The universe, in its boundless and often cruel manner, had decided that Selene Dareth would not emerge from underneath a kind sun. She did not come into this world with the soft touches of golden beams or the fruitful pinks of sunrises to the east. Rather, her very first breath took place under the weighty, eternal gaze of the Black Sun. It was a celestial blue black anomaly - a cosmic wound that had bled darkness across the sky of Eldoria as long as memory could recall. The kingdom was draped in twilight and overshadowed. The air seemed to even pause, weighed down by a neverending eclipse, and the citizens of Eldoria had long been accustomed to dwelling in a world dimly illuminated by that pallid orb of doom.
Selene's lineage, the Dareth royal line, was the last bastion of a forgotten era, their bloodline a fragile thread woven into the very history of a world that had known true light. They were keepers of ancient lore, whisperers of prophecies that spoke of a bride, a destined consort for the encroaching void that the Black Sun represented.
These were not tales meant for comfort, but dire warnings, prophecies etched in the hearts of a people resigned to their fate, waiting for a convergence of cosmic forces that would either plunge them into irreversible oblivion or, in some twisted interpretation, bring a semblance of balance.
Selene's birth, under the very shadow that defined their existence, was seen not as a beginning, but as a terrifying fulfillment of these whispered destinies. Her arrival was a statement, a decree from
the heavens that the prophesied union was imminent, and the world held its breath, waiting for the next act in this cosmic drama.
The kingdom of Eldoria, once a jewel of vibrant life and sun-drenched landscapes, now bore the indelible scars of the Black Sun's dominion. It was a realm teetering on the precipice of despair, its once-proud cities carved from obsidian and shadowed stone, their very architecture a testament to a people who had long since surrendered to the pervasive gloom. Grand castles, their spires reaching towards a sky that offered no solace, now stood as skeletal remains against a bruised and eternally bruised horizon.
Within these somber fortresses, the inhabitants lived in a state of constant, gnawing fear, their days dictated by the unnatural rhythm of the Black Sun's oppressive light. The royal line of Dareth, to which Selene belonged, was seen as both a curse and a final, flickering hope. Their ancient pacts, their very bloodlines, were so deeply interwoven with the fabric of the land's suffering that they
were inextricably bound to the kingdom's fate. To be a Dareth was to be a living embodiment of Eldoria's pain, a symbol of a past glory that was now little more than a haunting memory Old scrolls, crumbling from age, and worn tapestry that spoke of a past time, all told of a bride.
This was no bride of love or contract; this was a bride made to marry the Black Sun, to join herself to the emptiness of the stars. The union was depicted as a pivotal moment in the world's history, a cosmic fulcrum capable of tipping the scales towards an irreversible apocalypse, or, in a more paradoxical interpretation, of bringing a strange and terrible form of balance. Selene, marked by the eclipse from the very moment of her birth, was identified as the linchpin of these prophecies, the chosen one who would fulfill the foretold destiny.
The elders of Eldoria, clinging to these ancient texts like drowning sailors to driftwood, interpreted them as a divine mandate, a terrifying destiny that Selene was seemingly destined to fulfill through ritual and sacrifice. The weight of these pronouncements, of a fate seemingly sealed before her life had even truly begun, settled upon her young shoulders like an impenetrable shroud.
Despite the suffocating weight of prophecy pressing down upon her, a secret rebellion had begun to stir within Selene's heart, a nascent defiance that refused to be extinguished. Vivid and persistent visions plagued her waking hours, bleeding into her dreams, offering glimpses of a world utterly alien to her shadowed reality.
These were not visions of darkness, nor of the desolate landscape she knew, but of a world bathed
in the pure, golden warmth of true sunlight, a vibrant dawn that felt more real, more inherently right, than the perpetual twilight that defined her existence. This internal conflict, the stark dichotomy between the prophesied bride destined to embrace the void and the secret dreamer yearning for the forgotten light, began to shape her nascent will. It was a quiet war that raged in her heart, beginning the first, fragile glimmers of rebellion against the path laid for her with such meticulous detail. In the quiet echoing halls of the Dareth palace, Selene moved among the reverent silence and the fear that seemed to fill every square inch of space. Her parents, the King and Queen, wore the weight of their lineage with such emotionless strength, with faces etched in a sadness that felt like a birthright of all of Eldoria's rulers.
The court was a treacherous place, a stage for political gamesmanship and zealous, religious devotion to the Black Sun. Advisors and nobles alike debated, often in hushed tones, the profound implications of Selene's role, their words like the rustling of dry leaves in a wind that never truly blew. She felt as if she were just a pawn in a massive, frightening game of fate as her life was laid out like a offering on the altar of the vast universe. A smile, or whatever kind gesture she gave, appeared to me to have a secret agenda to persuade her to conform to predestination. She was a prisoner in her own gilded cage, the bars of which were forged from prophecy and the unwavering belief of her people.