Morons and Monarchs

Chapter Seventeen: Thanatos🔮

𝕴 𝖚𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈 𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖞 𝖙𝖔𝖉𝖆𝖞.

Not for the first time, but now that I am forged with the shadows once more, I can tell that they have been eager for my next return.

There are mainly Aisling shadows since their masters are inanimate objects, but I managed to attain a Seer shadow as well.

And since I am the only person in the room, there is only one shadow who I am the master of.

And that shadow despises me with every fiber of its non-being. I ignore its brooding form behind me.

The Aisling shadow whose master is my chair shares an image of the dream Viviendel and I shared the night before. I instantly look in its direction, feeding the shadow more drama in exchange for more information.

Of course, the shadow of my chair is the one that connects my dreams with others. And not nightmares, either. I swear -even in shadow form- the Aisling winks.

I try to roll my non-existing eyes. I get another image, this time it is from the one Seer shadow in the room.

The image is of Viviendel, again, but this time she is... with a guard. Her 'friend' though from the looks of their very passionate kiss.

The guard has bright blue hair and a fin as a hand. Clearly an Encantados. His fin guides Viviendel closer to his embrace.

I cringe away from the image, inwardly making a vulgar gesture at the Seer shadow who dared show me such a thing. I burn the Guards profile into my mind, remembering and making sure that that future will never be guaranteed. Not with the girl with honeysuckle as a birth flower.

I feed the Seer shadow a bit more power, a little gossip that he never heard of. This time gossip that this one shadow told me about Murk- one of my peers.

The Seer unlocks a secret that is shadowy and wispy- as if he kept it locked away for quite some time. The image of a dying Queen, speaking of an heir that nobody knew she had. Freyja, the Queen's name whispers at the back of my mind.

And Jorogumo, the Queen of my own clan, hovering over her... crying.

Jorogumo's eight legs folded elegantly beneath her as she sobs. Her eight eyes darting back and forth, to a wound on Freyja's side and back to her face.

"Find Honeysuckle," Freya keeps whispering, even as Jorogumo takes her hood off, her black veins jutting out of her face inexplicably. Her hair folding around the hood and she yanks it from her head. Her class symbol clattering to the ground in the process.

Jorogumo tries to staunch the green ooze leaking out of Freyja's side; she pulls her hand back as Freyja's eyes look up at the sky... unseeing. Freyja's hair starts falling out and turning into tiny worms that crawl away. Her heart lights up, and an everlasting bloom tears open her chest. Blooming in the glow of her green blood.

Tears leak out of Jorogumo's eight eyes, and tiny spiders of woe crawl out of her nostrils and ears, falling atop Freyja. The spiders try to help their Queen, crawling into Freyja's wound to stop the bleeding.

Then Freyja's head deflates, and only her skull is left. The bones shrinking a little from the venom dripping out of Jorogumo's lips as she sobs over her dead friend.

Morana- The Queen of the Clan of Water and Growth- steps up and carries Jorogumo away from the dying corpse. Not bothering to pick up the discarded mask that is practically singed through thanks to the venom that coats it.

She looks grim but not sad, as if the death of the Queen made her unhappy but they weren't close enough to be sad about it.

I gasp as the memory is taken from my mind. "Who is the heir?" I ask the shadows, my own voice bellowing like a pin dropped in a silent room. No answer.

"Who is the heir that she was speaking of?" I ask again. This time, ordering the shadows. Commanding them.

The Aising shadow answers with an image of my dream. Of Viviendel.

The honeysuckle...

I wall-walk out of my dorm, looking for the room that my brother currently resides in. My wispy form slips from wall to wall, waiting to fall back into an immortal vessel. But not until I see my brother and steal his flower.