The shrouded man sat upon a stone.

His body bathed in bright, violet light.

Eyes closed, he let the small Fay fly about him gleefully.

The darkness was illuminated by their winged forms and rain of glitter-like dust.

He opened his eyes and turned to face the mountains.

The Einherjar he was chasing, the one who had eaten a few of his familiars, was not far.

The chase was long and tiresome, yet now, for whatever reason, that creature seemed to have finally come to a stop up ahead.

He, who was of course Rudolph, leaned forward and casually tossed a bundle of dry desert-born sticks down.

His Fay clustered and fired upon the bundle, igniting it swiftly before returning to their merry.

The man then glared forward into the darkness beyond, his mind sharpened for the battle to come with the morning sun.

_______________________________________________

The dim red sun was masked in the sky, concealed now behind the body of the moon one size smaller.

Darkness swallowed the world outside the windows.

The torches burned bright along the chamber walls.

The dining hall lay near to empty, for the hour was very late.

The other guests had retired to their chambers leaving their host, Aden, alone alongside Uriel, Mourn and the Lady of Ceres.

“So, how would you say that went?” The Lord of Artemis pondered aloud.

Neither Mourn nor Uriel bid to answer him.

They turned their eyes to the sound of boots clapping down upon the tiled floor.

The Lady of Ceres, Camilla, shot to her feet and turned to leave the chamber, just as Solomon and Arcadian had already done so.

“How do I say it, Lord Aden,” Said the girl as her eyes locked upon Uriel’s profile only briefly, “Should I say it’s as expected? Or did you perhaps hope for a different outcome?”

She cast a glance upon her so-called fiancé, Mourn of Mercury, who huffed in silence and then failed to meet her eye.

Indeed it was as she had said, the most expected of outcomes: Solomon and Arcadian had agreed to help them defeat Julius and topple his reign, but nothing beyond that.

Among the four of them, Aden, Camilla, Mourn and Uriel, this outcome surprised not a single individual.

“I concede the point, Lady of Ceres,” Said Uriel, “However I have to wonder what kind of game you are playing?”

Camilla ignored her, she didn’t even look her way.

The Lady of Ceres merely scoffed and turned on her heels with an audible clap against the ground.

Uriel could not comprehend her, she didn’t like her and definitely didn’t trust her. After all,

“Lords Solomon and Arcadian both made their stances clear to us...but you didn’t say a word throughout the entire meeting, nothing at all.”

Camilla scoffed again, she placed a hand on her hip and turned her nose up at the younger girl.

“I’m here because he is here,” She said, gesturing with her chin in her fiancé's general direction.

However there was none of the concern her words would imply in her tone, no, rather there was even quite a bit of scorn in it.

Uriel couldn’t understand so she glanced upon Aden, who remained silent in turn.

She realised then that she was the only person who didn’t get it, the only one who didn’t understand Camilla’s motivations.

“Farewell gentlemen...I’ll take my leave of your company...before I take leave of my senses.”

Her subordinates followed her then as she made her way out the chamber door.

Their expressions were unreadable till the end.

Only when the door slammed shut behind them did Mourn relax his shoulders and fall back into his seat.

He looked exhausted even though he’d not really done anything this time around.

“So it’s true what they say, even great men become spineless before their wives,” Uriel said with a sarcastic tone.

Aden, as the sole outsider fit to do so, cracked a smile.

He could see Mourn’s and Camilla’s circumstances irked her, which amused him all too much.

“Spare me, little princess, or do those memories of your’s not include things like this?” Mourn asked in turn.

“Such things weren’t deemed necessary information,” Uriel replied, yet she turned her gaze away from him suspiciously.

Truth be told, there were indeed gaps in her inherited memories, but they were gaps that grew all the more frequent and pronounced the further back she tried to go.

The older it was, the less clear the memory seemed to become.

She considered this only natural however, since even a superhuman's memory is far from a perfect record.

“Is that so?” Said the mildly annoyed Lord of Mercury, “So tell me then, will you be passing on these memories to your soon-to-be successor as well? Or perhaps you don’t see them as worthwhile either?”

The girl looked at him with a baffled gaze, she didn’t understand why he was bringing that up here at this table.

Her gaze wandered towards Aden, whose brows then raised in a troublesome manner.

“What was that?” He asked.

Uriel wanted to stop him, she wanted to interrupt, but Mourn only shot her an all too cold smile in return.

“This girl plans to find a successor and die as soon as possible, she didn’t tell you?” The girl’s expression turned to panic.

She turned to face Aden, who then shot her a stunned look right after.

‘You tattler!’ She cursed Mourn on the inside, but there was no escaping from the eye of the man who’d quickly become like a father figure to her mind.

She felt every bit like a misbehaving child caught in the act as he aimed his gaze upon her.

“Explain. Now,” The Lord of Artemis demanded.

Uriel felt a tremor in her legs like none she’d faced before.

This man before her had done nothing, he had only said two words, and yet she was unable, even afraid, to meet him in the eye.

“Look at me,” He said, and then she raised her head.

She grit her teeth and looked back at him with a firm gaze that far from suited her age.

Indeed even Aden could tell that the look in her eye now was not the look of the immature girl from a moment ago, but they were the eyes of the Pillar, the Uriel formed from generations of inherited memories, that he was facing off against now.

“According to Cain’s customs, once I have outlived my role, I must pass on my power and memories,” She said, “Furthermore I will not pass down the memories which I experienced inside of the temple, which have so successfully clouded my judg-”

“Silence!” The man said, his tone strict beyond measure.

Uriel lowered her head, she tried to repeat herself, tried to tell him it was her duty, and yet she couldn’t, nor did he allow it.

“A sacrifice? How very noble of you,” The man said with venom.

Everyone in the room, Uriel included, then remembered that he had lost his wife to such a “noble” thing.

He was, in all honesty, completely disgusted with the custom that Uriel described.

This disgust was personal, perhaps it was also irrational but one would find it hard to argue it was unjustified.

“Fucking kids. You think you know what death is? You don’t! Have you even stopped to think about how much of a waste it is? You say the memories you got from the temple have clouded your judgement? Good! It’s good you have doubts, girl, because if your faith was never tested even once then your cause would be but hollow and half-hearted! Now you listen here...I will not abide it.”

His stance was clear for all to hear; he wasn’t going to let this girl give her life away, he wouldn’t let her think that way either.

“I’m not a child,” She replied, “And this is...it’s not...this isn’t your decision to make!”

The man continued to glare at her until she could look his way no longer, for some unknowable reason she was trembling harder than she’d ever known.

The servants who still stood around the room looked at her with complicated expressions, only the head maid stood still and undaunted as if none of this had any impression whatsoever on her.

Aden watched the trembling girl and then shook his head in silence.

Where was the person from a moment ago who faced the lords of the land without fear?

Why did this child now become so timid?

He didn’t know, he couldn’t know, but it did not matter.

He rose to his feet very suddenly, then turned on his heels to leave the sunlit chamber.

He was tired, both emotionally and mentally, very tired, and this talk had only made it worse.

“I will hear no more of this,” He said, then he walked away, “Value your life more, your life, not “Uriel’s”.”

The room fell silent once more.

Only Mourn, Uriel and the servants, who quickly returned to their duties, remained there.

The old head maid whom Uriel had come to know so well approached her, then asked to escort her to bed.

The girl nodded and was led away without protest.

Mourn could not do much more than cross his arms and contemplate the sight.

He was disgusted by Cain’s ways, he could not stomach the idea of Uriel looking to kill herself, he couldn’t even stand it when Metatron, towards whom the most generous thing he could really say was that he didn't care for the man on a personal level, had done the same.

Yet what could he do but? Pray maybe? Yes maybe, just maybe, her time spent here would be enough to make her mind change?

He sighed, he was no less exhausted than Aden now.

This dilemma, when added on to his own drama with Camilla, wore him quite thin and he was beginning to wonder how his life had begun to spiral into such things.

He leaned back in his seat and wondered what he should do about these matters; his frosty fiancé and that broken little child soldier were an endless well of stress for him.