Rusalka was roused from her slumber by a gentle shove that pressed upon her shoulder.

She opened her eyes that shone like like jewels. Her pink lips closed shut where they had been open before.

Her gaze beheld a figure, that of her mentor, of Melany.

“Mistress?” The girl called out as she rubbed her eyes, “What’s wrong?” She could feel that the hour was early, far earlier than she was usually roused. For what reason would her mentor wake her now from her slumber.

“Get up,” Melany said, her voice heavy, “Your mother calls for you.” Rusalka’s expression betrayed her surprise, her heart paused a beat.

She dreaded it, what would that woman ask of her this time? What insults, curses and shouts must she bear?

Dreadful though it be, Rusalka’s first reaction upon hearing her mother’s summons was one of fear, unease and doubt. Melany looked upon that and felt great pain deep within her heart.

However, today would be different, today, she wasn’t meeting the same woman as before.

“What does she want?” The girl inquired, yet Melany did not answer.

Rusalka could only watch on as her mentor turned away from her. The sound of Melany’s iron heels clapping down upon the wooden floor met her ears and caused her to frown. Her mistress was rarely the sort to leave without a word like this.

With a heavy burden in her chest, the girl parted from her covers. She sat there, draped as she was in a gown fit for slumber, her feet dangled over the side.

Few men could see her now and not be struck stupid, but of course that was the furthest thing from her mind right now.

She fixed up her hair into a simple bun and then seized a formal garment from her closet. Though the garment itself was a white dress, the shoulders of it were caped and lined with a pattern of golden vines

She slipped on a pair of simple shoes, it was all rather lazy of her, given how she typically held herself to the highest standard, that was just how drained her motivation was. She only made herself presentable to the barest minimum degree, before at last she stepped outside.

________________________________________

Paintings adorned the hallway at the top floor of the manor, same as ever.

The aching in her body persisted even now, but here, regardless, sat the Lady of the City, Nymph Venus. Her gaze fell upon the paintings of old, from her ancestors to her own self.

Many guards and servants surrounded her, tended to her, until a click drew their gaze. Rusalka’s bedchamber opened wide before them. Nymph turned to face it with hesitation.

Beyond that door stood the girl she’d only known in delirium until now. Like a prolonged dream, a nightmare, but now she was very much sober. She watched as the girl stepped out, clad in garments fit for the Lady of the City.

Nymph felt a rush of relief born forth from deep within. Her city was in good hands it seemed, she could tell this from one glance. Rusalka saw her too, and was suitably frozen in place, she barely remembered to close the door behind her.

Her mother was right there but with an appearance she herself had simply not seen before. Healthy, away from her bed, and with clarity in her eyes.

Nymph dismissed her escort with a proper smile. She didn’t want anyone else to interfere.

“Leave us,” She said, waving her hand gently. The hallway cleared, one by one a guard and a servant left their mistress’ side. Melany agonised over it for a brief moment, but she too departed moments after Rusalka’s frozen face met her eye.

Before long the hall was empty save the two of them, and so a silence fell. Awkwardness and sheer shock kept words from escaping the lips of either mother or daughter.

Naturally it was Nymph who realised things were not going to go anywhere like this and spoke first. Her gaze turned, she beheld a painting, one of the many in this hall, her’s.

“I always wondered how history would behold me...a shameful failure? A hero?...and here I see my face immortalised...how pointless.” Rusalka raised her gaze to behold the same painting. Her mother’s somewhat glorified visage was reflected before her eyes.

How often had she beheld that painting? How often had she pondered over the stories of the past? Yet it felt so fleeting now, with the genuine article sitting before her eyes. She faced her mother, unbeknownst to when, her gaze had turned from the painting.

Nymph sighed, she supposed it was only natural, this result.

“I feel as if I am meeting you for the first time.” Rusalka’s gaze looked baffled, yet her mother carried on. “The last few years have been...like a hazy nightmare. I think...you were three when last I beheld you with unclouded eyes? It’s by no means a blur, I remember it all...but I can scarcely recognise it as real.”

The Lady leaned back in her seat and then once more gazed upon the painting on the wall.

“I had hoped to die back then...but have lived unnaturally long, all things considered...I have burdened you.”

“No,” Rusalka said, shaking her head. She was not so poor with words usually but today she felt unable to articulate them well in the slightest. Nymph did not mind. She faced the countless paintings on the wall and began to think over the long closed tales of her own past. “You’ve endured much. I’m sure I’m remembered fondly, but it was no doubt my failures that have reduced our city to its current state.”

She faced her daughter, her daughter who was now wed to that man’s nephew. Fate? No, this was nothing so mysterious, she realised something as all the pieces fit, she knew now what was on Vincent’s mind both then and now.

“That fool,” She whispered. Had she been of a mind to notice it back then, well, nothing would’ve likely changed, actually. Despite that, however, her whisper still accompanied a slightly cold smile, like her daughter who followed her, she wasn’t the soft sort, and that man had still spurned her back then.

‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘if there really is a next life, I might take him back, though I will make him work for it’. That coldness faded from her smile as she looked upon her daughter’s troubled face.

Truthfully, she could not help but wonder what might’ve been. Suppose she’d managed to save the Sovereign in that battle back then, certain things would not have happened as a result and she’d have wed Vincent no problem at all.

Alexander and Rusalka would then be related by blood, so there’d be no way they could be wed and no way the former's existence could mess up her plans to have Rusalka marry Rapture.

Furthermore, knowing the relationship between the late Sovereign Drakus and Alexander’s father, Arthur, Alex would surely have been married to Lucretia eventually and he would’ve had a solid hold over Saturn.

Frankly it would’ve been a much better future, everybody would win...well, as long as Cain stayed “over there”, that was.

She laughed lightly, to her daughter’s surprise. What good came from musing on futures that could never be?

“Tell me, my daughter,” She said. The word, daughter, felt quite odd to say, it almost made her smile so awkwardly, “Your life until now...spare me no detail.”

Her daughter looked at her with an indescribable expression. She couldn’t answer such a question easily, she hadn’t even expected it. She asked herself what had overcome her mother? Nymph soon grew tired of the silence, her smile turned into a self depreciating kind as she beckoned her daughter over.

Rusalka’s footsteps echoed out, she followed that gesture and stepped forward as bidden. She knelt at her mother's side.

Nymph cupped her hands over the girl’s ears and then looked upon her face. They were cold hands, yet they felt warm to her. Rusalka raised her palms to cover her mother’s subconsciously, she didn’t know when, or why, only that tears had started to escape from her eyes.

“In truth,” Said Nymph, “As a Platinum of no small skill, I had hoped to eventually cure myself of our bloodline’s curse. I thought that if I could just do so before you were born...and set you free in turn. That’s when I asked myself...why can’t I? Why are even users of Advanced Mutation subject to a curse born from it?” Rusalka trembled. That was an important question to ask indeed.

How could the users of that power not escape a curse born of it? She was not a user of Advanced Mutation herself, so she’d never thought about it.

“It pains me,” Nymph said as she beheld her daughter, “The fact that I was incapable of giving you even this kindness...pains me greatly.” Had she succeeded, Ru would be free, she could leave this city whenever she wished, she didn’t have to be weighed down by their legacy.

The Lady's expression turned severe. She told her daughter what she had learned.

“When I beheld the Beacon in Beatrix’ hands...I realised almost immediately. This curse was inflicted upon us by such a Beacon, all else...is lies.” That, she believed, was the real truth of the matter, the reality.

The concept that Advanced Mutation could pile up over the generations and change the practitioners fundamentally was just nonsense. Nymph had come to know that only the Gods and their Beacons could hold that much power, nothing else came to mind.

“We hid this truth to avoid Abel’s suspicion...we’re the victims, but they’d still suspect they could find a Beacon through us because of this, they’d say, “no harm in trying”.”

Rusalka trembled, she heard her mother’s story and realised what it must’ve meant. Someone did this to them, they invoked a Beacon and used its power to curse them all.

None of the gods would be this roundabout, they’d just purge them city and all, it had to be a human, only they could be so spiteful.

She also realised something else. Her mother could’ve cured them all long ago...she just had to sacrifice Beatrix to achieve it. She’d chosen a friend over her people, and likely her blood.

“Why?” Rusalka asked her. She rose to her feet and stepped back, part of her felt deeply hurt and betrayed, and who could blame her? Yet Nymph’s gaze did not waver, she understood her daughter’s meaning right away, she knew what she had to say. The truth, bitter though it be.

“I loved Beatrix...but I’d never choose her over my people, and especially not my own daughter. Trust that it’s not that I chose her over you...but that I was simply incapable.” Nymph felt endless regret over the matter, for sure.

Beatrix’ Beacon was near exhausted, they didn’t know how to actually use it and suppose it simply wouldn’t work?

Naturally some part of her had still wanted to try, to take the risk, but it just so happened that the only person they could ask for advice if they failed was the very person who’d die if they used it

Furthermore, though she was sure, this was all just a theory, she had no proof. For these reasons she could only say, “Forgive me.”

Rusalka’s gaze upon her mother stayed fixed for a time. The Lady of the City bore no secrets, she admitted her regrets in full. She could not blame her, the Beacons were a massive unknown factor, even to those who knew the gods.

“I understand,” Rusalka yielded, would she be able to do any better? She could not say for sure. However all this had achieved one thing, it had helped her in one key way. She made up her mind, she had a goal now, a clue, and a desire too.

Suppose there were, in fact, other Beacons left hidden out there in this world? All she needed to do was find one, one which was, unlike Beatrix’ one, at full power, and then she just had to figure out how to use it. After that the curse that plagued Venus City’s people would be erased forever.

She once again approached her mother, this time without being beckoned, and knelt down before her. The very next moment, she felt a cold caress that felt oddly warm, and then a kiss upon her crown. “I understand your will...Mom,” That is what she said.

“My will?” Nymph said as she pressed her forehead to her daughter’s, “I have no will, save for you to be happy. If helping others makes you happy, help them, if...that brat...Alexander makes you happy, cherish him...if hating me makes you happy, hate me. Whatever makes you happy, I have no regrets.”

“No,” Rusalka replied, “I could never hate you.” She heard a gasp, one swayed by a strong emotion, and then felt a tear that was not her’s touch her nose. She opened her eyes and faced her mother.

“I know that at this point...it’s only a formality,” Nymph said with a smile, “But, still...I hereby relinquish unto you my lands, title...and all the power and authority therewithin...you are no longer my heir, you are my successor...The Fourteenth Lady of Venus.”

“Yes,” Rusalka replied, smiling wide, “I accept...all of this, and the responsibility that comes with it...I will make you proud...I promise...I will make you proud.”

“You don’t need to,” Nymph said, shaking her head. Her daughter did not need to make her proud, she was proud enough just having given birth to her. One who’d fallen so low as she in these many years had no right to add on any pressure anyway.

____________________________________________

Melany listened on, hidden in the stairway, as those two, mother and daughter, embraced.

Had she not kept Nymph alive so unnaturally long, this chance would’ve never come.

Even so she hated herself inside.

She’d defied her mistress’ will, caused her to suffer out of a selfish desire to keep her alive.

This wallowing state of her’s lasted until her husband, Rudolph, appeared at the bottom of the stairway in front of her. His expression was one full of worry towards her.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, having seen her crying eyes. She was usually in the barracks at this hour yet today she was not, it was an odd matter. He approached and then looked past her, he beheld the mother and daughter, all he could do was gasp in amazement. His frozen face now showed emotion, even a grown man might weep at the sight before him.

He turned to face his wife. He alone knew what she’d been doing these many years, he kept it silent but failed time and time again to talk her into stopping it. Years had been endured but for this moment maybe it was worth the price.

He sat down by her side. He told her the truth of it, the truth she knew and yet denied.

“You made this possible.” He didn’t know if she’d heard him, but he was smiling for real as he sat by her side. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

______________________________________________

Two days passed by in the blink of an eye.

Nymph sat and listened to every story in her daughter’s life.

She told her own stories in turn.

Without Melany’s blood treatment her life faded fast but her mind stayed sharp.

She kept it sharp, endured to the end, and then, inevitably, the end did come.

The life of Lady Nymph of Venus ended on the 272nd day of the 5514th year of Ymir's Calender.