(Seraphyne's Monologue)
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Scene One – The River of Beginnings
The river was always where I belonged. Its current sang to me, even as a child. I was chosen young, bound to the shrine as a maiden of the Obsidian faith. My duty was silence, prayer, and the service of the gods. I thought my life would be nothing more than that, until I met him.
Damien Foster. The King's general. A man whose armor gleamed darker than midnight, whose eyes burned with the fire of loyalty. He came to the shrine to pay respect before battle. Warriors often did, asking for blessing, but Damien lingered longer than most. He asked questions. He watched me. Not as a maiden, not as a servant, but as a woman.
The first time he spoke to me by the river, I broke every vow of my station. He asked me my name, not my title. I whispered it, trembling. "Seraphyne." He repeated it like a vow. That night I could not sleep, for my lips remembered the way his voice shaped me.
Days turned into weeks, and the river became our secret meeting place. I should have resisted. I was trained to resist. But each time he looked at me, I felt less like a shrine maiden and more like myself. He told me of battles, of the King's trust in him, of the burden he carried. He laughed easily, a sound no one else was allowed to hear. He let me see the man beneath the general.
And then one evening, as the sun bled into the water, he knelt on one knee. No blessing, no ceremony, no permission from the King. Only Damien, holding out a ring carved from obsidian stone. He asked me to be his.
I said yes. Without hesitation, without regret. For the first time in my life, I chose something for myself.
The shrine cast me out, of course. I was no longer a maiden. I was his wife. I did not care. The river still flowed, and beside it we vowed to build a life.
I bore him two sons. Strong boys, with their father's eyes and my quiet patience. They became my entire world. Damien would return from war and lift them in his arms, calling them his little soldiers. I would stand at the door and smile, knowing I had all I ever wanted.
But happiness in our world never lasts.
The King sent Damien on a mission—one said to be impossible. He led his men with courage, but they were outnumbered, and he failed. In our land, failure was not forgiven. He was stripped of rank, exiled from the palace, cast into shame. The punishment extended to me, to our children. We were branded as traitors, cast aside, forced into the shadows.
The river turned cold that day. I no longer felt safe by its edge. I held my sons tighter, whispered prayers not to gods but to fate, begging it not to take more from me.
And then Leonard came. The Monster King.
He told me my family's freedom depended on me. He placed a blade in my hand and ordered me to turn it against the Sentinels, against the people I once swore to protect. I wanted to refuse, but Leonard showed me Damien's prison chains, my children caged beside him. He told me every failure to obey meant another lash on their backs.
I obeyed. I became his general in shadows, his maiden of war. I painted rivers red with blood, not prayers. All so one day, I could see my family free again.
I told myself I would endure. That every life I took was a step closer to theirs. That one day, Damien's arms would be around me again. That my sons would call me mother without fear.
I was wrong.
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Scene Two – The Chains of Loyalty
I remember the first time Leonard tested me. He ordered me to stand at the battlefield's edge and watch as prisoners were executed. I could not look away. He told me loyalty must be proven in blood. When I hesitated, he asked if I wished to hear my children scream again. I killed the first man that day with trembling hands. By the tenth, I no longer trembled.
Every night I would return to the river. Not the same one as before, but I searched for flowing water wherever we were sent. It was the only way I could pretend I was still myself. I would wash my hands raw, trying to scrub away the stench of blood, but it never left. My reflection no longer looked like Seraphyne the maiden, nor Seraphyne the wife. Only Seraphyne the weapon.
Damien changed too. When he was allowed to see me, he carried the weight of failure. His pride was crushed, his voice bitter. He did not smile anymore. He could barely look at me. Our sons grew in captivity, their innocence stolen. I tried to be strong for them, but every time I saw the chains on their wrists, I felt the last pieces of me break.
Leonard knew this. He fed on it. He used it to bind me tighter. Every mission, every kill, he whispered of my family's freedom. Always close, never granted. He dangled hope like a chain around my neck.
I hated him. Yet I served him.
The Sentinels became my enemy, though they never wronged me. I was told they stood in the way of my family's release. I cut them down with blade and fire, convincing myself it was for love. But in truth, it was for fear.
Still, there were moments when I remembered who I was. When I stood by a river and felt the echo of Damien's laughter. When I closed my eyes and saw the day he knelt with that obsidian ring. When my sons, even in chains, whispered that they loved me.
But those moments grew fewer. My hands grew stained, my heart grew hard. I stopped praying. I stopped believing in redemption. I was Seraphyne, General of the Monster King, and I could not escape.
I told myself I endured for them. Yet sometimes I wondered—if Damien still loved me, if my sons still saw me as mother, or if I had become the monster they were told I was.
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Scene Three – The End by the River
The last battle came at the Guild. Leonard's command was clear. I was to infiltrate, to destroy, to bleed them until they begged for mercy. My hands obeyed, but my heart faltered.
Because when I saw them—their young faces, their determination—I saw my sons. I saw what they might have been, if not for Leonard. I hesitated, and hesitation was death.
I fought, as I always did. Blade against blade, shadow against light. I pushed my body beyond its limits, desperate to end it quickly, desperate to return to my family. But I was tired. Years of blood and chains weighed me down.
When the blow struck me, I knew it was the end. My body failed, my vision darkened, but in that moment, I felt something I had not felt in years. Freedom.
Because in death, Leonard could not command me. In death, no chain could bind me.
As I lay there, bleeding, I thought of the river. Not the rivers I washed in after slaughter, but the first one. The one where Damien held me, where he whispered my name, where he asked me to be his. I thought of our sons, laughing in sunlight before the world took it from them.
I died with their names on my lips. Damien. My boys. Forgive me.
If there is a world beyond this one, I pray the river flows there. I pray it carries me back to them. I pray they still know me—not as Leonard's general, not as a monster, but as Seraphyne. The maiden who loved by the river.
And if the gods are merciful, they will let me meet Damien once more, where no king, no chains, no war will tear us apart again.