I sold my soul for this ~Modicum Mortem~

[Hestia]

"I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?"
"You're the last and most important of them all" I replied.

There are many things a queen can do. Many things a queen will do, they have limits however. Lines they will not cross. Things they will never do for their kingdoms. A mother on the other hand, has a very different aspect on life. A boundless reserve of willingness to do anything for her child. A limitless ability to fill that willingness. She is unhindered by worries of right and wrong, good and evil. All that consumers her mind is her love for her child. A mother gives no thought, where a queen makes a choice.

Now a mother who’s lost her children, a mother given a second chance… well limitless and boundless loose their meaning in the face of that mother. It’s never discussed, the pain of loosing a child. It’s incomprehensible, there are names for every type of pain. A person who loses their spouse is called a widow/widower. A child who loses it’s parents is called an orphan, but a parent that loses a child? There is just no word for that. Hestia has been given a second chance. After losing her children, yes, plural. She’s birthed a demon, taken in Porcia, and now? Now her belly grows, swelling with the seed of her lover planted there. A single night, she thought it had been safe, that the season had not come upon her. She thought… it was not so.

At first she didn’t know how to react, she couldn’t celebrate, couldn’t bring herself to be happy. He still does not know, blissfully unaware, wondering Nerine. She does not tell him. She has no duty, no allegiance to inform it’s father the consequences of that night. She would raise it. She would make sure it survived into adulthood. This time she would succeed. With this double dose of motherly instinct, with her choice to be queen, simply put, she will be a force to reckon with. The kingdoms should be careful with who they cross. She’s heard of the newest rulers in Beqanna, they are shiny and attractive to the recruits for now. Give it time, all will dwindle down to embers once more. Glowing with the spark of life, waiting to be poked at and brought back to blazing fire.

Nerine hasn’t died back though, it’s an ever-consuming inferno of heat and life exploding with the passion of warrior blood. Her wings crackle in their blaze, her eyes filled with the flames of her soul. Her skin still black as coal does not yet glow with the flames that reside just beneath the surface. She approaches the border. The queen meanders through the trees approaching the borders she’d not a year ago crossed over. What was the leaders name again? She pauses, tilting her head in thought. Oh yes, Sabra. Really an unremarkable sort of female, though she held no feelings or judgements on the leader. Theirs had been a… mutual understanding. Now that things have changed, since residents have scampered to Nerine in request of shelter she must travel. She must perform her duties and come to a clear understanding with this new leader.

They come and they go with the wind, no leader stays long, and those that do fall to the wayside. They dissolve into the mist until some young and hot-headed challenger takes it upon themselves to exact the change that waters the lands quenching their thirst for blood. They all rise and they all fall. It won’t be long before she forgets their names, just as she had Sabra’s. They are children, and before she can consider them adults, their bones will be dust on the ocean shores. She’s all to aware of how insignificant life is here. Even her own.

HESTIA

@[Modicum Mortem]