Cianon the Commander

Phase one was over. Now it was time to move on to phase two.

Despite spending his days scheduling meetings after dinners for the young royals, Mister Burness still managed to find the time to keep his wits and his muscles sharp at all times.

He wasn’t just your regular, crunched-back, white-haired butler.

No, no, no….

The collective intelligence of all humanity, whether dead or alive, was dwarfed by this lavender-colored ogre. His intelligence helped him rise to the level of being worthy of all the clans put together. He remained the mighty and invincible one, the once-in-a-century ogre counterpart to the kings of the human world...

And yet… he had fallen for the cunning charms of the late queen. Her untimely demise now drove her descendants down a treacherous path in pursuit of a fragile, temporary peace. It was his oath to her—to keep her lineage safe and sound—until his final breath in this serene world.

The queen’s final decree had been clear: ‘Teach them to survive what I could not.’

Henceforth, he became the tutor to the youngest of her ‘proclaimed’ grandchildren: the girl commander.

His proudest achievement—to date—is earning more acclaim in the human world, drifting further away from the cruel, low-life status he had been stamped with by the late king.

‘Cannibals—

Slow-witted, low intellect—

Purely driven by a small tinge of blood—

Moralless beings with no sense of emotions—

“DON’T LISTEN TO THEM, MISTER BURNESS!”

His Lady, then a six-year-old princess, was distraught during a meaningless afternoon stroll in such outings. She could barely choke out the words after overhearing the nearby adults' senseless gossip, clouding her outlook on adulthood.

“WHY—Why? Don’t you—you beat—beat them for being so mean—mean to you?” Her mouth opened in a wide, trembling wail—large enough to reveal her coming milk teeth. The stolen wooden sword slipped out of her hand as she slumped to embrace the confused ogre’s waist.

The master, who sought after her generous outlook on life, made him feel as though his origins were as prosperous as the others. From time to time, he was reminded of her pure heart, resembling the bright, radiant smile of her late grandmother.

Both of them carried noble causes and an equally adamant, stubborn spirit that made it difficult for them to blend into the gatherings of others. The battlefield was where they truly belonged. Yet, a pang of guilt would come around and bite him over His Lady’s simple wishes to be sunbathing with her fellow lady consorts when she was required for an abrupt meeting.

It was a necessary sacrifice for her future candidacy for the throne….

Only to be taken away by the boy heir, who didn’t even know basic royal etiquette manners.

Neither he nor the ogre wished for His Majesty to bestow the title of Crown Prince upon a boy so rural, especially over the esteemed and capable princess.

And so, the answer to their dilemma lay deep within those mystical woods.

Not further dwelling in the past, the butler knew that the boy heir would definitely receive the leaf…

But could he be fine on his own?

From what he'd read of their old tales, the boy couldn't resist diplomacy—either ending in noble negotiations or a spiteful knockout from the third party.….

It was a fifty-fifty gamble, and the ogre is trying his best not to bet on it with His Lady.

The commander.

Sure, there were tons, if not hundreds, of generations worth of knowledge on the Wȳscan Tree and its Keeper. All of which, the hero always ended up defeating the good old ‘evil’ viper and winning his wishes. The fairy tales always ended in the same happily ever after.

But the stories?

They never ended…. Rather, they kept unfolding.

Only recently had it become clear that there was more after the end than the tale itself.

Many wanderers, heroes or not alike, had come to the rumored trials held among these woods, only to vanish and never to be heard from ever again. None of the old archives could be of any use to solve the mystery behind these strange disappearances.

Until dozens of all the rumored missing people came out of the very forest, with minds dazed and limbs as thin as a spider’s silk. Eyes drugged with clouded memories of golden leaf, monastery, glass palace, a big-ass cat statue… which was the only common string that tied up all of these.

Without an invitation, there would be no story to be unlocked.

Neither could the ogre enter nor let the boy go alone.

So, he devised a plan.

The reason the heir had named the guardian ‘Keeper’ wasn’t for any reason.

The Guardian was a keeper of all secrets, tales, innovations…you name it.

The Wȳscan Tree?

The memory of all those past centuries of development and progress, as well as tragedies and failures, lingers. It bears the scars of the fallen, forgotten, and lost souls while blowing its golden leaves, chasing any stranded adventurer on the trail.

Think of it as a library, with its bookkeeper being a hundred-headed snake.

As a bookkeeper, one is always on the lookout for new genres or releases of upcoming novels.

In this case, the orb.

“Sending off an offender to a prison?” The Keeper hissed, its many heads chorusing the question back in a perfect, eerie mimicry of the commander's stunt—unimpressed, as though it had witnessed such acts countless times before in its lifetime.

"Justice requires no haste."

The commander’s reply was smooth, her words flowing like still water; her voice remained steady, untouched by the heat of accusation, if it weren’t for the little child behind her who mimicked the same line over.

“JuStIce rEQuires no HaSTe!”

The child smiled with wide-open teeth, with her two fingers at both edges of her mouth. Her brown blouse matched well with her pigtails, if only she wasn’t bleeding from her sliced neck.

“I was once fragile like a mirror.” She lowered her blade, her eyes still in contact. “But after falling from my nest, I wondered, why was I so scared of myself—”

“Sis, with all due respect, that was an actual child.” His eyes glowed as bright as the heat flares that clashed against the metal as he pressed his hands down at the injured child’s neck. Golden trinkets flowed from his fingertips and intervened into a string, illuminating the slim hope for survival.

“I thought that was an illusion! You—you know! The big challenge is to overcome your fear. And the big talk—whatever, forget it!” The girl rushed to his side, pulling up supplies from her bag.

“Well, have you seen this child before?” He beckoned her over to roll the child onto her side.

“Well…” She hesitated, her lips trembling over the child's desperate breaths.

“No, right?” His voice tightened, barely above a whisper. “Not everything you believe in is an illusion, even if it's damn…” He cut himself off, remembering to keep it child-friendly. His thoughts dissolved as quickly as the child’s tears streamed down her dirt-smudged, chubby cheeks.

Even if the child is saved, they were too late to save her innocence from being captured by reality. But, there is a way to relive it back….

“Hey…” He mumbled down to the child’s ear, combing her hair. “Don’t you worry, kiddo; I have been there.” Her wide, stunned eyes fluttered—relief blooming in the chaos, like a flower opening in a storm. A tender wave of relief escaped her parted lips.

“Your hair is reaallllyyyy prettttyyyyy….” He finished the stitching on her neck at the same time, wiping her memory clean of the traumatic event. The girl's lips parted, and her eyes glazed like polished glass. His sister, on the other hand, reached out—but with a quick, comforting glance, her brother nodded her to move on to the next phase.

“Leave her to me; I will create a shield. All that's left to do is pop the bubble.” His smile dripped with his blood at the cost of his power, yet he was steady with resolve.

Even if they had fallouts, they knew at what price their kingdom was at.

Without wasting much time on emotions, the commander moved towards the bored serpentine guardian. Determined eyes stirred the Keeper on their tail, slithering above the colossal roots that marked the forest’s edge.

They began in unison, voices hissing like a dark chorus, “Cianon the Commander, upon your unjustified—”

“I know of your weakness!” The commander cut in boldly, her voice sharp and unwavering—a bluff delivered with fierce conviction. If they don’t use the truth spell, that is.

The heads recoiled slightly, multiple pairs of eyes narrowing in confusion and surprise.

Three or four heads snapped in unison, their tongues flickering nervously, their scales rippling like restless waves. A slight twitch of a lesser head betrayed the Keeper’s momentary uncertainty, but the chorus quickly resumed, their voices dripping with suspicion.

Only one head emerged, lowering itself to meet the commander’s eye level.

Vicious malice wasn’t the only poison she could sense—peculiarity and oddity lingered in the snake’s gaze. They weren’t just any eyes; these were alexandrite orbs, flecked with brittle shards of sulfur, framed by a sharp, narrow scar cutting across its mouth.

Finally, it spoke.

“What do you mean by that, His Lady?”

The commander remained still, unmoved by the familiar title spoken in the mimicry of her annoying yet cherished head butler’s voice. Her fingers clasped even tighter around the orb, inches away from cracking under her unbearable crushing pressure.

“All tales have mentioned Your Serpentine is flawless. Each head is a knowledgeable expert in their own individual field of expertise. One must outwit at least one head to claim victory, which is the very same bedtime story we have been told since the dawn of time.”

She paused and let out a heavy breath before proceeding to the next part.

“But in one such tale, or rather a poem, the poet has used your one hundred heads to be symbolic of human emotions,” she paused for any disapproval.

The intrigued head nodded, “Indeed. Fifty Humans and Fifty Evils."

“That book was burned centuries… I am talking about the ‘Tales of Temp—’”

She was no longer standing. Her boots left the muddy path.

But she wasn’t floating….

One of the other heads had coiled around her neck, tightening with every breath.

If not for her quick hands, phase two would have failed.

“Who gave you that book? No human is meant to ever receive such enlightenment about the gods!”

The voice roared like a cracking sky.

A tremor passed through the roots.

A sharp, whiplash shift in the air.

The Keeper’s many voices unified into one thunderous roar—

“ANSWER ME, COMMANDER! SHE WHO SLAYED HER UNBORN BROTHERS AND SISTERS!”

The once-intrigued head bared its fangs, now dripping with aqua regia—a solution forged from the world’s deadliest acids.

Its eyes oozed with molten contempt, twin streams of judgment trailing down its scaled cheeks.

Each blink burned the air.

Each breath sizzled with memory—not of hers, but of every mortal who had dared trespass the divine.

Each second the world became quieter—birds chirping stopped, and the rustle of the leaves stopped.

Everything stopped.

This is the so-called ‘illusion.’

She didn’t flinch, because her mind was too slow to process—as a human being.

“You bluff well,” it muttered, lips curled around a sulfur-sweet smile.

Before she could take on the trap, her mind was back—

—to the four-year-old girl with the Pegasus wooden toy.

—to that night.

She was brought back to that night.

She brought her mother the requested soup that night.

She brought it with special care of daughterly love that night.

She brought her mother to her knees that night.

She brought the death of her unborn sisters and brothers that night.

“She brought this undesired fate into her own hands that night,” whispered the wooden Pegasus.

“She was—and still is—the princess who ended a lineage that night,” murmured her bedridden mother.

“No.”

A hand clamped down on her shoulder. A bright spark clashed against the midnight haze, casting an ochre glow across the fingers.

“It may have been written in her destiny, but that is not all she brought that night.”

She turned to face the light.

Memories shot through her—swift and merciless, like an arrow loosed from a taut longbow.

One by one, they filled the darkness, decorating the void of emptiness with something else.

Moments she had buried now bloomed like stained-glass across a cathedral of shadow.

“Mister Burness! Isn’t this a pwetty flower? Let me pick it, please?”

“Hey! I don’t wike milk! I don’t want it!”

“PAPA! LOOK! Is that a falcon? I want its feather!”

“Is Mama going to be okay? I want her to be better, next time I play with her, but…”

“When will that be?”

Then—silence.

The memories stopped all at once, as if the cathedral had collapsed under the weight of remembering.

Or did it finally reach the one it was meant to find?

“Cianon? Dear?”

A mellow voice drifted through the stillness—soft, tender, terrifying in its familiarity.

She looked up.

A door stood ajar in the distance, barely open, spilling baby-blue light through the slanted gap.

“Mama?” She couldn’t believe her mouth was calling out the very name she swore to never speak of ever—

“Cinna, come over here. Your mother needs to tell you something important.”

She held herself back, barely leaving any inches between her and the door.

The voice was warm, yet distant.

Familiar, yet wrong.

This had to be one of the illusions that snake cast, she thought to herself.

A memory twisted.

A comfort weaponized.

The voice was warm, yet wrong—like a lullaby sung off-key.

This had to be a trap.

Yet, when had she ever listened to her brain?

Never had, and never will, her motto echoed within her empty head before pushing the door open, ready to bear its consequences.

Did she realize how fast her body moved before her mind could catch up? No.

But, did she feel it as real as that night? Yes.

The moonlight illuminated the dark room from the open balcony. Curtains flapped its wing along the sharp flow of the wind, making the room less intimidating than moments before. The floor, polished marble, was reflecting off the 4-year-old silhouette towards the center. No longer the menacing commander with a grim look, but of a curious daughter coming to pay a secret visit to her mother’s bed chambers. The walls and the ceiling were beyond humanly reach—unmeasurable by any means of metric systems—made her wonder whether this was a dream or an illusion.

“Cian” Her puff cheeks were met with cold yet tender hands.

She finally met her eyes with her dead mother.

She brought her mother back alive from that night.

She, the one who brought her mother’s death that night.

—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

“What have you done, son of Liora?” The snake thrashed the commander across the roots.

Her lifeless body limped along the snake’s slithering as they approached the bleeding soldier.

“I—I—I have no-no idea….” His teeth shattered as his mouth slightly opened and then tightly shut itself as if holding in a scream or any rush of blood. Sweat glistened, especially around his forehead and upper lip, making its way to his bloody drenched shirt. The frozen left hand curled up the unconscious girl closer to his chest, shoulders hunched defensively, while his right hand shakingly continued it’s shielding. A golden translucent sphere of crisscross of tiny, scribed enchantments to keep up the protection until she woke up or…

…his last strength.

“I DEMAND YOU—”

“I HAVE NO IDEA! I CAN’T READ HER MIND ANYMORE!” He panted each second praying to Gaia—

“WAIT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY LIORA?”

The snake wrapped its huge coils around his sister's still body and pulled it like a rag doll. Its obsidian scales gleamed under the dazzling sunlight. Each of its heads eyed the boy as his sister was taken care of. The shield flickered, the golden light dimming as his strength waned.

“You have no right to any knowledge!” One of the heads hissed as it prepared to launch its next assault.

Then, it moved.

It didn’t lunge, but flowed swiftly. Dodging and avoiding the the theistical arrows that were released from the shield. The solider had only one chance at this before the sigils run out of it’s allotted time.

But the serpent was already coiling for another strike, its maw dripping with something darker than venom. The fangs of a hundred sprayed it all around the shield while he was redrawing th sigils for the arrows. The venom had penetrated the shield and burned the boy's legs by the time the sigil was completed, in an effort to save the fragile girl.

The soldier’s breath came in ragged gasps. The venom worked its ways through his nerves, paralyzing the legs as well as numbing the burns.

If cannibalism was a medium of art, then his ankle would be a masterpiece.

You could very well view the the anatomy of the muscles fibers, frayed like wet parchment, bleeding frantic platelets to seal up the wound.

Tendons glistened, peeled bare.

Bone protruded out of the rotten flesh, white as a grave tooth.

But, was it too late to turn back?

His vision blurred at the edges, but he forced his trembling fingers to trace another sigil in the air, reinforcing the barrier.

He was more than happy to have managed to save the young girl’s skin at last. The unconscious girl in his arms stirred slightly—a weak, feverish murmur escaping her lips.

The soldier’s shield wouldn’t hold much longer nor would he have the time to regain his lost energy.

While the front heads were dealing with the solider, the others present at the moment began its inspection of the commander’s hypnosis.

“Hah, the boy was right.” They declared as soon as the very recognizable full moon with creeper leaves started to unfurled across the commander’s skin. The luminous crescents pulsed like a heartbeat, their glow bled into the commander’s veins like ink in water.

Funny, the Keeper amused, how a bundle of lies could grow as thick as one pile of truth.

The commander had worn her deception like her own clothes.

Now it festered beneath her flesh, these luminous vines of half-truths and necessary sins.

Each tendril throbbed in time with the Keeper’s realization.

That one head leaned closer, fangs glistening in sweet curiosity.

"Tell me, little one—" its breath smelled of burnt parchment papers and locked away dusty books, "—when did you realize that this fairytale could be your way out of this?"

No response.

“Well, then. See you at the cathedral at midnight.” The Keeper tossed away the rag doll, giving his full merciless attention to the boy.

His former student.