The howling wind was deafening to the ears of the maiden, she who walked the barren shores.

Though not a gale swept by, she could see and hear the scythe like storms.

Half in panic, she followed the tiny footsteps that trod the isle mere inches in front of her.

There walked a child in red, two years old, maybe younger.

The maiden frowned as the girl approached a figure looming in the darkness beyond.

The dust hid him well, but the black titan eyes still loomed larger than a hilltop was tall.

The young girl sensed no danger, she only laughed as she tried to touch the beast’s great scales.

Her mother spared no delay in seizing her up in her arms and then cautiously stepping away from the towering beast.

The black dragon, known as Fafnir, opened its eyes and then scoffed at her display, but the maiden paid no heed to this very human gesture.

She only saw him as a danger.

The black dragon eyed her with utter disregard, after which he lay his head down again and settled back into slumber.

The mother breathed easier when he chose to pay no heed to her.

That was when a voice came calling from the crackling campfire ten paces behind her.

“He’s harmless, you know?” Called the man cooking fish over the fire.

The woman shot him a glare.

Her teeth were tightly clenched, but she didn’t voice her grievances.

He was Avance after all, General of Jupiter and the former Lord of Mercury, one of the world’s most powerful men it has been said.

For her, for Emperor Sigurd’s Mistress, Gudrun of Nidhogg, he was her kidnapper, that and nothing more.

All his name did therefore, was elevate that fearful factor.

“He’s a dragon,” She said, to which the man offered her a glare.

The beast’s eyes opened too with a halfhearted stare.

Melancholy could they see in there, and also cold fury.

“Don’t forget that your people made him so,'' said the former Lord of Mercury.

Gudrun scoffed at that.

Though most days she could do naught but face him with indignity, she would not concede to him on this.

Avance’s words might have hit home, had she truly hailed from The Nidhogg’s lands.

“Not my people,” She swore, “I’m from further west.” The General shrugged, he didn’t care, what difference did it make?

She was the Emperor’s mistress, mother of his second daughter, who cares if she’s from a somewhat more exautic origin?

Yet when Avance voiced those thoughts, to his surprise, the woman responded with grievance as she sat back down beside his campfire.

“How much authority do you think I had over there?” She asked him, “Sincerely, how much?”

He fell silent, and then he conceded her point.

From where he stood it could be said that she had thrown her lot in with the Empire and there was nothing else to say of it, but The Mistress did not agree.

The pair sat beside the fire in a persistent bout of silence.

The toddler broke the deadly mood when she began to grope about, and then the Mistress allowed the child to extricate herself.

However, she soon ensnared her in embrace and rested her chin on the little girl’s head again when she made a straight line for the fire and the food cooking just above it.

Avance chuckled as he saw it.

He reached for a stick of meat, blew on it several times, and then passed it to the curious child.

The cautious mother snatched it away, of course, but all that brought out of him was a knowing sigh and the shake of his head.

After that, he found himself staring into the flames for a time, he didn’t really have anything much on his mind.

The thought thus came upon him that he was just a day or two from Muspelheim’s shores, and he knew that the battle was sure to begin before he arrived.

His hostage wouldn’t be worth much if the Prince fell before he could make use of her.

Looking upon her, she and her child, it reminded him of his boys, of the neglected Rapture and the treacherous Mourn.

He could not help but think himself tenfold flawed for letting them face such dangers on their own.

“Papa?” The girl addressed him in a cautious manner.

“No,” Said Gudrun, “Not Papa.”

“Not papa?” The child seemed downcast, she didn’t understand.

Truth is, she wasn’t dull, but she’d spoken very little for her age.

The tense bouts of silence between the only two adults about her was in no small part to blame.

Avance sighed, and then he asked her,

“What is your story then?” Gudrun turned to face him, a solemn breath of air passed by her hair.

She found this time that he didn’t stop staring, and like as not he wouldn’t until she bid to answer.

She could tell he was curious.

She claimed she wasn’t a Nidhogg native, and that she was powerless to stop their practices, but he would humor her only so far.

She gave him a glare, and then looked into the fire with a stare.

“Not much too it,” She said, “Sigurd…his Majesty, found me. Lord Grimnir was his guide, though it wasn’t anything as profound as a prophecy. They recognised my bloodline immediately, a true descendant of the long dead Imperial Line.”

“True descendant?” Avance bid to mime.

She nodded then, for her meaning was understood.

She was of The Nidhogg Imperial Family, the real one, said to have died out long ago.

“So…you’re a genuine Nidhogg then…and so is your daughter?”

His merciless gaze filled her with dread, but the mistress did not dare lower her head.

These past many days had been her greatest teacher, Avance would not bring harm upon her, but nor would he pity her.

“That’s apparently the case,” She said, “Though it means little nowadays.”

“I thought the Imperial Line was extinguished long ago?”

“Those who remained in Nidhogg, yes, but if you go to Olympus…well, it’s not a secret, just a fact forgotten to time,” She bid to nod, it seemed she’d chosen to make up her mind. “I apparently descended from the Aphrodite Bloodline of the Emerald Emperor’s Sixth Bride.”

The man hissed.

The Emerald Emperor’s Sixth Bride, The Crimson Concubine, Belladonna of Aphrodite.

According to this girl’s own words, that woman was probably the real true descendant, a Nidhogg noblewoman of a long forgotten time.

“You understand now, right?” Said the Mistress, “They don’t want me, just my bloodline…I’m nothing but a womb to them.”

“It’s no use trying to elicit sympathy from me,” Said the man as he poked the flames with a stick to stow the fire. Gudrun smiled then, but in a self loathing sort of manner.

“Have you no heart?” She asked, and in the next second he held out before her a skewered fish to eat.

She cursed, she didn’t really like fish, and yet the gesture still gripped her.

His smile, all the moreso, could not help but ease her weary mind.

“If I had no heart, I’d have killed you, milady, because the baby is more worthy as a hostage.”

She grit her teeth, she knew he wasn’t lying.

Still, she refuted,

“It’s precisely for that reason why you don’t kill me.” Sure enough, she figured he was a novice as far as such matters were concerned.

The man didn’t deny it either, he merely frowned, then seemed to grow depressingly indifferent as he turned his face away.

What followed then was a terrible silence, all they heard was the fire crackling away.

Gudrun turned to spy him through the corner of her eye.

The man wasn’t moving, a depressing air seemed to hover about his mind.

This was the living legend?

This was Muspelheim’s greatest warrior?

The woman was at a loss when she saw him in that state.

Her lips moved almost without input from her will, but she clenched them shut anew after a moment.

She shook off her doubts.

Though this man treated her well, better than some of her own people actually, that didn’t change the fact that he was her enemy.

Her whole life, not much had changed.

She was put in a gilded cage by Sigurd, and she was no more free in Avance’s custody.

She couldn't help but long for the life of freedom she enjoyed so long ago, when she was traveling without heed nor reason to worry.

She took a bite from the stick of meat, then tore away a morsel for the child on her lap.

She saw the General watching them through the corner of his eye.

She could not help but wonder at this time,

“Do you…have children?”  The man blinked, and then straightened his back.

With a nostalgic eye he turned to face the fire.

“Two sons,” He confessed. “Both to different mothers.”

“I am more than aware of what that feels like,” Said Gudrun.

“I didn’t cheat, nor take mistresses like your Emperor,” Answered the General, “I loved both women in their time, both Mourn’s and then Rapture’s mother too.” 

His words resonated with her in a way he cold never know.

That there was a man before her who fell in love again after the first wife’s death, and now he had lost the second one too…

He was a great improvement over the men and women, though mostly the former, of the Nidhogg Empire, for whom personal might is so often the only significant factor.

Here was the strongest man in Muspelheim, who loved, lost, loved and lost again.

Had he been born in Nidhogg, a man such as himself might’ve been able to take on several mistresses and never wept for the loss of even the first.

“I don’t know if it means anything given our circumstances…but I am sorry for your loss,” She told him, she meant it too.

His story touched her soul in a way he never expected it to.

The man raised a curious brow.

Comforting the enemy? How very silly and yet he found it charming in its own funny way.

“Thank you,” He said, genuinely, he appreciated her gesture.

The silence returned then, but for a wholly different reason.

That silence didn’t last too long, either, once Avance summoned the nerve to break it once again.

“My eldest,” He continued, “Mourn…he was hard working, though not very talented. I remember him being quite the brat, well known for getting into scraps.”

“Sounds like your typical healthy young boy,” Said Gudrun, who didn’t realize she was smiling.

Avance smiled again, though it was bleak and quite solemn now.

“I feel like I must not have done enough to reel in that side of him. He threw his lot in with Cain, became a traitor, no thanks to you people,” He confessed, “I need to find him before anyone else does. I need to…if His Majesty, Prince Erus, finds him first…or worse, the Sovereign gets his hands on him…such thoughts no parent should ponder.” Gudrun’s smile turned solemn at that moment.

She might not know what it felt like to be betrayed like that, but she could imagine the pain it brought to bear.

This child in her arms, if one day she did evil, if one day the lawful would seek to take her life, what would she do?

What could she do?

She had no answer.

“He was always righteous to a fault,” The man continued on, “He had it right that the Sovereign was going to cut Mercury off and kill us all. I’ve no doubt he did what he thought was rightful to do…even so the people of Venus didn’t deserve to die like that, and only The Gods know what else he’d gotten up to since then.”

“You don’t blame him?” Asked the Mistress.

She wanted to know, did he hate his son for what he had done?

Could she come to hate her daughter one day through the same way?

Such thoughts terrified her, ever since she became a mother; how well could she raise her daughter, and was Nidhogg really the kind of place where she wanted to do so?

The man before her shook his head, and he frowned.

“My time is not so worthless,” Said the waning General as he turned his gaze away from the flickering flames.

The black dragon opened its heavy eyes as he moved.

His words met its ears, it snorted and then went back to sleep.

The pair wasn’t fool enough not to realize that their conversation had somehow angered it.

Gudrun turned her eye away from the beast, and only then did she grasp his meaning in full.

She realised that the General must be past the age of forty and, like all Platinum Class, the twilight of his years was upon him at last.

Indeed, she realised his mind: what was the point in condemning his son’s actions?

He would rather forgive, no matter the trespass, than die loathing the man who was his heir.

“What about your second son?” Asked Gudrun, and the man fell silent for a moment, and then he muttered a whisper the name of,

“Rapture…my second son. I have never truly met him.” He lamented that fact, regretted it woefully.

Politics parted them, he told her, and then from birth until today he had never met his second born son, not even once.