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Chapter Two

Akelarre moved through the edge of the spire with the slow, gentle pace of someone afraid of sudden movements. The ache in all her limbs had receded over the last few days, but not so much so that she was able to walk without taking her time.

The view from the many arrow slits and stained glass windows was always the same. A world of dark rocks under a grey sky, purple haze floating bare meters off the ground in swirling patches that rotted away any weeds that dared poke out from the ground. Sometimes the black pools hidden in crevices would warp and bubble and a creature of black skin and white bone would crawl out of the muck.

She supposed that it was almost pretty, in a way. Just like her new name.

She wasn't sure what to think of it. There was no meaning to the word; none that she knew, anyway. Maybe it was just a cute nickname, but then Salem didn't seem the sort to do that. She was supposed to be a queen, after all.

Akelarre looked outside again at the desolate wastes and wondered what kind of queen would want to rule over a kingdom of monsters.

She didn't know whether to trust Salem or not. The woman felt... nice, kind even, but also careful and smart. She was a cynic. And maybe, most of all, she was lonely.

She didn't dare spy on her with her lancers -- the wasps were far too big and noisy to go unnoticed -- but she had sent them to scout the Spire and so far she hadn't found any signs of life other than the black creatures with the bone masks.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" came Salem's voice from deeper in the corridor.

Akelarre nodded, her gaze still fixed on the world outside, but her lancers paid attention as Salem glided closer. "I'm feeling better," she admitted. "Less sore."

"Your health is improving at a decent pace," Salem said. "We will have to see about fixing that arm of yours."

Akelarre looked down at the stump. She couldn't actually see it as it was hidden under the fabric of the white robe she was wearing, but the motion under the material made it obvious that something was wrong. "Can you do that?"

"Certainly," Salem said. "You might find my replacement to be better than the original, in time."

Akelarre nodded and turned a little to look at Salem's reflection in the glass. "Are there others?" she asked. It was strange to find herself standing next to someone taller than her, though she couldn't say why.

"Others?" Salem repeated.

She gestured at the world past the window. "People, like us."

Salem thought on it for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm afraid not. There are humans out there, and faunus, but as for those like us, I'm afraid it is just you and me, Akelarre." One of Salem's hands, a slim, white thing, rose to her shoulder and held onto it with gentle pressure.

"If I'm like you, and you're the queen, does that make me the princess?" she asked with just a hint of amusement, her gaze moving away from Salem's reflection to her own. Red eyes stared back, sunken into a face that was too pale. The black veins around her eyes and neck stood out against her skin. Her hair was black as pitch and flowed with almost liquid grace to pool around her shoulders and along her back.

Salem blinked, then made her laughing noise, a sort of chuffing at the back of her throat. "I suppose. Though don't you think it's a little early to claim royalty?"

Akelarre looked over the barren wastes again, then she gestured at it dismissively. "Not much to rule over," she said.

Salem tilted her head a little, as though considering. "I suppose not," she said. Her hand slipped off Akelarre's shoulder. "Follow me," she ordered as she turned in a swish of robes.

Akelarre followed.

The steps Salem led her towards climbed down in a slow spiral and they went on for a very long time. She sent some of her lancers ahead to scout. Salem took the steps one at a time, her pace even and regal but not so fast that Akelarre grew tired.

By the time they reached the bottom, Akelarre's heart was beating faster and her legs ached more than they had earlier, but she was still well enough. Her lancers moved ahead and through the cavernous room. It only took a stray thought for them to form up into triangular wing formations to better scout the cave.

Salem looked up as one group of the large wasps flew by, then turned in a tight formation to give the room another pass. "Your fine control is rather impressive," she said. "Better than mine, even. I suspect you can control a smaller variety of Grimm but have more control over your little niche. Interesting."

She nodded. It wasn't as if she could confirm what Salem had said, but it felt right. "I like... arthropods."

Salem nodded and walked deeper into the room. "Light," she called out and from the ceiling came more of the black creatures, these ones like jellyfish in appearance, though their cores glowed with a reddish inner fire that cast the shadows away. They kept circling above while Salem knelt next to the large brackish pool in the room's centre. "The Grimm are mine, and I am of the Grimm. Some say that the Grimm lack souls but that is not entirely true."

She stood, her hand moving out of the pool while a ripple flowed across. Then the surface bubbled and a form moved out of the water. At first it looked like a man, but then the head of a horse rose before it and soon a long-limbed creature was walking out of the pool with careful steps.

"This is a nuckelavee," she said. "Can you control it?" Akelarre shook her head and the nuckelavee walked off towards a distant corner of the cavern. "When they say that the Grimm are soulless they are wrong. The Grimm have a soul. One. And it is mine."

"Are they like your children?" Akelarre asked. Guilt was building up inside her. If that was the case, then by taking the lancers for her own she had stolen Salem's children.

"No, they are servants and warriors and tools," she said. Her red eyes dared Akelarre to deny it, to question the morality of it.

"They are expendable," Akelarre said. "Like... like my swarm." She look up where her lancers were flying in increasingly intricate patterns near the ceiling, some passing within millimeters of each other without so much as brushing.

Salem's smile was all teeth for a moment before it became demure again. "Exactly." She knelt again and this time the creature that followed was no taller than Akelarre's shin, but the moment it detatched itself from the pool something snapped into place and it froze.

She leaned forward to inspect it. At first glance it was merely a very large scorpion, one the size of a housecat. But unlike any she'd ever seen--not that she could truly remember seeing one--this one was covered in white bones with a fine red filigree on them. Its stinger looked poised and ready to punch a hole through armour if it so chose. "This one is mine," Akelarre said.

"Is it?" Salem asked, one eyebrow raising slowly. Salem reached towards the scorpion grimm, then pointed it to someplace further down the cave. It obeyed. No thoughts, no denial of the order. Salem asked and it moved.

Akelarre watched it scuttle by, felt the strain as her control over it was stretched and finally ignored. It was almost insulting, but at the same time it truly wasn't. "What are they for?" she asked.

"The Grimm?" Salem asked. She was watching Akelarre for a reaction. She must have approved of what she saw. "The Grimm are my warriors, my army against the blight of mankind."

"You fight mankind?" Akelarre asked.

Salem glanced over the pool for a long few moments. "May I tell you a story?" Akelarre's nod was enough for Salem to start. "Long ago this world was ruled by two gods, Brothers, one of dark and one of light... a golden man-" she glanced pointedly at Akelarre. "They were powerful, but they did not understand the hearts of people. We rebelled, and eventually they left."

Akelarre felt her brow shifting down. "You didn't win," she said.

Salem look genuinely surprised, if only for the barest hint of a moment before she schooled her features. "And what would victory have looked like?" she asked.

"They would have died," she said simply.

Salem's bark of laughter echoed out into the cavern. "Perhaps, yes. But I was never so fortunate. I will spare you the details, but they took someone very special away from me and then twisted him against me. Once we ruled a paradise together, had a family, but he threw it all away in service of beings who care nothing for any of us."

"He's still alive?"

Salem nodded. "He is. And he has been twisting humanity against me, against us, for thousands of years. He wants to call the Brothers back. Make no mistake, I do terrible things to weaken them, lay low their heroes and shatter their dreams, because that is the only way they will ever be free. They will never thank me, but in the end I will watch the sun rise on a free world."

***

Salem watched the child, Akelarre, as her words sank in. She hoped that they would be enough to convince her to side with Salem. There were other means of obtaining loyalty, but she didn't want to have to break the child, not when she was the first person she had met in millennia that might suffer under the same curse.

A friendship now could, if Akelarre was like Salem, last forever.

And what did that say about her own health, that she would stoop so low as to attempt to court a child just to stave off the long days of plotting and planning? But she was the Queen of the Grimm, she answered to no one, and so didn't need to make excuses for herself or her actions.

If her suspicions were correct, then the golden man Akelarre had fought had to be the God of Light. And if she was cursed as Salem had been, then perhaps this child predated her. Perhaps she too had rebelled against the gods and had suffered ever since.

Was there a chance that Salem could have been the same? Stuck in a pit of absolute darkness for countless millennia? Perhaps.

Akelarre bent down next to her. Not with the same grace that Salem displayed, but with confidence in every motion. She reached a hand towards the pool and dipped it in with all the care of a child that had never touched an open flame.

A minute passed, then two. The pool bubbled and Salem watched with interest as a creature crawled out of the pit.

It was small, no bigger than a hand-span and black as a moonless night. Eight legs moving in perfect tandem helped the thing scuttle towards its new master where it nestled into Akelarre's palm. The fact that its legs ended in spikes, or that its bone-white mask was split down the middle to reveal cruel fangs didn't seem to bother the girl one whit.

Salem placed a hand on Akelarre's head and the girl tilted her head back to stare at Salem. She smiled. "Well done," she said. "It is a terrifying specimen."

Akelarre's cheeks puffed out. "It was supposed to be cute," she said.

Salem held back a laugh. It wouldn't do to lose her composure before her newest... recruit.

Yes, life was taking a strange turn for Salem.

***

Big thank you to ChaoticSky and the filthy degenerates on the Raven's Nest Discord for the idea bouncing and encouragement, and eschwartz for doing word things! You're all completely insane (except for eschwartz), but I like you anyway.