Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hysteria looked haggard, the legendary beauty of the Rose of Bellris looked like it was wilting. Dark circles created half moons under her eyes and her lips where chapped from her refusal to drink, her cloths filthy from a mixture of blood and dirt. She hadn't bothered to change prior to coming to the temple, she doubted the god of vengeance would care. She tilted her head up as she rocked forward, craning her sore neck to look up at the face of the god once more. With all the times she had come here in her life time she should have been born a Phobosian Queen, maybe then it would be less strange. Her eyes fluttered shut as she remembered the last time she had come, a very long time ago.

~~~

She had gone by a different name back then, one of three she bothered to remember. She had been a beautiful red haired beauty back then, sea green eyes rimmed with gold, even back then as she had aged she had kept her beauty. Like many before her she had abdicated once her heir had come of age, Astara, her first born. Even now that she had Salome and Kyran nothing compared to her first child, seeing her as she grew, curly blonde hair and wide green eyes, it had been a happiness she had never felt before after so many years of praying to her sister for forgiveness for the body she had stolen, and though she had felt the same happiness when she had had next two children it had never compared to when she held her first child.

She had known that she would have been a great leader with her love of drinking the written word and her talent for debate, Astara would have lead Bellris into a golden age on par with Zalto. She remembered placing the crown upon her head as her granddaughters looked upon their mother with pride. She heard it again just as she had heard it the first time, a scuffling behind her and some yelps of annoyance that grew into screams of horror as a well aimed pulse has thrown those that remained in the way into the walls and had ripped her daughter apart, a blood splatter upon a throne of inky black. She had acted out of rage and impulse and something more primal as she had taken the ornate sword her husband kept upon his being and she had stabbed the attacker, over and over again until the throne room had grown silent and she knelt sobbing.

~~~

Hysteria shivered at the memory as she turned to one of the pillars and reached out, grabbing one of the swords imbedded deep into the stone high above her head and she pulled herself up and placed a foot upon another as she grabbed another and started to climb. The swords near the bottom of the pillar where more densely packed together and easier for her to move up but when she got halfway she had to start stretching, her feet bleeding upon the blades and dripping onto the ones below. She continued moving up until she saw the beautiful ornate sword she had stabbed into the stone long ago, back then she had flown up and imbedded it into the cracks of the stone and now she held on to the golden handle and wiggled it, some dust fell followed by some shavings from the stone as yanked the sword out and dropped it so she could climb back down.

Once her feet hit the ground she walked back to the front of the statue with the sword in hand as her feet made sounds akin to wet flip flops. She stared up at the statue, again her neck craned up "Great Leo, God and general and farmer and run away servant of death. Whomever you are that sits upon a throne made of blood and ash, weather you have found your vengeance or still seek upon it" she said as she lifted her sword slightly "If any god shall stand the test of time it is you. When the elder gods finally finish fading away and the patrons of other Kingdoms vanish with their fall it will be you that will remain" Hysteria sat on her knees and placed the sword on the ground in front of her "I pray you bless my vengeance in this time of war and let my enemies bleed out upon my sword" she said as she rand her hand though one of her bloody foot prints and she pressed it to the base of the stone statue before picking up her sword once more and leaving the temple.

[exits]