forge a shield should a second chance ever find me."


"I could grant you that second chance."


"No. That I will achieve myself."


"You cannot. It is not physically possible," Faimiaelakora counters in snide tones, feeling as if she's backed the magus into a corner with her wishes.


Satoshi's response with a crooked smirk. "You are welcome to think so." Oh, how the kit wishes to brag about the other resources she has at her disposal, the theories, ideas, and possibilities she's considered. But that would be giving Faimiaelokora exactly what she wants. Let the ancient queen guess at what cards Satoshi holds.


Bobbing her torso in what could only be a thoughtful gesture, the devil queen absorbs the words and regards the one who Called her. She'd seen the runes and marks of power in the circle, of course, and so she hadn't missed all the pieces Satoshi had included with such complexity. She'd searched for any loophole, any error, among the designs, but it had been too carefully constructed. This cunning fox. This Snow Maiden, she knew the way to word bindings. Had she been burned before by a deal gone wrong? The magus is too confident, too sure of herself, if Faimiaelakora can just shake that foundation... just a little, she might find a crack in the frozen mask...


"You cannot demand two wishes of me," Faimiaelakora states in a falsely sorrowful voice, part of her poised to strike the moment Satoshi's certainty falters...


"I can demand what I want," comes the counter without missing a beat. This piece of information about the rites had taken two months to wrest from Wetutherag's mind and another two to unravel the exact details. To call on King or Queen of the Ice Devils, one would be allowed to make a single deal and ask three questions. Or twist it, and demand two deals, sacrificing the right to questions. It is why Satoshi has been painfully careful with her words. One accidental question, and she'll break the seal, thus leaving herself--and Frostmaw--at the mercy of Faimiaelakora in the same way the devil queen is at her mercy now. It would be a deathwish to misstep.


A hiss is Faimiaelakora's response as her scorpion's tail lashes the air. Where Wetutherag was arrogant, his wife is impatient. It was this temper that had seen her banished to an outer realm many generations ago, when the first Snow Maiden had tricked her into a trap. The endless void had done little to help Faimiaelakora's lack of patience. In fact, it had worsened it, to the point that just being in the presence of a living, free creature, in the raging elements of the North, was an infuriating factor.


The conversation with the Snow Maiden's likeness is not helping either.


And still Satoshi stands unmoving, the heavy snowfall threatening to bury her form. She is intimately familiar with the danger and power of a temper's rage. As well, she knows the quiet strength of unyielding patience. A snowstorm is a beast feared by many while it rampages through the lands, yet it is the slow, deliberate passage of glacier and river that carves through mountains and leaves lasting marks. Today, she needs to be the glacier.


"Grant me my demands, Faimiaelakora."


Again the banished queen flinches at the use of her name, knowing it was deliberate, to remind her who is in control. "You are as cruel as the last Queen of Winter."


Satoshi opens her mouth to speak, stopped only by the sound of a sharp, barking squeak nearby. Just as quickly, her mouth snaps shut to still her tongue. She'd nearly made a fatal mistake. In her eagerness at the revelation, she'd nearly asked what Faimiaelakora knew of the original Snow Maiden. Faimiaelakora seems to have sensed as much too, having grown still in that instant before the question was spoken, like a spider ready to spring the moment the butterfly lands upon her web... only to have a breeze guide the prey away. The devil queen turns an eyeless face every which way, searching for the sound that had warned of the trap, finding nothing and no one. Yet... "We are not alone?"


The eidolon's answer is only the ghost of a smile, again hinting that she holds more cards than the Mother of Ice Devils can guess.


Faimiaelakora tries again to draw out the confrontation and further the chances of a slip-up from Satoshi. "And if I refuse to meet your demands?"


"You've read the runes. You will be devoured."


"Ha! You truly think you can handle the presence of myself -and- my mate within you?"


A shadow flickers across Satoshi's features to twist her smile into a cruel smirk. A malicious light darkens her eyes in the same way a faint rasp tinges her voice into a cold, murderous noise. Had Faimiaelakora known, it was the voice of Bozrah's remains that speaks now, where he lingers as a tint upon Satoshi's soul, "I will not be felled by a shadow. I will not fail." The eidolon's voice shifts subtly again, more sibilant than before, and infinitely amused in a blood-thirsty way, "And I am hungry. Grant me my demands, Faimiaelakora." Where the magus' shadow falls on the blood-stained snow, a second appears, the sillhouette of a serpent, fox-headed and furred. With its muzzle spilt into a Cheshire grin, Asorial's shadow coils tightly about Satoshi's, making them one and the same, as it waits as a glacial scythe in the foxkin's grasp, eager for the devil queen to refuse so that it may feast.


At last Faimiaelakora gets a glimpse at the soul behind the mask, and for once, the twisted creature knows the bitter taste of fear. She had not mistaken Satoshi for small and harmless, yet she had not imagined shadows cold, dark, and impossibly cruel were harbored within a body so white and delicate. And all held in check, in a chaotic harmony by a soul of freezing fire. This eidolon will not be torn apart by the raging shadows within. She embraces them, she uses them, she -feeds- them, until they are as much her as she is them. The same fate awaits Faimiaelakora through the hellish bite of the waiting Asorial.


That weapon. Faimiaelakora has heard whispers of it and its kin in the voids. The weapons that should not be.


"That scythe. It has intentions it keeps from you," the Mother says.


Without taking her gaze off Faimiaelakora, Satoshi tips her head toward the scythe, as if conversing wordlessly with it. After a moment, she nods and smiles. "Naturally. Only a worthless weapon does not carry intentions of its own. Now, I grew weary of your games," the truth was, maintaining her will's hold on the circle is reaching its end. Satoshi will not endure much longer, and will be forced to return the fallen queen to her pit before control is lost. And so too would she lose her chance to seal the deals. "For the third and final time, I say this: Grant my demands, Faimiaelakora."


Three. She cannot defy the Three. As with being Called, she could ignore the pull of her Name until the third time it was uttered alongside a command. But it has been said three times, and so she must obey.


A howl escapes Faimiaelakora, the same howl of that primal rage that had announced her arrival. For a long moment she rails against her prison with claws, legs, tail, and face, trying in vain to shatter the arcane sigils that bind her so that she can rend Satoshi into a thousand bloody pieces. But like the blizzard, the rage must reach an end, and so too does the Mother of Ice Devil's wane. She slumps to the ground in a twisted heap, mouth stretched wide against the stitching as she gasps for breath.


"...Very... Well... Your demands will be met. One time, Fate will intervene to protect the-one-not-meant-to-be. And one time, Fate will intervene to protect the-realm-that-is-you. These names, you hold in your mind until that time. In return..."


Without missing a beat, Satoshi picks up where Faimiaelakora lets off, "In return, you will be given your mate back, to join you in your banishment. Neither will be able to enter these lands again, nor will you either be able to be Called again."


Faimiaelakora scoffs. Freed from others ever Calling her again. Freed, to return to her eternal prison, a prison she can only escape if Called. A bittersweet deal. Yet a better deal than Satoshi is getting, wishes made on circumstances that may never even come to pass. Taking a sort of solace from this, Faimiaelakora rises on disjointed limbs and offers a nod in agreement. "It is so, it is done. May you burn in Hell, Snow Maiden, when you finally meet your match."


"May you burn now, for you've met yours." Satoshi intends to speak the fallen queen's name with this, yet finds herself unable to voice the word. It hangs in her mind but will not reach her tongue. Already, the deal is being brought into existence. The name will be banished from reality, never able to be spoken again, and thus never able to be used to Call the fallen queen again.


The crimson non-light begins to rise now, enveloping--or is it becoming?--the Mother. With each passing second her obscene form becomes less visible until there is nothing more than a burning, blood-red mist hanging in the arcane circle. It is then that Satoshi's grip tightens on Asorial's haft as the scythe is brought forward to be buried in the snow between herself and the fallen queen. The eidolon braces herself against the scythe's staff with teeth gritted. This was going to hurt. Already she can feel Wetuthrag's essence pulling against her own. But she won't release him yet. Just a moment longer...


A flash of white, and there is Aeron, perched upon Satoshi's shoulder. Without instruction, the ermine's sinuous form coils down to press itself against the spot where Satoshi's heart once beat--all that can be heard in that chest now is the distant whispering Snowsong. As if he's trying to push himself through Satoshi's flesh, Aeron locks himself into place, and not a moment too soon. With a cry, Satoshi gives a painful jerk and arches against Asorial's staff. Fangs are gritted against further sound--to the lurking Bozrah's irritation--as Wetutherag's essence begins its departure.


Satoshi had expected it to hurt, to have an entity interwoven with her own removed. But she hadn't expected it to this degree. It is as if Wetutherag is determined to be dragged out by tooth and claw, to shred through Satoshi's mind and body as viciously as possible before being freed. It is an agony like none the magus has endured before. Having her heart physically ripped from her chest would hurt a thousand times less than this. Her very soul screams in protest to the threads being severed, and yet Satoshi's voice never makes the sound, nearly biting through her own tongue to keep the cry locked in her throat. She would not give Bozrah, Wetutherag, or... or... what was her name...? -Her-, the pleasure of hearing such.


Just as quickly as it started, the agony suddenly ends with a final, sharp pang like the end of a barbed arrow being removed at last. The summoning circle is empty and dead. With a gasp, Satoshi slumps to her knees, hands weakly clinging to Asorial. Half-frozen beads of sweat rest on her flesh as twin icy trails of tears course down her cheeks. For the first time in her undead life, Satoshi feels truly breathless, as if Wetutherag has taken living lungs with him and left behind a gaping hole in her chest.


Half-expecting to find such a wound, Satoshi brings a shaking hand to her chest to meet resistance in the form of Aeron's fur. The ermine is still pressed to where the pain had been centralized, her lifelong companion stubbornly filtering the worst of the horror. He trembles beneath her touch, both taking comfort in the presence of the other.


"It is done," Satoshi manages to say despite the ragged state of her voice.


"You should not have," Aeron responds sharply.


"I know. But I had to. The world is moving forward and we must be ready."


"You never worried about the future before."


"...Yes. And I never had others I wished to protect, either. If we do not change, we do not survive."


Aeron is silent a moment in light of this revelation before he speaks again. His tone, as always, is keen and scolding, as if he speaks to a foolish child, "You nearly fell in her trap."


A laugh, although still laced with pain, escapes Satoshi. It is a laugh like she so often makes, a sound mixed with joy, contentment, and a dash too much confidence. "That was why you were there. To warn me, as you always do, when my dancesteps tread too close to the line."


"And what, pray tell," the ermine retorts, trying to sound annoyed yet unable to completely mask his flattery at the compliment, "will you do when I'm not there to warn you?"


A reply doesn't come in the immediate as Satoshi lowers herself to sit in the snow, the corpses of the ice devils bordering her. Aeron is plucked from his place clinging to her coat to instead be cradled in her arms. Looking down at the ermine with incalculable fondness, the foxkin merely says in a voice strangely mixed with certainty and worry, "Won't you always be there?"


"Of course."


A grin smooths out the lines of pain and stress on Satoshi's face, and while the small white animal is not looking at her, he feels the expression nonetheless.


"Rest now. You've done what you can to prepare for the future. Turn our minds back to the present, where they belong," Aeron chides before squirming out of Satoshi's hold. He doesn't go far from her, only moving to perch atop a nearby grave-marker, where his clever paws find purchase in the crumbling stone. Black eyes fix on the horizon, for all the world seeming to ignore the eidolon's presence. Aside from quietly repeating, "Rest now."


Satoshi obeys. Eyes closing, she lets her mind trail away to drift among the snowflakes and ice, to listen to the voice of the storm, to flit alongside the ruins' wandering spirits, to caress the spines of the ancient Northern library's books. Resting, in the realm of the restless. Wherever her mind wanders, so to follows the faintest of ghost's whispers, "We will not fail."