Birds peacefully tweet in the trees of mistral twelve years ago. The sun shines bright above the bird as it hops around on the tree branch of which it has made its home. Colourful feathers cover the bird's body and it looks around, gleefully tweeting as always as it wanders around. It hops off the tree and flutters down towards a little girl who sits beneath the tree and it looks at her. She gasps, her large eyes widen with green irises inside. She has a short red pony tail and adorable plump cheeks. She wears a little dress that is red, similar to her hair and she looks at the bird as it looks at her. Shy, she seems to not be with her friends as she floats a small piece of metal before her.
The girl is Pyrrha Nikos when she was a child.
The bird flutters away however, when there is a crashing sound in the woods and Pyrrha gasps after she hears it. She stands up, scared that it could be a Beowulf or other Creature of Grimm. Her hands are shaking and she watches the bushes of which she heard the crashing sound.
Suddenly something erupts from the trees, another young girl with brown hair, making a squeaking squeal as she leaps out at Pyrrha. Pyrrha screams with fright, staggering back as her friend made her jump. Her friend giggles immensely, her hand on her heart as she steps back, whereas the heart of Pyrrha is beating a million times a minute. "Don't do that!" Pyrrha begs, breathing erratically to calm herself down, hand pressed against the tree she was sat by.
"Why aren't you playing with us? Why are you just hanging out by this tree on your own?" Her friend asks Pyrrha with either concern or judgement. It is hard to tell with children, especially for Pyrrha since she has always had self-confidence issues in her life. She holds her pony tail shyly and looks at her sister with puppy eyes.
"I...I just wanted to be alone for a bit..." She timidly says to her friend and her friend looks at her with furrowed eyebrows. But then she shrugs it off and walks closer to her.
"Hey! Guess what we found out about, though?" Her friend asks her and Pyrrha raises her brow curiously.
"What is it?" Pyrrha asks.
"This guy – he lives out in the woods and he is offering to tell people their futures." The girl explains and Pyrrha still looks a little less ready to be sociable in this sense. She takes a step back and she looks away.
"Um..." Pyrrha nervously says.
"Come on! Don't you wanna know?" The girl asks her with an excited tone to her voice, bouncing on the spot.
"What – What if I don't have a good future?" Pyrrha asks her with fear, scared of her own future, a point that no child should usually be afraid of. The girl gives Pyrrha a smile, at the time her friend looked prettier than Pyrrha but that is only due to the amount of makeup she is wearing, and the fact that Pyrrha is wearing none. And she still looks adorable, and she still wears her crest that she wore to this day as well.
"But maybe you could have a great one! Maybe you will marry a handsome young Knight and have his babies! You could be rich!" The girl elatedly says, clearly showing what she wants out of her own future, and it is ironic that the loving a Knight part came about, since she fell in love with Jaune Arc. Not exactly a Knight per say but he is close enough to one. "Or maybe you will have a boring future – you'll never know until you speak to the guy." The girl says with a shrug.
Pyrrha, still apprehensive to the idea looks away from her friend and looks up at the little bird that flew down and looked at her. The bird is a little robin and it tweets to her, like she has been given a choice. Meet the Clairvoyant or stay with the Birdie. And unfortunately for the Robin, she gives into Peer Pressure and meets with the man that can tell her what future awaits her. The Robin calls out to her, as if to beg her to stay and not to go. But Pyrrha walks with her friend to meet the Soothsayer.
They both approach a black tent that sits in the middle of the forest on its own. Quite a lonely little location and their other friends are sat outside of the tent with their legs crossed, and twiddling their thumbs. There are candles lit inside of the tent, and she cautiously approaches the tent with fearful eyes. She is scared to know what her future may hold, and she walks closer to the tent. Her friend opens the tent for her and she walks inside, and she gasps from the initial shock of what she sees.
There are skulls laid out everywhere, on tables and on chairs, stacked on top of each other with candles burning beside them. The wax melts down by them and she looks at the Ritual Looking room, and then she spots the Soothsayer sat there in the middle of the tent with his eyes closed. He has a shaven head and short stubble on his face. He wears what appear to be the clothes of a Merchant, yellowish brown hoodie that has a few small holes in it with blue stripes across the sleeves. The hood could be pulled up, but he has it down. He has many pouches of certain valuables tucked away tied and clipped to his belt and hoodie as well, he wears a set of blue jeans as well, he looks very normal.
But normal is no mere definition of what this monster is.
Pyrrha may not know who he is yet, but she will.
His eyes open and they are dark brown irises, and he smiles when he sees her. "Why hello, my sweet girls...how may I help the two of you?" He asks them with that cunning smile on his face. Her friend pushes Pyrrha closer and she looks back at her with confused eyes. She then looks at him, her hands twiddling together as she looks at the man, and he raises an eyebrow.
"I...um...I would like to hear my future, please." Pyrrha politely says to the Soothsayer, and he looks at her friend and he snaps his fingers at her, the crack is so loud it makes her jump.
"Leave us." He orders her and she looks almost insulted, but leaves when he gives her a rather cold and sinister glare. She turns and leaves Pyrrha to be with the man, and he holds his hands out to the pillow that sits before her. "Take a seat, my dear." The Soothsayer requests with a smile, and she approaches the little pillow and sits on it, crossing her legs and looking at him with shy eyes.
She can hear her friends snickering outside and she sniffles. "Why do you hang out with individuals that make snide comments behind your back?" The Soothsayer asks her with a raised eyebrow, and Pyrrha gasps.
"Huh?"She asks innocently, unaware of their comments.
"Listen to their words, sweetheart." The Soothsayer whispers and he cups his ear with his hand to make a funnel to focus the sound entering. Pyrrha listens, and it is heartbreaking what she hears them whisper to each other.
"She's such a freak." The friend with the brown hair claims about her and a tear ripples from Pyrrha's eye.
"I know! Why can't she just hang out with the rest of us?" Her other friend says.
"Don't let her hear this, imagine how rich we could get from her family." The brunette whispers. Pyrrha feels completely betrayed, like her whole life is crashing down on her, and she looks at the Soothsayer and he smiles. To her it seems like a kind smile, but in truth it is anything but. With him – it is all about mind games.
"I think you should choose your friends more carefully." The Soothsayer says to her.
"Will I? Find friends who care?" She asks him with scared eyes. He smiles and he looks at her future and a smirk appears, and yet she still fails to notice the sinister side to this Soothsayer.
"Yes..." He answers. "You will be very successful when you graduate Sanctum, the greatest fighter in your class. In the whole school." He tells her. "They will even nickname you – the invincible girl." He continues to inform her and then he moves onto the other information. "You graduate and move on with honours to Beacon Academy, where you will meet people who treat you as a person...and one...you will fall in love with." He explains and her eyes widen at her happy future, but then he continues on.
"But he does not share the love at first – he is pretty blind to be honest." He states and it makes her giggle. "There will come a time..." He now says that makes her listen carefully to everything that he says. "...that your beloved will come to you defeated, resigned...find a way to make him feel better." He says to her and she does not realise at first what that means. However, she will learn in the future, that he is speaking of when she started training with him on the rooftop of their dorm. "There will come a time where you will be heartbroken, but the boy will heal you." He continues and she wonders of what this boy must look like to mean so much to her. "There will a come a time...where you will make a choice that could change everything you are, think on the consequences but do not act without his opinion." The Soothsayer continues and she keeps listening. "And finally, there will come a time when you can save your beloved and the rest of the world – do not fear failure." The Soothsayer explains and she feels compelled to remember those messages for the rest of her life.
Pyrrha stands up and she smiles. "Thank you..." She says, turning and walking away from him. As she leaves, he smirks menacingly as she leaves, his plan having so many individuals and souls involved that he is becoming stronger every day.
"Do you believe in destiny?" Pyrrha asks, her voice older now.
"Yes..." Cinder answers coldly.
Twelve years later, Cinder stands above her with her Obsidian Bow drawn back and aimed straight at her sternum, pulled all the way back and ready to launch the arrow into her heart. Cinder glares menacingly, this version of her has been long gone since the events of the Knights of Grimm return.
Cinder releases the bowstring as soon as Ruby jumps up the side of the C.C.T Tower and lands there, her eyes widen with horror when she sees the golden embers leaking from Pyrrha's heart and she gasps, stammering with pain with widened eyes. All of the messages that the Soothsayer had given her became true, everything he saw was true as well. However she never expected her story to end this way, she always thought she was destined for greater things.
Until it was taken from her.
Pyrrha's whimpers become weaker and weaker and Cinder holds her cheek, incinerating her body. As soon as her body becomes ashes, her soul bursts from her physical form and shoots away, darting into the sky and vanishing.
Her burning gold soul travels through the realms, the space between spaces as she leaves the land of the living. It keeps on going until the never ending black transforms into a deep red and beneath her is something that has become very intimidating.
The Charred Forest.
That land has been completely destroyed and standing near is what remains of Beacon, the entire place completely destroyed and skeletons lay everywhere. The Moon has been completely decimated by something, just fragments floating away. Whatever this realm is, it is not the one that Pyrrha ever wanted to find herself in. Her soul falls and crashes straight into the ash covered ground with force, sending the soil flying into the sky from the impact and landing on the floor. The explosion of her impact echoes for miles, but there is nobody around to hear it. Just the howls of the damned screaming endlessly. Pyrrha lies in her crater in the foetal position, her armour has been extremely damaged from the impact as it was carried with her, chunks of it falling from her body. She sits up and her eyes widen with horror when she sees her surroundings.
She holds her body with her hands as if she were naked, but she is not, she is just extremely vulnerable and gasps when she feels the pain in her leg and sternum where Cinder's arrows where lodged. She screams weakly in horror as she looks at the Charred Forest that surrounds her. "Where...Where am I?" She cries out with terror as she looks around the forest with horror, tears streaming from her eyes.
This is not what she imagined the afterlife to be like.
And then, she hears his voice. "Welcome to my realm." The voice of a menacing man states, and she looks in the direction she heard the voice. A faint red light can be seen, along with a structure. She stands up and walks towards it, with no weapon in her hands either. She walks closer and begins to enter the structure to meet the being that was speaking to her. The building is made of something horrific, the bones of the dead, and inside the walls and supports are constructed entirely of Skulls. Just like the ones that were in his tent all those years ago. "I've been waiting for you, Miss Nikos...have you come to seek your destiny?" He asks her curiously and her eyes widen when she recognises him.
"You...are the Soothsayer I spoke to?" She asks with confusion and terror.
"I am Vir Nominis Umbra, or the Soothsayer if you will." Vir Nominis Umbra says to her, his eyes opening with a faint red glow in his irises as he smirks, looking round with just his eyes as she gets closer. Pyrrha clenches her hand into a fist, becoming angry as she gets closer to Vir Nominis Umbra.
"What is this place?" She demands, shouting at him. He says nothing, the silence fills the room and she gets closer and closer to him. "Answer me!" She shrieks, going to strike him with her fist.
He does not even move, but from the air he forms black smoke that forms into an obsidian spear that shoots straight through her chest. She screams with agony and falls to her knees, she should have been dead, but here...she cannot die again. Only experience the pain of dying, then he turns to her as her chest forms back together as the embers repair the damage. She cries with pain, still feeling it course through her veins. "You dare to strike me?" He questions coldly as he stares down at her with fiery eyes and she whimpers with fear.
A huge Nevermore flies towards her from the red sky and the black smoke erupts from the feathers, shifting into the form of the Knight of Death, landing behind her with force, making the ground shake. "And to answer your question, you are dead and have found yourself – in my domain." Vir Nominis Umbra tells her and he smiles. "Welcome to the Charred Forest." He says and she looks at him with horror.
"But...you said I was destined to save the world!" She cries out, and Death kicks her in the back with his metal foot and she cries out with pain. She looks back at him but he grabs her head and twists it round to face Umbra again.
Vir Nominis Umbra kneels down to look her in the eyes and he smiles. "No...I believe I said something along the lines of – there will come a time when you can save your beloved and the rest of the world – do not fear failure." He recites from memory as he looks at the beautiful girl that she has grown up into. She stammers and looks at him with afraid eyes. "Now...I am going to offer you an opportunity you cannot refuse. You are already bound by a contract with me, and thus...you have to serve me...because if you don't, I will make you wish you could die." He snarls menacingly. Pyrrha sniffles with fear of the monster that looks at her.
She feels his hand caress her cheek and connect with her chin to lift her face up to face his as he stares at her. "A girl of such perfect kindness...I wonder what cruelty can live within you?" He says with inspiration in his voice as he smiles, and he passes energy into her soul and she cries out with pain. Her eyes flicker from Green to Orange for a moment and she looks at him with confusion. "When we have the Creation Stone...I will grant you life...but in return, you serve me. If you do not – I will kill Jaune Arc in the slowest and most horrific way you can possibly imagine." He threatens and she is terrified of losing the man she loves with her entire heart.
He caresses her cheek and smirks, working his way down to her chin. "You had control over your life when you were alive – but here? You are mine to command." He states and she looks down at the floor and starts to sob uncontrollably.
She never wanted this.
But Vir Nominis Umbra...
Has been waiting twelve years to control her.
He smirks menacingly at her, as this is a miniscule step of his master plan.