Desrho: There's nothing like family ~ Past

“I’ll kill him, I swear!”

It took a while, but eventually the second guard returned. With him, a group of soldiers, clerics and a woman followed until they reached the door where Electryone was threatening to kill the head priest.

The second guard looked exceedingly nervous now, as he had tried to contact the head of the guard for instructions but the returned queen heard of the commotion and decided to comply with the petition of her granddaughter.

The woman in question was dressed with the royal garb of Desrho, save for the face, which was covered in cloth, just like one would do to protect yourself from the sand in the desert. The only thing you could see through it were her eyes, firm, unblinking, and deeply penetrating as if they could see all the way to your soul.

The improvised entourage said nothing while approaching, even staying silent when arriving mere paces apart from Electryone, who apparently, didn’t think she would get that far. She had acted by impulse and from some point onward only committed to it because there was no way to defuse the situation without seeming like a demented lunatic.

“Electryone, may we speak inside? And for the love of God, let the poor man go.”

Her voice was soft, more akin to a young woman than the grandmother of the now adult girl who was threatening the man with a piece of ceramic. When she saw that Electryone didn’t move, still stunned by the whole situation, the woman simply moved to her and grabbed the piece of ceramic out from her hand.

“There, now let’s go inside. All of you, wait for us outside, don’t let anyone enter the shrine.”

The woman took Electryone’s hand and guided her back inside, just before closing the door behind her. The guards were both impressed and confused by the whole situation in equal measure, except for the head priest who could only sigh in resignation when thinking of the scolding that would come for him later.

The two women moved inside, and as soon as the door closed, Electryone freed herself from her grandma’s grasp, but still followed her back to the main dinner room. There, they sat on opposite sides of the table, close enough to listen to each other but too far for an actual casual conversation.

“You know, I was told about your attitude beforehand, but I’m surprised by that little stunt you pulled. One would think that a life in isolation would lead you to have a more mellow character, but you have the soul of a warrior inside, don’t you?” The woman started, cutting the silence in the room before it became oppressive.

“Is that really what you have to say to me, after all this time? You couldn’t even bother to come and see me when you arrived? I just discovered that you came back because you started a ritual where they are going to starve me.”

Her memories from her youth were fuzzy at best, but she did know there was a time before she was trapped in the shrine and there was a time when her grandmother was a part of her life. A caring, maternal figure who one day simply disappeared from her life under the pretense of death. Did she truly have nothing to say to her?

“Believe it or not, I have a life of my own and many things to do apart from following your whims, but you are right, I was very disconsiderate. I sent the priest to tell you everything but I should have come to talk to you myself from the start.”

She took a moment to think before answering, unsure of where to start.

“For starters, it’s true, I was not dead, although you can see that yourself. Back then I was profoundly hurt, more than it would ever be possible to explain to a kid, so I don’t blame my daughter for telling you that I was dead. Even now… I don’t think I have it in me to tell you the details of it, so you’ll have to excuse me for my lack of explanation in this. I beg you to at least let this point go.”

Electryone had so many things to say about that, that she could not say anything at all. She didn’t know where to start, but the grave and pained tone her grandmother took when saying that made her decide to stay silent. At the end, she could only nod and allow her to go on.

“Secondly, we are not going to let you starve, I’m sure the priest told you this, but let me be exceedingly clear. We are not doing this to hurt you. The hunger, the isolation, even this shrine itself and all the years you spent here have been to prepare you for the ritual that is almost ready to begin. This is not a curse, it is the biggest blessing you could ever hope for.”

“Blessing? You call this a blessing? What could be worth having spent most of my life trapped between four walls? I stopped asking about the ritual years ago, only because I figured out that even the old man didn’t know what it was for. So tell me, what the hell are we doing all of this for?”

“Power, my child. Power is what’s worth this kind of treatment. Maybe you can’t see it now, but there are powers worth spending your whole life getting, and we are about to bless you with one beyond your wildest imaginations.”

“Have you ever stopped to think, for even a second, that I might not want any of it?”

The woman stopped for a moment, looking Electryone in the eyes. It was but a moment, but her eyes widened with the revelation she had. She looked panicked, but quickly reclaimed her composure and rose up from her seat.

“I don’t expect you to understand this, and I do know that you are not happy with the current arrangements. But you have to know that I do this because of love, because you are my granddaughter, and I truly believe that someday you’ll thank me for everything we are doing here.”

The woman tried to leave but Electryone was not going to simply let her go. She grabbed her arm and stopped her before she was able to leave the room, stopping her in her tracks. When she did, she noticed something strange under the robes. Even through the clothing, she could feel something rough on the skin of her arm.

“Don’t you dare touch me!”

The woman screamed and forced her arm out of her grasp. Electryone was shocked by the discovery, and now that she was close to her, took a look at the little bit of her face she could see hidden behind the cloth. Her deep eyes that had not blinked even once, and just on the corners of what was covered just a moment ago, a deep blue tint on her skin that seemed to be cracking apart to show something different underneath.

“Don’t you ever dare touch me, you fucking brat!”

The woman screamed again, and without Electryone to stop her this time, left the shrine without saying any other word. Soon after, a small army of guards did a sweep on the surroundings of the shrine and found a hole on the ground. It was hidden underneath a bush, and it was directed towards the inside of the shrine.

The wall was more than ten meters high, and underground, it also extended another couple of meters to make sure no one could go underneath it. But even then, with nothing but time on her hands, Electryone had dug a hole through the wall, big enough for her to move outside at will.

No one knew how long it had been there; several people were soon hanged, accused of allowing or abetting the princess in her efforts to escape the shrine. But now that the hole was covered and the shrine completely sealed, no one would see the princess from then until the moment the ritual was finally ready to begin.