"So, I hear you're special." I go inside myself and immediately address the golden girl still sprawled out on the ground weakly. When she sees me, a defiant look enters her face again, but I squat beside her and run a finger down her stomach.
"... I am Queen Aurelia, an existence akin to a goddess!" She presses out between her teeth, even as she can't move her body and my finger is sliding towards her naughty bit in a teasing manner. "Stop... it... this instant!"
"Well, let's make you two acquainted." Putting a tentacle around Aurelia's waist, I turn myself inside out and we come to float before the Witch of the End. Upon being thrown out into space so suddenly once again, the golden girl looks around in confusion, before noticing the person in front of her.
"Who are you?" I see her mouthing the words, but she clearly forgot that there is no sound in space. But Juzual transmits her thoughts directly into my mind for ease of communication between the three of us.
"I am The Witch of the End." She introduces herself and opens her eyes to show that there is more to her than meets the eye. Well, she's floating in open space not wearing a pressure suit and breathing apparatus, so that should have been obvious already. Then again, so are Aurelia and I. "It has been a long time, queen from the empire." Huh, they know each other?
"... Juno?" Realization seems to hit Aurelia and her expression distorts into a mixture of disgust and anger. Guess they have history with each other...
Over one thousand and two hundred cycles ago, the mighty Empire of Terminus was on the path to regain its former glory. The city states of Mineva, Phobio and Deima had finally fallen to the nearly one hundred cycles long campaign, and the colonization of the northern lands was going smoothly. All that remained was to reclaim the western territories across the sea, which had been taken back by the barbarians with the help of the giants, and renamed itself the Kingdom of Lares under their first king.
In these times of elation and high morale, the empress gave birth to a child over whom the signs of greatness but also ruin loomed. She was named Aurelia, for the piece of gold she clutched in her palm upon her birth, favored over the inauspicious name the death of her mother would have earned her otherwise.
Aurelia grew up to a beautiful child with a great talent in transmutation magic. As if fulfilling the omen of a prophecy given through her name, she was able to create gold from virtually any other metal. This girl, barely ten cycles old, achieved what generations of alchemists had failed to accomplish. However, she knew to use her magic responsibly and was taught from an early age not to create excessive amounts of gold to avoid a drop in its value.
When she was twelve cycles old, her father was on a long campaign against the kingdom, which had crossed the sea and invaded their mainland with a massive army. Thus, she was only ever surrounded by servants and began to develop a rebellious personality due to her loneliness. Stealing away into the forest while on a hunting trip with her distant older brothers, she met the person who would become her most beloved friend and closest confidant. The girl was a savage beast, a child born from the unholy union of a human and a monster from the Demon Continent. Their first encounter was a battle to the death, from which Aurelia barely emerged victoriously. It was the first time somebody dared to stand up to her, so she took a liking to the girl, and ordered the guards she had shaken off earlier to bring her back to the palace.
Teaching the savage the ways of civilization and human language, they soon grew closer and became inseparable. Aurelia named her Vanadia for her silver and black hair, which she kept open and unkempt due to its bristle-like hardness. They would elude the palace guards and go on many adventures through the capital, at times even escaping into the wild to encounter and fight bandits and demonic beasts. Their exploits became the fabric of legends and the two came to be revered as heroes of their times.
However, the jealous sorceress Shelnir disliked their relationship and the implications thereof for the future of their grand game. Mankind would learn that humans and demons can come to understand each other through their friendship. She gave Vanadia an incurable disease that caused her to slowly weaken in both body and mind, before it eventually claimed her life.
The more I hear about this Shelnir, the more I come to hate her. She seems like the type of person who finds fun in destroying other people's lives, but will end up pleading for her own when retribution comes around eventually. The kind of irredeemable villain that you'd just love to see dead at the end of the story. For that alone, I feel like working with Juzual to kill her...
I turn to Aurelia and see that she knows about the fact that it was the doing of Shelnir, rather than nature taking its course. Sadness and suppressed anger show on her face as she looks away from the Witch of the End.
Devastated by the loss of her beloved friend and only equal, Aurelia was made acutely aware of her own mortality. She began to research the magic of life and death, searching for a method to attain the taboo of immortality. As a genius in transmutation magic, she believed that she should be able to achieve what nobody has before her this time, too, and create an elixir that would grant her eternal youth.
Her research took her to the just recently pacified territories in the West, which still claimed independence under the name of the Kingdom of Lares despite the death of their king four cycles earlier. She had her brother, who succeeded his father as the new Emperor of Terminus, inaugurate her as the new queen of the colony. Her governance would become a cover for her unending search for immortality. It was during her tenure there that she met a sage by the name of Juno, who guided her to the realization that immortality only comes when life and death both become meaningless concepts.
"I taught her that there are various forms of immortality, of which none are absolute. Anything can cease to exist, and the soul of living beings is no exception." Juzual concludes the history lesson.
"You tricked me and made me become this... thing!" She points at her own body and shouts at the Witch of the End. I actually really like this thing she's referring to - it's a pretty nice body.
"You were impatient in your research. Rather than spend more time and eventually reaching the domain of the sorcerers, you took a shortcut. You wanted to maintain your human looks, but neglected to consider that once you reach the pinnacle of what a human can become, you can just create a new, youthful body for yourself." Opening her eyes slightly, the pressure on Aurelia mounts. "Instead, you attained a new body by becoming a lich."
Huh, is she referring to the highest order of undead? Lichs are powerful mages who bind their souls to a talisman or some other trinket, which turns them undead and grants them virtual immortality, as long as the object doesn't break. Still, when I think lich, I associate it with a skeleton clad in black robes and reanimating dead bodies to employ as servants. I don't see a talisman on Aurelia anywhere, and I doubt it's back on the planet, either.
"It was because you misguided me!" She screams and flails her arms to try and approach the witch, but without a propellant, she's doomed to stay at the same relative distance to Juzual forever.
"You misunderstood my intentions." The latter states while looking down on the golden girl emotionlessly. "I tried to dissuade you from this path in the first place, but you could not be stopped. So I wanted to guide you in the right direction." A hint of loneliness shows in her expression for just a moment, but disappears when she blinks and turns to stare at me. It was over so quickly that I can't be sure whether it was there or not in the first place. "You can learn a particular type of magic from her, which nobody else in the world possesses now."
"Can't you just teach me space magic and let me get back to the planet right away?" I seriously hope she won't say something like 'I don't know any space magic', since she clearly appeared before me out of nowhere.
"So that you can repeat your battle against the humans and this time be flung into the sun?" Juzual says with a disdainful frown. Alright, I have to admit that it might happen... I'm the type to mess up when it's important, and I have a track record of that happening. "No, you shall undergo some training." Ah, is this the beginning of the training arc?
"Why should I teach this beast?" Aurelia speaks in indignation and the witch glares at her with her black hole eyes. Even I would have flinched under them, but the golden girl's dauntless temperament lets her return the gaze without a hint of fear.
"Because if you do not cooperate, I will let you drift through space until your mind will have consumed itself from loneliness and your very existence will turn into a wish for the sweet release of death. But death will not come to you for a long time - for such a long time that it will seem like an eternity has passed, before you may have the luck to meet your end when you fall into a distant sun." With an oppressive presence and ethereal voice, Juzual whispers dangerously as her eyes narrow menacingly.
"I would rather suffer an eternity of solitude than have you mislead me one more time." She remains defiant and I'm seriously impressed. I would have caved under Juzual's threat, but Aurelia gives her answer with a sense of pride, however misguided that may be. It must be quite lonely in the world of royalty, if they are all like that.
"Don't say that." I pull her in and hug her from behind, but as expected, she struggles.
"Unhand me you monster!" Well, she can't really escape my grasp, since I'm physically much stronger than she is.
"You'll regret it." I let my voice resound in her head through Juzual's connection, trying to use an empathetic tone. After hearing her story, I'm feeling some pity. "I'm sure nothing will be able to replace Vanadia in your heart, but apparently I'm also an eternal being. So I can be with you forever." Upon hearing this, Aurelia stops struggling and hangs her head in silence. She's quite cute and can be fun because of her straight-laced personality, so I'm sure I won't get bored from her for a long time. "You have nothing to lose from this."
"Yes, I do! My dignity will be blemished if I associate with a mongrel like you." The golden girl flares up and I spin her around to face me, while undoing my disguise.
"You lost your right to ask for any dignity when you lost to me. Make sure to never forget that, little queen." I stare at her with my eyeless, featureless face, and her expression fills with overwhelming dread as she tries to avert her gaze. I force her to face me and she presses her eyes shut while instinctively struggling to push me away, but my grasp on her is as solid as ever. Then I sigh and turn my face back into a human one. "Can't you see that this is an opportunity to find redemption?" My tone returns to a more amiable one.
"Redemption?" Her body is shivering as she opens her eyes cautiously and realizes that I'm back to normal.
"Take revenge for Vanadia." I put a hand on Aurelia's cheek and stare into her golden eyes. Upon being reminded of her lost friend, they begin to well up with tears, which quickly evaporate in the vacuum of space and turn into tiny ice crystals. I have to admit that the sight is incredibly beautiful. "The Witch of the End wants our help to bring down the false gods, of which this Shelnir is one. I'm inclined to help her in that endeavor. What about you?"
"... the false gods... Shelnir..." The golden girl's face goes through several different expressions starting from sadness to realization, before settling on determined anger.
"So, how do we get back for this training?" I look to Juzual, who has been watching me persuade Aurelia to use logic rather than feelings.
"You do not." The witch turns away from us for the first time, effortlessly moving in space despite not using any visible propellants. We have come quite close to the moon, but I'm reminded of the relativity of size once again; even so close, it's still an incredible distance if traveled on the ground. "I will make an exception and invite you to my home." She points at the celestial body before us.
Wait wait, this is getting into sci-fi territory! A moon base in a world that seems to be completely medieval otherwise is a huge leap. Then again, I'm supposedly an alien, so I guess anything is possible?
It feels like we'll take a few more days to reach it, so I'll go and have some fun with Aurelia inside my body until then. Just when I motion to pull her inside me, Juzual gestures towards us and space distorts. It feels like we just zoomed in on the moon, as it fills my view completely. With another motion of her hand, the Witch of the End uses the same technique once more and there is only white behind Aurelia.
Then we fall onto the surface of the moon, with me landing on top of Aurelia, as she was still facing me from earlier. In a love comedy, our lips would have locked and we would have shared a (partially) unwilling kiss, but this is reality and we were traveling at the same speed at which I was launched into space. Thus, my face crashes into hers. It seems that her body gets harder the faster something hits her, so it felt like I just gave a metal statue a head-butt. But luckily, my body automatically loses its form, and I splatter all over her and the surrounding ground, before I begin to consolidate myself again, unscathed.
"You could have warned us!" I shout and look up at Juzual, who descends in a slow and controlled manner. I look down to find that the body of the golden girl I'm mounting is completely undamaged. She did create a small crater around herself on impact, though. Truly, an indestructible body, if my idea about how it works is true. "So, where is your home?" I stand up and hold out my hand to help Aurelia up, who ignores it.
"You stand on it." With a grand gesture and a proud smile, the witch states. "Welcome to my domain."
