An incandescent light shone brightly. Her golden eyes reflecting that of the flame. Her golden hair billowed as the heat encompassed the area around them. Her clothes, ragged, torn, a single tear fell from her eyes that lost its light.
That smell, unforgettable, that burnt putrid smell similar to that of livestock.
There it was right in front of her, a pile wood, a mountain of corpses, hanging from the trees. Once her mother, once her father, once her brothers, once her sisters.
Scream all she could, but that won't change anything. Angry she could be, she is, but that won't change anything. The only thing she could do was watch as the Clemance family burn, leaving an unforgettable imprint, not on her mind, but from the very etches of her soul.
The crowd behind her whispered to each other, the murmurs seemingly overpowering the silence that Rozaria presented to them. "Shouldn't she be crying?" One of the bystanders asked. "Did she even love her family?" Another one added in.
The doubts, the insults were thrown, but what could they possibly add more to the already grieving woman there?
The guards that surrounded the place formed a tighter barricade with their shields and pushed the citizens away to make way.
A golden bathed aura surrounded the young man, clothes far more expensive than the yearly salary of twenty average people combined. Accessories lined in gold, a crown sitting atop his head with a jewel, brighter and more precious than anything that could ever be in the world.
A single wave of his hand, the soldiers slammed their shields to the ground, mounting it, forming a large barricade. The murmurs of the bystanders stopped. "Hear me."
He stretched out his hands, a scroll he held unfurled in front of him. "Rozaria Morreen Clemance, the head and the final member of the Clemance family, hear me."
"Don't look." A whisper from the back of her mind. "Don't look Rozaria." A black hand enveloped around her body. Something that was not there, something that shouldn't be there, materialized.
Soon, that dark cloud formed itself, an exact copy of Rozaria. This one, was different from her. Something this absurd should be suspicious yet everyone acted like they couldn't see her, no, she can't be seen by anyone. She was simply a mental conjuration of Rozaria's inner mind.
"...Why." Rozaria whispered under her breath as she refused to look back, her gaze fixed at the mountain of bodies in front of her. The only thing she could repeat over and over, the only thing she could speak.
Several guards closed in with their spears in hand, encircling her.
The man raised his hand, "Enough of this farce. Let's put an end to this. The Clemance family has been found guilty of bribing, embezzlement, leaking of information to other countries, colluding with demonic factions and so on..."
He tossed aside the scroll on his hand to the rest of the burning pile of corpses. "I would have left this judgment to my subordinates, but I wanted to come here personally. I wanted to meet the faces of those who dared to betray the imperial family."
He walked up to Rozaria, standing next to her as she muttered to herself under her breath slowly falling into madness, "I was raised by your father from the ripe age of four. He taught me the ways of the sword, a simple praise from him was enough to keep me going. It was something to be proud of."
Dark clouds moved from the sky as rain started to fall. The roaring flames of burning bodies never ceased to stop.
"I trusted your father, your family. I agreed to marry his own daughter despite my own father being against it. A lowly family he called the Clemance family. I used to wear that family name with pride of teaching me the way of the sword. But now..."
His fury blazed, his words echoed with malice, "I wear that name with shame. You tainted the golden bloodline with your crimes."
"No..." Rozaria replied, almost like a whisper.
"Worse of all, you could've been the queen of the imperial family." He drew his sword from his sheathe, "Your father in his dying breath begged me to keep you alive. I thought that was cruel, more cruel for a fate of death so initially I accepted. But this boiling rage that I have inside of me will never be settled as long as the house of Clemance lives."
The echoing voice behind Rozaria grew louder, "Surrender yourself Rozaria. It's fine for you stop feeling this way..." Her gentle hands wrapped around her body.
Feeling lost, hopeless, as his entire family shamed, executed and branded as traitors for the rest of time. She surrendered her body to the voice, not caring about the consequences.
The feeling of pain, loss, anger, regret, disappeared into the sea of nothingness as Rozaria opened her eyes and the golden iris that she once donned, changed colors into that of purple. The night sky that encompassed the world.
She stood up, her muted wailing disappeared. This was not Rozaria, no more.
"I, the current king of the Imperial bloodline, Veric Erkal Nodan III, pass this judgment, execution to the final member of the Clemance family." He gripped his sword and aimed it at her neck. "Forefathers, bear witness."
Veric swung his sword with all his might, and all he was met with was a wall. This 'Rozaria' blocked his swing with ease. "I laid dormant for all this time in respect to 'my' wishes."
Veric retreated back, "You're not Rozaria..." He looked at his hand, somehow bleeding, entangled around in an appendage of black veins. "Holy Order, a demon stands before you!" His body wrapped around by the blessings of his own holy order staving off the black veins wrapped around his arms and healing his wounded hand.
"I am Rozaria. Her other half, Morreen. A name she gave me herself. I stayed dormant, in respect for her wishes. I stayed as a spectator to her life all this time, giving comfort endlessly to a woman whose life did not deserve this conclusion." Black ooze spread from the ground latching itself to the nearest knights around her. "I am the cumulative personification of her pain. No more will I see her be tainted by this world."
"So this was the demon that Vincent Clemance hid. This was the reason he begged for his own daughter Rozaria to live. Hear me and bear witness! The Clemance family disappears today and this demon from this world! Raise your arms, the King stands in front of you!" Veric's sword bathed in a golden glow, the holy power from his holy order emanated, a pulsing wave of power shot out in all directions.
Morreen's body merged with the ground as the black ooze of puddle beneath her shot out in all directions. Its power wavering from the pulse of holy magic, yet it managed to latch the ooze to many knights in the area. "This world will be fuel for the fire that will be used for her slumber." She raised her arms, the black veins overpowering, visible on her skin. She gripped the space around her and the knights whose feet latched with the black ooze felt spikes forming inside their bodies, bursting in a beautiful black rose, using their life force and bodies as a catalyst for the transformation.
"Demon..." The bystanders whispered, "Demon!" They screamed as they ran frantically to all directions. The knights, shaken by what they just saw. It was a power rivaling that of the black mage five years ago, from their mind. "No, even beyond that!" the knights simultaneously thought.
The holy order began praying, cleansing off the fear from the knights under Veric. "Stay in formation!" Veric rushed in with a flurry of beautiful swordsmanship. Powerful, dominating art of mastery.
Morreen deflected with her ooze, dancing gracefully, matching the king's rhythm. "You defile our father with this level of swordsmanship Veric." Getting sick of his antics, the ooze shot from the puddle beneath her, wrapping itself around his arms and transforming that into a thick stem of thorns as roses bloomed.
"Gragh!" Veric screamed in pain. He grew weakened as the roses continued to bloom from the bramble of thorns. "The Clemance family... to be siding and summoning with demons. How absolutely pathetic!"
Knights rush to protect him but perished as soon as they entered Morreen's range. "Their life grew to blossom into a garden, no, a field of roses. But, there is a flower that stands out greater than the rest of these." She leaned closer, coming face to face with him. "Bear witness."
A black thorny branch stretched out as far as the eye could see, piercing through and from Veric's chest. His body began to age, to disappear as soon as the bramble of thorns began to grow roses.
"The king was no more." Everyone thought at the same time.
Panic began to brew, fear and anger began to take over.
"This was not the conclusion you were hoping for were you Rozaria?" Morreen kept thinking to herself as she gracefully slaughtered the rest of the knights and mages all around her.
"You didn't want anyone to die. Your family didn't deserve to die." She kept speaking to herself, waiting for Rozaria to answer. "You didn't deserve to have this ending. We didn't deserve this. Therefore, I will become the evil in your stead, for we are both one."
The area that was once surrounded by endless stone, paved the way as the field of roses grew wider and wider from the life force of the people that Morreen claimed. "It's not over Rozaria. It's not over for us. Within your eyes I knew what it was to love, to hope. Wake up, your journey is not ending, it is simply beginning anew."
Rozaria's consciousness within Morreen pulsed, a sliver of a red thread linking between the two of them reconnected, intertwined between their pinky finger. "My other self..." she spoke to her in mind.
"I have laid dormant within your body, allowing me to accumulate power beyond anything that could have ever been or would ever be. After this, my powers will revert that back to when we first saw each other with barely any power left. But even so, we can do it all over again." Morreen floated up to the air, the bramble of thorns and roses parted ways and formed a singularity of powerful dark magic.
Rozaria, even though Morreen is currently controlling both of their own body, instinctively reached out to the dark power. Being drawn to its unfathomable accumulation of magic. "If only... I had that power... will my family been saved?"
"Rozaria, we can go back, to the beginning before all of this started." Morreen hesitated, "But if you wish to choose to rest here and right now with me forever, I will not blame you. This lifetime enough has been too much for anyone to have bore. But if you wish to go back to the very beginning, change I will no longer be a spectator of your life. I will be the villainess... No, we can be the villainess of this other life. 'I am thou, thou art I,' whatever your decisions is, I fully reflect with. If you wish to live for revenge, I will help you, if you wish to live a life of happiness, I will be there for you."
"To the very beginning..?" Rozaria's golden eyes rekindled its light, "To the very beginning..! Help me... my other self... Please, I'm begging." She begged, over and over, as if wailing. "Even if this may be a dream," her eyes started to glow, "I'm willing to do anything."
Morreen, controlling both of their bodies began to shed tears as her other eye turned from the purple night sky's color to that of gold. Morreen and Rozaria, were one, for the very first time controlling both of their bodies at the same time. "You don't have to beg me, for we are the same."
The dark magic swallowed them both.
An endless sea swallowed them, deeper and deeper.
What awaited 'her' was the bright light at the very bottom of that sea. As soon as her back touched it, a bright light wrapped itself around her.
The wet clothes, the aching body, all disappeared.
She opened her eyes, a soft fluffy bed beneath her, and a wooden ceiling above her.
She sat up, the mirror staring at her next to her bed, her left eye colored with a beautiful purple, resembling that of the night sky, and the other, a golden eye like the golden dawn of sunrise.
The bright light pierces through the windows, she knew this place way too well. Her room in the mansion, before it was all destroyed.
Twelve years ago, before the Clemance household was destroyed. She was back to her 18 year old self, Rozaria Morreen Clemance returned to the very beginning of her story.
"I'm back..." She shed tears till nightfall, for how much she couldn't believe what was happening.