[Warning: character death mention]
[ Back Dated to October 20th ]


What a mess. What a complete mess.

Bifrost stared at the remains of the room at her parents’ house and sighed. It seemed completely ironic the first time in years she’d come ‘home’ she’d fine the house a charred black skeleton of itself. She crouched down and picked up a picture from beneath the rubble. The frame had survived the most gruesomeness of the flames, though the glass clearly shattered and the photo beneath warped almost beyond recognition. The one picture of the happy family, from a very long time ago. The child smiling at her with bright lilac eyes and blonde hair was foreign to her, though the two adults were very much real.

She dropped the frame back into the soot and rubble.

What a mess.

The Squire stood up and wandered through the house. Her mother’s precious study had somehow avoided most of the flames, along with the formal living room. Those two rooms clearly had water damage from the fire hose, but otherwise seemed relatively usable. Their bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathrooms were almost unrecognizable. Wallpaper curled off the walls, flaking down as she moved air with her breath. A large pit marked the spot the stove had been before it exploded.

The authorities said it was a faulty gas line. A pipe had broken under the stove, and when Mrs. Tunith turned the appliance on to begin dinner, the gas ignited. How the stove exploded, they weren’t sure, but clearly the fire started from there. They’d closed the case, delivered the news of her parents’ passing to her grandmother’s door, and that was that. The house was to be demolished once the estate was settled.

A gas fire, they’d said. Bifrost looked around, pushing her hood from her hair.

She knew better.

There were signs of a struggle all over the house. Scrap marks on the floor, all over the walls. Chunks of walls were out of place, and at least one door was completely reduced to splinters. She dragged her fingers over the sooty claw marks marking the door to the kitchen. The beast that had done all this was long gone, but she could still feel its lingering presence. She wondered if there’d been someone controlling it, or it was simply working alone. Bifrost wondered if her mother had tempted darker things into the house, without knowing what she was getting into. She always did lean more towards the dark than she let on.

How that fight must have gone, she wondered. Clearly someone threw the youma into the stove, whether they realized what they’d end up doing or not. The house had been torched, but Bifrost got the impression that was done afterwards. Can’t have two mauled and torn up bodies in a house that spoke of darker things in the world. Not when the Negaverse probably had some hold on the government in Destiny City. Wouldn’t do for PR, after all. A broken fire extinguisher stuck half out of the wall. One of her parents must have either tried blasting the youma with it, or smacking it. Unfortunately, the stove explosion wiped most of the rest of the combat in the kitchen away. Too much soot, too much char.

The funeral had been small and closed casket. The bodies were too charred for an open casket funeral, one of her uncles had said. Bifrost held the belief there simply weren’t any bodies in the wooden boxes, now buried under ground. Many of her father’s family had mourned, but her mother’s side either was absent entirely, or kept their emotions behind masks. In that, at least, Bifrost had found solace.

Why weep for parents who’d made her life hell? Why shed a tear for a woman who denied her very existence?

Bifrost felt no sadness for her parents’ death. Her father gave her pause, and she had, later, wept quietly for his absence. Yet in the four years since she’d awoken as Bifrost, she’d spent her time with her grandmother. While she’d never wished her parents ill will, she wasn’t sad to see them go. She simply… didn’t care about their petty lives anymore.

She wandered through the rest of the house, following the scuffle with the youma. Who’d ever made sure there were no clues certainly did a good job. Damn. No sense in looking further; she’d neither find the monster responsible or the agent behind the torch.

Her mother’s office showed only barest signs of the struggle. She probably wanted to keep the beast from destroying her vintage calculator collection and the important tax documents, surmised Bifrost after she found both in peak condition. She flickered through the documents and cabinets, not quite sure what she was looking for. Something to prove her mother emotionally abused her? Proof of her mother’s embezzling? Anything to show her guilty enough to have deserved this? Hard to convict a dead person though.

A folder stuck out to her behind the taxes for the last five years. It was just a plain brown folder, slim in comparison, but across the top tab read “EDWARD LOPNA”. It didn’t surprise her that her mother would have a file of documents for her grandfather, but it was the size that confused her. While the original documents sat in a box in her grandmother’s house, her mother Beth had a copy of them. Bifrost had seen the box that was almost bursting with documents. This folder held maybe twenty pages, if that. She pulled the folder from its spot and closed the drawer.

Settling herself into the still intact office chair, she opened the folder and began to read. The first five or so pages were correspondence between Edward and Beth, about finances and such. They were dated a few years before Bifrost had been born. The exchanges were short and to the point, her mother finalizing wedding planning and aid purchasing a house. She noted how certain random words were capitalized, marking them down on a stray piece of paper. This pattern continued through the next three pages, which listed Bifrost’s stay with her grandparents on different occasions. All benign things, really, even with the odd capitalization code. So far she’d written out “KNIGHTS” with absolutely no context.

“Not that you were ever forth coming on the context portion, mother…” she muttered to herself, turning the page.

The next page was covered in Chronos symbols. References to objects in Tracy and Edward’s mansion that held the symbol accompanied each, giving a short description of the object and its location. Clearly her mother had no idea what the symbol meant, obvious by the scribbles of “heladry?” “ going senile?” “finally lost himelf?” on the page. It seemed more to Bifrost that Beth became obsessed with it, not Edward.

The “KNIGHTS” made more sense, but how could have either of them known? Senshi weren’t even a thing back then, right?

The next page dispelled all thoughts of her family having some idea what the knights actually were. It was a conversation between Edward and Beth, where Edward was trying to convinced Beth to let him take Mary to the British Isles to see where her family came from. He’d wanted to bring her up knowing all about her ancestry, and what they were ‘gatekeepers’ of. Not of the Bifrost or the Surrounding, but very earthy places of dukes and duchesses. Apparently, the non-magical side actually was renown for their skill as guardsmen and watchmen. For ‘holding the line’ during wars and skirmishes. Bifrost snorted, rolling her eyes. Holding the line, really. If only her grandfather had known the significance of that statement.

The conversation devolved, as Beth grew more and more agitated and hostile. Subsequent letters were worse and far more fanatical on her mother’s part. She threatened Edward half a dozen times in the same letter, saying she “couldn’t guarantee his safety if he continued to force himself into her daughter’s life” and that “she will not be raised to be some sword wielding, head in the clouds fanatic”. How wonderful to know that her controlling ways started before Bifrost’s elementary school years.

The dates on the letters jumped a few times until a few weeks before what would have been her ninth birthday. The final letter was a short, terse message from Beth. It received no reply.

“I warned you, Ed. It’s too bad it’s come to this, but I’ve other plans for her. Time to tie up a loose end.“

It didn’t click at first, what Beth had done. IT was something Bifrost had repressed, had locked away. Yet, since that incident, she’d never really been a different person. She simply could never be what Beth wanted, and she suspected Beth wanted a far darker path for her.

The memory came rushing back in, her eyes widening into saucers.

She’d been there, playing hide and seek with Grandpa Edward. She was hiding behind the false wall in the east wing, near where that gaudy suit of armor stood. The eight year old fit perfectly and her grandpa only found her half the time. They wouldn’t finish this round though.

Beth cornered Edward in the hallway, where the stairs to the second floor began. Mary (distinctly Mary and not Bifrost) heard talking and opened the wall a crack to watch, as she always did. Her mother spoke too softly for her to hear, but she didn’t seem happy. The older woman glanced at her hiding spot and Mary closed the wall as quick as she could.

There was some sort of scuffle, a shout, and a thud. Beth’s shoes echoed down the hallway. Mary peeked out the wall to find her grandfather lying on the stairs. She wandered over, asked him what he was doing. How could he fall asleep when they were in the middle of the game, and on the stairs no less that couldn’t be comfortable!

It wasn’t until she heard her shoes squish on the rug, did she know something was wrong.

And now, it registered to Bifrost that her mother had killed her grandfather. Her sweet, caring and wonderful storyteller of a grandfather. Beth had killed him in some freak controlling need to dictate everything Bifrost was exposed to. He’d died for no other reason than wanting Bifrost to know where she’d come from.

She cried angry tears, clutching the folder to her chest and damning her mother to the abyss. She mourned her grandfather a second time, mourned the years lost to them. Bifrost vowed she would hold the line until it could not be held any longer, for him. For the man killed in cold blood.

Bifrost stood from the chair, folder in one hand. She hardly figured that they’d burn one of their own alive, but she wouldn’t put it past them. There was a shred of a chance her mother was still alive some where, Chaos steeped in her veins. If she was… she pitied the day they’d run into each other again. That would be an agent she’d have no qualms about killing.

It was doubtful though. Best to not dwell on it, when she other tasks to worry about. Her boots crunched on the destroyed carpet as she wandered out the way she came in. She had no goodbyes for her parents, no parting words or tears to cry.

Not when, on the last page of the folder, both of them had confessed to embezzling, blackmailing, and the eventual murder of Edward Lopna.

Bifrost pulled her hood up and began the long walk home to her grandmother’s. Tracy had a right to know the truth of her husband’s death. It was only right she know her granddaughter and Bifrost were one and the same, as well.

That night, the pair of them shared a strong pot of tea, spoke of memories of Edward, and honored his life the way he should have been honored years ago. Together, they said their last goodbyes, and reopened the east wing of the house.

What a terrible mess…

WC: 2009