Descendants

Chapter IV - Misgivings

The video above is what I listened to while writing Andil and Claire's scene, and my favorite music box version of Studio Ghibli, particularly of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle XD (while reading, when you reach the music box part I recommend starting the video and leave it until the end of the scene...)

....also, the first scene after the italics part below is....a little dark? Maybe more than a little? I'm not sure. However, you've been warned ~

(Edit: Thank you to floranocturna for identifying some key details that needed remedied XD Although I corrected them on mobile so there may be a slight delay in said corrections appearing)

***

'Upon the field I held him in my arms. The sky was ashen, and full of hate. Bones splintered, with crimson faces and empty eyes staring at the heavens.
My heart is heavy, and my soul perhaps shall never mend. My kin, my foes, my brothers-in-arms. All met the same fate. I held him tight. I held him tight, praying to the Gods aloft. This continent upon my beloved Midgard. I wept for my kinsman. How the humans can orchestrate such destruction upon this creation is beyond my comprehension.

Yggdrasil weeps in sorrow, for her beloved child is torn asunder by their magnificent firepower. Clouds of fire line my vision, erupting upon Midgard after impact.
I rested his eyes, for his soul had long since departed. This war is no longer for my smaller kin. It is for the freedom of all ancientfolk. I despair at the path this bloodshed has risen to.

If only it had been me whose life was torn from this plane, and returned to the glory of Álfheimr. Farewell, my brother.'

- Lament of Nilithin, after The Bombing of Quebec, circa 2116, Past Life. Translated by Indral Nephilis, Year 3402, New Life Calendar.

***

"Please," the Empress despaired between half-choked silent cries, "Let me see my daughter. I just want...I...please. My baby."

The apothecary sighed, his shoulders heavy in guilt. He shouldn't do this. She shouldn't see what they did to the child. What they almost did to the Prince. Gods, why would anyone wish such a vile poison upon a mere child, naught five summers of age? It isn't as if he has much choice in the matter. She is the Empress, after all. He gave her a cloth that had been soaked in herbs, "For the smell," he said, before opening the heavy wooden door just long enough for the woman to enter her daughter's bedchambers.

The poison had been slow-working, taking hours before the effects had set in. The child was quite literally a shell of her former self, left with only the frail and dried out skin to her bones, a dark stain on the sheets where, upon the apothecary's deduction, her "liquefied organs and tissues had suffused after discharging through multiple bodily cavities", per his words. Coupled with black, blood-stained pits in place of her eyes, the child resembled a poorly preserved mummy more than anything else.

Her hair, however, had been unmarred by the poison. Soft, golden locks surrounded her corpse upon the pillows in an innocent halo among the carnage as if the Gods themselves played a cruel joke upon the princess, even in death. A putrid stench of decay suffocated the whole room, mixed with the lingering smell where those who discovered the girl had retched.

The odor did not register through the shock of the sight, and soon Audrine was wracked in heavy sobs once more as she fell to her knees upon seeing what was left of the girl's emaciated body. The mother shook more with each wail, growing louder as the searing pain drew through her chest, as if someone had plunged their hand through and replaced her heart with the weight of an anchor.