Imperator Lucia Pike.
25th of Trescia, 1492.
5th Legion Home World, Brunhilde.
07:00.
***
My job was easy, at first.
And then, it wasn't.
Born into a family of knights, dames, paladins, and occasionally, Valkyries, my job was to protect the Imperial Barbaric Princess throughout the course of her life. Due to her prowess and immense strength, however, that left little to do for me other than my morning training and my evening studies for the first few years of my life. At all other times, I simply followed her around, acting as her shadow.
That changed when we met Amun, just before our awakening. That changed when I met Toril.
He turned out to have lived the same life I had, yet his experience was completely different. He too was born into a royal family of knights, dames, and paladins. Yet he had been sent away to Corvus Tower for his misuse of magic, and thus he hardly knew them. He entered Amun's service and spent his mornings training and his evenings studying, yet his master demanded he broaden his mind and train rigorously with him every night.
When we left our homeland, I got a firsthand account of what my future was to hold. Then we went forward to the Bodhi Tree.
There, we learned not only about evolution, divine trees, and the classes we all obsessed over. We- all of us except Amun- learned about ourselves. We explored the personalities that had been repressed by our upbringing as imperial vassals and sought to bring them out; both in ourselves and in each other. On the other hand, we learned of the lengths some would go to in order to prove themselves just.
Amun's encounter with Dende Morningstar served as the start of many races. A race to match the impossibly high standard Toril and the others developed over the course of a decade. A race to develop technology. A race to recruit subordinates. A race to form subguilds.
A race to become a Valkyrie.
It was an honor unlike any other; the… reluctance… Princess Roheisa showed when discussing the divine notwithstanding. To be a Valkyrie was the pinnacle of the class, more so even than an agent of the Gods- a Holy Paladin.
The role of the Valkyrie was twofold. We served a Deity associated with war by gathering the worthy souls of the dead, delivering them to their divine domains for some grand purpose. So too did we live by war, devoting our very souls to the destruction of our God's enemies.
Therein lay my duties. Not my Oath, however.
My Oath first dictated that I seek. Seek the souls worthy of being reborn as celestials in Eotrom. Seek the wicked souls of those in need of abyssal damnation. Seek those souls worthy of becoming agents of my God, both Noctis Legionaries and Valkyrie.
My Oath then dictated that I see. See and bear witness to glorious actions of courage and sacrifice, if only so they may never be forgotten in the memoirs of mortals. See and look down on dishonorable acts of cowardice and selfishness, if only to use them as antithetical examples to the worthy. See and watch over the delivered, becoming their shepherd who leads them to glorious pastures.
My Oath then dictated that I Deliver. Deliver the souls of those who have come to an honorable end by enacting the burying rituals of their culture and guiding their souls to the worlds above. Deliver the damnable dishonorable mortals a brutal death and send them to fester in their pit of wickedness. Deliver the most worthy but unproven mortals to their place of prominence in the Legio Noctis. Or, in my circle.
Therein was my oath. Tenets that saw my Master Class morph into something more… regal.
So it was, my first task was to become familiar with the woven worlds of the Legion's founders. Doing so required the worlds to be woven in the first place, then I was required to deliver at least one soul to each of them, birthing 11 new celestials, and then 11 new feathers on my wings; granting me the means to travel to and from those worlds with ease.
In the meantime, my Doppelganger did as all the others had done and expanded on the 15 souls we recruited in Eotrom by recruiting and adopting the potential dames of Ligin. Trained as a Valkyrie, all of them. Educated in the ways of their other classes, all of them. Trained for their positions in my Legion, all of them. That, however, was not my second task. It was the third.
My second task was to do as the other founders had done. Weave a World. Not just one, however. I was to weave a moon- a hall for my Valkyrie Courts. Thus when that was complete, I stepped past the third step and reached the fourth.
In doing so, I was first given the means to birth Valkyries out of the worthiest souls I delivered. Then, I was granted the ability to bestow crowns unto my Valkyrie, bringing me to my next task.
[Prestige Paladin: Oath of the Valkyrie Empress, Step 4 - Monarchical Valkyries.]
[Before you receive the Imperial Valkyrie Helm, you must complete the ranks of your Valkyries by giving rise to and naming the Valkyrie Queens of your Eternal God's deities, and then having them adopt the values and cultures of their deity. (0/11)]
That task occupied much of my time. For, like any good leader, I used the power of delegation to accomplish it.
It started with my Executive Officer, Shivali Hemera. In making her my first Valkyrie Queen, she was lifted in prominence to the point of being able to birth Valkyries as I could, and so she rebirthed her peers and sent them far and wide to Seek, See, and Deliver.
Naturally, Shivali accomplished her task first. She sought out a small hamlet in the lands of the Mazi Council Roheisa, wherein she saw a domestic dispute in an isolated homestead. She witnessed the young woman refuse to be subjected to abuse from her husband and raise her hand to defend herself.
She fought valiantly, using her cunning and every improvised weapon within her reach to slay her husband even after being subjected to mortal wounds. Yet even then, she did not despair. She stumbled to her porch to lean against the post and slump to the ground, wherein she died staring at the woven worlds above with a satisfactory smile.
So she was when Shivali descended with a silent resolve to palm the cold chest of that courageous soul. In flowing into her, the soul was partially detached from her body, allowing her to watch Shivali bury her atop the nearby hill and see her soul fully separate from her body.
Infusing her magic into the Edindan Bifrost Feather enveloped the two in a celestial light that saw them ascend to the world of volcanoes and subterranean castles. With a deafening bang, they breached through the surface to the divine realm, where the lands were much more expansive and filled with flora and fauna tailored to thrive in the deadly environment in which I awaited.
Here, the soul once again had dark brown skin and similarly colored eyes that gazed upon her strange environment with the wonder of a child. That was all she retained from her past life, however. Her name, her memories, her age; everything but the skills she developed in life and the visage she once had were buried with her body.
That was what it meant to be delivered.
My Executive Officer set her on the fertile grounds with reverence before saluting me, her bronze armor glistening amidst the reds, blacks, and greens of the background.
The return of the gesture saw me keep my hands clasped before me, allowing the divine energy infused within me to condense and take shape into a beating heart of bronze blades; and in meeting the gaze of this delivered soul, I declared. "You, who have fought with tenacious courage against the tyrant and held fast in the face of death, have proven yourself capable of joining the Valkyrie Court.
"Do you accept?"
Her face tightened at once. Her feet pulled themselves together, erecting her dignified frame as she did her best to salute me. "I do."
Kneeling before her, I pushed the Valkyrie Heart into her frame, invoking a wave of matter and energy to flow into her from the world around her.
Her skin grew darker, adopting the same black sheen as obsidian while her eyes and hair burned red like the lava in the distance. Her back arched as she inhaled the first breath of her new lungs. Then she lurched forward as small obsidian arms sprouted from her shoulder blades and shuddered in delight as bladed feathers of steel formed small wings on her back.
Those were only the exterior changes, however. On the inside, she evolved into a celestial. Her strength, endurance, speed, and durability were made superior. Her soul was linked to both me and Edinda, permitting her to be reborn indefinitely, thus enabling her to fulfill her duty in perpetuity whilst using the powers of her Goddess, Roheisa Deapou.
Yet, she was not mature. Her powers were superior, but not super, and her skills needed refinement. And so… "I hereby name you the Magmatic Valkyrie of Edinda, Elara Aghagan!"
My declaration once again saw the matter and energy of her world surge. Not into her, however, but into a singular point between her clasped hands, separating them as a glistening helm of crystal and steel formed before her burning eyes. With large, whiskered fins protruding from the cheeks and a fiery mane held in place by a crown, it appeared much like the salamander the Princess fought last year.
So it was for the others in my court.