The Dark Lord's Reign (The Watcher x Verse) (NSFW Links)

[The Watcher]

Three centuries past, the world was consumed by shadow and fire. The Dark Lord, an entity whose name history dared not preserve, rose from the depths of the abyss, commanding legions of horrors both monstrous and mortal. The skies themselves darkened beneath his banners, and the land trembled as if in mourning. His dominion was vast, spreading like a plague, infecting every corner of civilization. Orcs and goblins, giants and trolls, beasts that thrived in darkness, swarmed at his command. However the humans who served him, as weak as they were, proved to be the back bone of his army, making up less strength than the others, but making up for that in shear numbers. Beneath his banners, they crushed those who dared to defy him; the proud dwarves of the mountain halls, the reclusive elves of the ancient forests, and the scattered free folk who refused to kneel.

But the Dark Lord's reign was not unchallenged. The disparate factions of the free peoples, once too proud and divided to stand united, were driven by desperation to forge a fragile alliance. It was a rebellion born of necessity, not trust. Dwarven engineers crafted war machines of impossible precision. Elven spellcasters whispered old, forbidden words of power. Human renegades, broken from their chains, raised banners against their kin. Together, they fought a war that shook the very bones of the earth. Though most ended up enslaved to the Dark Lord, either crafting his unholy weapons, being used as meat shields, or serving as slaves in his bed.

Victory came at a cost so steep it nearly shattered the victors. On the fields of Ulthar's Desolation, the Dark Lord fell, struck down by an alliance of mortal and divine, his black soul torn asunder. In the aftermath, the free peoples turned their wrath upon those who had served him. His followers, Orc, goblin or human alike were driven from their original homes to the desolate lands of Einar, a land of perpetual twilight and jagged peaks. It became their prison, its forests were gnarled and haunted, its rivers bitter and choked with ash. Yet in this harsh exile, the humans did not wither. They built a kingdom, small and defiant, carving life from the barren stone. Their hatred of the free peoples burned brighter than their hope, a slow, festering wound that became their strength. Over centuries, they learned to survive in their isolation, their memory of the Dark Lord fading into legend, a whisper of a shadow long extinguished.

But shadows have a way of lingering.

Khuz Khirulax, the city that the humans built for themselves in the wake of the fall of the dark lord. The final tolling of a great iron bell rings out through the somber air, marks the passing of King Aldred, a man who withered away on his throne in quiet defiance. His death was no tragedy; the man was old, his body withered by time. In his younger days he was strong, violent and viciously intelligent, but some called him weak willed. He lead the humans who had the numbers to take on the Kingdoms of the Holy Alliance, however they did not have the strength. Councils with other races did not lead to and headway either, those races did not listen to words, but rather strength, and while his own people held the same beliefs most humans could not hope to take on an orc, let along make an entire tribe bow to them. So Aldred wasted his best years, not caring to take back their ancestral homeland nor having the strength to do so.

Now, Rowena Aldredsson, the new queen of Einar and Aldred's biological daughter, feels the cold of the crown as it is lowered onto her head. She is young, barely past twenty summers, but her red eyes hold a strength to them that speaks volumes. She was her fathers daughter for sure, various courtiers mummering oaths of fealty, owing to the fact that they had been defeated by the lady and were forced to bend the knee to one who was stronger than than them. Soon after they scurried out of the throne room leaving her along with her thoughts, or so she thought. As the doors to the throne room opened she heard the sound of heavy footfalls approaching. She glared at the man who entered the long chamber, a hint of disgust in her eyes. "Looks like the lost pup finally decided to turn up" she said aloud as he entered.

The man before her was Sadai Aldredsson, the bastard son of her father, who had impregnated a slave girl. Sadai was her half brother but that didn't mean they had a good relationship. In fact when her father still of this world she often teased, bullied, and outright tortured him, making his life a living hell. Her father was no better to him, treating him as more of an annoyance than a son. Women were often looked down upon in this country as no more than slaves, so for Aldred to hand the crown to his daughter rather than to Sadai spoke to what Aldred thought of Sadai. "Why have you come here? I mean it makes it easier for me to what father never did and put you down, but still there must be a reason why you were stupid enough to come face me" Rowena spat at him.

@Verse

 

[Verse]

These halls had idols carved into them. He knew them well. He'd tried to climb them as a child, when his footing was unsure but his fingers were small enough to find support in a cut-out shoulder, or even upturned lips, protruding out of the wall. Volumes from the cutters, into the castle that was partially mountain. It was as though he'd read the stories with his hands, like the blind, when he tried to scale a particular scene. Sadai remembered falling when a detail broke underneath his meager weight. The small purchases didn't allow him to look down, so he hadn't known how high up he was. But it felt as though he was indeed careening off a mountain ledge. Nobody catches the son of a slave, even if he was conceived by King cock. He had been reaching for his father's hand then, but it had stayed ever still in his stone likeness. Hitting the carpeted cobbled floor had taken the boy's breath away, but as he fought to breathe, he looked up at the impossible image of his father, and his unmoving hand.

He didn't have the determination to stick to that lesson, back then. He'd still held on hope that one day the cold emotions perfectly expressed in the stone would be skin-clad and warm. It didn't come.

But as Sadai, lanky and frail, took some time to learn that lesson, he took to others much faster. He was privileged to live in the castle, and see all his father's mistakes. It was easy to learn sword art and tactics, but more than that, he liked to learn rhetoric. Father was only above average with them, even with all the writers around him. Even with his people clamoring to every word. Sadai's was a starving heart too, and he knew what he wanted to hear from Aldred. Those words never came. But Sadai learned them anyway. He wrote them in his father's absence, and he translated them so they could be applied to any heart that may be hungry for them. Love, to the merchants and the plentiful goblins were precious metals, native mostly to dwarven kingdoms. And to men it was political power. But to most, it was the domination over the fairer sex.

That's how Sadai, sprung into an adult, just barely, knew he had been handed the crown when his sister was given the throne.

He had whispered and schemed for a decade, starting without knowing it by forging alliances with his tutors and teachers. Some of them thought he was weak enough to mold, and others saw potential. He played along at first to have a family at all, but he took his rightful place as ringleader among those who would see their own gain above their loyalty to Aldred, King. That's who was in the crowd today. The coronation of a brat sister who'd lived on his misery for so long. He had wanted her love too, once. But their refusal had made him strong. And he had fed the weakness of others. No woman on the throne. Preserve the strong blood. Carry out the destiny in the united dark. Take the world once again. There was powerful ore in their mountain, and they had critter who would dig. None as strong in forge as the dwarves, but good enough. They were prolific in alchemy, and there were unholy materials here to be transmutated. Treasure troves of those weapons waited, siphoned away when their dark city was built, for necromantic sigils and blessings, to make them effective against their light-loving adversaries.

All of this Sadai Aldersson had in his back, along with a handful of generals who were embolden by the supposed claims of the untrue prince, when he strode his father's halls. Grown into a tall warrior now, with black hair and brown eyes that indeed shone as red as his sister's in the right light, he looked formidable. His limbs made him a collection of weapons, even when he was unarmed. But today he brandished a sword his father had forgotten. The sister blade to the one Aldred liked to carry. A thinner, more elegant cutter. And Sadai unsheathed it with menacing silver music as he passed the old idol carving of his father, finally slicing the unhelpful hand off its cuff with a single motion. He had put the weapon back in its black-jewel sheath by the time he entered Rowena's room. He laughed under his breath, shortly, when he saw her with the crown. He remembered all the torment she had gifted to him, for being his sister.

She was full of venom as always. She did look lovely with that ornament on her scalp. So much work for just an accessory. He let her throw her insults and threats as he closed the distance between them. If she had thought herself above him before, he could only imagine how superior she'd deem herself now. There was a tail of generals following behind him, but they made sure not to keep up, so that when the siblings met, they were alone. He didn't even hesitate, and used the momentum of his legs when he simply grabbed her by her neck, and slapped her hard across her face. The same motion would let him tear the crown off her head. She'd be hanging by the grip her had on her throat now. "You thought you always deserved this crown." he said, monotone. There was ruckus outside, from underneath the blacony from which the ruler may address the people. They were whipped into an uproar. The crown came down on her face hard. He had waited long to beat her with it. "Here it is, Rowena, queen of nothing. Queen for not even a day. Not even an hour." he continued as he brought it down on her cheekbone again and then started dragging her out toward the curtains that were parted by his men.

And then she'd see them. "These people do not believe in a woman ruler." he shouted as he raised her by his grip for them to see, crown in his other hand. There was a roar from the people outside, and she'd see the ground littered with her loyals, washed in their cooling blood. "These people need to take back what's theirs, and they'll fight! They'll get their payment in land and coin AND women!" their cheer was broken and deafening and long awaited.