Delphine Roisan's Story

Delphine was walking through the halls, with a hawk sitting upon her shoulder, discussing with it what it had seen earlier that moring.

"Yes, I understand... No, I haven't been to the Ashen Wastes... Yes, I understand that I'm supposed to be at battle. Do I look like I have spread my wings recently? Precisely, you have, I have not. Now, I understand that -... No, I suppose that's right, I would know if anyone has been fighting recently. I-"

She was cut off as it suddenly took flight, and stared at it, wondering what had happened. "Come... Come back! Why are you leaving? Was it Khasten?" She frowned, and relaxed her shoulders.

"Hm, what a peculiar melody."

Delphine frowned. She could not remember anyone being nearby... Perhaps that's what scared my friend off. She took a few steps forward, and saw an angel appear on the balcony ledge. She frowned, looking behind herself to see if her own wings were showing, and smiled to see that they were not. I don't want to announce myself as a Valkyrie yet.

"...Excuse me? My dear angel, are you lost?"

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Delphine stepped back, and looked around her for anyone. No, there was no one, and she simply floated back to lean against the bricks.

Delphine was talking to her hawk friend once more. He had flown off in frustration, but he was back once more, sitting on her shoulder and telling her what he had seen.

"Yes, I understand. Yes, I have seen the battlegrounds. I'm not one thousand and five hundred for nothing!" She frowned softly, as the angel jumped out of the window, and seemed to run towards her. She stared.

"...Are you alright?" she asked, a soft whisper. She was afraid for her. She looked scared, heartless, as if something was terribly wrong and should be fixed. "No, I will not read her! I refuse to see if she will die or not. Go take your flaming pot of feathers and dump it somewhere where someone will actually care."

Delphine roughly shoved the hawk off her shoulder, and pushed away feathers.

Lucius acted faster than she could fly, blinking in a puff of hellfire to right above the eaves of the window and kicking her back in with a swinging kick from the outcropping of stone outside, all traces of good replaced an aura of menace powerful enough to make demons feel uncomfortable as he threw up a dark barrier around the exits to the room an angel could escape from and also kept the valkyrie out. His words, however, were calm and collected, like the eye of a storm. The flame he conjured around his fingers this time was a white, holy fire, proof that he wasn't messing around.
"For your information, I've met several angels, am good friends with Uriel, and PERSONALLY know the Metatron! So when I say a quick wing clipping will be so harmless that you'll just have to walk around for a day or three, that's the extent it'll be! And like I said previously, it's not the action, but the intent that I planned on punishing. Surely, as a being of law and good, you understand that the crime is what is punished, and not the motive?" He worded it like so PRECISELY because it tackled the one issue he'd seen several angels deal with, and had become weaponized by him: their need to choose between themselves or their highly respected rules. He knew she'd become a fallen if she answered herself, due to acting selfish, a great sin, and that she'd have to give in to his wish to basically remove ONE form of transportation for a few days if she responded her responsibilities, which was a win for him anyways.
"And Gwen, I only promised no harm to the enemies I have this morning, so I can not promise anything for this angel." he said before she could take action, his eyes almost glowing in the light of the fire in his hands. This angel had gotten him angry for the first time in years, and this was NOT a feeling he relished.

Guin found herself being pushed along, for some reason following Lucius to see what he would be doing with the angel.

A few moments ago, you didn't care; now, it's as if La Cirque des Rêves has landed on your palace balcony.

She crossed her arms and pushed them against her chest gently, trying to adopt a stance of carelessness, but with a slight side of frustration. That was what she felt at the moment; best not to hide it in this situation, she could tell. Perhaps especially when a life could be in danger, as she noticed that Lucius's patience had seemed to disappear.

"And Gwen, I only promised no harm to the enemies I had this morning, so I cannot promise anything for this angel."

"Talk, talk talk, Lucius. Get to it. Don't speak to me of what you plan to do, for I can only see that delaying this matter any further will cause more trouble than truly necessary."

She sniffed with disdain, and raised her chin slightly, watching Alice with the eyes of a hawk.

The moment Alice flew outside a figure could be seen sitting on the roof. She registered something black resting on her shoulder as well but all she could care about was the fact someone was there. The Angel opened her mouth to cry out when she felt something slam into her stomach, knocking her back in the room. The force of the blow was enough to send the air whooshing out of her, the growing desperation in her words of help stuck in her throat.
She glared up at the Unicorn then as she battled for breath and felt an impossibly heavy aurora cling to him. I was right to be wary before. She thought bitterly, ignoring the subtle burning in her lungs yearning for oxygen. As Lucius spoke she felt herself shrink back as if she were a child being scolded by an elder. But her eyes were mainly focused on his fingers once more and the fire they emitted, noting that is was now white rather than blue.
Suddenly her breath came back all at once and she gasped wildly, almost making her unable to hear the rest of what he was saying. Her heart beat in double overtime making her limbs shaky as she scuttled back a few inches, wanting nothing more than to put space between her and the seething Unicorn. He was absolutely terrifying.
On a final act of desperation Alice flickered her gaze to the blonde haired elven girl and caught the sharp, unrelenting look in her eyes. Balling her hands into fists the Angel pushed herself to her feet and walked over to Lucius, staring him down with every bit of courage she had left in her before she promptly her turned her back to him. She moved her long brown hair aside, exposing her broad, thin feathered wings on her back.
If this was truly necessary then fine, have at it. But she still wanted to maintain a small shred of dignity, even if she lost most of it within the past ten minutes.

Alice narrowed her eyes and tossed a spiteful glare towards Lucius. "Well excuse me, but this is actually really uncomfortable. You insane unicorn..and tell your author to calm down. My author had the awful luck of misunderstanding. Feather trimming.." She muttered under her breath before following his advice and leaving the room, not wanting to be anyone near him. If there was one person she hated, any person at all, it was him.
As she left the room her mind skittered back to the woman she saw earlier on the roof. Who was she? She mused silently as she walked out, debating whether or not to go find her. She was the only person who didn't think she was a complete weakling or hated her. She didn't know her to begin with, which made it all the better.

Lucius drank to Gwen's offer, then blinked as his eyes flashed azure.
"Well, Gwen, I'd love to stick around for longer, but my Yngve's-trying-to-do-things-without-me sense is tingling, and so are the wards I put up whenever she tries promoting people without me. It was a pleasure meeting you off the battlefield, but I do hope you remember that I leave as an enemy, and nothing more. However, I WILL leave you a second gift past the fairy-apple, as thanks for your oath." As he spoke, Lucius pulled an ornate golden ring from his index finger and placed it into the palm of his hand. From there, he made a twisting movement with his other hand, pulling the metal into a new shape, stretching the ring until it was a necklace, with Lucius' family crest of two herons crossing their necks resting on a small medal on the chain. Lucius continued as he handed the jewelry to Gwen. "A gift not of tradition, but of my free choice. Give it a kiss if you ever need my help. You have one use, though. Take care, and may our final meeting be at crossed blades!" he smiled, then took two steps back and became a unicorn again, the sense of doom reappearing as he galloped towards the window and leapt, disappearing into the night with a puff of hellfire once again, his laughter the only thing left as it echoed in the hall.

Yngve had barely appointed the guard to Logistics when Lucius poked his head in, human-looking again. "Whatever she just promoted you for, Aloysius, don't start celebrating yet. The position?" he said, now entering with straight posture and jovial expression. The soldier relaxed, Lucius tended to have that effect on the soldiers of the army, who he took the time to know by their names and drink with them, as he'd been taught by the first General. It is one thing to rule and command with terror. It is another entirely to win your army's devotion.

"Sir, the General has promoted me to Logistics Officer." Lucius smiled at that.

"Perfect, we needed one of those. And I always tell you, sir is for the battlefield, call me anything but that here. I take it you haven't lost your knack for numbers, the way you always beat me at Nine Kings?" he said, his air of doom and despair actually making him seem like a beacon of light in the gloom with his tone and actions. Aloysius shook his head, letting his own posture relax a bit in Lucius' prescence.

"I'm sure this will be a bit easier than Nine Kings. At least I won't have to worry about you as an opponent. You're getting too good at that game, Luce. Also, I always wondered, how do you play if you're blind?" Lucius just smiled and waved a finger in the air.

"Come now, Aloysius, if I gave that away, it'd take all the fun out of you guessing! But we're being rude to the General. You get to work on that Logistics stuff, I'll talk with her." As the soldier walked off, Lucius turned to Yngve, his voice too saccharine for it to even think of sounding nice. "Yngve, what do you think you're doing? I spent six hours today going through soldiers for that position, ON TOP OF my usual work. You think I do less around here? I have over eight centuries on you in the forms and files department. I can do all my paperwork in time it take you to do five pages!" Lucius stopped himself, took a deep breath, and laughed, the warmth in his voice back. "I'm actually surprised you haven't made yourself a spell for organization and signing yet. Took me about an hour to make one, and I'm pretty sure it's saved me a century's worth of time! Also, before I forget and you ask where I was, tonight was my 1000th anniversary with Cecilia, you know her, green eyes, red hair, unicorn from the waist-down, and so I went to visit Gwen and mock her before I came back to spend the rest of the night off somewhere private with Cecilia. All in all, a pretty productive night, seeing as I found out I can teleport past their castle defenses. Pretty sure anyone else would die, though. Those wards are hell to break past, pun intended. Plus, they'll have to change castles now, meaning resources wasted and time spent doing things other than leading. Well, that was my night, how'd yours go?"

Delphine was relaxing against the wall, kicking her legs out, and looking up at Khasten. The winged steed was impatiently rubbing his hooves against the ground. She made a face, sticking out her tongue and looking back out across the balcony. "Laugh all you want. I'm still worried, Khas... I don't know where to go any more."

She heard someone walking, and looked up, trying to see who it was. "Who walks across these halls?"



"However, I WILL leave you a second gift past the fairy-apple, as thanks for your oath."

Guin stared idly at the necklace as he handed it to her. She held it in her palm, gracefully thumbing the emblem, before watching him ride away.

"...Thank you." I have one use. Best make that one good...but... When to use it? I forsee no circumstances.

She gently lifted it up, placing it around her neck, and looked around herself once more. It seemed that the halls had become much...emptier, with the disappearance of the unicorn. Guin shrugged, and sat down, not knowing what else to do.

"Am I not to be roaming these halls? And could someone explain what's going on here? Everything is so... odd."

Delphine smiled. Khasten, behind her, reared up and whinnied loudly against the night; she kicked behind herself - more so, fumbled awkwardly with her leg before she connected with the horse's foreleg in a push of force - and the Pegasus took off flying.

"What do you mean?" she asked, smiling, and folding her hands in front of herself. She was wearing a Tiager-patterned cloak, as Guin had been earlier, except it was shaded with wild green, reds, and yellows in a pattern of fall colors.

"Are you certain you are in the right place, my dear? This, here, is the castle of the general. Of the Free Peoples of Mysteria." She spoke bravely, and proudly. "Although I am but a simple footman, I can help you find your way out. Though... from the way you speak, it sounds as if you have already met our general."

Delphine paused, seeking the proper words. "Hm... Knife-eared, golden hair, bitchy attitude?"

The General could say all she wished, but after her thousand plus years, she knew a bitch when she smelled one.

Alice almost forgot about the woman standing in front of her as she turned towards the Pegasuses. They were such beautiful creatures, and though she's seen them more than a dozen times, she never tired of ogling at them. Much to her embarrassment after she came back to. She looked back at the woman in bemusement which quickly hinted towards fear. Was she going to kick her out of the castle?
Yes she knew there wasn't much of a point in staying, but she didn't know what else to do with herself. She was only allowed to stay in this region of the world unless she had permission to go off elsewhere. And she couldn't fly for the next few days..
Suddenly the woman's description of the general had her bursting out laughing which she hurried to cover behind her hand. "I couldn't say that," She said politely. Her face flushed in abashment at her outburst; it was rude of her. "But I suppose a little help back there wouldn't have hurt.." She trailed off on a thoughtful note before shaking her head slightly. "Pardon my asking, but who are you?" She asked suddenly, her eyes flitting over her attire. It looked very lovely on her, like she was a colorful tree in the forest. Although her beautiful features told her she was anything but a tree.

"I couldn't say that. But I suppose a little help back there wouldn't have hurt..."

Delphine snorted. Obviously, this one was new to Mysteria.

"Pardon my asking, but who are you?"

She looked at her with curiosity. "Well, certainly not one of those goddamn ents." She ended up snarling the words, and closed her eyes for a moment, letting her wings unfold. "And certainly not one of you. I'm the oldest of my Sisters, as it stands... One of the Valkyries."

Delphine, for a moment, was taken over by a rush of joy. "Dear angel, do you know where my sisters are? Where the allfather is? Please, please tell me you do!" She reached her hands forward, truly hoping that she could find her way home.

The only reason she had ever enlisted in the army was because she had no where else to go. In her eyes, it was either the army or a life of wandering; certainly, there needed to be a purpose to her existence, though she absolutely refused to fight upon the grounds of a life without an allfather. Rarely did she fight even then.

Alice blinked once in surprise before her gaze softened. "I'm terribly sorry," She murmured softly, clasping her hands in front of her as she spoke. "I don't believe I know where your sisters roam, but I do know where the allfather is." She amended lightly, hoping her words could serve as some sort of comfort. The Angel tilted her head to the side then, assessing the woman in front of her. Just who was she truly? She had a black Pegasuses..although that in itself didn't mean much.

"I don't believe I know where your sisters roam, but I do know where the allfather is."

Delphine fell to her knees, crying, happily leaning against the floor.

"It has been so long... Long for one who has been separated. I had never dreamed that I would see him again... Perhaps he will yet let me walk in the Havens."

Her voice shook slightly, but she lifted her hands, and wiped away some of the tears that were falling down her cheeks. Without realising it, she had summoned Khasten by her side, and he was standing behind her. Delphine scratched his nose, and smiled softly, looking back at Alice.

"Will you tell me where he is? Khasten can fly us there... And then, I will find my peace, and diminish into the West." She sighed, hearing the words uttered, and slowly stood up to meet her horse. He snorted, shaking his head, obviously upset by the idea of carrying two people; but not unwilling to do so.

Alice quickly knelt in front of her, reaching her hands out to comfort her before her words stopped her. "Please, do not cry." She murmured, her heart saddening at the sight of her tears - even if they were ones of joy. The light sound of wings beating against the night sky had her looking up to meet the gaze of the black Pegasuses. But she quickly broke eye contact at the woman's question. Her expression fell slightly in sympathy and again she felt the urge to reach out and comfort her.
"I'm sorry," She whispered for what felt like the umpteenth time that night. "I wouldn't be able to tell you where it is. But I could take you there myself," As she spoke she placed her hand below her ribcage, curling her hand over it. "it's in my instincts to know where it's located. But.." Her voice trailed off on a hesitant, disbelieving note. "I won't be able to go back for days. Lucius removed my flying feathers so I'm trapped here until they fully grow back." She explained quietly, her green, brown eyes apologetic.

"I wouldn't be able to tell you where it is. But I could take you there myself."

Delphine paused, about to say something, but looked up at Khasten with a sigh. "Oh, I am an old fool. I have yet excited myself.. Forgive me, dear angel, I have forgotten we speak of different people."

She started to pet his nose, and he leaned closer, kneeling down besides her. "Allow me to show you out. Unless, you have further needs with the general... I can assure you, should you wish to, there is room in the rankings of the army." Delphine smiled up at her, feeling her arms begin to shake, and she mentally reminded herself to never again get involved with something like this.

A lying tongue had bereft him of life, and all without reason of right.

Tentatively she reached her hand out again, pulled back, and finally rested it on her shoulder. "You are most certainly no old fool." She said gently, wondering in the back of her mind just how old she was. She spoke of the allfather, so she must have passed on. But why is it she's still here? Why can't she find her way on her own? And the utmost important question on her mind; just who was she?
Alice blinked once at her offer and cocked her head to the side. "You..would allow me into your rankings?" She asked slowly, wanting to understand that what she heard was correct. "Just what happened here? It's been far too long since I've visited this realm, and I haven't the faintest idea as to what has happened since my time." She explained lowly, concealing her discomfort of being so clueless.

"You...would allow me into your rankings? Just what happened here?"

Delphine snorted. She could not help herself; just where in the nine hells had this poor girl been?

"Look around yourself. What do you think happened here? A war. A war that's been going on for three hundred years, now. How could you have possibly missed that?"

Delphine, before waiting for a response, idly began to pick at some hairs that were sticking out on Khasten's mane. The white stallion had a mane of ore, and certainly kept it as such; it was horrid to the touch, very oily and messy, and no matter how many times Delphine tried to wash it, it would never change.

The Angel reminded herself of when she had missed her first battle.

The allfather had no words for her; it was simply impossible to speak. Her sisters only laughed, as she got knocked to the bottom of the commanding army; from standing close to the top, where her mother had aimed her at, to destroying everything that she had tried to earn Delphine.

It was all horrid to think of. The shame she had felt when she walked to the back of the Hall, the looks, the fabulous mount she was once going to have - ...except, he stayed with me. Delphine did not believe how Khasten could have chosen her. He could have flown with the highest, instead, he chose the weakest.

Whatever his reasoning she could only thank him bravely, and bully him when she could. An eye for an eye. She shrugged, and pulled a stray fly off of his neck. He looked at her, snorting, but she only smiled back.