Original Fic - Cinders
Jul. 2nd, 2007 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charybdisTitle: Cinders
Summary:It was supposed to be "Cinderella envisoned as an action/adventure story", but I got sidetracked, and this is what happened. Basically a reinvention of Cinderella with personifications of War and Death, but without a fairy godmother. R, 3,260 words
This Cinderella never got what she wanted without a fight. She grew up stubborn and angry. It was true; she was as beautiful and as talented as she was belligerent, but no young man had ever dared to flirt with her, partly because of her sharp tongue, but mostly because she never bothered to dress well. She had concerns greater than what her mirror told her, so her clothes tended to be loose and old. The most time-consuming part of her daily grooming was washing in the morning.
She quarreled often; sometimes she was seen walking through the streets on some errand, looking like she’d been fighting. The village headman said that it was neglect from her step-relatives that made her so harsh. Her step-sisters were vain and pretty things, thin and clique-ish and made up like dolls, just like the boys wanted. Her step-mother was critical and obliquely cruel. The wisemen of the town looked upon her with a distant sort of pity, but she was far from the worst off, and there was nothing they could do about her situation.
As is often the case with adults who have no children of their own, they all had the wrong idea. She had lived with her step-kin since she was old enough to make sentences. The experience had made her strong-willed indeed, but she had never been one never one to quarrel loudly or act out. It was not her kin – blood or otherwise – that caused her grief; it was her trade that did it. Her ludicrous career and all of its side effects.
When she was a little girl, when her step-sisters-to-be first taught her about dressing well, she wished she could be a fairy princess. Fairy Princesses always got new clothes. Then, when her father remarried, she wished to be a fairy bride. Fairy brides got to eat as much as they wanted to, without being nagged about how they were getting fat. And when she was too old for these dreams, this Cinderella dreamed that she was a changeling child and her true fey parents would come to take her away from the mundane world. Changelings didn’t need to have iron control over tongue and temper, for fear of bringing the wrath of the world down on their heads.
By fifteen, she had given up on her fairy dreams. At least, she did until she began to See. She wasn’t a changeling, but she could See that there was indeed a second plane that was populated by fairies and dragons and demons and unicorns. And one day, searching for a trade to take up, she had responded to a request for a courier. It was for a magical courier, although she didn’t know that at the time, and she was plunged into a new world of danger and strangeness. At first, it seemed interesting, but it began to exhaust her. As she became more trusted, she was given more valuable deliveries, and as her burdens increased in worth, the danger of carrying them increased as well.
And if some days she was seen in the town, sweating and panting in a most unfashionable manner, looking like she had been in a fight, those were the days that she slayed dragons and evaded demons. And as these days became more and more frequent, she became an outcast, losing whatever tenuous friendships she had once had; she attracted danger. Somehow, everyone who looked at her knew this, although they knew nothing else about her. She was always tired, always looking over her shoulder for something. No wonder, they said, no wonder no boy would have her.
Of course the truth was that no mortal, boy or man, could have handled her. As she carried her packages from destination to destination, she grew in her knowledge of magic and combat, and she began to develop the qualities of a warrior and a spellsword, at that. She learned how to wield a blade and she discovered that she had a legendary hand of power -- with her left hand, she could conjure fire and throw bolts of magic. As she stretched her capabilities, both magical and physical, she became greater and greater, until perhaps she was too great even for a lord of Faerie.
She stopped carrying messages for others and became a warrior queen, lady of her own bit of Faerie, and a great one, at that. Her subjects called her Queen Morgan, as she ordered them to, but her bloodthirsty ways had more and more of them calling her by another name when she could not hear. Morrigan they called her, the physical manifestation of war, a woman who need not be called a queen, a woman who needed no earthly title, for her very name was the title of a goddess.
And yet, it was not enough, and her childhood dreams still came to plague her at night. She was a fairy queen; she had fulfilled the grandest of her dreams, but she had not got to the heart of them.
The truth was that at the heart of all of her dreams, all she had wanted was magic and love. The magic she yearned for because it was her birthright, and the love, because she had so rarely felt it before. But she had no love, so she arranged for there to be a great ball, lasting three nights, that she might find her love among the young men of Faerie that came to flirt.
On the first night, she saw Him, but he did not stay for long. She saw Him leaving leaving as she descended the grand redstone staircase; his silken black robes swirled out of the crowds and through the door before she could catch his eye.
He arrived a little late on the second night, but so did she. She had had a rather contentious meeting with her war council, and then she had to change her clothes and wash her hands. He had had to attend to his work. She saw him enter as she did, but he avoided her gaze, and moved amidst the other guests like a lost beggar. They gave him a wide berth, even though he hardly looked different from any of them. His dark robes were among the most simply cut; they were spare and adorned only by a single meandering ribbon of silver embroidery, but they were of the finest material. They flowed neatly around his pale, handsome figure.
She hunted for him after she decended the stairs, but she did not accost him. She caught sight of him several times from across the room watching her with an odd look -- like admiration and longing. But he never let her near him.
Again he left before the ball was over, but this time, he caught he eye as he left; she was shocked to see that his gaze was a sparkling, transparent blue. He nodded formally before sweeping out.
He came on the third night, too. She wasn't expecting him; it was the calm before battle, and no one would die that night. But there He was, in the same elegant robes of absolute blackness, slim and pale, watching her with his vibrant blue eyes.
That night he was presented properly at the start of the ball as Lord Charon, and he walked in, strangely unassuming and unthreatening for all his power. He allowed himself to be formally presented to her before the dancing began, and she noted with interest that he was armed. Tucked into his high black boots, one at each calf, a pair of silver hilts winked in the magical light that filled the hall. Small daggers or stilettos, she guessed, but she said nothing, accepting his genteel greeting with a slight nod, before turning to welcome the next dignitary.
Once again, no one paid him the slightest notice. Except her. That night, she finally cornered him, for he had stopped running from her. She found him wandering the rose gardens. They made conversation, some of it polite, speaking of everything and nothing at once; she was delighted to find that he was not afraid of her sharp wit. Eventually, she introduced herself as Queen Morgan and asked his name.
He did not appear impressed by her title, but she had expected that. She did not, however, anticipate his rude reply.
"You already know my name, Morrigan."
Of course it was true that she already knew it, but it was the polite thing to do, to ask his name. He had dared to insult her both by refusing to give it, and ignoring her preferred title.
She asked him to dance.
And so they did, and she had eyes and time for no one else. She found exactly what she wanted in the quiet determination of his dance and the glittering of his eyes. They weren't really lively, she decided, that would be ridiculous. No, they were scintillating calm, the surface of an ocean that reflected precisely what you were and nothing more. Truth that could swallow you whole without a whisper.
It stirred something in her, that dance and those eyes, and she realized that no mortal man or fairy lord would ever measure up to this. This was what she wanted to come home to, this peaceful silence and truth, between battles.
She asked him to marry her as the enchanted clock struck midnight, but instead of answering he made to go. She lashed out, catching his gloved wrist, and demanding an answer.
At her touch, her whirled on her, his eyes spitting sparks.
"An answer, Morrigan?" he snapped, suddenly furious, "Not this night."
Her grip weakened as one of his silver stilettos embedded itself in her shoulder, and though she tried to call out to him as he wrenched himself from her grip, her voice failed her, and He vanished into the darkness.
She sent her people after him, although she knew it would do her no good. She gave them the silver stiletto and demanded that they search every man who had attended. She knew nothing would come of their search; none but her had even seen him arrive at the ball. but it gave her Court something to look at while she went from her palace to search for him.
She went down to the river Styx, in the faint hope that he might have used his true name, but Charon was a stout, powerful old man, rude and vulgar. She asked Hades where her love might be, but the Necropolis had little to do with the actual act of dying, and neither he nor his fair wife could tell her anything of the Reaper. Ceberus said they'd seen him a few millennia ago, asking after Orpheus. (Ambios declared that it was more like a few centuries ago, not so long as the others had said, surely. But neither date was useful to her.)
She tried Valhala, but the Valkyries were too arrogant and too jealous to speak to her properly, much less help her, and Hrothgar proposed her.
Lucifer tried to help, in his absent way, but he had no more idea than her here to look.
Michael told her that they didn't deal with him any more, and she wondered who they did deal with, if not him. Perhaps they had no newcomers these days. But old-fashioned or no, the warrior's white wings shone with power, and she dared not press the issue.
Anubis laughed at her and said He hadn't been around since the Old Days; no one believed in the feather and the scales any longer.
The shinigami tried to eat her, and she was forced to beat an ignominious retreat, leaving behind her favorite rapier.
At last, irritated and exhausted, she went back to her lands to rethink her strategy.
No one had found the matching stiletto, but there were men from every corner of Faerie, lined up out the doors, waiting to offer their pale imitations, each hoping to be the king of her lands. She took one look at the ambitious idiots and greedy fools queued outside her door and quickly thought up a new tactic.
The announcement that anyone bearing the wrong blade would be put to death barely reduced the size of the crowd. The Morrigan saw this and smiled to herself.
The next day, she sat on her throne, executing men as they tried to trick her with silver-plated imitations and clumsy models. Hundreds bled out onto her red stone floors, and yet they kept coming.
She looked into the eyes of each man, well aware that He might come in any guise, but in vain. She saw kindness and coldness, cruelty and compassion, fear and bravery, but never the quiet truth she was searching for.
By the end of the day, her sword arm was beginning to feel heavy, and her hand of power pricked uneasily. Night spread across her lands, and still the men came to lie to her and be killed. She became impatient. The moon rose through her enchanted sky, hollow and bright, and she sank into that old trance, the state where she could see only the souls and the blood of her victims. She stopped examining their eyes, for with such Sight, she did not need to squint through small windows in order to fathom the shape of their souls.
The line did not cease.
The moon set, leaving her foreign constellations alone in the ink-dark sky, and the palace clock began to toll. Midnight.
The fierce paen of the hour woke her from the blood-haze, just as the line finally ran out. In the space of seconds, the last liars fled or were killed by a final spattering blast of magic.
And there, among her thousands of victims, with the matching stiletto in his hand, He stood alone, waiting.
She tiredly cleaned and sheathed her sword, suddenly aware of how her whole body ached.
And yet...how light her heart was! She looked into his gleaming eyes, and saw, at last, her own truths reflected in them.
"You have my attention, Morrigan," He said, nudging one of the bodies with his foot.
"And you have my sacrifice," she answered, without pause.
But He shook his head slowly, surveying the dead men all around, and he said, "these men were nothing to you. You have sacrificed nothing. What do you want of me?"
"Marry me." Her voice was half plea, half command. "Become my king," she continued, as sweetly as she knew how. "No one else is worthy of you. No one else sees your true soul."
He considered the bloody room again; if the stones had not already been red, they would have been painted so, many times over by the blood of thousands.
"You can see my soul, it is true," he replied tersely, "but you do not understand, if you think this a fitting dowry."
And with that, he left her again.
He had wrenched her heart away yet again, and she fought intently to find some sort of "fitting" tribute. She thought that countries might be worthier, and she set out to build an empire for him. Her neighbors fell beneath her sword, as she conquered nations -- and eventually, whole worlds -- in the hope that He would notice and accept. But she did not see him again, no matter how many died by her hands.
Centuries passed, and she began to despair, sinking into darkness with her lost hopes. She had a true empire by then, full of men eager to do her every bidding. But she had not got what she wanted.
She lost herself in war. She was murderous cruel, lost in her desperation, and as the years passed, she grew no older nor more merciful. But no matter how far she ran from herself, she slowly came to realize what He required of her.
For decades -- centuries -- she refused to offer it. Yet the more she conquered, and the more she killed, the more she came to see how little it meant to her. It meant much to others -- to the grieving survivors and usurped rulers -- but He did not ask that she give of others. He asked her to give of herself.
It was not in her nature to give, though. Not until the last battle was over, when the last nation of Faerie had been brought under her banner, when there was nothing left for her to take, did she finally put down her sword and consider her position. Everything that could be won was hers, and she was no closer to her heart's desire than she had ever been. There was only one thing, she knew, and finally, after nearly a thousand years of suffering, she offered the one thing that could call and hold His attention.
She died as Empress of Underhill, the first and only person to unify all of the Courts.
Death himself came to collect her, as somber and solemn as ever. This time, he said nothing at all. He only opened his arms to her and held her when she ran to embrace him.
She buried her face in his shoulder and he held her and her murmured her name -- her true name, not a title -- into her blood-matted hair. And as he said it, in tones more gentle and affectionate than he had ever used before, she died.
That is how the legend goes, and who would contradict it? Of course she died; Death himself came for her.
And of course she moved on; she clearly didn't return to rule as Empress of Underhill, and why would anyone willingly give up that title?
But Morrigan was the mother of war, and as we still fight, perhaps something of her lives on.
The ambitious Empress is dead, the dreaming mortal child is gone, but they say that, among the small Holdings that float about the Faerie mists, there is one Hold that is perfectly invulnerable. It is not a large estate, but anyone who dares attack or tries to infiltrate it is never seen or heard from again.
It is said that Death lives there, when he is not about his business, and the place is dark and forbidding enough that one can believe it. But of late, the estate has shown the signs of a woman's touch.
Not a usual woman, though, of the sort who opens all the windows once a week to air out the house and puts up lacy curtains to cheer up the place for the sake of her husband. No, this is the sort of woman who rules her household with careful and attentive tyranny, for the lands may belong to her husband, but the running of them is her affair, and woe betide anyone who dares intrude on her domain. It shows the signs of a woman who ensures that the house is comfortable for both her and her husband, whether he likes it or not.
So the windows stay firmly shut, and the faded black curtains are clean and neatly pressed, and the garden is carefully overgrown, but not unruly.
There is a sign on the gate now, and it is the greatest hint that someone else resides there, for while Death has no sense of humor, War has a particularly ironic one.
The sign says, in heavy gothic letters, a greeting and the name of estate in black and red:
Welcome
Home
Summary:It was supposed to be "Cinderella envisoned as an action/adventure story", but I got sidetracked, and this is what happened. Basically a reinvention of Cinderella with personifications of War and Death, but without a fairy godmother. R, 3,260 words
This Cinderella never got what she wanted without a fight. She grew up stubborn and angry. It was true; she was as beautiful and as talented as she was belligerent, but no young man had ever dared to flirt with her, partly because of her sharp tongue, but mostly because she never bothered to dress well. She had concerns greater than what her mirror told her, so her clothes tended to be loose and old. The most time-consuming part of her daily grooming was washing in the morning.
She quarreled often; sometimes she was seen walking through the streets on some errand, looking like she’d been fighting. The village headman said that it was neglect from her step-relatives that made her so harsh. Her step-sisters were vain and pretty things, thin and clique-ish and made up like dolls, just like the boys wanted. Her step-mother was critical and obliquely cruel. The wisemen of the town looked upon her with a distant sort of pity, but she was far from the worst off, and there was nothing they could do about her situation.
As is often the case with adults who have no children of their own, they all had the wrong idea. She had lived with her step-kin since she was old enough to make sentences. The experience had made her strong-willed indeed, but she had never been one never one to quarrel loudly or act out. It was not her kin – blood or otherwise – that caused her grief; it was her trade that did it. Her ludicrous career and all of its side effects.
When she was a little girl, when her step-sisters-to-be first taught her about dressing well, she wished she could be a fairy princess. Fairy Princesses always got new clothes. Then, when her father remarried, she wished to be a fairy bride. Fairy brides got to eat as much as they wanted to, without being nagged about how they were getting fat. And when she was too old for these dreams, this Cinderella dreamed that she was a changeling child and her true fey parents would come to take her away from the mundane world. Changelings didn’t need to have iron control over tongue and temper, for fear of bringing the wrath of the world down on their heads.
By fifteen, she had given up on her fairy dreams. At least, she did until she began to See. She wasn’t a changeling, but she could See that there was indeed a second plane that was populated by fairies and dragons and demons and unicorns. And one day, searching for a trade to take up, she had responded to a request for a courier. It was for a magical courier, although she didn’t know that at the time, and she was plunged into a new world of danger and strangeness. At first, it seemed interesting, but it began to exhaust her. As she became more trusted, she was given more valuable deliveries, and as her burdens increased in worth, the danger of carrying them increased as well.
And if some days she was seen in the town, sweating and panting in a most unfashionable manner, looking like she had been in a fight, those were the days that she slayed dragons and evaded demons. And as these days became more and more frequent, she became an outcast, losing whatever tenuous friendships she had once had; she attracted danger. Somehow, everyone who looked at her knew this, although they knew nothing else about her. She was always tired, always looking over her shoulder for something. No wonder, they said, no wonder no boy would have her.
Of course the truth was that no mortal, boy or man, could have handled her. As she carried her packages from destination to destination, she grew in her knowledge of magic and combat, and she began to develop the qualities of a warrior and a spellsword, at that. She learned how to wield a blade and she discovered that she had a legendary hand of power -- with her left hand, she could conjure fire and throw bolts of magic. As she stretched her capabilities, both magical and physical, she became greater and greater, until perhaps she was too great even for a lord of Faerie.
She stopped carrying messages for others and became a warrior queen, lady of her own bit of Faerie, and a great one, at that. Her subjects called her Queen Morgan, as she ordered them to, but her bloodthirsty ways had more and more of them calling her by another name when she could not hear. Morrigan they called her, the physical manifestation of war, a woman who need not be called a queen, a woman who needed no earthly title, for her very name was the title of a goddess.
And yet, it was not enough, and her childhood dreams still came to plague her at night. She was a fairy queen; she had fulfilled the grandest of her dreams, but she had not got to the heart of them.
The truth was that at the heart of all of her dreams, all she had wanted was magic and love. The magic she yearned for because it was her birthright, and the love, because she had so rarely felt it before. But she had no love, so she arranged for there to be a great ball, lasting three nights, that she might find her love among the young men of Faerie that came to flirt.
On the first night, she saw Him, but he did not stay for long. She saw Him leaving leaving as she descended the grand redstone staircase; his silken black robes swirled out of the crowds and through the door before she could catch his eye.
He arrived a little late on the second night, but so did she. She had had a rather contentious meeting with her war council, and then she had to change her clothes and wash her hands. He had had to attend to his work. She saw him enter as she did, but he avoided her gaze, and moved amidst the other guests like a lost beggar. They gave him a wide berth, even though he hardly looked different from any of them. His dark robes were among the most simply cut; they were spare and adorned only by a single meandering ribbon of silver embroidery, but they were of the finest material. They flowed neatly around his pale, handsome figure.
She hunted for him after she decended the stairs, but she did not accost him. She caught sight of him several times from across the room watching her with an odd look -- like admiration and longing. But he never let her near him.
Again he left before the ball was over, but this time, he caught he eye as he left; she was shocked to see that his gaze was a sparkling, transparent blue. He nodded formally before sweeping out.
He came on the third night, too. She wasn't expecting him; it was the calm before battle, and no one would die that night. But there He was, in the same elegant robes of absolute blackness, slim and pale, watching her with his vibrant blue eyes.
That night he was presented properly at the start of the ball as Lord Charon, and he walked in, strangely unassuming and unthreatening for all his power. He allowed himself to be formally presented to her before the dancing began, and she noted with interest that he was armed. Tucked into his high black boots, one at each calf, a pair of silver hilts winked in the magical light that filled the hall. Small daggers or stilettos, she guessed, but she said nothing, accepting his genteel greeting with a slight nod, before turning to welcome the next dignitary.
Once again, no one paid him the slightest notice. Except her. That night, she finally cornered him, for he had stopped running from her. She found him wandering the rose gardens. They made conversation, some of it polite, speaking of everything and nothing at once; she was delighted to find that he was not afraid of her sharp wit. Eventually, she introduced herself as Queen Morgan and asked his name.
He did not appear impressed by her title, but she had expected that. She did not, however, anticipate his rude reply.
"You already know my name, Morrigan."
Of course it was true that she already knew it, but it was the polite thing to do, to ask his name. He had dared to insult her both by refusing to give it, and ignoring her preferred title.
She asked him to dance.
And so they did, and she had eyes and time for no one else. She found exactly what she wanted in the quiet determination of his dance and the glittering of his eyes. They weren't really lively, she decided, that would be ridiculous. No, they were scintillating calm, the surface of an ocean that reflected precisely what you were and nothing more. Truth that could swallow you whole without a whisper.
It stirred something in her, that dance and those eyes, and she realized that no mortal man or fairy lord would ever measure up to this. This was what she wanted to come home to, this peaceful silence and truth, between battles.
She asked him to marry her as the enchanted clock struck midnight, but instead of answering he made to go. She lashed out, catching his gloved wrist, and demanding an answer.
At her touch, her whirled on her, his eyes spitting sparks.
"An answer, Morrigan?" he snapped, suddenly furious, "Not this night."
Her grip weakened as one of his silver stilettos embedded itself in her shoulder, and though she tried to call out to him as he wrenched himself from her grip, her voice failed her, and He vanished into the darkness.
She sent her people after him, although she knew it would do her no good. She gave them the silver stiletto and demanded that they search every man who had attended. She knew nothing would come of their search; none but her had even seen him arrive at the ball. but it gave her Court something to look at while she went from her palace to search for him.
She went down to the river Styx, in the faint hope that he might have used his true name, but Charon was a stout, powerful old man, rude and vulgar. She asked Hades where her love might be, but the Necropolis had little to do with the actual act of dying, and neither he nor his fair wife could tell her anything of the Reaper. Ceberus said they'd seen him a few millennia ago, asking after Orpheus. (Ambios declared that it was more like a few centuries ago, not so long as the others had said, surely. But neither date was useful to her.)
She tried Valhala, but the Valkyries were too arrogant and too jealous to speak to her properly, much less help her, and Hrothgar proposed her.
Lucifer tried to help, in his absent way, but he had no more idea than her here to look.
Michael told her that they didn't deal with him any more, and she wondered who they did deal with, if not him. Perhaps they had no newcomers these days. But old-fashioned or no, the warrior's white wings shone with power, and she dared not press the issue.
Anubis laughed at her and said He hadn't been around since the Old Days; no one believed in the feather and the scales any longer.
The shinigami tried to eat her, and she was forced to beat an ignominious retreat, leaving behind her favorite rapier.
At last, irritated and exhausted, she went back to her lands to rethink her strategy.
No one had found the matching stiletto, but there were men from every corner of Faerie, lined up out the doors, waiting to offer their pale imitations, each hoping to be the king of her lands. She took one look at the ambitious idiots and greedy fools queued outside her door and quickly thought up a new tactic.
The announcement that anyone bearing the wrong blade would be put to death barely reduced the size of the crowd. The Morrigan saw this and smiled to herself.
The next day, she sat on her throne, executing men as they tried to trick her with silver-plated imitations and clumsy models. Hundreds bled out onto her red stone floors, and yet they kept coming.
She looked into the eyes of each man, well aware that He might come in any guise, but in vain. She saw kindness and coldness, cruelty and compassion, fear and bravery, but never the quiet truth she was searching for.
By the end of the day, her sword arm was beginning to feel heavy, and her hand of power pricked uneasily. Night spread across her lands, and still the men came to lie to her and be killed. She became impatient. The moon rose through her enchanted sky, hollow and bright, and she sank into that old trance, the state where she could see only the souls and the blood of her victims. She stopped examining their eyes, for with such Sight, she did not need to squint through small windows in order to fathom the shape of their souls.
The line did not cease.
The moon set, leaving her foreign constellations alone in the ink-dark sky, and the palace clock began to toll. Midnight.
The fierce paen of the hour woke her from the blood-haze, just as the line finally ran out. In the space of seconds, the last liars fled or were killed by a final spattering blast of magic.
And there, among her thousands of victims, with the matching stiletto in his hand, He stood alone, waiting.
She tiredly cleaned and sheathed her sword, suddenly aware of how her whole body ached.
And yet...how light her heart was! She looked into his gleaming eyes, and saw, at last, her own truths reflected in them.
"You have my attention, Morrigan," He said, nudging one of the bodies with his foot.
"And you have my sacrifice," she answered, without pause.
But He shook his head slowly, surveying the dead men all around, and he said, "these men were nothing to you. You have sacrificed nothing. What do you want of me?"
"Marry me." Her voice was half plea, half command. "Become my king," she continued, as sweetly as she knew how. "No one else is worthy of you. No one else sees your true soul."
He considered the bloody room again; if the stones had not already been red, they would have been painted so, many times over by the blood of thousands.
"You can see my soul, it is true," he replied tersely, "but you do not understand, if you think this a fitting dowry."
And with that, he left her again.
He had wrenched her heart away yet again, and she fought intently to find some sort of "fitting" tribute. She thought that countries might be worthier, and she set out to build an empire for him. Her neighbors fell beneath her sword, as she conquered nations -- and eventually, whole worlds -- in the hope that He would notice and accept. But she did not see him again, no matter how many died by her hands.
Centuries passed, and she began to despair, sinking into darkness with her lost hopes. She had a true empire by then, full of men eager to do her every bidding. But she had not got what she wanted.
She lost herself in war. She was murderous cruel, lost in her desperation, and as the years passed, she grew no older nor more merciful. But no matter how far she ran from herself, she slowly came to realize what He required of her.
For decades -- centuries -- she refused to offer it. Yet the more she conquered, and the more she killed, the more she came to see how little it meant to her. It meant much to others -- to the grieving survivors and usurped rulers -- but He did not ask that she give of others. He asked her to give of herself.
It was not in her nature to give, though. Not until the last battle was over, when the last nation of Faerie had been brought under her banner, when there was nothing left for her to take, did she finally put down her sword and consider her position. Everything that could be won was hers, and she was no closer to her heart's desire than she had ever been. There was only one thing, she knew, and finally, after nearly a thousand years of suffering, she offered the one thing that could call and hold His attention.
She died as Empress of Underhill, the first and only person to unify all of the Courts.
Death himself came to collect her, as somber and solemn as ever. This time, he said nothing at all. He only opened his arms to her and held her when she ran to embrace him.
She buried her face in his shoulder and he held her and her murmured her name -- her true name, not a title -- into her blood-matted hair. And as he said it, in tones more gentle and affectionate than he had ever used before, she died.
That is how the legend goes, and who would contradict it? Of course she died; Death himself came for her.
And of course she moved on; she clearly didn't return to rule as Empress of Underhill, and why would anyone willingly give up that title?
But Morrigan was the mother of war, and as we still fight, perhaps something of her lives on.
The ambitious Empress is dead, the dreaming mortal child is gone, but they say that, among the small Holdings that float about the Faerie mists, there is one Hold that is perfectly invulnerable. It is not a large estate, but anyone who dares attack or tries to infiltrate it is never seen or heard from again.
It is said that Death lives there, when he is not about his business, and the place is dark and forbidding enough that one can believe it. But of late, the estate has shown the signs of a woman's touch.
Not a usual woman, though, of the sort who opens all the windows once a week to air out the house and puts up lacy curtains to cheer up the place for the sake of her husband. No, this is the sort of woman who rules her household with careful and attentive tyranny, for the lands may belong to her husband, but the running of them is her affair, and woe betide anyone who dares intrude on her domain. It shows the signs of a woman who ensures that the house is comfortable for both her and her husband, whether he likes it or not.
So the windows stay firmly shut, and the faded black curtains are clean and neatly pressed, and the garden is carefully overgrown, but not unruly.
There is a sign on the gate now, and it is the greatest hint that someone else resides there, for while Death has no sense of humor, War has a particularly ironic one.
The sign says, in heavy gothic letters, a greeting and the name of estate in black and red:
Home
