Hanetsuno:
The Diary of a Priest

Log 02-07-67 :

As of late, there has been much progress. Sir Sorin and Lady Selene have made plans to storm the enemy's stronghold at Moenia. The army they will be taking along is a beautiful thing to see: thousands and thousands of men and women of every race from all over the world lined up in neat rows with weapons and armor that glitter in the sun. The much smaller group of elite warriors that will be accompanying the Lord and Lady personally looks a bit more haphazard, but they make up for it by being nearly as effective half of rest the army. The princess is among these elites, meaning she will be standing before the Demon Lord.


Log 02-08-67 :

I worry about the princess. King Sirgen's sickness is getting worse.


Log 02-13-67 :

I have mixed feelings about today.

For the most part, the war is over. There will be some fighting still, but it will be slight, and it will dwindle to nothingness before long.

The child my wife is having next month will be born into an era of peace.

But Lord Sorin and Lady Selene will have no child.

They found that the Demon Lord could not be destroyed completely. They destroyed only his body and encased his foul beating heart within a statue. It took so much of their effort. However, eight of the Demon Lord's generals were still alive. They ambushed the Lord and Lady when all seemed quiet in the courtyard of Moenia Castle. Lord Sorin was struck dead right there, and Lady Selene was dreadfully wounded and left defenseless.

I'm told that what alerted their allies was actually Lady Selene's cry of agony as she saw what had happened to her love. I'm grateful I wasn't there to hear it myself.

Antra brought the Lord and Lady back to Nalya. Lord Sorin's clan gave him a funeral attended by thousands and thousands of people of all races. I attended myself, but so many heartbroken people around me was unbearable. I went home early.

From the last news I heard, Lady Selene is still alive but won't be for long. I'm told that valkyrie healing magic is having no effect on her wounds and that she is not eating, moving, or speaking coherently. It's said that her eyes stare into nothingness with a look of horror, suggesting that she has gone blind or insane or both. But valkyrie tend to be tight-lipped people, and they aren't letting anyone else see her, so I wonder how much of this is true.

And there are several people who are unaccounted for. In addition to the Demon Lord's eight generals, eight of our elite warriors have disappeared--including our princess. Supposedly witnesses say she pursued one of the Demon Lord's generals, the leothera by the name of Hydar, as he fled Moenia, but no one seems to have any idea where she went after that.

I cannot pray hard enough that she is safe.


Log 02-15-67 :

King Sirgen's illness is at its worse, and the healers are certain he will not recover. Even a young valkyrie who was willing to expend her power had no success in reviving him.

So much is riding on the fact that the princess comes back safely; would the gods be angered by our greed if we were to pray that she came home before her father died?


Log 02-20-67 :

The king took his last breath today; the princess has not returned.

In his majesty's last moments, Antra tried to tell him that his daughter had just come back and would be fine. It was a nice thought, but I don't think he believed her.

Less than an hour later, a messenger came to Nalya and informed us that Lady Selene had finally passed on as well. He also said that, with her last breath, she mumbled her first intelligible words besides Sorin's name:

"Sara... the temple...!"

She clasped her hand over her left hip, then went limp.

When I was ecstatic about this information, the others were only confused. Since calling one of our rulers by a nickname is unthinkable to us, I had to explain how I had, with my own eyes and ears, observed several instances of Lady Selene referring to or addressing the princess as simply "Sara." The left hip was about where the Meadow Orb was on Lady Selene's belt.

I proposed scouring every temple of every land in search of the princess, starting with the Life Temple.

They think it will be fruitless, but after this last eternal week, we are desperate enough to try.


Log 02-21-67 :

Search parties have gone out!

Being clergy, Antra and I both know the way to the Life Temple. Antra, however, volunteered before I got the chance. I'll be waiting at home until they return with news.


Log 02-22-67 :

It's twilight, and Antra and her party have not returned, which is strange considering the distance to the temple. Are they burdened with something to carry?


Log 02-24-67 :

Three days is too long for them to be gone. The others say to give them time, for the path to the temple is long and confusing, but I know that Antra could have found her way through it by now if she were blind and flightless.

I'll set out alone tomorrow morning at dawn. My wife is worried, but she understands.


Log 02-25-67 :

As I write this, I'm standing in front of the door of the temple. At first glance, everything seems normal, but I feel like something's wrong. The only peculiarity I can name is the foul smell coming from within the temple.

~

I've found the princess.

I've never seen anything so horrible as the sight within this temple. There are burnt and bloodstained body parts scattered everywhere. The only recognizable body lies at the foot of the stairs: Hydar lies on his back with his limbs outstretched and most of his torso missing.

At the top of the stairs in front of him, the princess sat against the podium, clutching her spear tightly. She's conscious but doesn't seem to be quite in her right mind, and she is covered in wounds that will be fatal if they are not tended soon. She seemed surprised that I recognized her because "the others" hadn't; she wouldn't say who. I asked if Antra and the others had been here, but she only said, "I wish them peaceful rest."

I tried to help her up so that we could get back to town, but she nearly skewered me with her spear. She insists that I do not touch her.

So I've been sitting against the wall farthest from all the body parts to write this, hoping she will come to her senses soon. Her breathing is loud and labored; just looking at her brings me pain.

~

I've noticed that she seems to be slowly healing, though I know not by what method. This must be why she did not want me to disturb her. I shall escort her out when her healing is complete. On the floor across the room, I see what looks like bits of a wing, though it does not match the color of the princess's. However, my curiosity is not strong enough to go look at it, for that would mean getting uncomfortably close to the meat strewn there on the floor.

~

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Please read. Be warned.

That piece of wing was Antra's. I saw her face when I gathered the courage to roll one of the somewhat intact bodies over. She and the search party had been annihilated by both a weapon and by magic.

I asked the princess about it. She laughed strangely, stood weakly, petted the orb on the podium. (Hadn't noticed it before, was the Lord and Lady's Orb of the Meadows.) Tried to drag her away by force, she threw me back.

The look in her eyes was horrible. Before she attacked me, she whimpered, "Please... kill... me."

Escaped temple barely, she did not pursue. Can't move on from here. Tell my wife I'm sorry.

If you are superior to Princess Saraelye in battle, please grant her request.

Otherwise, stay away.

*    *    *

The book had survived through the years, probably only thanks to the magical energy in the place it had been left. Nonetheless, it was visibly ancient and tattered. Its pages were stiff with dried blood and rainwater.

Yousei had spotted this book as she and the others were on their way into the temple that held the Meadow Orb. It had fallen off the path and onto a smaller branch below. As they left, she called Puddles to retrieve it.

She thought it might be something to occupy herself with while her friends were gone, but most of the book was either wartime facts and figures or the opinions of some ancient priest she'd never met. She skipped to the end of the portion that was written in.

"Please... kill... me."

And so the innocent writer fled from her and, with his dying breath, plead to anyone capable to kill Queen Saraelye.

Kill the queen. Horrible. Blasphemous. Had the wound she given him not killed him, his fellow faeries might have had him put to death for saying something like that.

Yousei sighed and put the book away as carefully as possible. She left her bedroom through the window as she often did and made her way to city hall, staying off the populated paths of the village. She found a place on a branch near an upper story window and looked inside.

Queen Saraelye, pale and limp, was lying in bed on her back with her hands together on her chest. Faeries never slept on their backs; their wings got in the way. The queen's wings had been cut off though. Now she looked like she was being prepared for burial.

Kill the queen?

Yousei jumped down to a lower branch and sprung through the trees in the direction of the temple. Instead of going all the way there, she climbed down to lower levels. Not long after she was away from the village, she saw the first signs of the Grand City of Nalya.

The "Grand City" had only scraps of buildings left. The wood had rotted and disintegrated. The paths here were not artificial but were made from tree branches that had been coaxed into weaving together as they grew, and now they were overgrown and misshaped after so many years without tending. The foliage and branches overhead blocked nearly every bit of sunlight, and there were no lanterns or glowing insects and plants to light the darkness.

Yousei trudged slowly down what was left of the main street.

Many, many faeries died in the war long ago. The city didn't need to be so large anymore. When the king died and the princess disappeared, people were too saddened to see the palace everyday, so they moved to another part of the city where it wasn't visible. The grand city had shrunken into just another little troop... except that there were no other troops anymore.

Yousei looked up at the palace. It was built into a dead tree whose massive corpse was dwarfed by the temple's tree right behind it. It was sunken in on itself yet managed to loom up like a monster anyway. She considered exploring the inside, but it probably wasn't safe. At the very least, that was best left for another day. Perhaps the closeness of the temple and its magical energy had allowed books and other such things inside the castle to last this long. The library at the new city hall didn't seem large enough to hold the books of a kingdom's national library, so surely some were left behind.

She looked down and saw a large seed wedged between two branches of the path. It wasn't going to grow where it was, so she picked it up. She recognized it as a seed which would grow into a tall stock with large leaves and lovely flowers.

Queen Saraelye would supposedly live. Perhaps she would marry and have a child. Perhaps she would order the palace to be rebuilt, and perhaps her child would live there.

The tidy vines that had once formed the walls of the palace courtyard now twisted everywhere, so it was hard to distinguish the courtyard from the rest of the city. In the middle of the mess, centered in front of the palace, was a patch of dirt illuminated by a lonely shaft of sunlight that had somehow made it past all obstacles to reach this point.

Yousei knelt down long enough to hide the seed in the soil there. She looked at the palace again, sighed, turned around, and headed back to her bedroom.

Please kill me.

Unthinkable.