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 Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 6:54 pm
「 ROYAL ✿ LIBRARY 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ ... 》 In the Royal Library, which is carefully attended by Archivist Katai, one can find hundreds of stories, tomes and books. Though most are supposed folktale, there is always said to be truth to the stories, and that they were true once upon a time...
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:09 pm
「 THE GARNET KNIGHT 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ ... 》Long ago, a solitary knight with no House banner entered the Tourney of the King, and begged favor of his daughter Rubella, who was known as the ruby princess for her brilliant red eyes and hair, and fair white fur. The knight was plainly dressed, except for the large garnet pendant and jeweled sword he wore, and small of stature and weak of voice. His face was kept obscured by his helm, much like the rest of the knights. The smallfolk called him the garnet knight, and he received no cheers from anyone when he went up to tilt.
The princess, as compassionate as she was beautiful, gave the small no-name knight her favor, and gently tied it to his arm. She waved to the knight before he entered the melee, and to everyone's surprise, he won. He won each event he entered once the princess had given him the favor, and soon he gathered enough cheer to deafen crowds.
The King crowned the garnet knight the victor and offered all the reward of winning, yet he declined. He left the tourney, fleeing with his hare, Rubella's favor and his garnet pendant, and soon it was as though he had never existed, and he began to fade from memory as another anonymous knight.
***
It was almost a month later, as Rubella took her rabbit into the woods to tend to her rose garden and find shade from the heat of the summer's sun, that he was seen again. Though it had been such a long time, and he was now without his armor but for a hooded cape with a chest piece, and his glinting garnet pendant.
Upon being spotted by the princess, he ducked his head and started to abscond again, but this time the princess decided to chase after him, the knight who spoke so amiably and wore her favor. Abandoning her rabbit, she ran through the woods, her skirts ripping on the roots of the forest floor the further she strayed from the path.
"Please, kind sir! Don't run from me," she called to him, her voice small in the thick forest. "I have no cause to harm you, after all."
Before he could respond a sound broke through the forest. The sound of breaking branches and a hollow growling reverberated through the trees, causing the blood to run cold in the knight's skin. A large shadow could be seen lurking close, too close, in the shadows of the trees.
"Your Highness!" he called as he moved himself to be between the princess and the approaching beast. She stood behind him as he drew his sword. The blade was blood red, the hilt bejeweled in garnets like the one he wore around his neck. For such an ornate blade, however, it did seem incredibly sharp to even a princess untrained in the ways of battle.
From the shadow emerged the beast, its mouths frothing with hatred and hunger. It looked like a fox, but unlike the foxes the guard was known to fight, this monster was hideous, with a second mouth and eyes blacker than pitch. Its fur was long and dripping like ink, and its growls sounded as though it came through a rotten log of wood.
The princess gasped, having never seen such a beast in her young life. The hooded knight on the other hand, had seen such things more than he cared to count, and knew how to kill them.
"Stand back, Your Highness," he said gently, and lifted his blade into position, stepping closer to the monster, leaving Rubella behind.
The two began a deadly dance, circling one another with venomous stares and unsure magic. Ink poured off the monster like rain from a slick leaf, staining the ground in brown foliage and evaporating as quickly as it came. From the knight came a steely resolve as he faced the beast, his sword held carefully as he prepared to strike.
Fast as lightning, the knight sprang forward and drove his sword into the beast's chest, vile blood leaving the wound in floods. With a quick movement he brought his blade back from the monster's body to attack again, before it could get its bearings.
The knight went in for a third strike, and the beast countered, knocking the jeweled sword from the knight's paws, skittering it across the soft earth in front of the princess. The sound brought her into the sight of the monster, and it began to advance with speed toward her.
"No!" shouted the knight, and he bolted toward the monster, grabbing his sword and shielding the princess from the monster's claws with his body. Though he ached and pained with the poison blood of the fox, he used the last of his strength to stab the beast one more time between its eyes, and the two of them collapsed as one.
***
The knight awoke to the princess crying, his head placed in her lap as gentle as a nestling, wounds bound and the beast dead and gone. The garnet pendant around the knight's neck had protected him from more serious injury, it is said.
"Your Highness, do not cry," the knight began, voice placid and thick with weariness from battle. "You are safe, are you not?"
"Yes, but you are injured," Rubella responded, wiping a tear from her pale cheek. "And I feared for your life until you woke just now. You saved my life, kind sir, and I do not even know your name."
"A knight is duty sworn to protect the people, and more importantly the life of a beloved princess," the knight said quietly. "I think not of myself, but of you, Your Highness. Your eyes red as a rose or my precious garnet. Your hair, woven like fine silk and brighter than any gem. Your fur paler than milk and snow, and more beautiful than any princess before... My name is Jacina, Your Highness, and I am no true sir, but my love for you is true."
And it was true, the garnet knight was a woman, of no extraordinary birth. A lesser lady's daughter, but Jacina had loved the princess from the moment she had first seen her, and the garnet knight had known she could take no lover but the ruby princess... Fearful that the princess would not accept her as a woman, she shrouded her face and allowed to be read as male instead, and entered the tourney to try and win a favor from her beloved princess.
Jacina confessed her love to Rubella right there, and in turn was kissed by the beautiful ruby princess, who had fallen in love with the garnet knight, and claimed no gender boundary would keep her from the one she loved, and the two were wed and lived happily ever after.
✿ █ A note... 》Mice and rats alike do not discriminate based on sex, and so sexuality and gender is a much more looser topic for them. However, some still have preferences, of course, and masquerades as another gender are common enough! This is a popular love story, especially in areas where female relationships are celebrated and more common, such as in Crystal Harbor and Quartz Cove, where it is believed to have originated...
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:09 pm
「 SHADOW ✿ WRAITHS 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ ... 》 For these beasts are made of magic, but not the divine magic given to us from our Mother, but from some wicked twisted form, where they have tried to become gods and failed, with only these beasts to lay waste in their stead.
✿ █ ... 》 To be written!
✿ █ A note... 》 For what ungodly reason would one make such a beast?
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:09 pm
「 THE MUTANT RAT QUEEN 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ A note... 》 A story common between both mice and rats, though they have very different interpretations and understandings... This is the story of the Mutant Rat Queen and her children.
✿ █ ... 》 Aliah was a queen long ago in the underground rat kingdom where Castlecliff now stands. To the rats, she was not beautiful but she was strong, and she did what was best for her people. She was said to have a dozen eyes and three pairs of ears, hideous bulbous growths all over her body, and a lower body covered in scales. Nothing could cover the queen's looks, but she was always elegant and composed, and used berry juice and the darkened ash from fires to color her face and fur...
During this time, there were many mutants, most a victim of poor birth and the sicknesses that ravaged the lands. Queen Aliah was from a wealthier rat family, and was wed to the king and bore him many children, though as misfortune would have, only two survived to adulthood. Her two children fought constantly, the younger a beautiful maiden unlike her mother, the older a monster in appearance, utterly indescribable to the common people.
Though both were equal in all skills in terms of potential leadership, they claimed the other could not rule the kingdom after their parents passed away, which seemed fast approaching as the king died of a blue cough. The daughter was utterly charming, a beauty to behold and well-liked by the populace. The son, wise and courageous. Finally, Queen Aliah could no longer take their bickering and allowed them to have a duel that would determine the inheritor of the throne, as was custom in times of uncertainty.
"Mother, you must have the duel be of equal task to the two of us!" The daughter told her, for she feared the Queen would be in favor of her son who was also a mutant when choosing how they should duel.
"A fight would be suitable," the son said to his mother, who also feared the Queen would favor his sister, as the more beautiful and well liked child.
Queen Aliah would tell her children not to worry, as she knew how she would challenge them to duel. "It will be one simple task, and the one to complete it first shall be the new regent."
The next day, the mutant queen summoned her children, and watched them gently with her thousand-eyed stare. "There can only be one winner, and so, I give you my challenge. Beloved children, the one who can kill me and take my heart from my chest shall rule. Only the strongest can survive," the Queen said.
The daughter, swift as summer wind, leapt to her mother's throne, dagger in hand. She was ready for death to be the price of the throne, and eager to be a leader, as she thought herself the only one suitable.The brother, unable to complete such a request, stood still and watched with horror as his sister sliced their mother, their queen open and tore her heart out.
He fled the castle, the mutant prince, unable to bear the wretched sight that was burned into his mind like the sun's light. They say he retreated even further underground, to secrecy and privacy away from his sister's kingdom, and made his own where he could forget the death of his mother and the viciousness of his sister...
✿ █ In the mouse kingdoms... 》 The story is told to scare children, that if they aren't careful a mutant might get them! As well, it is told in the mouse realm as a story of an evil monstrous queen with a wicked son who conspire against the rightful heir, the daughter, and that when her mother attacks she must kill her in self-defense... But the mice do have a tendency to twist traditional rat tales. Katai keeps copies of both versions.
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:09 pm
「 THE STONE SNAKE 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ ... 》 Who would save the innocent in the wake of a serpent made of stone, and how could such a creature be defeated when no blade will pierce its skin, and no hawk would touch it?
✿ █ ... 》 To be written!
✿ █ A note... 》 It would be one child's destiny...
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:09 pm
「 THE ✿ BODYSNATCHER 」████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
✿ █ ... 》 A horror tale told to children by their mothers to keep them from the woods at night. They say the bodysnatcher especially prefers the parts of young maidens, whose purity draws him close, that sweet innocence he wants to keep with him always...
✿ █ ... 》 To be written!
✿ █ A note... 》 How many eyes has he stolen from maidens who looked upon him? How many children have had their skin sewn to his, to stop the decaying of his own rotting corpse...
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