Topic: Provenance

Ariana

Date: 2012-04-17 16:16 EST
"So long as a daughter of Arlan's blood bestrides the throne of Arctra, this land will neither fail nor fall, and shall be forever blessed."

So spaketh the Pythia, Oracle of Thalan, at the shrine of Hano, in the days of Arlan the Wise, first Queen of Arctra.

And thus did it remain, centuries uncounted, until madness blighted the bloodline of the queens, turning kindness to cruelty, wisdom to insanity, counsel to enemy, and leaving the way open for one without bloodline or claim to seize the throne and Sword for herself.

Those were dark times.

Talaera, Queen of Arctra, had fallen into madness as her years advanced, her mind and body poisoned by the influence of foolish advisors who thought to challenge the sanctity of the prophecy. Velasca, the child taken into the Queen's household to be companion and adopted sister to Talaera's own daughters, had seized the advantage, taking for herself the Sword of Arlan and with it, the throne of Arctra itself.

She cast the old queen from her seat of power, presiding over the execution of Talaera and all her female kin. Any who could claim the right of blood, the right of succession from Arlan the Wise, the first Queen of Arctra, were slaughtered on sight, their families torn apart, their homes defiled. Minor nobles fell to the blade for even a single drop of blood that might give them such a claim. Over the span of a single month, every princess of the blood fell into darkness, their place usurped by a woman who bore no claim but that of companionship.

All save one. Arian, third daughter of Talaera, was with child when the killings began, and not even the usurper would dare risk the gods' wrath by harming a woman blessed in such a way. Together with her husband, the noble Lord Farus, Arian fled the capital of Loscar, weighed down with the heaviness of her womb. It was known, even then, that she was to bear twins, and as all her line had done in the centuries before, we believed that she would bear one male, one female. A new Queen, and a Chosen Man to defend her claim when the time came.

Velasca, the usurper, knew this. She, who had been taken from the streets of Loscar and brought into Queen Talaera's household as companion to the child Arian; she knew better than any other the prophecy that stood against her, the purity of the princess' bloodline. She did not strike directly against Arian, but sent her army to harry their escape, to force them faster than was wise, through rougher country and wilder weather than any expectant mother should dare.

Yet it was not enough to force a miscarriage upon Arian, and within days, she and her noble husband, Farus, had found refuge in the northern city of Phalion, the traditional seat of power for the Queen's brother. Velasca laid siege to the city, killing many in her wish to have any rival destroyed before her violence could be used to blight her own reign of a land never bequeathed to her.

It was here, in this ancient keep at the heart of Phalion, that our story began, in blood and misery and the promise of light after the darkness had fallen ...

- an extract from the Book of Sight

Ariana

Date: 2012-04-17 17:22 EST
Fifteen years ago ...

The battle raged on. Phalion, the grey city of the north, stood amid a ring of fire that pressed ever inward, taking the walls, the streets. The army of the usurper, Velasca, streamed between the burning houses, looting and pillaging, pressing ever onward until the great keep was at last the only remaining obstacle to overcome in their hateful oppression of the true order.

In the highest tower, protected by walls of thick stone and guards five deep upon the winding stairwell, a different battle was being waged. Blood-stained sheets rumpled about the slender hips of the last princess of the blood, the only remaining rival to the usurper's claim on the throne of Arctra. Her husband, the noble Lord Farus, paced back and forth before the heavy door, listening with only scant attention to the sounds of fighting in the passageway beyond, his full care and fear focused upon the unrelenting struggle of his wife as she fulfilled her greatest desire ....to bear her babes, the grand-children of the dead Queen Talaera, in the safety of her husband's stronghold, away from the pursuing hate of her childhood companion.

Three others there were in that tower room - Dalan, the captain of his guard and his oldest friend; Mila, the princess' lady-in-waiting; and Kari, the ancient midwife, in whom their best hope for the future lay. These three, and only they, could be trusted with the truth of what had to be done, to ensure the survival of Talaera's line, and thus, the survival of Arctra itself.

On the bed, golden-haired Arian writhed and screamed, caught up in the pain of birthing twins too soon for her fragile body to cope. Mila sat at her head, wiping the sweat from her regal face with cool cloths, urging her on even as her strength began to fail. Between Arian's feet, muttering signs and sigils and the practises of magic so feared by the common people, old Kari knelt on the bed, her gnarled hands guiding the firstborn grandchild of the murdered queen into the light of the flickering lamps.

As screams erupted from the stairway beyond the door, the wizened old midwife laid the tiny baby girl upon the bed, ignoring her wailing cries as she spoke directly to the sobbing princess.

"A girl child, vipsana," she told the new mother, hands stroking over the still swollen belly before her. "Golden, like her mother."

"No ..." Marus looked up as his wife sobbed, watching as she shook her head in despair. "She can't be ....they'll kill her ..."

Mila's eyes met those of her lady's husband, fear written clear in her gaze. "We won't be able to hide a girl who looks so much like Arian for long," she said more clearly. "Not without help."

"Old Kari can hide her," the midwife said in her whisper of a voice, one hand reaching to begin drawing the secondborn from Arian's womb.

"No!" Farus snarled, fury taking him as he strode across the chamber to his wife's bedside, glaring at the two women who hovered over her. "I never agreed to that. Blood magic will not save us!"

"Not you," Kari agreed, supremely unconcerned by the angry warrior standing over her. "But the vipsana ....she can be saved."

"Farus ..."

The lord of Phalion looked down at his wife, the golden-haired Princess Arian, and knew with that one glance that his objections were nothing. Her beautiful eyes, a blue as pale as the sky on a spring day, gazed longingly into his, her face red with the tearful effort of bearing their children safely.

"She ....she has to live," the young princess whispered, her voice hoarse from hours of laboring. "Arctra will ....will fall if she ....Velasca will kill her ..."

"I can't," he whispered, dropping to his knees beside the bed, grasping her outstretched hand between his own. "I can't stand here and let the witch kill my son!"

"No witch," Kari objected, a hint of disapproval in her voice now as she looked on impassively. "No blood. Bone magic, earth magic ....spell to keep the little vipsana safe until her time."

"Please, Farus," Arian whispered, her soft voice so weak from their long struggle pleading with him. "One of us has to get through this ..."

Ariana

Date: 2012-04-17 18:27 EST
As she spoke, a great rumble shuddered through the tower, knocking paintings from the wall, ornaments from the mantel, shaking the bed over the stone floor. Arian cried out in pain as the violent motion of the bed jerked her fearfully weakened body, pushing the birthing boy back into her womb. Farus paled, shocked by the sensation of magic being used against them.

By the door, Dalan swore as the heavy doors shuddered, looking back toward the bed. "Whatever is to be done, do it quickly," he advised in a terse tone. "They're almost through."

"Please, Farus," Arian whimpered once again, torn between the pain of her contractions and fear for the life of the baby girl still screaming for attention beside her on the blood-stained sheets. "Please!"

With a growl of frustration, he tore away from the bed, tears pricking at his eyes. It had to be done, he knew that. The prophecy could not be allowed to fail, and yet they all knew that Velasca would kill any female of the blood she found within this chamber, no matter how innocent that child was. As a usurper of the Sword of Arlan, she could not risk anyone being set up as a figurehead for resistance against her reign.

He looked down at the squawling girl child, his gloved hand stroking tenderly over the crown of her head. His daughter ....already promising to be as sweetly beautiful as her mother, with the same head of golden hair, the same pale blue eyes. Mila was right - even if they managed to save both children, they would not be able to hide this innocent little one for long. As she grew, she would become Arian in face and form, and even Velasca would not be able to ignore that. No ....this was the only way.

"Do it."

Abruptly, he turned away, not wanting to see the fulfilment of the plan they had so reluctantly agreed upon in the weeks since Velasca's violent coup. As Arian's screams filled the air once more, he returned to the door to stand guard with Dalan, leaving the women to their work.

"Now, vipsana," Kari cooed to the struggling princess, finally given the consent she needed to do her work, "push for me. Bring him to the world."

Mila clung to her lady's white hands as a final push brought forth the secondborn, the boy child Farus had so longed for. Her hand covered Arian's eyes, not wanting the dying princess to see what had to come next.

Kari drew the boy from his mother's womb, and with great care, laid her wizened hand over his mouth and nose, denying him the first breath of life. Tears trickled from her old eyes as the spirit of the boy, unseen by any but her magic-touched senses, clawed at her hand, demanding to be allowed into the body set aside for him. But she did not remove her hand, not until the last vestige of hope had died from the beleaguered spirit, not until the final spark of life had fallen from the little body she held in her hands.

A loud crash echoed from the heavy doors barring the way into the tower room, and curses echoed from the men holding them closed. Farus and Dalan leaned heavily against the ancient wood, feeling it shudder under the blows of the armored men on the other side demanding entry in the name of Queen Velasca.

"Hurry, Kari," Mila urged the old midwife, her fear written plain in her face as she gathered the quiet princess into her arms, rocking her mistress gently as the last of Arian's life bled from her.

Murmuring to herself, the old witch began her gruesome work. With stone knife, she split the skin of the dead boy child, breaking off a tiny piece of his rib. Still murmuring, she turned to the crying female babe, cutting a crescent in the center of her chest, ignoring the horrified cries of the men and woman who watched. The tiny piece of bone was set into the baby girl's flesh, and slowly the magic took hold.

As the old midwife worked her spells, the girl child's appearance changed; her hair became as dark as her father's, her body stronger through still as fragile as a newborn's, and between her kicking legs, the evidence of her born femininity was hidden, covered over by the growth of her dead brother's skin.

"You've changed her to a boy, you stupid b*tch," Farus hissed in fury, not trusting the old woman to know her business, not now that his beloved wife was dead. Dalan caught his arm, frowning at his lord's anger.

"Wait, my lord," he urged Farus sharply. "Watch."

The transformed baby girl stretched one last time and was still, fallen to sleep in exhaustion as the spell came to completion. Beside her, the dead form of her murdered brother began to writhe, illusion incomprehensible to any who were not of the old witch's folk taking over flesh and blood and bone. He became in form his living sister with her golden hair and delicate limbs; a stillborn princess for Velasca to find and be triumphant over.

"Now hidden," Kari nodded slowly, her hands stilling over the transformed bodies. "When comes the time, you bring the little vipsana to me. I will take her brother's bone, and she will wear her own skin once again."

Ariana

Date: 2012-04-18 15:46 EST
But Arian, dear beloved Arian, princess of the blood and line of Arlan the Wise, was dead. Farus tore away from Dalan's grasp to fall onto the bed, wrenching the pale, bloodied form of his wife from the arms of her lady, even as the heavy doors slammed open. Men poured into the chamber, ready for battle, fevered with bloodlust ....yet the scene that awaited them was horrifying in itself.

Upon the bed, the last princess of the blood lay dead, wrapped in the arms of her noble husband, whose keening cries of pain and loss were so low as to be felt rather than heard. Beside them, the dead mother and grieving father, lay the still forms of their newborn children. To the eyes of those who faltered and stared, the girl child was blue, clearly stillborn from her mother's womb. The male child sighed in his sleep, limbs flailing in uncontrolled expression of some unknown emotion.

And upon this bloodied scene came the usurper Queen herself. Armored in the way of their people, untouched by the blood and scars and soot of battle, Velasca stepped into the chamber. Her eyes went first to the body of her foster mother's daughter, a cruel smirk twisting her lips.

"Well," she said in the sudden silence, "at least I will not have to shed the blood of the last of Talaera's daughters. You, old woman -" Her cruel eyes snapped to Kari, stilling the ancient midwife's hands as she reached for the living child of Arian and Farus. "Touch them and die."

The witch-woman shrank back, cowering at the feet of the usurper Queen as Velasca stepped around the bed. She looked down at the two tiny bodies, the living male, the dead female, and suspicion crowded her gaze.

"Gyre!"

At her sharp call, a robed figure stepped from the mass of bodies that crowded the doorway. This, Farus could see, was the wizard who had deployed magic against them, the reason the keep of Phalion had fallen. Gyre Nightblade, the chief of Velasca's renegade wizards, whose dark expression and powerful ambition had urged her into taking this regicidal step in the first place.

He came to the bedside without needing to be told, stretching his hands over the twin babes, touching each with his fingertips. Farus dared not look away, dared not seek old Kari's gaze for reassurance. He could only watch, and wait for the inevitable denouncement of what they had done, seeing in his future only death for himself and his hidden daughter.

Velasca seethed beside her pet wizard, glaring down at the innocents beneath his hands. "Well?" she demanded, the urgency in her voice declaring of her need to know what had been done.

Gyre's hands retreated, a triumphant smile casting his pallid face into horrific shadow. "It is as you see, my queen," he told Velasca with overweaning confidence. "The gods have smiled upon your reign. The girl died at the instant of her birth and took her mother's soul with her."

Velasca's smirk seemed to soften then, her gloved hand lowering to touch the face of the living babe on the bed.

"Then I need not have this one killed," she said, and for a moment the watchers almost saw mercy on the face of the woman who had seized the throne for herself. "He will wed my daughter, when they are both of age. You, girl -" Her eyes this time snapped to Mila where she knelt beside the bed. "Take the boy and care for him. Phalion will be his seat, and he will be the lord of this city until such time as he takes his place as consort to the new princess. Teach him the new order."

The relief that colored Farus' emotion was too full, too strong to hide. He ducked his head, pressing his face against the cooling skin of his beloved wife, knowing now that even should he die, his daughter would live in the guise of her brother, to take the throne in the years to come and restore peace and order to Arctra.

"And as for you, Farus ..."

He lifted his head, the hatred in his eyes sharp and heart-felt as he looked into the eyes of the woman who had hounded them all to this place and time. Velasca held his fury in her sights for a long moment.

"So disloyal to the new order, dear brother in law," she breathed, and he saw, finally, the covetousness that had led her to chase Arian through the country, willing her to die in childbirth. "If you had but chosen to wed me, you might be king now."

He snarled in fury, laying down the body of his beloved wife to rise to his feet, towering over the woman who had so destroyed all their lives.

"You b*tch, Velasca," Farus hissed between his clenched teeth. "I am a lord of the noble houses; you are nothing but a street brat taken into the Queen's household in pity and amusement. You are, were, and will always be, beneath my notice."

What might have been a softening in Velasca's expression suddenly sharpened to a darkness that would have chilled even the boldest of men. She stepped back from him, turning to give her orders.

"Take the new lord of Phalion to safer quarters below," she barked, watching in dark approval as Mila gathered the baby boy into her arms, tears streaming down her face, and hurried from the tower room, guided by old Kari and loyal Dalan. "Burn this tower and leave it a ruin - a funeral pyre for the last princess of Arlan's blood."

"And Lord Farus, my queen?"

Velasca paused in the doorway, looking back at the man who could have been her husband, who might well have prevented all of this had he only chosen her over the pale beauty who lay dead at his side. Her eyes blazed, but her voice ....her voice was as cold and deathly as an unopened tomb.

"Let him burn."

Ariana

Date: 2012-04-19 15:39 EST
Thus it was, that fateful day, we witnessed the death of the old order.

Velasca, adopted daughter of Talaera, believed that she had destroyed all resistance to her usurping rule of Arctra, that she had set in place the seed of a new dynasty in which the prophecy of the Pythia of Hano could be maintained. Indeed, many fell in with her for profit or protection, believing that if they could only hold out two generations, a daughter of Arlan's line would sit on the throne once again. But they were wrong.

As the years passed, the country began to fall into decline. Raids from across the Eastern Sea ravaged our shores; plague and madness were bedfellows with those who were loyal to Velasca and her regime. Her daughter, a child of uncommon beauty and fearsome cruelty was set to take a throne not hers by birth or by right as the usurper queen tightened her fist about the freeborn of Arctra.

Yet not all hope was lost. Adare, son of Arian and Farus, proved to be a true child of Arlan's line. As he grew from infancy to boyhood, his kind heart and just ways endeared him a thousandfold to the people who remembered his father and mother, the people of Phalion who had fought and suffered in the siege that had taken the lives of his mother and father. They believed that a daughter of his loins could save the land, and deliver them from the overbearing pain of the usurper and her cruel daughter.

We knew better. We, who had witnessed the magic take hold, knew that the boy they loved as a prince was no mere boy. We, who watched over him from birth, shielding him from the worst excesses of the queen's wrath ....we knew that soon the day would come when he must be told of his true self. We would take him to Kari, the witch who held his disguise over him, and she would explain the deception that had kept him alive to fulfil his destiny.

On that day, we knew we would bring Arctra a queen of Arlan's line to protect her once more, the trueborn daughter of Arian and Farus, who would wrest the Sword of Arlan from the hand of the usurper and deal harshly with those who had almost destroyed the true bloodline of Arlan the Wise.

If we could keep Adare safe and hidden, until then.

"So long as a daughter of Arlan's blood bestrides the throne of Arctra, this land will neither fail nor fall, and shall be forever blessed."

So spaketh the Pythia, Oracle of Thalan, at the shrine of Hano, in the days of Arlan the Wise, first Queen of Arctra.