[5K] [Raid] The Verdant King: Aadav

"I do love my people, I've gathered them over my life to create a world with less strife, free of enslavement and famine. I've given all I can for them, and I always will give for those I love! I feel the sorrow coming off of you? What has happened to you? I can barely imagine the loss or confusion you may feel right now." she would say trying to be kind, trying to open her arms and embrace. She would snap, the fanalis command causing Erydyn to pause the storm now.

The sun would free, shining in correspondence. Her mane flickered with the Sun's flare. It was her job to ease suffering, before snuffing out his pain maybe there was another way to to relieve. A bit more pain was manageable in her state, she could bear it for her Kids, her nation, and this hurt soul.

"I halt this storm, and i ask for you to halt as wrll so we can talk. I imagine we would both go to greant lengths foe the things we love. Accept my embrace and plese lets talk."

She would say try to move herself toward him, to hug him if he wished. She could take just a bit more if that's what it would take.

If the raging swamp waters around them weren't likely to have drowned Menat the sensation she felt listening to Aadav speak while held in her mother's embrace would most certainly have managed. She focused on the bark that had been, yet again, stripped from her body just so shorty after having been reformed along her vine-like muscles by the impact that had sent her flying into those very waves. She needed it to reform through Reclaimed Wood once again. Fast. She understood her mother's choices, what she was trying to do by taking the peaceful and calming approach she was attempting. If she was being honest Menat herself had beem more than hopeful she could have solved this problem in the same way.

It was Aadav's words that made her realize with horror that it wasn't an option. He had started to grow a bit more frantic from the fact he had sent Menat flying into the waters only to turn that frantic worry against Merrze. He accused her of doing nothing to try and save Menat when he risked killing the Meridian Princess with his actions. Several times he stated these facts and accusations and each time that feeling in the pit of Menat's phantom stomach grew more nausiating. The plant life around them became violently active at Aadav's emotional break into the forms of flora Menat had never seen, let alone encountered before.

The Princess would look from her weapons towards their foe and back several times over as she began weighing her options. Her eyes lingered on Ipos. She had an idea of what she needed to do. Holstering her Mother Thorn on her back she took up the weapon form of her metal vessel with both hands, falling back on her training with a single spear in combat at this point. There was something she remembered about using Ipos while in it's bident form and was willing to put her faith in her djinn in this moment. Her hands tightened to the point that her knuckles would have turned white if she still had any.

"MERRZE! HELP THE OTHERS!" She made it an order to her mother. Her teacher. Her empress. The Spriggan Queen was here to take control in this moment. Ignoring the strange new plants summoned by the Verdant Maharaja the Spriggan leaped forward to strike him with her bident. Sounds rang out with each strike and stab of her weapon in a 5m diameter centered on each point of impact. The sound didn't bother Menat in the slightest and in fact even Aadav would find it an extremely pleasing sound dispite the fact it originated from his being struck. Once. Twice. Menat attempted to strike and stab at the Maharaja five times in succession before turing her focus onto another attack. A sixth attack was used a feint, swinging Ipos down vertically in front of the Maharaja while making sure to avoid directly hitting him. Instead she struck the prongs of her bident against the ground, turning the weapon on Aadav immediately in order to deliver the strongest point-blank Sound Cannon she could muster against him.

Magoi: 104/360
Stamina: 145/175

action log:

Reclaimed Wood:

Sound Cannon:

Ipos:

"It is a fool who believes they can do all on their own! I put faith in my family, in my people, if I fail to save them that is on me. It is not up to decide what faith I put in them, if we do not trust in people to be strong themselves or else they are destined to die! That is a world I wish to avoid, but for it to be so we choose to take on that burden." Merrze would roar, her golden aura flaring as she would use her aura's shield to block incoming damage, but she was not a one-plan type of woman. She'd use her enhanced strength to rip from the much, smacking away the helper. If he wished to match jungles, she'd do the same. No plant would reach her, and as her vessel of Buer began to grow, she absorbed the nearby plant matter to restore her magoi.

"I ask once more, yield please, we can take this out, if this last act can not show what I wish to represent I believe all is lost." The silver bangle on her wrist began to glow, fluttering as the Empress poured magoi into it "Oh Djinn of Growth and Vitality allow me to create life anew! Infest the world with the power of the living to rid the world of all that is vile! Grow, Buer!" Her hair became as rich as the soil, long as vines as flowers began to grow from her clothes. From around her waist four fly traps would emerge, snapping only as Merrze calmed them. They would release spores, as Merrze floated above the muck ever so slightly.
"Buerai Altyn-Alshifa!" A jungle would grow from Within Aadav's own creation one of Merrze's magic, she would grow it inside his trees. The fruit was available for all, but Merrze would sink her vine's into the ground, Buer's Growth fused the forest into her vines, interconnecting them all.

"Now we are one."

Magoi: 140/160

spells used:

Theos, who was still invisible, realized he’d lost some feeling in one of his arms and biological leg. Using his quick reflex’s Theos jumped back and into the air towards Zeus. Theos then uncloaked himself allowing Zeus to grab him with his Talons. “Thank you old friend. This battle may be coming to a close. Zeus I’ve lost feeling in left arm and biological leg.” Just as those words left his mouth Their saw a small building begin to peak from the receding waters. “Zeus take us there. There’s something that’s drawing me towards that building. Ali prepare to strike at any time.

Merrze would rise higher in the air, her lower body crippled from the strange spores. She would use her weapon fused with the forest to withdraw, ripping trees from the ground, taking the plants with her. It was a show of strength, of power. It was also to open up his view, to see the beauty in the sky that was opened up. She was the distraction as Theos made his way towards the strange building. If Menat wished to be the bulwark that was fine. "Your people do matter, it was I who united a broken people. It was I that when violence came to retake the land stood in it's path. It was I who had freed people enslaved for hundreds of years in your absence. You did your best, I have seen that. Do you think I had not made mistakes, that I have no seen the ones I loved die? No for I pushed forward, I survived, I learned to find peace, and balance in a world filled with suffering! I only wish to extend the same for you, you are not protecting anyone anymore, you are lashing out in pain. I have come to ease it, you can accept it. But you cannot hurt the land anymore, that creature in the sky is one of nature's balances. So am I, please do not make me Hurt

Merrze rose her hand in the air, if Aadav dared to make an attack on her, she would bring down the whole weight of the forest connected to her vines in an instant. She would weave the plants to avoid Menat, to focus her grace into a hammer, and smash. That was only if he chose violence, this was the last chance. The fanalis always chose to extend peace if she could, but this was the world.

Notes: Merrze flew about 20m in the air, bringing the 50m of forest with her that she fused her weapon into. She will crush Aadav if he chooses violence over choosing to halt.

magoi: 130/160

The prongs of Ipos's bident form struck solid against the household-clad arms of Aadav as he brought them up in defense, a melodious sound ringing from the point of her impact. Of course she had known that would happen, she had been counting on that more than the act of striking Aadav to begin with. The mould from the Maharaja's Jungle of the Foresaken had taken effect, dropping Menat to her knees as both of her legs went completely numb and gave out from under her. Just in time for one of Aadav's Unfriendly Helper to spring up from below the marsh's waters at her, the combined problems causing the remaining attacks she had planned to fall away as she dealt with the annoying combination.

Try as she might she found herself unable to make herself rise to her feet once again, clearly a sign that she wouldn't be moving from her position any time in the immediate future. She had hoped the resounding melody would help sooth the Maharaja in his confused frenzy but with only one strike being delivered to anything she would need to either find more openings to deliver her pleasing melodies or risk seeing what that single attack she did manage to land would result in.

The floral hybrid that had been Menat's forest before being merged with Aadav's Jungle, having been wrenched from her control in the process, only grew far more complex with the addition of a new invasive ecosystem produced from her mother's newly activated djinn. The chaotic mash of individually produced forests and jungles attempting to dominate each other to provide their creators an advantage was insufferable to Menat. But it did give her an idea. Her forest was the original one produced in the 50m around Aadav, her mother and herself. It was her forest that Aadav's jungle assimilated and her mother essentially invaded by implanting her own forest within Aadav's plants. But that core, her forest, was still there.

The vines comprising of her legs began to uncoil and buldge like a mass of dying snakes as she forced the vinces into the floor of the composite floral ecosystem like roots. She only needed one chance, all she needed was to get to her feet just long enough to drive home one last strike of pure despiration. Her hand went to her belt, fingers wrapping around the handle of the sole knife resting there as her paralyzed legs were replaced by fresh plants pulled from the combination of Aadav, Merrze and her own forests. The new limbs finished forming as the Spriggan Queen removed her Decaying Blade from its sheath, allowing her to spring to her feet. Menat poured her magoi into the blade, lunging forward on her new legs with all the strength she could muster in an attempt to slash across Aadav's throat and sever his head from his shoulders.

Magoi: 129/360
Stamina: 85/175

Notes:

Decaying Blade:

Slash:

Spriggan King:

Ipos:

She felt nothing but pity for the man. To claim one could have no love for something they may hurt in their best intentions was ignorance. She took accountability in all she did, but the land was nurtured, it was respected even if it had changed. Every part of nature had its rule, he went against it even if he wished for it to be a prosperous and peaceful land. it was her job, her people's job to put him to rest. Menat, her eldest rose up to that challenge wonderfully. "You feel sorrow in your mistakes Aadav where I feel none, mistakes are the blocks that make us ourselves. it is when we abandon that ego and just exist is that our purpose is fulfilled. The suffering we inflict on ourselves eventually plagues the land as well."

Merrze would float over to Menat, she had tanked so much force, she still had plenty of fight left in her but, this had to be a tiring experience mentally for most of them. The mother could only imagine the pain her daughter felt in being embraced by this man, As she floated towards her spriggan spawn she would unequip her djinn as she drew close enough to touch the girl. She felt onto her child, arms wrapped around her. She kneeled, her legs still weak from the paralyze. The bark skin of her daughter was strangely warm, not like what she had before but it brought comfort. Sometimes she missed her beautiful girl, but she was still gorgeous just in a new way.

"I'm proud of you, for the pain you endured, for the strength you showed, and the kindness that you embodied. There is more to see, but if you wish to rest you can." It could only make Merrze think of one thing, the life her daughter missed out on. She loved Endolf, their relationship was strange but they were bound by a chain. They'd both felt the pain, but her was an absence in which she had no story. This man saw her as his daughter, was she okay with that, did it even register? It was life, for Merrze she moved on from her pain, but she did not heal by experiencing it. She wanted her kids to have that option. This moment was for them.

The world fell to silence around Menat. All that she could hear was her own breathing as she fell back to her knees with the added weight of Aadav hanging onto her. His thorny barbs hooked him to the bark skin she spent so much energy recreating time after time in her attempts to withstand the battle with the Maharaja and his single remaining arm wrapped around her shoulders. The Spriggan Queen was far too hyper aware of the one otherwise unnoticeable spot on her shoulder she had felt a single drop of liquid hit as her vision blurred from the pollen produced from Aadav's primal forest. It wasn't enough to remove the final image she had seen prior though, it was practically burned into her mind to the point that no matter how blurry and horrible her vision actually became she could see it crystal clear.

That man's smiling face and the sap like tears rolling down his cheeks as he looked at her. She had stopped his unstable rampage in time that the pollen of his prehistoric plants had lost its effectiveness to the point her vision had only grown fuzzy rather than fading completely as it seemed it otherwise would have. The pollen's halted effects also did nothing to make the image of Aadav's final smile that much harder to ignore with her peripheral vision hazy. Her newly formed legs had begun to fall numb much in the way the set she had discarded to launch her desperate attack had fallen useless, yet again the halting of Aadav and his plants put an end to the paralyzing effects of his pollen as well. That didn't stop her from falling to both the weakness of her knees and the weight of the Maharaja's form still held fast to her by his remaining arm and thorny briars piercing her torso's bark.

Even with his head falling off into the muck of the marsh with an unnaturally sickening "splurt" the Princess was unable to shake his smile, almost as if it refused to sink with his head. Her hands refused to work anymore, all strength leaving the appendages as her weapons fell to the muck as well. Silently, and before she could register what she was doing, Menat's arms moved to embrace Aadav's lifeless torso and buried her face into his remaining shoulder. Unexplained tears of her own flowed from the voids that were her eyes mirrored those that their foe had shed himself. For the first time since she could remember Menat was not a warrior or a Princess of Meridia. In this moment she was nothing more than a young girl grieving for someone with her entire being.

The sorrow flowed from the girl's very being, permeateing the very air surrounding both Aadav and herself. This explosion brought to the surface suppressed emotions she had never realized she had even developed to begin with let alone buried. If she were able to put it into words, a feat she was far from capable of at that moment, she could have sworn it was like she was living another life at that moment. She had never become the Spriggan Queen that had been able to stand against such a powerful foe in the way she had this battle, instead she was still a young Fanalis woman who had dreamed and desired of nothing more than meeting the father she never knew and showing him everything she was capable of. Of proving to him that she was nothing more than a daughter that wanted to make him proud to be her father. The words Ipos had spoken to her in the dungeon upon claiming the djinn as her own struck harsher and deeper in her vulnerable state.

Her father had perished before Menat had even been born.

Those dreams and desires she held on to as a child began to fester and boil in her very core as these words echoed within. Was this moment, Aadav's final moments, really going to be the closest thing she ever got to experiencing the truest love a parent could offer their child? Even if she wasn't his daughter? Her mother had never treated her the way Aadav had in the end either. Of course she loved Menat, and her daughter knew it, but her mother wasn't a typical woman. Her brand of love was harsher, fiercer, that of a provider. She didn't show Menat the warm and comforting love Aadav's form radiated in his final moments, or even now as she held his corpse. In fact even at this moment all her mother could offer Menat seemed to be nothing more than a simple hand on her shoulder like she were offering her condolences to a fellow warrior rather than offering her the comfort and warmth of a mother.

Her sorrow hardened as her emotions clashed, her resolve becoming like hardened steel in a single instant. The tears ceased flowing as she removed Aadav from her bosom, laying him on his back gently before moving to fish his head from the marshland's muck and placing it upon his own chest. All the while doing her best to avoid looking at his face again. She patted herself down, looking for one of the crystal like shards she had been accumulating since leaving behind Reim to join her mother and carve out her own adventures in the world. Yet somehow she found herself lacking any of them in this moment, the first time she ever found a need for any of them. She felt fires burning within herself as her anger flared, directed at herself for how stupid of a mistake she had made in not bringing one.

"Mom." Her voice was deep and hollow, yet solid and leveled as she spoke to Merrze, never bothering to look back behind her at her own mother. "You have one, right? One of those shards? I need it."

Theos could hear the battle behind him rage on. It sounded as if the battle had been one but the young fanalis wasn’t sure. Although he figured it to be due to the sheer power each one of them held individually. He himself had all but completely disabled the Majaraha’s arms. Zeus continued towards his ordered destination. Calmly flying until they reach the building that was being shown more and more as the water receded. “Alright Zeus you stay here and if anything happens…You know what to do.” Theos said with a somewhat serious tone in his voice. Zeus screeched in complying with Theos before dropping him to the building. Theos began limping down the stairwell, barely able to feel his leg. “Well at least the feeling is starting to come back.” He said referring to his flesh leg. “A hall full of doors, more stairs, and a riddled poem that serves as some sort of hint. Awh yeah my rare treasure senses are tingling.” Theos said joyfully. As he continued to walk to the next stairwell slowing traversing it.

Theos was slightly surprised by just how much plant life had encroached on the tomb. The smell of pungent bark like that of the Aadav. Theos squinted his eyes looking around until he noticed, upon further inspection, he could make out what had been written on a pedestal. Carefully and as much as he could see it Theos read aloud what was before him. Noticing the torches. The young survivalist like one and removed it from the wall showing just what was hidden within this tomb. 4 statues, each with its own meticulous design. He quickly recognized one that appeared to be Aadav. Theos slowly approached it scanning every detail of the monument. “Hmm, he must’ve been a fine ruler, competent and compassionate for his subjects.” He thought to himself.

Merrze had only a few times in her life in which she had felt at a loss. She traced her fingers along her daughter's bark. She tried her best to be loving, to be kind, and build a home for her kids to be safe. There was so much of her life, that she had built. For Menat, part of her world was missing, that was something Merr could understand wholeheartedly. "Did I ever tell you I never knew my father, my mother passed when I was only 8." Merrze began to speak. Her voice was soft but seemed to sing out in the field. If she wanted her daughter to understand, she had to be vulnerable.

"Anger clouded every aspect of my life, I know I've shared my past qualms and experiences with slavers. But my life was stolen from me, I only had my anger. Before I had you, I had a daughter named Ku, a girl I rescued from the streets. I learned to let go of my anger, and I found it another. Your father, a young man at the time who barely made it to my neck." A tiny smirk began to crack across her lips.

She looked Menat deep in her eyes, love and sorrow performing the same song and dance. "I lost my daughter, and in him, I found a desire to nurture or care for someone. Each time I failed him, he let me know. Even after you were born, there were times he only held animosity for me. In him, I felt my failures a hundredfold. With time, my love for the world, for life grew. I knew my job was to become the strongest I could, so that I return home, to bring that sense of peace to the world."

She grasped her daughter's hand, holding it firmly as she prepared to say her last piece. The weight on her seemed greater than the sky. "We sometimes in this world make mistakes doing the right thing. I've lost almost everyone I've ever loved besides you and your siblings. I know the pressure may feel unbearable, I am sorry for putting the weight of this world on your shoulders. I believe while I am an instrument to help balance this world, you will truly be the one that changes it. I see your father in your eyes, I see my failures there too. But I also see my greatest success. My love for you will outlast Meridia, it will outlast me, it will outlast the cycle of eternity. I have failed you, but I will never give up on making the world right for you."

With those last words, she let go, the shard in Menats hand would glow with the resplendence of the stars. Merrze was giving over a part of her fate, trusting in her daughter.

A literal shock ran through Menat as her mother's voice finally found its way to her, the Empress choosing to seemingly ignore her daughter's request for one of her magical shards in favor of instead questioning Menat if she had ever been told the story of how her parents had first met. She blinked as she moved her head to stare at her mother in her mixed state of shock, awe and confusion. Had Merrze been sitting there behind ther this whole time? Had she been holding the Spriggan girl during the entire time she had felt Aadav's phantom embrace? It was only after her mother had gotten past the part about having had rescued a young girl named Ku from the streets and taken her in as her own daughter that she realized what was happening.

Her mother was actually showing vulnerability to Menat at this moment. Her mother continued on about Menat's father of all things. She described him, a young Fanalis who had yet to hit any sort of growth spurt and, as a result, had barely met her neck when the two stood together. She went on to explain that she had lost that girl Ku and instead gained another to look after in the form of her father. A sense of fear seemed to grow in a pit deep within the girl's very core as her mother started to talk about her father. It screamed within her, shouting the one word "NO!" with complete panic and desperation, as if she didn't actually want to hear about the father she had never, nor would ever, have the chance to meet. If there was any trace of her rational self still active that wasn't devoting all of itself to holding the girl together she supposed it would come to the conclusion that it was too soon after losing Aadav, after cutting him down herself, to speak of the man when Aadav had seen her only as his own daughter.

Even if it had only been due to his some sort of mania brought on by the combination of his ressurection and Menat's idiotic idea to show him what he most desired in her attempt to pacify him. That fatherly love and pride, emotions she had never had the good fortune to experience first hand, were unmistakable to her. Speaking of her real father now simply felt like it would be doing the man before her, who only remained in the form of his severed head submerged within the marsh's muck, a grave dishonor. Yet she couldn't vocalize those feelings, couldn't feed that fear and panic deep inside her. She could only allow her mother to continue to tell her story, for the first time, to her eldest child.

Her mother continued to speak of the bond she held with Menat's father, how he had always seemed to hold her in check and make sure she knew when she was wrong or when she had failed him in some way. Menat wondered silently if she should have to begin holding her mother to those same standards. That pit in her core seemed to ache with the idea that her mother hadn't treated her like her daughter, like her child, since she had come to their new home from Reim. She had spent her time on the children that came after her before she could arrive and join the family. Merlin and Merrzan and all their younger siblings that followed. Even by the time she had returned from her successful capture of Ipos's dungeon and her transformation into the powerful inhuman form she currently wore her mother had found another to bestow another set of twins to her. For the eldest of the royal children of Meridia Menat felt drastically separate. Alone.

Merrze's words shifted from speaking of Menat's father to giving the young girl a glimpse into her own mother's personal pains. Her unluckiness in knowing that virtually everyone she had ever loved and cared for had been ripped from her in some way with the exceptions of Menat's siblings and the Spriggan girl herself. Merrze spoke to Menat of how she had always seen herself as a tool to aid in bringing balance to the world but it was Menat that she believed to be the one to bring change to it. The subject once more came back to the girl's father with Merrze telling her how much of him she could see in her daughter's eyes. She could see her own failures within the glowing voids that now served as Menat's eyes just as well, momentarily causing the girl far more sorrow and despair as it registered to herself that she was a failure to her mother.

It was the genuine declaration of Merrze's love for Menat, how she claimed it to be strong enough to outlast either of them, their new kingdom or eternity itself that drove back that darkness from within the Meridian Princess. For once in their relationship Menat actually could feel that her mother meant it. The fact her mother had gone as far as admitting that she had failed Menat and assuring her that she would never give up on making the world right for her daughter.

As Merrze finished speaking she placed an object in Menat's hand. A shard just like her daughter had requested. The Spriggan Queen was such a chaotic storm of emotions at that moment that her voice failed her. She should have thanked her mother, should have reassured her that her own feelings and emotions were things they could handle together. Yet she couldn't. Instead her hand wrapped tightly around the crystal, holding it as to not yet crush it. She knew what she needed to do with it. Retrieving Aadav's severed head from the swamp muck she did her best to clean him up. He deserved to look presentable. Rising to her feet she made way to the tomb that had risen with his fall, carrying him and the crystal with the posture and purpose of a noble warrior or, as exactly as she was, a member of a royal family.

The way through the tomb was simple and surprisingly direct. It was a matter of ease for her to find the four individual statues overgrown by ebony colored tree trunks and each with a brazier before it. Any idiot could tell which one represented Aadav as it held his very likeness almost perfectly for a mausoleum that had been submerged below a swamp for who knows how long. Ignoring the individual standing before it she made her way to Aadav's statue, placing his head upon it with respect. "You didn't deserve to be dragged back to this land, to be ripped away from your family like this. That's why I want you to find eternal peace with those who your heart belongs with most. Now rest, King Aadav." The hand holding the shard her mother had gifted her crushed the fragile object with such a quickly applied amount of force that it had become dust in her hand. "And thank you for giving me the gift of a father's love and treating me like a daughter in the end, even if I wasn't her." She thought at she spread the powdered remains of the crystal across the King's remains and the statues of his wife and daughter all in a single flourish of his arm.

Menat's offering of her mother's shard seemed to have been accepted by....well she wasn't sure by what. The Rukh itself maybe? She had never actually used one of the crystals intentionally before or even been awake when one had been used. The only time she had experienced the power of a shard was when she had woken up with her aged up form after having broken her father's during her sleep.The crystal fragments in her hand dissipated into a flow of golden light which, if she looked closely and carefully enough at it, appeared to be not unlike the fluttering wings of hundreds if not thousands of golden butterflies. It was breathtaking to say the least.

The mausoleum was soon filled by the sound of a man's voice. It was clearly the voice of Aadav but the difference was rather dramatic when compared to that of the voice she heard while facing him in the marsh above. There he had been more hoarse and obviously panicked from his disorientating situation and the drastic concern for his long passed daughter.Here he was far more level headed, soft-toned and quiet. Caring even. She wondered if she was the only one who coule hear his words or if the others there were listening to the long-passed King as well. A concern for another time she guessed. Or perhaps not. Even if they did hear him or if she was the only one she couldn't help but feel like he deserved to be heard in his rightful state of mind after such an ordeal.

Besides. She had always imagined this was what her father might have sounded like while she was growing up. Or at least she hoped as much.

The light from her broken shard spread as before her very eyes the figure of Aadav himself stepped before her with arms outstreached, ready to embrace the girl. She stood there for a moment in pure awe as her eyes once more began to well up with tears. She thought she had shed every last one she had when she had made the decision to lay him back to rest and end his ressurection. Now here she was once more sobbing as she stared at the visage of the King in his prime as he complimented her actions and choices to honor his people. Without a second thought the threw herself at the man before her, embracing him like he really was her father returned to her. Their embrace stirred memories within Menat that didn't fit.

Some stood out clearer than others. She walked among crowds of citizens that just couldn't help but adore her. A black-haired girl ran into her waiting arms. Sitting through the complaints and concerns of courtiers. She knew they weren't things she had ever experienced, especially the black-haired girl running for her embrace, yet they all found home among her actual memories. She could only guess they were those of Aadav himself gifted to her as a way to experience the relationship of a father, of a king, and his daughter. The next time she opened her eyes she was surrounded by a white void. For a moment she wanted to panick at her unfamiliar location before her eyes locked on the visage of someone in the void. There was no way for her to make out his finer details but she could tell that it was a man with fiery red hair. Aadav's voice continued to speak to her.

An apology for the fact that she had longed for the embrace of her father yet he could not offer it to her. Aadav was unable to be her father nor could he hope to be. But it was clear to Menat that the form of the man before her in this white void that was her own heart and soul was none other than the man Aadav spoke of. It was her father. She wanted to bolt to him, throw her arms around him as she had done for Aadav. But life was too cruel. The small, unfocused glimpse of her father was all she was allowed as Aadav finished speaking. The void was no more.

Now once again before the statues of Aadav and his family in their final resting place she stood before the one dedicated to his daughter. Compartments opened in each one and all the others who had answered the call to face the ressurected King had emptied theirs, holding a small chest each. Menat reached for the one she had been gifted, her eyes drifting back to Aadav's statue as if asking permission. Her breath caught in her chest as she noticed the final whispy trails of golden Rukh rising up from Aadav's head before finally fading away. For the first time since the battle ended she felt herself at ease. His final words came back to her as clear as if he had just spoken them right to her. "I can give you what I gave my daughter". This box and what remained within it had been gifted to her just as it had been gifted to Jahanvi. And she accepted it along with the memories of the royal family of the Khemalung people.

The others had finally caught up to him. Theos heard confirmation as Zeus cried out. Turing back to the statue Theos noticed chest of sorts open up below him. Within, a magnificent looking flower pit. The designs elegant. It told a story of its own. The idea of who to gift this popped into his head. “Our Neighborhood Gardner might find this very useful.” Theos said with a grin on his face. “Merrze, you’ve given me inspiration. The next time I see you I may be in the same shoes as you. Menat, this was our first time meeting but I see now you carry manny burdens. Don’t lean so heavy on being such a large shield.” Theos said before looking over to the youngest of the group and giving a nod. “Until next time Meridians.” Theos said exiting the cavern and flying off with Zeus.

Exit