ᴡᴍᴍᴀᴘ: ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

Like Joan of Arc

Athy of Obelia was born to a peasant family in Obelia, and at the young age of fourteen brought herself before the imperial court.

 She fell to her knees and strongly beseeched the Emperor to hold his conquest of neighboring country Siodonna for Obelia would come falling down at his hand.

He was not fond of such a young girl of commoner's blood telling him what to do, but nobility that day remember him deciding to humor her, telling her to stake her life on her claim and she says with fire in her eyes.

"God, his archangel, and his saints bring me to you of my calling. Of these glorious, holy visions that plague me in the night of how to save my beloved Empire."

Shaken, the Emperor has his firstborn go to the war room and lo and behold, their forces would have been outnumbered had they gone to war that day. 

Henceforth, Athy of Obelia was given the surname, Athy Domrémy from where she was born.

At seventeen, she had successfully rode to the front lines of many of the Emperor's conquests and with her arrival, many times, the battles would be over within a fortnight, troops gaining energy and hope at seeing her banner fly over their heads.

Having taken wounds even at the far end of the battlefield, she was said to have cursed so heartily, men would guffaw at her and say she would soon return to her humble home and tend to her children instead.

However, she also privately met with the Emperor, stating her visions from the angels that hovered around his body, and told him of the way they begged her to tell him of his rightful heir: the second-born son, Claude de Alger Obelia.

Soon, the Emperor lay on his deathbed, and his last orders were simple indeed. As was the righteous Emperor.

"I name my son, Claude, as my heir and rightful Emperor to the throne of Obelia. And let all know that at no costs shall we leave Athy Domrémy to her doom."

Athy stood next to Claude during his older brother's fight for the throne, and stood next to him when he was rightfully crowned. And he fought and rallied his soldiers to get her back when she was taken by enemy soldiers.

Even trying to pay a ransom for her safe return, his many tries to free her from her prison failed miserably and it is said that he, the fair and wise Emperor to the people, threatened to kill as many of the enemy's soldiers as he could for every day she was not returned to Obelia.

"She must be returned to Obelia, it is her home, her right as our savior and saint!" 

An emperor will not bend his knees for just anyone, perhaps not even anyone, but this particular emperor watched with blank eyes and desperate hands clutching at his throne as days passed and she was not given her freedom.

What could he do? How could he save her? Should he send the troops to storm the prison in enemy territory? His own citizens wished to save her, he should listen to them! 

He tries and trie and tries. He kills and kills and kills. 

It was all of no use in the end.

"You may burn me here today, but know this-" 

She laughed in the face of death, roaring flames flickering at her heels but still she smiled at the jeers of the enemy, as her people back home wailed and grieved. 

"I say the words of God and his angels and you shall all be cursed after my passing."

She was praised, commended as a saint, a martyr for the people, but she was still dead, executed by fire like a witch instead of dying a warrior's death surrounded by her people at old age.

The Emperor mourned her unjust death for years, wearing black at official and most non-official events, save the bright happenings that seldom came across his path. 

Took to raising her banner high upon a pole, to let it fly free across the Imperial grounds as he gave her the posthumous title of,"Princess Athanasia de Alger Obelia."

And the people who came to jeer at her death were soon recorded as falling ill to a suspicious sickness, and no doctor, no family even- dared to come close to them to treat them- in fear of God's wrath for murdering his chosen one.

However, some spat at the idea of God existing. 

That he would kill the "innocent" them for standing by and cheering for her death. That her blood was not on their hands because they were not the ones to pile the wood and set it aflame.

Their hands and feet grew green and black from rot, startled them during the night, rodents crawling up their sheets and flames set to unsuspecting houses with only their bedrooms burnt and the rest of the house that prayed- miraculously left untouched by the fire. 

They had done a terrible deed, a wrong upon the world- many retreated from the outside and stayed within their homes, some left the village entirely, terrified, and always looking behind them, up at the sky, wondering if the next day would be their last. 

So was the tale of Athy who became Athanasia, born a peasant, and dying a saintess, and a princess of the Empire she loved.