Beginning of the end

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No one can recall dates any longer. Help was coming, they had promised. Who wouldn't believe the promise made to by the brightest minds of the time to the richest families of the time? It had been long enough now that the original citizens of Rapture now had young adult grandchildren. The city had been built just for them. Their lavish playground, or so they liked to believe. It was many years now since anything had been truly 'lavish', it was only as the joy now made them see it; glorious and delightfully decadent.

Some families considered themselves better than others, and rightly so. Few had the money and the power, while the many lived in squalor. One of these families were the Jansen's. The eldest son had two beautiful daughters, who in the society they had left would no doubt have been attendees of many parties and balls, all for the purpose of finding a husband. As it stood, the youngest girl seemed the most adept at wearing her mask. By day she was the spoiled little princess she was supposed to be, making fun of the lower classes and generally being a horrible person. But as night fell and her joy pill began to wear off... She often thought of life outside her parent's massive apartment, of life in the 'workers' levels of the city. Anika Jansen would fall asleep troubled by the things her imagination thought up. It was this particular night that she had finally plucked up the courage to slip out of her parent's home, though of course she would stand out a mile in her expensive clothing and perfect make up.

Anika stared out into the forest, Arthurian's words having quite an affect on her; of course she was broken, she had just lost a piece of herself.

"Pay no notice to them." Deacon assured his Queen. "They think I'm useless and can't do a thing without them."

The troll king stripped the deer and cut the meat into chunks. It wasn't hard to tell that this was a great struggle for him. He dropped them into a pot and added what looked like pitiful vegetables, muttering over killing his cook when he returned home. The worst part came when he cut himself trying to cut an onion in half. He cursed like a sailor so loudly the birds further in the forest began complaining.

"By making things like this?" She asked, hold out the brew for him to inspect. "Who in their right mind would drink this? I'm almost sure I saw a bug leg floating in it."

"What's wrong? Can shoot a poor defenseless deer, but can't cut an onion?" Anika mocked, clearly feeling no pity for the lumbering creature before her.

"Just the one?" Deacon asked with an amused smirk.

Arthurian said nothing, for once choosing silence over a fight. He finished his stew and left it cooking on the fire. He ignored the remains, leaving them sitting near to Anika while he tried to unsuccessfully bandage the deep cut he'd given himself. 

Without meaning to Victoria dropped the cup, comically splashing the liquid all over the king. There was many things she could brave. Bugs were not one of them.

Anika could have offered help, but in that moment she was driven only by grief. To her this creature was responsible for the death of Elliot, something she didn't have it in her to forgive.

Deacon arched his golden brow slightly, glancing down at the stain now on the bottom of his pants. "You could have just said no..."

Arthurian gave up on it after a while and took to watching his black blood drip onto the ground. He was frowning deeply at it. "Funny." He muttered. "I used to think my blood was red. When did it change?" 

Victoria gave him a sheepish grin and stepped forward, gingerly plucking one of the bug legs out of his hair. He even had some of the gray liquid on the edge of his nose. She wiped it off the the sleeve of his shirt. "No..." She snickered, unable to help herself.

"Maybe it reflects your soul?" Anika offered, having given up her struggle with the coarse rope finding her wrists.

Deacon allowed Victoria to continue, finding it rather adorable to she was attempting to fix what had happened. "You know how you make this better?" He asked with a wolfish grin. "Eat a bug..."

"What is that?" Arthurian asked her, for a moment tipping back his head to meet her eyes. "I have no use for one of those." 

"Deacon!" Victoria wailed, slapping him on the chest. "You are disgusting!" She was blushing deeply, her color matching her beloved roses.

"No, I would imagine that's because you're afraid of what it looks like." Anika sniffed.

"What? You're telling me you never ate a bug as a child?" Deacon asked, clearly amused by his wife's blush.

"That's a lie. I'm not afraid of anything." Arthurian snapped. "But I imagine you'd know a lot about fear, wouldn't you?" He grumbled, holding his hand over the fire to try and burn the wound closed.

"Oh for heaven's sake! You're doing it again! You're mistaking me for Anika." Once again she swatted him on the chest. "I'd die before I ate a bug, even back then!"

"You don't know me." Anika replied simply, turning her face away only after a long moment of watching what Arthurian was doing.

"She ate bugs?" Deacon asked with an arched brow. "You didn't feed her?"

Pain was all the king knew anymore. It was all he had to hold onto. He deserved it and a part of him wished he could burn more than his arm. 
"Eat some of the stew." Hours had passed and the small girl had fallen asleep. It was fully dark now, not even the trees were visible. Almost gently Arthurian prodded her to wake, offering her the bowl. "I picked out the meat." He added, his voice soft and almost timid. 
If Anika moved she would find herself untied and wrapped in the king's heavy cloak. 

Victoria never got the chance to answer. The king's advisers came into the room and announced that an emergency meeting had been called. 
Deacon would find himself sitting at the head of a large table while his advisers told him that three of his soldiers had gone feral. Things were falling apart and the people were becoming afraid.
Victoria was just outside the window, looking over the garden with one of the elderly women. It was dead. All of it. She was at a loss as to why. Nevertheless she decided that what was best was to water and weed and so with the help of the woman she began to work. It was no more than half an hour before others started to appear, curious about their queen. Soon the garden was alive with goblins, talking among themselves as they worked and talking with their queen.
Though the meeting room was doom and gloom, the rose garden was becoming a symbol of hope to the people.

The large cloak dwarfed the tiny woman, who had woken with a start when a finger prodded her side. Her first thought was that perhaps it was Elliot, and then the gut wrenching realisation she would never see him again set in. "Why? You want me to die, don't you?" She whispered in response to the words Arthurian had breathed.

"You beg me to take a queen, I take a queen. Now you say it's my fault the weakest are turning feral?" Deacon asked, seeming rather board by all of this. "Perhap's if you didn't expect me to save your sorry souls, I wouldn't have such a pathetic excuse for an army, and our neighbours to the east wouldn't be a problem!"

Arthurian's eyes were sad as he held her gaze. "You are magic." He whispered,  still holding out the bowl to her. "I need you." He was ashamed to admit this and if he thought about it just right, he'd find that his admission was strangely intimate.

"Why isn't the prophecy working?" The chief adviser demanded, surging out of his seat. "You brought her here, married the girl with violet eyes but nothing is happening. Our kingdom was supposed to bloom. Look outside! The garden is dead again!"
When the lot of them looked outside, Deacon would catch Victoria''s gaze. She gave him a bright smile and a wave, holding up a tiny rose bloom for him to see.

Anika's own gaze was just as sad when Arthurian admitted this. "That's all anyone needs from me." She breathed, recalling her final conversation with Elliot, and how she had insisted he had only loved her because ehr magic had made it so.

Deacon was barely listening to the older goblins, holding Victoria's gaze a little longer he should and simply smiling blissfully. "She looks perfect to me..." He breathed.

"You are going to be  corrupted." Arthurian said, settling himself down on his side of the fire. "That darkness in your eyes...it looks like hers did. It will take you over and you'll never come back from it."

"Your majesty!" The chief barked, slamming a fist on the table. He, obviously, was not impressed with the queen. "There are important matters here and you are busy staring outside!"

"Maybe that's exactly what I want." Anika breathed. "Everything is harsh and wrong without Elliot... I make everyone miserable. Maybe corruption is best for everyone."

"Important matters that you would rather talk about than fix." Deacon pointed out.

"Indeed." Arthurian said, not agreeing. "You'll probably be more valuable if you are filled with evil."  He gathered a bowl of stew and picked at it, taking out the meat and eating it first.

"The curse involves you, not us. This is your job to fix and refusing to give the queen the potion...you are damning us all!" The chief shouted.

"What if that's the problem; I was always filled with evil?" Anika suggested, her pert nose twitching slightly at the smell of the warm stew.

Deacon rose rather gracefully to his feet and stared down at the stout council member. "I'm sorry, I thought this was my kingdom, that I was in charge of everything. My mistake." He told the other man rather calmly. The rest of the council were oddly quiet, wise enough to know that their king should be feared most of all when he kept his temper.

"Hardly. You were with my daughter. Evil cannot touch her. At least not until I'm dead." The troll king told her, taking a huge bite and slurping it loudly.

The chief all but pressed his face to the table. "Forgive me, your majesty. I...we...am just worried about our future..."

Anika felt like she was barely breathing when Arthurian spoke of Victoria. "No. You're wrong. Victoria is only safe now I'm not with her. She has her king, and her perfect life, free from my burden."

"And you dare assume I am not?" Deacon asked, just as calmly. "You think I would wish my entire kingdom to perish?"

"You are a fool. My daughter is not safe with the goblin king. He is a monster in his own right. You have no idea." Arthurian sighed softly.

"No one knows what you want." The man dared to mutter. 
Out the window, Victoria was hugging the goblin boy who had run from her ealier. She caught her husband's eyes again and gave him a wink.

"You don't know Victoria." Anika replied rather curtly. "You haven't been a part of her life, like ever!" She added. "You have no idea what she wants, or even how she feels about anything!"

Deacon wasn't smiling this time as he met Victoria's gaze. The king was beginning to wonder if he really should simply let his kingdom fall. This goblin, for example, was daring to speak to his king like they were equals. Deacon was fair, but he didn't think himself equal to those he ruled over.

"Tell me about her. The mystics showed me my child through the mirror but...I didn't see much. Is she...happy?" He breathed. "Did she grow up well?"

Victoria looked away, someone calling her attention. She would be better off not seeing what was coming next. 
"You are killing us all!" The chief seemed to get braver. "We will be asking the mystics to enchant the queen. We need her to love a monster! To hell with how we do it!"

Anika didn't seem to want to answer that question. "She's happy... now, I think." She breathed. "Before she was forced to look after me. I didn't want it that way... My grandmother and father forced it."

"That's what you're going to do, is it?" Deacon asked thinly, glancing at each council member in turn, waiting for them to agree.

"That makes no sense. Why would my mother turn her into a slave? She promised Victoria would be all right." Arthurian growled. "So she was slave to you. Old bitch..."

No other members were even looking at the king or the cheif. They knew what was coming.  
The man didn't seem deterred. "If we must control her for you...it will be done whether you like it or not! Perhaps I should impregnate her myself!"

"Believe me, I never wanted it!" Anika insisted. "I tried to run away so many times once I realised what kind of life my presence forced on Victoria... But grandmother only punished her if she didn't bring me back fast enough."

That was exactly the wrong thing to say to the king about his Queen. "Really? Shall we go now then? You don't mind my watching, do you?" He asked, and though his lips smiled, his crimson eyes were filled with nothing but malice.

"Is that why you so readily took the hand of a stranger? Because you were trying to escape her?" Arthurian asked, getting up to get more stew. He sighed when he realized Anika hadn't even touched hers. "Did you think it would somehow free you both?"

The man grimaced ever so slightly but continued standing. "We demand you enchant her and get it over with. If you do not, I swear to you one of us will get it done!" He shouted.

"Elliot was the only friend I had in this strange place... And Now he's gone. I'm all alone, but Victoria has her freedom." Anika whispered. "I'd give anything to have him back... But I'd never want to take Tori's freedom from her."

Again Deacon smiled rather calmly, though this was only a mere moment before his finger's gripped the goblin chief's throat with a sudden force and he ripped the poor creature's windpipe clean from his neck. "Anyone else with to make an attempt to violate their queen?"

"You're not listening to me about freedom." Arthurian snapped. "Now eat the damn stew. It's going to get colder soon and you might as well...don't try to kill yourself. I know a necromancer." He added, looking toward the dark trees. "She looks a lot like you...oddly enough."

The room cleared out in seconds. It was more than obvious no one else was daring to cross the king that day.