Legends of Belariath
Sutara
Lillia; Scion of Sophaughidrin
Sopaughidrin, born from the ashes of the original pantheon, her essence weakened but not destroyed as she served beneath Kirva, the original keeper of her Matron’s secrets, archaic knowledge and sword maiden. Sopaughidrin, weakened at the defeat of the Dark Elf, was said to have fallen out of history for a short period. For this time, she was not dead, but lost, becoming born within the flesh of a surface elf – the enemy, a high elven daughter in the House of T’lith, a family dedicated and exulted during the wars for their Generals and Sorcerers.
They called her Lillia, an elven woman of nobility that seemed to wait and watch as the soldiers came home from the wars. Every time, she stood upon the battlements, waiting for that caravan of horses to be sighted upon the burnt hills around her Liege’s Keep. It was nerve wracking for the others, the mothers and wives, rushing to claim their mates and husbands who had fought to eradicate the dark elves from the field of battle; yet for her, it was a breath of cleansing air, the next moment as needed as the last.
There was no one for Lillia to greet, neither mate nor husband, but every time, she would be there watching. Her lithe figure, garbed in gossamer running down to greet the soldiers – to assist them from the mounts; they adored her, gazed upon enigmatic features with rampant lust, but she would never lean upon their advances, listening to them speak of their plans and victories. Smiling, secrets held in those vivid eyes, only to turn away and walk back to the Keep, to her father’s side, taking what she knew, what she saw.
For each time she touched them, she saw their deaths, for each time she spoke to them, the image of their darker secrets were revealed to her. Far from turn in hatred and disgust, she worked for more, ever more, always needing the next touch to grant her a moment to know why. It would not relent, not even when she trained, or learned; it persisted like a dark spot upon the hand, each time bathed in the blood they shed, basking in the knowledge and secrets they did not tell. Swallowed in it, she learned the words beneath the smiles, learned the thoughts beneath the actions – and in turn excelled at it in her own forays.
Lillia learned in that time, granted the knowledge of secrets – she would learn to channel that gift into the arcane. To delve into the ancients, to find the secrets of the script; no one could dispute that by her 120th birthday, so young, she had the gift of arcane, and had become as powerful a servant of the high kingdom. However, there was something hiding behind those fathomless orbs, an inability to see her own secrets, yet knowing there had been more during the time before, and would be more in the time to come. Even as she secured her throne of power, the high elven woman would begin to make inquiries into the dark elves. Curious she was, told of those stories and yet to know the truth, the secrets behind the hidden meanings.
Lillia armored herself, despite the protests of her kin, a maiden whose sword was brandished with its bronze and mithril edging. To the front where the exiled ones had been driven, she watched them with fascinated eyes. So proud, yet mourning of their pantheon, calling to a Goddess whose name rang clear within her ears.
“Kirva.. help us, Kirva do not lead us to our doom!”
“Kirva, Kirva, Kirva!”
Dismayed, but not knowing why, she pulled her forces back against the tidal wave of exiled, closing her eyes, and in a single moment seeing them; their deaths, births, the power of the priestesses even when their Goddess had been defeated and weak.
That evening, Lillia twisted within her bedroll as dreams visited her – Dark dreams, smoke and haze, billows of silken rolls that obscured the truth from her. In that realm of darkness, where even she could not pierce the veil, she saw a woman of ashen flesh and pierced crimson eyes, sitting before a mirror, holding the fragments of its broken shards.
“Mother, why do you look so lost.” She questioned, kneeling at the woman’s legs, her own skin the color of rich black, an older, more powerful aura felt within her skin and eyes, gossamer threads of white silk as her hair moving against her.
“It is broken.” The woman replied, stating what was obvious as she shifted her fingers in that bowl, listened as glass pinged when it bounced off other pieces. Light corrupted the darkness of the shards, made them like slivers of black, reflecting broken images within. Lillia did not hesitate when she touched her hand to the woman’s skin, watching as magic flowed across the supple flesh, then a hand wrapped around her own.
The strength within those long fingers was crushing; silent as she watched nails bite into her tender skin. Rivulets of crimson beading, falling
“Mother?” she cried, pain lancing down her arm, a delicious moment when the ecstasy of it tore breathe from her lungs. She looked upwards, finding those blood soaked eyes upon her own, and a triumphant smile.
“You have been lost it seems as well, daughter.” The woman accused, tugging with perceptible strength to drag her own form across her lap. Lillia struggled but she could not rise against the hand at her chest, those eyes looking down with a detached cruelty in them. Kirva, looking down as she did, would reach down, hand like the strike of a cobra, breaking through flesh and bone to the heart beneath; there was pain, sanguine coating her dark arm as nails gripped at the beating organ, pulling it from the elven girl.
Lillia felt herself become impossibly light after that, watching through pain clouded eyes as her heart crystallized within the hand of the Goddess. It was brilliant red, shot through like a ruby, before with a bright burst of light the heart fractured, the Goddess throwing it to the mortal plain. Then she reached into the cavity left, grasping onto the wisps of Lillia’s soul, pulling it from its physical frame with a torturous groan.
That soul was bright, as bright as any immortal flame, as the demi-Goddess Sopaughidrin was released from her prison and reshaped beneath her Matron. The next morning, the soldiers would find the lifeless Lillia, and their mourning was great and furious. Her body was buried at the base of the Cavern, where the land of the T`lith and Gloom touched. For days and weeks, the soldiers would fast and call to their Gods to give them revenge, not knowing why their leader had been killed; not knowing why, but they refused to leave the death-mound, and in so doing, were becoming weak and lost.
Until the night she appeared to them, sword ready to take them for their weakness. There were cries, as some fled, others found their end at her sword – but still others, recognizing her, reached up, calling the name that had been and the name that was.
In pity, or perhaps to further her own end, Sopaughidrin turned her most faithful of soldiers into dark elven men, pledged them to Kirva and herself; made them her soldiers now beneath the cavern walls.
These men would forward from the First City into the Second, where their blood mingled with others, where their secrets and knowledge became ingrained into their families and blood lines. They became soldiers of the arcane; sorcerers, devout and secretive and held above others of their class. It was within their blood to be great, but to always fall in knee to Sopaughidrin and the Bitch-Goddess Kirva.