Summary: Learning to forge a great sword takes a lifetime. A swordsmith must be patient and diligent, going through many flawed blades until finally bringing the perfect weapon to life.
Or, it took Arba generations to master the raising of her children into vessels. Her true firstborn had a chance to escape and free her descendants from centuries of loss and pain, but their fates have always been in their mother's hands.
Written for @magizine. Warning for child abuse.
~0~
“We begin in the dark
And birth is the death of us.”
- Antigone, Antigonick
~0~
Ithnan did not like this world one bit. Painfully empty and barren, with a sky too pale blue and a climate too hot and dry. Alma Torran had been a lost cause, but that did not mean its replacement appealed.
Arba had ordered them to stay put until she returned, and then ventured into the desert. Time was of no importance to them; these doll-bodies felt no exhaustion, hunger, or thirst, but if he was being honest, he suspected many of their number were still in shock from the end of their home world. There was only one of them he really worried about.
“Feel like getting up now?”
Falan slowly turned her dead-eyed stare up to him, not moving from where she lay in the sand. In the heat of battle, Wahid’s sacrifice hadn’t sunken in, but now, in this empty, silent place, the loss of her whole family hit her like a thunderbolt.
“Even if I could, Ithnan, what would I do? Where do we even go from here? This world was never for us, after all.”
He nodded in understanding; in a world so tainted by Solomon’s will, every breath of air felt poisonous. “It will all be gone eventually. I trust Arba to see to that.”
Falan snorted. “Oh? And where is she? What could she be doing that’s so important?”
Ithnan opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, the soft rush of air above him made him look up instead.
They had had flying carpets back in Alma Torran, and he hadn’t been surprised to find them here as well. He was even less surprised to see Arba sitting leisurely atop it, looking no worse for wear.
What did surprise him, though, was the blanket-wrapped bundle she carried in her arms.
“Arba, where did you get that?” he asked by way of greeting, as she lighted on the sand and stepped down.
Arba gave him her usual self-satisfied smile. “I told you I was doing some experimenting. These bodies aren’t capable of channeling our full magical potential the way a natural body could. It appears, though, that they can produce natural bodies just as well.”
“And you brought the result back with you...why?”
But Arba wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. She turned to Falan, who was sitting bolt upright and staring at her. Far from her eyes being dull and lifeless, Ithnan thought that they were now too bright.
“Arba...you...?”
“She’s a couple weeks old.” If Ithnan hadn’t known her, he would have believed that the warmth in Arba’s eyes and smile were genuine. “Her name is Yaiba. Would you like to hold her?”
Falan scrambled up from the sand and reached out. As Arba passed the infant into her arms, Ithnan caught a glimpse of dark eyes and downy black hair standing out against the white blanket.
“Arba, where have you been?” he insisted, while Falan murmured, mostly to herself, about how beautiful their leader’s new daughter was. “Did you leave us here just to play around?”
The way Arba laughed in response made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “We’ll be moving out tonight. I have found the perfect country for us to put down roots in. It will serve our purposes quite nicely.”
“A good place to raise a child, then?”
Arba smirked, caressing the hilt of the sword at her hip. “Well...not exactly.”
~0~
Arba never questioned her own existence. Though she had been built by magic and Solomon born, they were both creations of David. At least in the beginning, there was no difference between them.
This girl was her own creation. And for a first attempt, Arba was inclined to consider her a complete success.
She hadn’t thought much of Yaiba, at first. Falan was perfectly happy handling her through her infancy and toddlerhood, when Arba had no use for her yet. Though she did feel an indulgent glimmer of pleasure every time she saw the little girl clumsily trying to chase at her heels, wanting to close the distance between herself and her true mother, Arba had more important things to attend to. Kou was a small country, but a hot-blooded and vicious one, constantly and bloodily clashing with its siblings Gou and Gai. If there was a better base of operations for al-Thamen, any better place to start sowing chaos across this world, it simply didn’t exist yet.
As the girl grew older, it was a different story. It had been a greater shock than she had had in centuries, the first time she turned to look at Yaiba’s face and realized it was like looking in a mirror. She’d lived for centuries and it was perhaps the strangest thing she had experienced yet.
“Mama? May I hold your sword?”
Arba was certain that this must be what a blacksmith felt, crafting the perfect blade. From the first moment she guided her daughter’s small hesitant hands over the hilt and the flat of her sword, to the hours she spent standing, arms crossed and eyes sharp, at the side of the courtyard as the growing girl went through forms on her own, the sight of her never failed to make the hair on the back of her neck rise in anticipation.
Yaiba was not a perfect reflection of her mother. Her midnight hair and her dusky blue-black eyes set her apart, marking her as Kou’s child as much as Arba’s own. But even more than that, the light in those eyes and the sweetness of her smile were qualities alien to Arba.
Often, though, those were the aspects of her that drew Arba’s eye the most. She would catch herself trying to commit them to memory: they were the ones that would be erased someday, after all.
“Lie still, darling...”
Falan had lost interest in coddling her past the age of four. The other members of al-Thamen treated her with politeness due their leader’s only child, but kept her at arm’s length. She knew of other children, but had never so much as spoken to any of them. So Yaiba craved the touch of her untouchable mother, even when it brought her pain instead of comfort. Perhaps especially then.
“Agh...M-Mother...!”
The girl knew how to endure. On top of relentlessly training her body, she had spent her life regularly sitting for lectures about where her family came from, what they were planning to do, everything that she herself was being trained for.
(Well...almost everything. Though none of them were technically lying when they told Yaiba she was supposed to become strong for her mother, she was sure the girl couldn’t anticipate how literally they meant it.)
Her eyes were always bright and attentive, and she dutifully stored away the information, lived by it without hesitation. Arba knew that she would take her beliefs and hold no true passion for them, but that was all right, so long as she obeyed. And she did, so very well.
“A little more, my girl. Just a little more.”
It was a sight she now treasured: Yaiba in the center of the circle of all al-Thamen, sprawled on her back on the floor, a tight, frightened smile straining her ashen face. Her mother told her that the white rukh she had been born with were poison to her, that she needed to be purified, so she willingly laid down and allowed them to darken it.
Arba straddled her, palms pressed to the girl’s temples, fingers in her sweat-soaked hair. Their magic was powerful, coursing through her veins with a force that would mangle most humans, but this body she had groomed for thirteen years could hang on through its assault on her rukh.
Yaiba’s smile stretched like cracking glass, and she struggled to speak instead of moan.
“It’s...I’m...g-good?”
“Yes, you’re doing beautifully. Once more, now...”
Again magic roiled and shivered through their ranks before being channeled into their center, surging into Yaiba’s body like a tidal wave crashing onto the shore. The girl choked on a scream, eyes rolling back in her head as she jerked and thrashed under her mother’s hands.
The rukh shrieked freely, buzzing and darting all around Yaiba’s body, before finally succumbing. As if with the wave of a paintbrush, they turned a rich, beautiful black. They would revert back soon enough — Arba was still working out how to make the change permanent — but for now it was an encouraging sight.
Yaiba’s face paled as if a bone had broken. Her back arched sharply off the ground, and with one final gasp she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. She lay alarmingly still there, with her limbs at strange angles. Like a puppet with its strings cut, if she permitted herself such an on-the-nose comparison.
Arba stroked her cheek lightly with the backs of her fingers, the sweet smile she’d put on still lingering on her face. She never loved Yaiba more than she did in these moments, when the girl had given up everything in her to her mother. She suspected that Yaiba knew that.
Soon, she would scoop her daughter up, carry her from the room, and tuck her into bed. Maybe she’d even stay there for a while, before leaving to let her sleep as long as her body needed. But for now, she would savor the moment just a little longer.
~0~
There was no sound she loved more than her sword whistling through the air.
Yaiba remembered when she had first been allowed to handle her mother’s sword, how intimidatingly heavy it felt in her hands. Now that she had her own weapon — identical, yes, but her own — she swung it as freely and easily as her own arm.
“You’ve gotten stronger,” her mother said, casually as if over a meal, as she parried every ferocious strike Yaiba threw at her. “If I were anyone else, they would be dead now.”
Yaiba had never killed anyone, though she knew her family had. She always wondered why Mother didn’t order her to, if death and chaos were what this world deserved. But Mother kept her home, just endlessly training her.
It was only a week ago that Yaiba had finally been told why.
Mother’s smile was fond, as always. But now the glint in her eyes as they sparred felt less proud and more smug. Yaiba saw that scarlet glow in her dreams now.
She slashed at her mother’s throat with all her strength, knowing full well that it wouldn’t touch her skin. With one vicious swing and a sharp clang of steel on steel, Mother knocked her sword from her hands, and lunged for her. Yaiba wasn’t afraid: she knew what she was meant to do next.
Just as Mother’s sword was about to split her skull, she let the magic in her body swell outward, and her world took on the swimming golden tint of a borg. No sooner had the blade made contact with it than its energy crackled sharply through the air, and her mother was blasted across the courtyard. Her own magic caught her just before she slammed into a wall, letting her smile down at Yaiba from midair.
“Good girl. Aren’t you strong?”
“Yes, Mother,” Yaiba said, lowering the borg, letting her mother come back down to her and take her face in her hands.
“You know how proud I am of you, right?”
Of what you’ve made of me.
“Yes, Mother. I’ll be glad to give you all my strength.”
“Good girl. Take the rest of the day to yourself. Do anything you like. And we will all be honored to see you tonight.”
Yaiba could only force a smile until Mother’s back was turned, when her eyes narrowed and her lip curled in disgust.
Sixteen years of life, and every single day of it given to her mother. She had done everything right: staying sequestered in her family’s compound like a dog in its kennel, training until she bled with magic and sword alike, even lying down pliantly on the basement floor in the circle of her family, letting her mother pin her down as the onslaught of magic tore through her body.
She had thought it would be over, once her rukh was purified for good. She thought her mother would finally be satisfied. What more could she possibly have left to give?
Her body. Her life.
Too much.
Tonight, Yaiba was expected to go down to that basement one last time, let them all put their hands on her, and open herself up to her mother’s soul. Either she would die outright, or be trapped forever as a prisoner in her own body. She didn’t know which would be worse.
She supposed she wasn’t as well-trained as Mother believed, she thought spitefully. Though the idea of running from it almost scared her more, she just couldn’t accept it.
Maybe the world really was as horrible as her family always said. But she would take her chances. She had been raised to be strong, after all.
~0~
Arba almost had to laugh. Her girl was clever...but naïve.
She watched from the rooftop at the little shadow in the night, slipping across the grounds and starting to scale the high outer wall. Did she really think her mother wouldn’t catch on to her true feelings? Or that that black cloak would hide her identity? Oh, the darling thing.
She waited until Yaiba was successfully over the wall before making her move. Her magic might be fettered by this doll-body, but she could still leap and float soundlessly after her quarry. Lighting atop the wall, she smirked at the way Yaiba was taking her hood down to get a better view of the mountain forest she was venturing into, mouth hanging open and dark eyes huge, the same way she used to look up at her mother as a little girl.
It was as good a final sight as any. Arba pounced from the wall, slamming Yaiba to the ground from behind, and actually laughing when she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“You should have known there was no escape, darling. Now, hold still, and hopefully it won’t hurt.”
Yaiba’s face went bone white, and she thrashed and bucked beneath her, pushing at her arms.
“No! Mother, please, don’t! I want to live, please, just let me go, for a little while more—”
“And then you’ll come back to me on your own time?” Arba chuckled fondly, careless of Yaiba’s nails clawing at her arms. “Oh, no, my precious child. This is what you were born for. Farewell, Yaiba.”
She leaned down to kiss her daughter’s forehead one last time, and then began. It was easy to enter her: there wasn’t much difference between her magic and her soul.
“Please! Mother, don’t, no — oh —!”
Yaiba choked and seized, trying to resist her. But before long her eyes rolled back in her head, her limbs went rigid—
And Arba batted the empty doll off her chest, stretching her gangly new limbs as she stood up. She had never felt young before, and so did not recognize the sensation. But power, satisfaction, triumph...oh, yes, she was as intimately familiar with them as she would become with her own body.
~0~
Yaiba’s thousand years of descendants tended to run together in Arba’s memory. But could anyone blame her? So many faces, so many names, and so few of them truly important. She had never been as close with any of her myriad children as with her firstborn.
Until now, that was.
Shuuen, her current host, was one of the many. Gyokuen was one of a kind.
Her eldest daughter knelt on the floor of her bedroom, head bowed, absorbing what she had just been told. Arba ran her fingers soothingly through her loose hair.
“This is what you were always meant to do. Do you understand, darling?”
Gyokuen hummed thoughtfully, before lifting her head. Yaiba’s features survived in her, as they would in her children, but they held none of her ancestor’s fear. She was the picture of perfect calm, and while she had taught the girl well how to fake that, Arba could tell that it was genuine now.
“You’re going to let me become one with you. We’ll never be apart. There’s nothing I could possibly want more.”
Arba saw her own smile reflected in her daughter’s eyes, which shone with devotion. Or avarice. It was difficult to tell with this one.
“That’s my girl. We will bring this world to its end together.”
