God, Slay the Queen!

[Ezra]

Once upon a time, in a castle that hung from the sky, its towers reaching desperately for the barren desolation far beneath it, there lay a crow. This poor fowl rest, bound in all ways, in midst a circle of roses; Black of petal, and thorns dripping with the fresh red rubies of unwary victims. Gray wax ran over their stems, flowing free from the tall candles bordering the circle, set free by the grace of grim flame. Cold, silent and dead stone held the ritual aloft, surrounded on all sides by softly chattering silhouettes. No light graced the room except that of the dim pyre.

Vermillion eyes stared out from the blackness of the crow’s feathers, scared, frightened, but above all, intelligent and curious. Listening to the voices, it strained to pick up the topic at hand and discern what cruel event was being played out at its own expense. From the wide, dark paned windows it could hear the loud pelting of heavy rain bombarding the tower walls. The ambience from the raging storm drowned out all hope of discovering the truth behind the event.

From the only entrance into the room a whispering flute played a short melody. Though it was nigh impossible to hear, the audience present before the dais grew hushed instantly. Only the incessant beating of water against glass remained as music to address the arrival of the Lady.

Garbed cleanly in black from head to toe, her dark figure was perfect in every manner. Beautiful without compare, and carrying a gothic aura that would strike gloom and fear into a reaper of death. Lustrous folds of cloth weaved from the very darkness surrounding her chateau billowed behind her as she strode confident and powerfully into the chamber. A soft whimper escaped the crow’s beak, and it’s entire frame shrank upon itself, attempting to maybe hide in her glorious shadow and pass unnoticed.

Yet her focus lay on nothing else, except the beast that lay bare upon the altar. Without hesitation nor ceremony, the Lady approached and lay her hands bare over the candle flame. As if wishing to lick her palms in admiration, the fire roared higher, each becoming a blazing inferno. The Lady worked gracefully with her hands to persuade the flames into manageable threads, then sew them together into a dome of flame that encompassed the entirety of the ritual dais. Her cold white skin never touching the heat and passion of the fire, she finished her work and laid those dreadfully long and deadly fingers rest at her side.

“Do not think I doubt you, my grace, but do you find certainty in the concept of releasing him from this form?”

The one daring to pose the question was now standing at her side, a grand lord donning armor of the blacking onyx. Despite the obvious ability to strike fear into the hearts of many, he stood uncertain and on the edge of fear beside the unarmed and scarcely dressed Lady. It was as if he was but a child, fearful of a bite, while provoking a viper.

“I know of what I do.”

The knight knew there would be no further explanation, and returned to the mass of the crowd. His cruel eyes returned to the shifting orb of flame that bubbled before him. Many emotions played behind those cold orbs, but standing strong amongst them was the fear that this event would lead to his death. It was a certainty in his mind. All this was cleared from his mind as the Lady spoke, commanding her voice into the flame. It was a siren’s voice, that could lure in even the strongest of willed, and held behind it evil beyond comprehension.

“Ezra. You are released. And now, banished. Return not, until you will ask forgiveness for your deeds.”

Fire parted as if a great wind blasted into its midst, extinguishing all the candles in an instant. Silence drowned out the darkness, and the few seconds that it lasted felt to most in the room akin to years. Except the Lady, for her heart felt nothing except the calculations of a vicious mind. A soft word of a language long forgotten by mortals was whispered, and the candles relit themselves with soft blue flame.

Lying where once there was a bound bird was a boy of incredible beauty. Barely conscious, he began to move, his great black wings stretching out above and around him, to the audience’s voiced displeasure. Those seeking, dark vermillion eyes scanned the audience then laid to rest on the Lady’s cool visage. With some effort, but haste, he moved to one knee and bowed before her, wings folding down around his body in respect.

In return, enormous angelic wings spread from the Lady’s back, stretching out to a grand span, and then faded away again. As her final gesture, she reached out one hand and snapped her fingers before turning and calmly leaving. Ezra barely had the time to speak the words, “Thank you, my Queen” before the ground beneath him became darkness and he was pulled through a gateway into the mortal’s realm, far away from where he had been.

- - -

Many weeks later Ezra sat in a rocking chair in the middle of the main street of a widely unknown village in a land called Corone. About him, the familiar smell of burnt flesh permeated the air, and the screams of a great many people were slowly dying down to a roar. Nothing but a satisfied grin showed on his beautiful countenance.

Flames are hungry devils, and they enjoy very much eating the flesh and organs of humans.

It had not taken but a day to convince the children of this village to set fire to the livelihoods of all resting within. At the stroke of midnight the blaze billowed forth and before any were capable of acting the heat took the entirety of their village. All the doors were locked, and the people silent, until they woke to the smell of smoke and the sight of their children dead at the feet of their beds. Cries first of grief, then terror, and finally pain to be finished with a deathly wail had resounded about the hamlet, a serenade to the faerie’s ears.

However, in his glory and amusement, he did not know that nearby a self proclaimed hero lay in wait, readying her silver sword and sense of justice to slay the foul Faerie. Nor did he perceive that soon, before the night’s youth was lost, many more deaths would fill the air, for one of death’s favorite mistresses approached.

[Closed for Her.]

[Witchblade]

There lay the road, so sorrowfully the same. It never changed and yet would never be the same. As her boots crunched down on the dirt and the stone and struggling vegetation, crushing it before it even had a chance to live, her eyes pierced through the darkness. Trees grew on all sides of her, reaching toward an endless expanse of what she assumed was a black sky, but the light of the moon made her merely see a lighter shade and the twinkle of the thousands of stars that lined it’s depths. If the stars could talk to her, what would they say? Did they bother to condemn the acts of any individual, or had their eyes long since strayed from the realm of mortals that passed in the time it took them to blink? Or perhaps they could not talk at all. Perhaps they were just a memory of once was and would never be.

What the fuck are you mumbling about now?

She gritted her teeth and clenched her hands into tight fists, feeling the muscles strain and the strength to break bones wish to break her own. If she could hate one thing above all else, if she had ever wanted to kill one thing above any other creature on Althanas, then The Malice would be it.

Ah, but then it would be like killing apart of yourself, now wouldn’t it?

The halfling doubted that. Nowhere in the tome of her life had it said she could not live without that annoying voice dictating to her. Just because it happened to reside within the confines of her brain, did not mean the thing truly was a part of her.

Suddenly, with the emergence of The Malice, the night had lost its flavour, the trees had lost their colour and the air seemed stale, still and stagnant. Whatever semblance of peace she had roused from the depths of her mind died and crawled into the darkness. For a time she had thought herself free from the torment of its presence. For a time she had been without the annoying and petulant words that it spewed forth like venom into the depths of her skull. But then she had found herself linked with someone in a land called Dheathain, a place she prolonged her eventual and necessary travel to. The person remained a mystery to her, a face she knew, a body she had seen before and the sense of a soul that felt so familiar it almost hurt. Never before had she come so close to something from her past and yet when it stared her in the face she found herself hesitant. Of course the psychic connection had reawakened The Malice from within her and caused the death of four humans under her charge, the fifth one she had killed by her own hand knowing that Sorahn could never know what she had done.

I know you enjoyed it. You can lie to yourself and lie to those who face you, but you cannot lie to me. I feel it within you.

She ignored it. The Malice would not rule her, its thoughts would not command her and her own actions would no longer condemn her. She was Witchblade; a murderer, a mistress of death and she would not falter, nor would she fall. The hesitation of the halfling stemmed from her departure of familiar lands and into areas she had never traversed before. Areas that she travelled to so she could play the role of a hero and leave the murderer at the gates, clawing to get inside. Hero. As if she even understood the true meaning of that word, as if she could even accomplish such a goal.

As she continued her journey to a destination unknown, a smell caught her attention. It was the scent of burning wood, faint in the air and growing stronger the more she walked. Looking towards the horizon and through the canopy of trees, Witch saw the gentle glow placed upon the sky like a soft beacon. It was orange and red and broke through the darkness like a burning village only could for nothing else ever burned so brightly.

And nothing else ever smells like burning flesh and burning wood so strongly.

Though she enjoyed the scent of death and the lingering taste of blood as a fine mist in the air, the halfling was never very partial towards charred flesh. Something about it disgusted her and turned the bloodlust off. A corpse rotting in the sun for a week had a far better perfume than that of cooking meat and boiling fat to her. Curiosity still got the best of her as she wondered just who was burning down villages in her forest thinking that they could get away with it.

The trees eventually parted and gave way to farm land carefully tended to in fertile dirt tilled for generations perhaps even past her age. An unknown age at that. But, as the trees removed the last thing blocking her view and swaying fields of golden wheat and rice shimmered fiery gold, the halfling was given a clear view of the village, and indeed it burned. Fire tore through the homes hungry for whatever it could slack its thirst and quiet the rumble within its stomach upon. It devoured and as she continued upon the path deeper towards the village, she watched as one of the innermost homes collapsed. A shower of sparks and embers and shooting flames rose towards the heavens as if daring them, to do what she didn’t know.

With a wicked wind spreading and helping to feed the flames, Witchblade finally rested her eyes upon what may be the only figure alive in the village. It sat upon a rocking chair, gently moving, as if amused by what was taking place all around her. Narrowed, crimson eyes never left its back as she continued to move forward, pondering her choices. She could break its neck, for surely the thing was not human—the faint shimmer of black wings she kept catching and the smell proved that to her—or she could merely commend it for what it had done. But either way it was murdering in her forest without her permission.

[Ezra]

The scene was sickening.

Fire had taken the town within moments, starting from the hearth of every home and spreading like wildfire to become one massive pyre. Drawn by the destruction, a resident lycanthrope had hastened to what had previously been his feeding grounds. Despite strong muscles pounding soil and flora beneath as he carved a path through the forest, the lupine beast never reached the village. His activity had caught the attention of a self-proclaimed huntress who ambushed and slew him, then proceeded to inspect the very thing that had drawn her prey from hiding.

A thousand thoughts of possible aberrations of nature cycled in the huntress’s mind as she watched the boy’s glee in silence . Something seemed innately wrong about his presence, as if he was a creature that entirely did not belong in this world. Never before had any evil, be it vampire, demon, or zombie, made her feel as she did now. It was unnatural, an affront to the Thaynes, and evidently evil; therefore it must die.

Resolute in her duty, the human drew her silver blade and left the shadows behind. Confident and brave, she moved through the flames and ignored the calls of those dying around her. There was little that could be done for those poor souls, except to extract vengeance from the neck of the demon that dare take the form of a child. Standing before it and raising her blade in preparation for combat, she called out to the creature.

“You have slain many this night, murderous child. I cannot allow you to leave here alive. Come to death quietly, or be felled by my blade. Either way, your pitiful soul will be released to the Thayne’s judgment before the night is done. Rise now and fight or I…”

Her voice trailed off, distracted by the shadowed form of a woman moving through the flames. What little power she had in empathy burned inside her mind as she gazed upon the figure. That body held two faces: while one was docile yet frightening, the second appeared to be a thing of destruction, death, and chaos. It’s presence alone dealt a crippling blow of fear in the shield of the huntress’s confidence.

Ezra stood, leaving the rocking chair behind, and watched the human girl with interest. With as much elegance as he could muster he drew his Whisper Wand, currently in the form of a brutal dagger. His arrogance had lead him to assume the huntress’s fear was inspired by his visage. Despite that, the threat of actual danger was beginning to become real for the woman was covered in blood which smelled of lycanthrope. She was not a pushover, and he would have to do some serious trickery to get out of this situation. With his mind racing, he never noticed that the woman no longer recognized his existence, for her entire attention was trained on the approaching woman.