PUPPETEER.

     EYES LOWERED AT THE GRUESOME PICTURES his mind unfolded at Manfroy’s words. A whimper escapes him. Deirdre’s pain is his own since the day he met her, as he vowed to always protect her & strive for a yearned happiness they both wished. Even separate & far away from his other half, their link never severed, his thoughts consumed by her. Where are you now? Are you happy? Are you well? ( Please be safe… I miss you — I NEED YOU — ) 

    There’s no telling about what he says when he is lost in the darkness in the middle of the night, alone & suffocating in a sea made of anguish. ( His life seemed to shrink by seconds & the walls closing unto him. ) Funny how he was never afraid of the dark before, even as a child, but he learned to dread it as a full - grown man. Shame tightens itself ‘round his heart, his guilt threatening to rush back to the surface. ( He promised to keep her out of harm’s way — but failed. ) He would redeem himself… Else, he could never look at his baby boy without remorse.

    Amidst all the pain, morning would always come, the ghosts haunting him halting until they would visit to entertain themselves for another nightmare. There’s a slow blink, the void in his heart filled back with determination whilst Balder’s blood pumps eerily in his veins. Blue eyes stare back at the villain, framed by anger; brows furrowed & nose scrunched. There’s an UNCONTROLLABLE storm waiting to unfurl. 

    ❛ Your words are naught but poison, serpent, ❜ he spat, ignoring all of his impudent words. ❛ I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to cut your tongue. Until that happens, ❜ he pauses, voice lowering in a harsh murmur, ❛ shut your face. ❜

    Sleipnir is restless, more so than his master, stomps hammering the dirt beneath them. The Holy Knight knows it is but a matter of time before the dark mage magically warps back. ❛ Scurry back to your shadows & hide like a coward, to your wretched heart’s content — but know this… It won’t save you, ❜ he warns ominously, cranium tilting slightly forward.

Manfroy saw the anguish and anger as they perfectly melded into the gruesome expression that overtook the holy knight’s face. He knew the man had adored his newfound hostage immensely. In fact, Dierdre had most assuredly reciprocated that love. It had taken him a long while to purge  every last trace of him from her resilient mind. Those memories, in particular, refused to surrender themselves, and she had called her beloved’s name in her final moments before she was reborn as a memory-lacking puppet. Oh, yes, her role was far from over. Until her purpose was achieved, Dierdre was his to keep.

That meant that the nuisance called Sigurd had to be dealt with promptly. He knew the knight to have considerable prowess in battle. However, even the greatest knights fell pray to magical damage. it was why he had opted to place a great myriad of magical guards around the castle, deviously placed to catch approaching enemies unawares. One way or another, Sigurd would fall here. The dark would claim him, as it had his wife’s memories. It was almost poetic to consider. Of course, no one would mourn him, for he’d render the mourners, Sigurd’s people, dead as well. He’d levied traps of all sorts along the way, to keep his most precious pawn, Dierdre, safe. Safer than she ever would’ve been under the custody of the knight.

  �� :,) destroy me pls

w HY

BECAUSE YOU ASKED FOR IT

Meme II Accepting 

21: My muse finds out a loved one of your muse has died, and has to tell them.

On that day, Manfroy had triumphed. All of the suffering and derision that his sect had sustained had finally borne the fruit of success. Loptyr, reborn, had taken his vessel with ease, shattering the soul of he who housed him and bringing ruin as prophesied. Dierdre had been his first victim; Dierdre, his prized pawn who had outlived her usefulness. After she had bore the vessel of the dark god, she was a husk of meat with no purpose left, and was simply discarded accordingly. Her corpse now lay at her former son’s feet, and the boy hadn’t reacted in the least. No, he was Loptyr now, wholly in body and mind. That woman was naught more than a simple death; she meant nothing to him. 

It was with this victory that Manfroy had called Arvis to him. Oh, he knew the emperor to be a capable mage, and the man couldn’t have missed the surge of power that had accompanied the dark lord’s descent into his new medium. When he had departed the chamber in which Dierdre had met her death, he’d heard the rushed pitter-patter of an anguished runner’s. He called out to Arvis, beckoning him to catch glimpse of what was in the next room. His inquiries of the welfare of his wife and children would be properly answered even with a cursory look. A door swung open, and it revealed the scene his victory had left in its wake. The blank stare of Julius and the limp corpse of his mother, hair sprawled and neck askew, on the floor before him. 

Rather than consoling the newfound widower, Manfroy let forth a laugh that filled the chamber with its echoes and glee. It was a laugh that none had ever heard from him, a true atrocity that had emerged from the thrums of his throat. It was more than a mere laugh; it was invigorated by achieving his life’s purpose. It was soulless and devoid of the mirth that one would ever associate with a laugh. A horrible thing to accompany the innermost grief of Arvis. This was what Dierdre had died for. This madman, who had once given them happiness, had killed her with only a laugh, not remorse, to show for it. He would never regret what he’d done. It would become his most fondest memory and achievement.

Meme II Accepting

18: My muse takes your muse hostage

How irksome. it seemed that Nohr hadn’t forgotten its prince entirely. Soldiers clad in black and war crests had laid siege to the sect’s quarters, and, among the soldiers, stood a young man with a strong resemblance to the young Leo. He was a teen of youthful year, tall despite his purported age, and clad from head to toe in stark armor more fancily adorned than his soldiers’. He raised a banner high with Nohr’s crest, his high-pitched voice jarring and contrasting sharply with the mighty spectacle of his gathered soldiers. 

The teen introduced himself as the crown prince of Nohr, Xander; he demanded that his brother, Prince Leo, who had been stolen by the sect, be returned unscathed. He proclaimed that he cared not that Leo’s mother had consented to the boy remaining in the sect’s clutches. Rather, he wished for nothing less than to be reunited with his brother, and brought the great myriad of soldiers in the likelihood that Manfroy wouldn’t comply. His soldiers bellowed in response, matching the tint of pride in the prince’s tone as he had informed them all of his soldiers’ amazing combat prowess. Bah. The sight sickened him. Pride found in war was a brittle thing, subject to be lost to the winds if the war was being lost. 

It was time to show these soldiers how lost their cause was.

Immediately, Manfroy ordered that Leo be brought to the balcony. Despite the child stammering a no, he forced him to the forefront, in display of the meddlesome prince and his lot. “You wish him back?” he called to the impromptu audience down below. “I hope you did not mean in pieces. For the coffin will be his fate, if you do not comply.”

Abruptly, he grabbed the boy and held him against his own body with one hand. A free one slithered into his robes and withdrew a knife, which held just a few inches from the boy’s palpating neck. His newfound hostage was likely racked with sobs, but he couldn’t care less. He watched as the formerly confident expression of his challenger suddenly melted into that of despair. Angry accusations of dishonor were slung at him; Manfroy laughed at them all. There was no honor nor pride in war, and these sad saps would learn as much. 

Manfroy returns the boy’s gaze bemusedly, for he was well accustomed to many staring at him with distaste in their eyes. His sentiments were those he contended with daily; sentiments mirrored by his deceased father, now known as the traitor to Granvale forevermore. He ought to remind Celice of where he stood: the son of a man who, in addition to his ignoble death, had died with a sullied name. 

Just how many of those inane crows would continue to pester him? Manfroy swatted yet another away. The accursed nestlings had deigned to defy him at every turn. They pecked at his hood or attempted to imperil the conditions of his tomes. Not to mention their irksome cawing and canting. He’d had little doubt that the flocks of them had been sicced on him by some manner of malevolent curse. While he’d tried to rid himself of it, he found that the incantation held steady despite his efforts. 

None had ever considered him being at the core of the Tempest Trials. Most Heroes had deemed the possessed Julia to be acting out of turn, yes, but they were too imbecilic to properly deduce who her puppeteer was. So long as their adjourn in the Tempest resolved when the crazed Julia was defeated, the participants were content to continually fell her. After all, who would be inclined enter the seemingly pointless fortress she was guarding?

... None but this unbidden exception. Bah! So, he had seen through this farce? At the very least, Manfroy had to give him credit for succeeding on that front.

Manfroy staggers back from the force of the punch, but the magic he’d cast upon his body ( to maintain it even in old age ), prevented him from entirely collapsing. He appraises his assailant indignantly, although he can’t say it’s unexpected. His sect had made many an enemy. This little girl only needed an excuse from the myriads that the sect’s enemies had access to.

Does Manfroy care about Julius’s well-being? Well, no. If Julius were to get sick, injured, maimed, hurt, or inconvenienced in any way, Manfroy couldn’t care less. He knows that any damage done to Julius would be immediately healed by Loptyr, and, so, his only priority is keeping Julius breathing. He’d immediately start caring if Julius’s life fell in danger, but otherwise, no. 

When Julius was still a youth and unable to house the dark god, Manfroy paid a perturbing amount of attention to him. Arvis and Dierdre sometimes received reports about him stalking Julius, or trying to approach Julius despite the later being uncomfortable with it. At first, Manfroy tailed after the lad to make certain that enemies of the emperor would not wantonly take his life. At least, that was the excuse he gave. The real reason was his impatience. He awaited each and every day for about a decade or so to determine when was the earliest time he could launch part two of his plans: getting Julius to house Loptyr in his body. 

“Ah, yes. There is that matter of your brother that requires attending to, does it not? I hear you fret for his seemingly abrupt illness. Such a pity you’re wasting your time on what cannot be cured. Abandon your efforts, priest.”

Manfroy’s tone is sharp, for he cared not for the humane concern the man had displayed. Most would find it heartwarming that the priest cared so keenly for the welfare of another, but he had deemed it irksome. Lord Julius’s condition wasn’t mortal, although the symptoms implied as much. Rather, it was his body reacting adversely to housing the immortal soul of the sect’s savior: Loptyr. 

Many a vessel had been extinguished from the body wavering at critical stages. Lord Julius held strong, and, thus, proved himself the greatest vessel of all. His symptoms would give way to wellness soon, for his body would be healed by Loptyr’s power. Manfroy had determined as much, and, this, all medical care was futile. There was no curing the process, nor preventing it. A shame he couldn’t simply say as much. Had any but the sect known of Julius’s true condition, the boy would be killed immediately. Thus, his motive in deterring Saias from prying. 

While he regard King Chagall as little more than a fool prancing about in a crown, he rather liked imbeciles of that manner. The witless were malleable, easily bent to his will; those commanding power and prestige meant that more of their kingdom’s fools would bend the knee to his machinations, even inadvertently. Yes, the irrevocably foolish king was a precious pawn indeed. In playing his part as servant to a liege, however, Manfroy was required to appear at whatever inane audience the king requested. 

Pah! He awaited the day when King Chagall was firmly in his grasp. Then, he could do away without these ceremonies --- elaborate wastes of time that served only to fuel a man’s pride with empty virtues. Along the way, he brushed past the Lionheart, or so he was dubbed by the admiring masses. The knight was built impressively, and, to boot, a wielder of a holy weapon. That alone gave him cause to rate just as importantly as the king. Thankfully, his loyalty proved an obstacle to none but himself. It was exploitable, and Manfroy so chose to invoke it upon seeing the knight’s disapproving glare.

He didn’t know how long he’d been trapped in that Hell. How long he’d been in the dark. His mother had no use of him. Brynhildr had chosen his sister after all and with him around he only provided a distraction for her. Prevented her from reaching her full potential and all that garbage their mother liked to spout.

What better way to be rid of him than to give him to some cult? To make him useful in her eyes by one day being sacrificed for what the people there deemed as the greater good.

He had seen so many children die. So many put on an altar and killed for something that most likely didn’t exist. When would his day come? He didn’t want to think about it.

Sara had been so kind to him those few weeks. She smiled in such a dark place. Told stories and made jokes. She deserved more. And what had he gotten her? What had Leo done for her?

Nothing but get her killed. Nothing but hear her screams shatter the air around him as he hid in a corner. As he prayed to not be caught.

But a child’s curiosity always got the better of them. As her pained wails died down he went to look. Was she just hanging on for dear life now? Could he save her? Or would he be met with her corpse?

What he saw was worse than either scenario combined.

“H-how…” The words were but a small whisper Leo’s eyes gazing upon a lifeless husk that was no longer the girl he’d made friends with. No longer a living, breathing person. No. Sara was gone. And in her place stood a monster.

“Y-you…” His eyes fell onto Manfroy. That dastard had done that to her! Had hurt her only to prolong her suffering. “What did you do to her??”

The inquiry -- so sickeningly, sweetly naive -- elicits his unrelenting laughter. So many had regarded him and his sect as lesser beings, only for their eyes to be caught wide in surprise when they witnessed a feat of immense magical prowess. Reanimating even a mindless corpse took much skill to even perform. Moving Sara to and fro like a limp puppet, devoid of the immobility of death, sapped much of his strength. And yet, he finds the mettle the laugh and feel proud of what he’s accomplished, as he’s now appalled the lone audience member. 

Poor child. Deposited on his doorstop by a reluctant caretaker, the boy had been at his mercy ever since entering his domain. Manfroy had done much to remind the insipid whelp of his place, and, it would seem, that sacrificing Sara for that cause was enough. As Leo’s eyes fell on her, disgusted and fearful, Manfroy flicked his wrist. As though its movement had been spurred by invisible threads, the puppet shuffled forward with an awkwardness that suggested it being unaccustomed to the motion. The corpse of Sara managed a few steps before crumpling over, the action proving too much for her tiny body to bear.

 Ah, well. He would have to reinforce her bodice with the same magic he used to maintain his old, withered body. it was a simple procedure.