Cold breeze gently swayed the glowing dandelions that filled the vast field, creating an illusion of waves that slowly scattered in the air.
It didn't take long for veiled figures to surround them, chain ornaments on their cloaks creating eerie chiming sounds as it swayed with their movements.
"We will escort him from here." Antares couldn't help but study their onyx-colored gloves and frowned when he saw that one was wearing it in bright red apart from the rest.
It was a sight for sore eyes, to say the least—and he couldn't help but feel cold sweat run down his back.
The Sovereign's hunting dogs were classified according to the color of their gloves. Seeing one wearing red made him tense up. Has his oath with the Sovereign been rendered void?
Is he—
"Am I to be disposed of?"
The cloaked figure in red gloves tilted his head.
"I received no such orders."
Antares swallowed a sigh of relief.
He recons that this endeavor was supposed to be carried out in absolute secrecy. Hence the presence of an executioner meant that any potential witnesses are to be disposed of without fail. Thankfully, he wasn't one of such unfortunate witnesses.
He moved his gaze past them, taking in the sight of a towering spire so vast it almost seemed to touch their gold-streaked sky. Even from a distance, it carried the air of ornate majesty that could only belong to a deity—a Sorenian.
'Deities and their taste for colossal architectures...'
It looked overwhelming from the distance, to say the least.
He didn't object and let them take the silver-haired boy in his arms.
"Then I will take it that the promise has been kept." A few black butterflies passed by him and disappeared into the field.
[Naturally.] A distinct chorus of voices resounded from all directions, making it difficult to determine where it came from. It was as if the wind itself was speaking in an eerie, monotonous tone.
Antares opened his mouth but stopped midway. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but bit it back and simply nodded.
He took one last glance at the boy. He had sincerely hoped they'd never again cross paths as his figure disappeared into wisps of amethyst embers.
***
A kaleidoscope of butterflies filled the throne room.
Their black crystalline wings shone in iridescent sheen, flapping in a congregated fashion as if they moved as one entity. And this description wasn't so far off.
The butterflies seemed suddenly sucked into a whirlpool, which coalesced into a colossal humanoid figure with black crystalline ear-wings and ghost-like golden eyes. 'She' sat cross-legged on 'Her' cold throne and overlooked the seven figures bowing to 'Her' from the side.
'She' is the Sovereign of this divine realm where—ironically—Yggdrasil's branches cannot reach.
"Will that Antares keep his promise?" A shadowed figure muttered.
[He'll have to. He has too much to lose, after all.] 'She' muttered indifferently.
'Her' eyes drifted at the far distance.
[The child is finally right where he should be, my little nightling.]
***
KAISELLIN
I woke up in a daze. I can barely even tell if I actually woke up, or if all this was still perhaps part of a very long dream.
'Where am I?'
The first to reach my senses was the warmth of a faint golden glow seeping through the window. It slithered and turned, sometimes disappearing. Though, what brought me back to my senses was the feathery texture of silk sheets blanketing my body.
They felt so soft to the touch that it almost made me grimace.
'This place is strange.'
I took my time and slowly inhaled, followed by a deep exhale. I closed and opened my palms as if familiarizing myself with my bodily functions. My head felt heavy.
Then, I slowly reached for my ears, which extended past with a crystalline wing-like structure. I extended and folded it again, closely examining if it had physical tears or the sort.
It all felt so natural but so dissonant all the same.
'At least I'm pretty much intact.'
For a moment, I didn't muster my strength to move just yet. I stared blankly at the carved ceiling, trying to make a sense of what I was going to do from now on. Why was I here again?
Oh, right. Some bronze-skinned boy called Antares probably brought me here. He mentioned some sort of oath…but the longer I try to recall the events prior to that, my temples started to throb.
I carefully stood up, using the headboard as my support. Turns out my knees didn't have the strength to support my upper body, and I flailed around like a toddler barely taking his first steps. Amidst my 'rediscovering', my tail wagged lightly.
Perhaps because I couldn't quite control it, I unfortunately knocked out a vase in the process. It created a loud thud that resonated across the entire room, breaking into various small pieces. I ended up stepping on a few shards of porcelain, cutting the soles of my feet.
It was so clumsy that I couldn't get used to it.
'What is this…'
My feet smudged over the gilded liquid trickling from my wounds and wondered. At closer glance, I later realized what it was.
It was my blood.
Considering that my senses were in disarray, an accident like this didn't come off as a surprise. It simply left me baffled at just how careless I'm being.
I broke into fits of rather hysterical laughter.
I didn't know what was so funny.
My mind's a mess. It feels like a broken record, overloaded with repeated stories, yet so empty at the same time.
It didn't take long before my wounds started repairing itself at a rapid pace, with the shards that penetrated quite deep into my toes and limbs after falling had begun ejecting itself from my skin.
A series of distinct footsteps resounded closer and eventually opened the door, prompting me to turn my head in its direction.
A pair of dainty-heeled shoes were planted firmly by the side of the door. A little higher and I see some inhumanly pale pair of hands holding a set of fine clothes.
"I greet Your Divine Highness. How long have you awoken?" Her voice was soothing, but I couldn't help the feeling of discomfort ringing through my head. Was it the sickening sweet scent sticking onto her clothes, or the way she confidently strode and opened the door without bothering to knock?
"…Just now." Or most of all, was it the fact that I'm responding to this odd title she addressed me as, very naturally? I could feel her hesitation upon a closer look at my state.
"My…you made a mess." She carefully avoids the porcelain shards and settles the clothes onto the canopy bed.
"Do you know how to dress yourself? I will tidy this up in the meantime."
I did as told and dressed in the simple frilled tunic with embroidered lotuses at the sides, paired with a plain overall. Judging by how much the embroidered patterns were glistening faintly; the thread they used must have been somewhat metallic. Gilded, even; and but not too extravagant.
"Where am I?"
"Abyss, one of the Triad." She casually remarked while picking up the shards.
"Triad?"
"The three divine realms of deities: life, dreams, repose. This is the land of repose."
Three? I've only known two though…wait a second, how did I even know there was two?
Better yet, why was I being addressed so formally—
A thud interrupted my thoughts, followed by a sharp hiss. My eyes darted towards the servant's hands again, now seeing a fresh cut on her fingers.
"Are…are you alright—?" Just as I reached out my hand to her, her shoulders began to tremble violently.
Her back arched unnaturally as both hands started to claw her face with her mouth wide open like she was screaming without a sound.
I flinched at the sight and took a few steps back. Her back was facing the door, and mine facing the wall.
Even the window was being blocked by the canopy bed at my right. I had nowhere to run to.
'What…' In her red stained hands were tinges of gold liquid glimmering in contrast to the horrid sight in front of me.
Gold. Both laced in the shard she dropped and in her blood-stained hands.
My breath quickened. She was crawling to me, and her bones were creaking with every movement like she was being rewired from the inside. She was hissing hoarsely as if trying to speak and fails to do so.
Gold. Like the smudges I left on the marbled floor after stepping on sharp porcelain.
New limbs grew and organs that were supposed to be lodged inside a body started sticking out. It almost looked like her cells were generating too rapidly and too unnaturally fast that she sooner became a sick amalgamation of towering flesh flailing about.
Gold. Like the miniscule trace that seeped onto her cut and mixed onto red as if devouring it.
Then, she lunged at me with those limbs with teeth growing out and fingers so disfigured. My head hit the floor helplessly as she gripped my neck. Tight. Too tight.
"Pl…ease…" Her voice was pitiful. And I was afraid of it.
I clawed at her flesh in desperation for a release, but to no avail. I couldn't even move my legs; with the towering abomination she had turned into pinning me down completely.
Gold like the threads of the clothes I changed into. Gold, and more gold.
"sp…a…re…"
My vision started to blur, barely registering anything anymore. My movements started feeling sluggish.
"…e."
'What have I done?'
My eyes drifted towards the clothes she outgrew in mere seconds, then to the heeled shoes now lying on the floor, and even onto her mangled jaw or her pale greyish flesh now filled with burns and boils. And finally, onto my faint reflection in her glassy onyx eyes.
'What have I…done, this time?'
Oh, how my pupils gleamed so brightly in gold. How odious. How…monstrous.
Perhaps because my lungs were losing air, I started seeing things very clearly until a strange thought came to occupy the back of my mind.
Just before her jaw expanded large enough to bite my head in half, she froze and let out a shrill cry.
Her grip on my neck had loosened—stiffened, before a mass of black crystals grew from her eyes and spread onto her body like a plague.
Black spikes pierced her from the inside until she was completely still.
Only until then did I get a proper look at my reflection on her crystallized form, refracted into tiny other copies of myself.
A wave of nausea crept over me as I crawled away from her petrified figure pathetically. My trembling hand grasped my mouth to bite back the bile rising from my throat.
What have I done?
She had become such a horrible mass of flesh, and now she was some equally revolting mass of crystals. And she was normal just a while ago, talking.
It happened all too fast for me to process. The moment her glassy eyes stared onto mine, I had—
Between what this unassuming servant had become and myself, who was now the bigger monster? Her as a towering amalgamation of flesh, or me, the only logical reason that had turned her that way?
And worst of all, I had no clue what to do with it. I had no clue how to turn her back.
I didn't know when black butterflies had entered the room, but they did.
They fluttered indifferently and circled the petrified horror, and circled around me, too.
A pair of cold hands barred my vision as if gently caressing me, weaving threads of starlight that wrapped around my eyes. A faint humming sound echoed into my ears, lulling my erratic heartbeat as if telling me that it was okay.
But I knew it wasn't. None of this did not feel right at the slightest.
But whether I liked it or not, my consciousness had started slipping as I fell into slumber once again.