Diana, Lilith Castle, Archives.
Dust collected everywhere as far as Diana could see; spider webs wove loosely around books, dirtied shelves, and blemished stands. Dust floated lazily in the air with every step, causing a hard time breathing. "How long has this room not been clean?" She asked, coughing onto her hand.
"No one comes here anymore" The King answered.
"Still, that is no excuse." She whined, her eyes scamming the bookcases. Its shelves heaved under the weight of the old volumes. Diana took a few steps towards it. She tilted her head to the side as her fingertips tracked down the spine of a particular velvet book on her right. She closed her eyes; the feeling of its golden words engraved on its leather coverage sunk into her skin, leaving her with a familiar melancholic chord to deal with. Diana pictured the last time she had been down here.
*********************** Flashback***********************
"Pater! Pater!" A very much younger version of Diana leaped onto her father's lap, earning from him a loud grunt and a roll of eyes.
The man sat down the golden feather he was using to write on the cream paper pages of the walloping, brown book that laid open on top of his desk, to look for a second to his daughter."What is it, Ezaeur? Don't you see I'm a little busy right now?" He asked as he put her back down on the floor.
The lil' one look up at the man and batted her eyelids innocently, stretching a book in his direction. "Please, pater. Would you read it for me?"
The man sighed, rubbing, underneath his glassed, the bridge of his nose, just between his eyes.
"Pater?" She tilted her head confused at his reaction. "Does your head hurt?"
"Ezaeur, let your father work at peace." A silver-haired woman scolded her, which made little Diana back away with a sad, cumbersome expression.
"I-I'm sorry, mater..." She whispered.
"I'm not the one who you should be apologizing to, Ezaeur." Said the woman.
The girl looked up once again to his father."I'm sorry, pater." Then lowered her tiny head; her long, blond as the sun hair falling over both her shoulders.
"Don't worry dear. It's okay." Said the man. "Now, if you excuse me. I have a lot to do." And, once again, returned to his royalty chores.
"Of course, pater." She turned away.
"Come, Ezaeur." A hand was offered to the child, in which she took with the purest delight. "I'll read it to you." The woman proposed. "Seems good, dear?"
"Yes, mater!" She smiled, bouncing happily to see her wishes fullied. Diana was a sweet and gentle child. For her, at such young age, happiness was quite simple; it was her mother's hugs, her mother's singing, and the uplifting bedtime stories that her mother would read to her after tucking her into bed, that made her feel truly happy. She didn't need more. They were enough.
The queen pulled her child up and sat on her lap."Let's see..." The woman began, retrieving the book from Diana's hands, "«Puella in turris», a story by the Brother's Grimm."
Diana clapped upon hearing the title's name. "Please read, mater!" She hollered as she snapped the book open, silently pleading for her mother to begin already.
The woman chuckled. "So hasty. You must really like this story honey."
It was indeed her favorite story in the whole world."Yes! Yes!" Diana yelled excited.
"Well then, what do you say we stop staling and start the reading?" The woman asked as she turned the firsts few pages.
Diana nodded, watching very closely her mother turning the pages and reading them. It smelled warm and dusty, like the inside of an attic. The fragile old pages almost became delicate snowflakes with the touch of her fingers.
« Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who had long, but to no avail, wished for a child. Finally, the woman came to believe that the good Lord would fulfill her wish. Through the small rear window of these people's houses, they could see into a splendid garden that was filled with the most beautiful flowers and herbs. The garden was surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared enter, because it belonged to a sorceress who possessed great power and was feared by everyone.
After a while, the woman could not think of anything but the appetizing rapunzel's, at the same time she was losing her appetite. Worried, her husband, finally, decided to sneak around the garden at night and pick up some of them for his wife. However, after having tasted them, the woman was only thinking of eating more. Then, the husband risked himself again in the garden of the sorceress.»
"The young lady was becoming ill and that's why the husband felt obligated to comply with the wife's wishes. All he wanted his wife's well-being." Diana's mother explained.
Diana looked up puzzled. "Like that time when you were with stomach aches and you made pater go all-around hunting for those berries you love so much?"
She chuckled amused at her analogy. "Not exactly, my sweet Ezaeur. Let's just continue the story."
«This time he was surprised by the sorceress.'How dare you steal my rapunzel's?!' the sorceress yelled. Terrified, the husband told her all of his wife's unapproachable appetite for the rapunzel's. 'You can have all the rapunzel's you want,' answered the sorceress 'but in exchange, you have to promise me you will turn your daughter to me'. The poor man agreed.")
As soon as the girl was born, the sorceress came to fetch her and baptized her as Rapunzel. Growing up, Rapunzel became so beautiful that the sorceress decided that no one more should see her beauty.
So, when the girl turned up twelve years old, the sorceress locked her on a tower that stood in the heart of the forest, and that had neither a door nor a stairway, but only a tiny little window at the very top. When the sorceress wanted to enter, she stood below and called out: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Let down your hair to me'. So, the girl, upon hearing the sorceress's voice, untied her braids, wound them around a window hook, let her hair fall twenty yards to the ground, and the sorceress climbed up it.»
"Rapunzel had splendid long hair, as fine as spun gold. Just like you-- Uh? What's wrong? Why are you crying, sweetheart?" Her mother asked concerned.
"Mater... why would she steal their baby? Why would she do such a thing? I-If someone would try to separate me from you, I-I-I... I... I would just die!!" Diana shouted, her eyes brimming with hot tears. "M-Mater..." Sobbing, she hugged tightly her mother's body, cupping her face under her bosom.
The woman smiled and stroked Diana's hair in comfort. "There, there. No one is going to take me from you or the other way around. I will always be here."
"P-Promise?"
"It's a promise I will hold--"
"--you..."
"... forever and ever,"
"Te amo Ezaeur."
************************** End of Flashback**************************
Some tears slowly fell down her cheek and onto the floor. Up until recently, she almost lost the two most important people to her to the Demon Lord's wrath, leaving her with a powerless, impotence thrill to cope. Diana didn't ask for it but was forced to go through it, and it was the worst, breath-taking feeling that she had to experience in her whole existence, which kind of pissed her off. She clenched her hands into a fist at each side of her body, as an intern, the intense battle going on. She wouldn't let herself seeing anyone lose another because of that man. She would do something if she had the means. She. Would. Put. An. End. To. Him. Firstly, she would start in this archive. She had to find that book before Sarah would get herself crossed off. Save one person at a time.
The King placed a hand on top of Diana's shoulder, catching her attention. "Ezaeur?"
She quickly whipped any traces of tears of ever being. "D-Did you find it already, father?!"
The King held the book in the air. "Yes, of course. Do you really doubt your father's tracking abilities~?" He teased while leafing through it.
"Of course not... Father. Now, let me see." Diana gestured with her hand, insisting to see the book. Bound in brown leather, cracked and dry with age, the thin volume smelled faintly of mold and dust. Diana blew over it, releasing some of the dust from it. Finally, she ventured to open it. The pages within were brittle and what remained of the book's original stitching is barely holding it together. She poured herself into the pages and scammed through them until she found what she was looking for. "Here." She pointed her index finger to the title. "To unbind a bond." She read, "The bond which was not to be done, gives us the power to see it undone. And turn back time to whence it was begun."
"You found it dear!" The King congratulated her. "At last, there's a sparkle of a light at the end of the tunnel."
"Yes but now, how am I going to make this reach her?" She looked over her shoulder at her father, unsure of what the next step might be.
The King cleared his throat and patted her back, "Well honey, I would recommend you to use your succubus' abilities for once." turning around and making his way out of the archives room.