It was a darkened room with a few lights illuminating a long table. On one side of it stood eleven men in white robes and black face masks and on the other side sitting straight was a dark-skinned in dreadlocks wearing a padded leather jacket over a white t-shirt. The ends of the room were not visible, and neither was the source of light that illuminated the table. After a couple of minutes of silence, the man at the exact center leaned in foreword to question the interviewee.
'You claim you've been a legion?' he asked.
'Yes,' the dark-skinned man replied.
'If that is true, you'd be a prime candidate to be chosen as Aion,' the interviewer replied. 'But if not, you'd have lied to many powerful figures in the empire.'
'It is true.'
'How come you are not a legion anymore?' a different man inquired the interviewee.
'There's a set of quests that need to be done,' the dark-skinned man replied. 'They are issued by the leader of the legion: The Timemaster. Once they are done, you are a free man. You can either choose to live in their paradise in the Paleolithic era or return to your time. I had tethers before I left so I chose to retire here.'
The word Paleolithic resonated with the interviewers and majority of them looked at each other before continuing.
'Where was this paradise?'
'It was on a now sunken island off the west coast of Tyria. I believe it is called the Therma islands now.'
After a couple of moments of consideration, the man to the right of the previous interviewer leaned in forward. His white beard was visible from beneath the mask.
'You spoke of these quests, young man,' he spoke in a voice that carried gravitas. 'Could you present one of them to the court?'
'Certainly,' the interviewee replied. 'I assume you are familiar with Azonieth the seventh? Executed his daughter for suspected witchcraft? Almost executed her own wife for the same reason and got assassinated in his chambers, claimed to have done so by his brother-in-law?'
'Yes.'
'Well, it was the legions that executed him,' the interviewee replied. 'And I carried out his execution.'
The interviewer leaned back against his chair, taking his time to consider the options.
The interviewee for the moment was lost in his own head, recalling the fall of an empire that he played center stage at. What the Timemaster expected of his quest was not clear, but he was glad to have executed an idiotic man with too much power and hopefully have made a change for the better.
The old Neichan empire that expanded across a vast majority of the land it resided in was mostly a dense forest with small villages spread far into the west, and a city of stone to the edge of east. Most rivers of the kingdom flow eastwards, seeking the sea across the cities to the east. Therefore, if ever lost in the woods, a star in the north, if visible, would always help lost travelers travel east, where people would always run into civilization without having to go far. But one night, after a week of agony, a 'curse' brought down the brightest star in the north and the kingdom was lost in the darkness forever.
She was too drained at that point to even cry. Still in shock after half a day has passed; she couldn't believe how everything could unravel so fast. Even when her daughter was in prison, she had faith that her influence would have provided a safe haven for her little adventurer. Now, sitting behind her own set of bars, cuffed in rusty old chains, in an elegant dress that could have dressed a hundred maidens, now covered in dust and mud all over, she reminisced how the only thing that ever mattered in this shallow excuse for a kingdom had been taken away from her.
Monsters were the ones who took my little girl away. Monsters were the ones who condemned her. Monsters were the ones who burned her alive at the stakes.
The agonizing screams of her daughter in her final moments in contrast to her excited chatter and laughs of joy in the past kept burning a hole in this mother's heart. She dragged her fingers along a bracelet she wore, which had been a gift from her daughter on her birthday. Staring at it she reminisced how with all the power she had, she never felt more powerless than the moment where she was dragged away from her daughter at the stake, both screaming and wailing in pain. With her reddened eyes blurring her vision, it has never been clearer for her that none in the world cared about their toils or even of their lives. Among the millions they too were cards to be played in games of stronger men, after all, a queen would be sacrificed in a final gambit to spare the king.
The morning light snuck in through the small cell window. Beyond the walls, the sound of footsteps and voice of chatter gradually grew the higher the sun rose. The world was moving on without them. The queen had a few hours left before her execution. She had no intentions of escaping, she only simply wished she had the powers she was accused of having so that she could take the whole city down with her.
Footsteps drew her attention to the barred door, and she turned to observe with her teary eyes. Outside her door stood a man in a dark tan robe. He was looking at a golden trinket in his palm. Then as if he's been put on a timer, he lowers a plate of food into the queen's cell. She's to be executed in a few more hours, hence breakfast for the damned seemed redundant.
'Do not hesitate, do not look back and listen carefully,' the stranger said in Neichan tongue drawing the queen's attention. 'Free yourself, walk out, but don't look back and trust your instincts. In the city, answer to the name Illiana. Buy supplies for the journey. Steal a horse from the stable near the outer gate, the black stallion, and head straight for your brother, the rest will be taken care of.'
The stranger disappeared. The queen knew she couldn't let this chance go to waste. She channeled her strength to hold back her tears until she was safe with her brother and climbed off her bench. Her fingers quickly scavenged through the food until she found two keys. Taking the smaller key, she quickly uncuffed herself and without hesitation she took the bigger key to open the door to her cell.
She hastened through the hallways, as quiet as possible, passing prisoners on her way out the way she remembers. To her luck, she encountered no guards. Every time, the moment a guard turns around the corner around a hallway, the queen has just left it. Perfect timing. On her path, she found no doors closed and no gates barred.
The morning sun was too bright on her dilated and dried eyes for her to run out of the stone castle like she did, but without stopping she made her way to one of the side gates of her choice that lay next to the giant castle gates.
She was aware of the guard posts that lay near the gates, so she slowed down her pacing to be more careful. She can't get caught now. She made her way closer and closer, but no sign of life surrounded the guard posts. Once she got close enough, she peeked through one of the windows, and gasped in shock at the sight of what she saw.
There were three guards, two of them whose throats were slit, blood still fresh and one of them stabbed in the back and the knife was still sticking out of his back. Behind them, hanging from a rusty metallic rod was a crimson robe that caught the queen's eyes.
She stepped into the small, crammed room stuffed with three dead bodies and retrieved the robe. She knew she couldn't go unnoticed in the city with her muddied up and torn dress, so she put the robe on over her. On her way back she noticed something strange about the knife lodged into the back of one of the guards: it had her family sigil in it.
Soon mixed up within the crowds, the queen had trouble finding her way, after all, she's never been in the streets without an escort party by her side. She kept moving, without stopping, keeping her face away from the sunlight. Dragged along with the crowd, she somehow made her way to the market. The noise and chaos were too much for the delicate soul to take.
Just like every morning Ruyi, the short and stout seamstress followed by her rather petite and pale daughter made her way to her stall. Her daughter, Amaya, was carrying a pile of leather side-pouches in her hand. Following both of them was a mule that was too scared to stray away from their path. When she made it to her stall, not many others populated the market grounds. The leather was her husband's work, from a hunt two weeks ago, where he had decided to spare the undamaged leather for his wife's craft. For Ruyi that meant two weeks of work curing, tanning, dying and conditioning the leather, but worth the effort, she was pleased with the outcome. She managed to make ten pouches with leather to spare and in that time her daughter managed to make just one. The finish on that one was fine, but her needlework needed improvement, it hurt her delicate fingers to try and pierce the tough leather with the needle, whereas for Ruyi, it would have been a surprise if a needle could even penetrate her palm anymore.
A dark-skinned man, unusual for these parts, was their first customer after they were done unloading the clothes and pouches into the stall. Ruyi's eyes locked onto his hair and the only thing she could think was how long would it have taken for all those braids, but Amaya was lost in the charming smiles of the stranger.
'Good morning, sister,' he spoke in a flawless Neichan tongue and smiled at Amaya, who blushed though her pale cheeks as her face filled with a smile.
'Good morning to you too, brother,' Ruyi replied to the greeting in her Neichan tongue, with her usual cheery voice. 'Any wears caught your fancy?'
'Oh, uh,' the dark-skinned man was lost in thought as if he was trying to remember. 'That pouch looks nice; I've been looking for one just like that.'
Amaya's face lit up with joy; out of all the pouches that lay on the stall the stranger pointed to hers. In her mind, her bleeding fingertips had all been worth it.
'Ah, good eye brother,' Ruyi looked at her daughter proudly. 'It's actually my daughter's first pouch.'
'Wow, she's an excellent seamstress, isn't she?' Amaya couldn't possibly blush any more than she already had. 'I want to buy this for my wife.'
Amaya only had just met the stranger, but from how everything lined up perfectly, her mind had wondered, but those words sunk her heart to the absolute bottom. She maintained her smile, blaming herself internally for being 'so stupid'. There's no way this gorgeous stranger would even be interested in me; was her follow up thought before she retreated to the back of the stall.
'But I want to surprise her, so could you help me out, sister?' he inquired.
'Sure, what can I do?'
'She'll walk into the market in a red robe, maybe like in an hour,' he explained. 'I'll make the payment now, but could you hand the bag over to her yourself? I could pay extra if sister wants. Ah and uh... her name's Illiana.'
'You! Lady? in the red robe! Uh... sister Illiana?' The voice pierced through the crowds of the market and the queen instantly figured out the cue. The poor seamstress had waited over an hour for the stranger in the description with the scarlet robe to show up.
'Yes?' the queen addressed the strange seamstress calling out to her.
'Oh, happy birthday sister,' Ruyi exclaimed, handing her the leather pouch. 'A strange man you have, sister. I'm puzzled why he couldn't give this to you himself, but I'm glad I got to wish my lady a happy birthday.' Ruyi bowed. Amaya was even more upset now; having seen the queen she couldn't help but think to herself 'of course he would be with someone like her'. It was a hurtful day for Amaya; she reminisced sitting down on a short bench. Three hours haven't even passed since the start of her day, but the train of thought starting from 'I wish I could be that pretty' to 'who am I kidding? I'll never be anything more than a simple seamstress in my life' has brought her poor spirits down to the ground.
Without much of a reply, the queen retrieved the bag and with a silent 'thank you', she left the stall.
Buy supplies for the journey: she was in the perfect place for it, but she had no coin on hand. The moment she realized this was coincidentally the moment she heard a muffled jingle from the bag. She opened the bag for inspection and found a mound of coins inside it. She was surprised it went unnoticed at the stall, but she was grateful for them regardless.
Suddenly a man hit the queen on the shoulder. She almost dropped her bag and fell down herself, but what she failed to notice was that her daughter's bracelet was no longer around her wrist.
'Pardon me,' his voice sounded familiar. She quickly recognized the voice; it was her rescuer. She turned back to look at the stranger, but among the crowd of hundreds, he had become invisible. She spun and turned around frantically looking for him, but having not found him, she gave up after a minute to hurry back out of the city.
Her next couple of stops along her way out the city was for purchasing food. She bought as much as she could carry and fit in her new bag. She didn't dare stop to eat, since beneath her calm expressions and beneath the scarlet robe was a heart that couldn't beat in silence. The longer she stayed in the city the more terrified she became of being caught.
A guard made his way out the castle doors as his shift in the prison was about to end with the start of the morning shift. Taking his helmet off and stuffing it under his arm he walked to the guard post that lay across the grounds at the gates to the prison grounds. Tired from just walking around the facility whole night, he couldn't wait to retreat home and fall onto his bed.
'Hey so, I'm going to head out,' the guard peeked in through the guard post door. What he saw next made him freeze for a couple of seconds with no response in his head, but soon after he returned to reality, he knew he had to get the word out and he knew he had to do it fast.
She made her way to the outer wall of the city; the gates were in her field of vision, but she wanted one more thing to cross the grassland and the forests, all the way to her brother's castle: a horse.
She walked over to a stable nearby. All the horses inside were visible from the outside. She didn't have enough coins to purchase one, so she knew she had to steal, but the horse she was looking for wasn't there.
The queen scanned her surroundings in search of a black horse in her vicinity close to the gate; she found none. Soon after, she felt a tugging on her bag. The tugging was so strong that the strap of the pouch made a tearing sound, so she turned back to have a look at the culprit.
It was a gorgeous black stallion trying to steal an apple from her bag. 'The black stallion,' she thought to herself, but she couldn't help but wonder what this horse was doing, roaming free and why has nobody else noticed it.
The news didn't take long to reach the castle. The officers of the lord were in panic. If the woman who extinguished the northern star is let to live, with her powers, she can crush this kingdom with ease. Straddled up onto their horses, even before the news reached their king, the officers were already headed out into the city in search of their fugitive.
The queen was alerted to their awareness by the loud ringing of a bell in the distance. People around her recognized the noise as well. The last time they heard it in the middle of the night was when a group of raiders attacked the city, hence the populace started to panic. The soldiers were all running to their positions, for about four of which it meant closing the gates through the outer wall of the city.
Some of the officer's had directly made their way to this west gate and now they were in the queen's field of vision, but luckily, she was not yet in theirs. With the gate starting to close on one end and the officers on the other she had no time to hesitate. Climbing on to the black horse that gracefully awaited her to climb on board as if it was its duty to get the lady to safety and upon her command it dashed through the crowd towards the heavy gate that's slowly closing before her eyes. The officers that failed to notice her in the crowds before, definitely saw her fleeing now and made their way after her.
The soldiers, with all their might pushed the gates close, but the time was on the queen's side. The gates could not close before the black stallion made its way through. With the orders given by a bell, even with the officers making their way to the gate, the soldiers did not stop closing the giant gates. Just as all the officers gave up the pursuit to continue it once the gate had opened, one leading the party of officers did not stop. Him and his white stallion squeezed through the gate.
The path lay in a straight line and the queen's black stallion made its way straight, no weaving, simply directly away from the city. 'Such an easy target,' the officer thought to himself as he pulled out his bow and took aim.
With every gallop, as the pouch tugged itself back in position beside its owner, the threads holding the strap in place started giving up. The officer took aim, 'right through the witch's heart,' and released the string.
The pouch gave in and lapsed to the side. It was all the supplies the queen had for her entire journey, hence instinctively she reached for the now falling pouch. Mistaking the tilt of the queen's position as a command given to the stallion, it rerouted, changing its direction of travel. The arrow that was meant for 'the witch' whooshed past the queen's side.
Perfect timing.
The queen, along with her stallion faded out in the distance. The officer was at a complete stop attempting to take out the target from the distance with no way of perusing her now, now that after the fiasco, people have started to walk back onto the street with questions they needed answered about the echoing noise of bells coming from the inner city.
By the evening, officers, soldiers, mercenaries and hired assassins were scouting the kingdom looking for the fugitive all across the land. News was coming from all directions, some bogus, but most announcing the same set of details about the queen heading for her brother's castle, which could not be simply ignored. But lucky for the queen, her horse strode much faster than any news could. She would be captured again eventually, dead or alive, but at the rate everything progressed, it would take more than a day for the capture.
Her capture, even if not today, being the inevitable was what the royal advisers kept affirming to the king over his scolding for the incompetence to keep the witch in custody. With two guards standing by their post on either side of his chambers, the king made his way in.
Not two days ago, he had to sentence his own daughter to death and today was supposed to be his wife's, but he had too cold of a heart to not be able to figure out whether he was glad or furious that his wife managed to escape. Their deaths were what his blind faith demanded, therefore from an unintelligent place in his head, he had found peace in his decision. The witch hunt in his kingdom that eradicated an intelligent generation of mostly women and few men pulled back the growth of their kingdom by centuries. In a faith with curses, possessions and hauntings, communicable diseases, cures for them and alchemy that gave them birth were superstitions. His daughter's obsession with the death of her grandmother, how or why it happened had led her to breakthroughs, breakthroughs that made a cure that would work on most, but ended up killing one of lord's old advisers who was particularly frail. Witchcraft! Her death sentence made her mother particularly frantic, as any mother would and as her mother grew restless so was the northern star. For weeks it wept, as explained by the lord's 'educated' and trusted advisers, before finally dying on the night of the daughter's execution. The blame of that incident was placed on the poor grieving mother and the great Azonieth the seventh was gullible enough to believe it.
The king walked to his table facing the wall away from the balcony reaching for a bottle of ale. Standing beside him was a suit of armor for decoration that held a great axe in its hand with the handle extending to the floor, protecting the king in his chamber. He poured a glass of ale for himself and taking a sip he turned towards the balcony. Usually a closed door, today the moon was shining through it, and standing by the giant window was a man in a dark tan cloak looking at his watch.
The king unsheathed his blade, resting the glass on a table.
'Who are you?'
There was no answer.
'You haven't got long to explain yourself before I execute you for crimes of trespassing.'
'Lord Azonieth the seventh of the First kingdom of east,' The dark-skinned man removed the hood off his head, revealing his hair in what seemed like braids to the king. 'By the power invested in me by the legions of time and upon the orders of the first Timemaster, for crimes against humanity, you are hereby sentenced to death.'
The king chuckled, but he wasn't sure whether he should be amused or scared. He waited for the trespasser to make a move, but before he did, his cloak waved with the wind from the balcony and the king decided he had stood quiet long enough.
'GUARDS!'
The two that were standing beside the door barraged in through the doors of the chamber. They eyed the room, with their weapons drawn, but all they saw was their king staring at the open doors to the balcony.
'My lord?' one of the guards spoke. 'What seems to be the matter?'
The king didn't know how to answer; he was lost for words. The trespasser was there no longer. After minutes of silence, the guards closed the door to the balcony and scouted every inch of the room. The king was still silent, unable to speak.
'There's no one here my lord,' one of the guards affirmed.
'Well, maybe it's the ale,' the king spoke to himself looking at the bottom of his now empty glass. 'You may leave.'
After the guards left, alone in the silence again, what just happened felt like a dream. He searched for reason as to why he just witnessed what he did. Was it subconscious guilt? Was it a cumulative response of exhaust and intoxication? After moments in thought, he chose to settle down. That was one crazy incident, but it would be as if nothing happened by tomorrow morning.
Reaching for the table to place his glass on it, he noticed something shiny lying underneath it. He slowly bent down in the dim light of the lamps to see what it was. It was her wife's bracelet, a gift to her from her daughter.
Tick.
The king got down to his knees to reach for the trinket. 'How did it come here,' his mind wondered. He distinctly remembered that his wife was wearing it the last time she saw him. Has she come into his chamber?
Tick.
Suddenly from nowhere a clicking noise caught the king's ear. It wasn't clear where it had come from.
TICK.
The next ones were louder. TICK. His fear grew at the face of the unrecognized ticking sound now growing louder. He quickly withdrew his head from under the table with the bracelet, but by then the old cold set of armor, that held its end of the deal being the protective decoration it was for decades, had decided to let its fingertips slide that evening, letting go of the heavy blade that sought the head of the lord.
Tick.
'It was a tidal disruption event, one of the fastest in the history I might add,' The dark-skinned man spoke to the eleven men in masks. 'If I recall correctly, it was discovered in the 1980s and they called the blackhole the queen's curse.'
The eleven interviewers seemed impressed. It could have been a made-up story, but the opportunity was too good to let pass.
After a minute of silent murmurs and negotiations among the interviewers the one in the middle spoke out again.
'How about this, young man?' he asked. 'You hold no information back about any of your quests for the legions and we will grant you your timepiece you so wholeheartedly desire.'
'Wholeheartedly desire?' the interviewee spoke. 'That's not how I'd put it, but yes. I've no allegiance to the legions anymore, but I see the difference you can make with the right knowledge, so... I guess it's a done deal.'
There were more murmurs among the masked interviewers before one spoke again.
'Very well then,' the man in the middle spoke. 'We'll have to corroborate your story with our catalogs, but for now it seems you are a prime candidate.'
All the eleven stood up from their chairs at once and the ones in the corners made their robes getting ready to leave.
'Well young man, we'll be in contact,' the interviewer in the middle spoke again. 'But until then, we have yet to speak.'
The interviewee nodded.
Suddenly all the eleven interviewers sat back down. They, along with the interviewee were then moving too fast to keep up with. The interview was rewinding. From the end all the way to the start, to the interviewee sitting down to the interviewers walking in, the room rewound itself and finally after reaching the first point where the light shined on the table, the light itself rewound and the black room was lost in the darkness.