Mythras
Legacy Name: Mythras

“Tell me about him some more, about the color of his skin.” Her voice was light and airy as usual, her bicolor eyes shining up at me. “Tell me about Strayer.”
“Lucia,” I started, looking at her, but couldn't finish. Her beauty always struck me as it did on the day we met. “I've just about talked him back to life.”
She laughed, her eyes closing. “You're so funny! You liked him though, right? I want to hear it.”
I leaned back against the ornate couch we were perched on, glancing out the high window. It was a quiet day as it usually was. My new Queen and I were able to spend our days relaxing, enjoying each others' company. It usually kept the weights off my heart, until Lucia brought them crashing back down.
Tell me about Strayer.
It bothered me only a little.

He stayed in the dungeon for nearly a month before my father could store the power to kill them all. His fellow Scarlets were rounded up in the hundreds, and kept wherever they could be watched. Chained, beaten, maimed, I later learned.
Strayer, however, was kept alone. Very alone. He remained in solitary confinement at the deepest cell of the palace, and all were forbidden to interact with him. His mandatory food and drink were dropped unceremoniously from the ceiling.
I always liked him. I saw him at the gate of my kingdom that dark morning, and I liked the look in his eyes. Being a mischievous little thing at that age, I naturally snuck down into the dungeon to find him.

“Hello.” I gripped the bars and stared in at him.
Silence, but his eyes seemed to glow in the dark as they watched me.
“If I let you out, will you hurt me?”
Slowly, he shook his head.

I couldn't keep him out too often, but we made a wonderful game of it. For a couple of weeks we managed to sneak around the palace undetected, climbing the pillars and perching behind statues. We tried to hush our laughter, though it still echoed throughout the hallways.
I let him touch my hair.
“It's always in your face.” He said from behind me as I sat with him in his cell one day. “Lemme fix it.”
He braided it. He put my hair into two braids, and tied them up into loops. When I saw it later, I thought it looked beautiful.
My mother was the first to notice. “Your hair looks very nice, Mythras.” She smiled very knowingly. “You seem so happy lately.” I was certain she knew of my antics, but saw them as harmless.

I probably went mad the day he was taken. I clung to my father's leg, shrieking and begging for him to not take Strayer away. I frantically confessed that I had gotten to know him, I had been letting him out of the cell. I always very solemnly recount to Lucia that I will never forget yelling, over a sudden silence,
“Kill me instead!”

Lucia loved to dance. She always pulled me through the hallways, spinning in circles and laughing, begging me to spin along with her. For so long, I would. I kept hold of her hand and spun her around, smiling and feeling full of the sky. Our wings of light phased through each other over and over, bursting into rainbow sparkles each time. The light from the windows caught in our dissipated wings was one of my favorite things to see.
But one day, I felt odd. Lucia pulled me down the hallway toward our room rather urgently.
“I need to show you something amazing,” she chirped.
I sensed something in the room as we entered it. Off in the corner, where I rarely looked. The feeling stopped my feet, and even Lucia couldn't move me.
She stopped, too. “...What's wrong?” Her pink cheeks complimented her cascading white hair so well. In the dim light of the room, it shone one color, rather than all of them.
“I don't feel well.” I said suddenly, stepping backwards. “I feel sick.”
“No, please,” she clung to my hand. “I felt that way too. He's strong. You get used to it. Please come see him.”
Her words swam in my head like a turning bowl of stagnant water. He? Who? Is someone in our room? I felt myself moving, but everything had gone dark.
“His name is Asher.” I heard her say. “He appeared to me today. That's why I was in the room. Look, Mythras, it's our son! The Light finally granted us our son...”
I could barely see him through the haze that plagued me. I saw eyes just like his mother's – one blue, one green. His hair was short, but shone in every color. Just like hers.
“Can you feel that power? It's radiating from him.”
My head gave me very sudden images of my father. My father as he loomed over me, his hands glowing with red light that reflected on his enraged face. I heard him say my name, but he spoke in Lucia's voice. I felt the sickness in my stomach from the sheer amount of energy. I recalled memories of laying in bed for days, writhing and ill, near death.
Light poisoning, in my mother's voice.
“You wanted me to kill you.” Finally, the sound of my father. “Perhaps now I will. Go be with your Scarlet.”
You two were good friends, huh? Lucia.

I didn't feel my hand strike out, nor the blade of light pouring from it, aimed at that corner. I heard a voice, though I could not tell whose. The words were muddled, but drowned in sorrow. Kill me instead.

She lay on the floor, her wings flashing weakly. Her eyes stared up at me, nearly blank.
Our son cried from his small cradle. The room had become entirely dark aside from the faint glow of that infant.
“Don't be angry with him.” Lucia breathed, trying to turn her body back toward the child. “He didn't mean it.”
I started to shake as my mind came to a stop. Everything within me froze. Perhaps even my heart stopped beating. I hadn't the energy to speak or cry.

I could never look at him without pain. He grew, always looking up at me with her eyes. He spoke to me in a soft voice with the timbre of hers, always asking,
“Did I do something wrong?”
I finally shut him away one day. The library seemed to be the best choice – it had always been her favorite room and thus, had been locked and abandoned for years. He could stay there, kept out of my sight, out of my mind. I would never have to feel my stomach fill with aching, feel my head whirling, my eyes rolling back. I never had to hear his voice again.
And yet, as my days passed, I sat at my throne thinking of him. My young knights on either side of me stood at attention, not noticing my wandering gaze. I thought not only of his eyes peering up at me, but of…
Your Scarlet.
It hurt to think of him. I started feeling anger every time. I wouldn't think of him at all if it hadn't been for Lucia's incessant pleading for the stories. Her eyes begged to hear of him.
What was so great about a Scarlet?
I gritted my teeth and tapped the sheath of my sword loudly on the marble floor.
Kleitos and Melaina both jumped, turning their heads to me in worry.
“Your Majesty?” Kleitos whined as he always did.
“Nothing.” I exhaled, feeling every bit of light leave my chest. “I hope you two are keeping up on your training.”
“Yes, sir!” Melaina chimed. “Kleitos is even improving. We're fit to battle for you.”
“Good.” I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. Instead, it filled with images of swirling sand, a sinking castle, and endless cries of agony. “If our enemies come here, we should… be ready for them.”
“Yes, sir, the Scarlets.” Kleitos parroted the tone I always used when speaking the word. “We'll destroy whatever happens to be left of them.”
I smiled at the thought. All of them truly gone… It would be a blessing. I would never have to see his eyes, hear his voice, have him plague my thoughts…
Out of sight, out of mind, I began to say.

[icon & overlay by Keshi | art by User not found: nickey]