Veliuona had her plans and her gambles, certainly: she would not mind subduing these ponies, and in particular, making the mighty, prideful Sol bow her head. But she was also far from stupid, and recognized that they were faced with a foe that would require them to work together... that even she, a goddess of the darkness, bow her head and obey the orders of even a tyrant like Sol of the Burning Sun.
These Tyrant Wyrms, whatever else they were, were bringers of not death, but destruction. They would annihilate this entire country if allowed to linger here for long... and the brought with them a hideous form of beyond-death that made even her darkest necromancies seem like paltry flights of fancy in comparison. If they destroyed this country, it would be with such a fire that not even her most ethereal of spirits or her most reclusive of liches would survive.
Veliuona craved many things... but what she craved most of all was to live, and to keep her tribe alive alongside her. Power she had in spades, and even if her dark empire had little land to claim its own, she ruled the dark night, and the endless caverns beneath the earth, and the unholy places in this world. She had not been driven out of her homeland, as many seemed to think: she had left them in peace, not wanting to kill her former people after she had ascended to the rank of goddess, taking only those who wanted to come on this long journey with her.
While Sol certainly did not want her alive, and seemed incapable of being reasoned with, she also was capable of being influenced by her siblings. Veliuona did not think it impossible to reason with Morgan... and Titan, for all his foolishness, seemed strangely... honest. She thought he was noble, as a matter of fact... and nobility was not something she had seen very often in these ponies. Nor had she ever witnessed such a willingness to try and negotiate and understand others... at least not like this. She had seen and done business with many gullible and naive fools, after all, and often to their folly; but to do business with a goddess of the dead without wisdom was to court disaster, was it not?
One such fool, Veliuona reflected, would be either very useful or very dangerous for her to work her manipulations upon: that fool, of course, was Morgan's sweet paladin. He was easy to tempt, easy to mold, easy to twist whichever way she desired, for he was very weak. Part of him was loyal... but that part was easily overwhelmed by his seemingly-endless wants and desires. He had come to her on the pretense of asking for wisdom and advice, using to to badly hide his true desire for strength and power... but she had deflected him for now. She was not above twisting him to get to Morgan, should her survival depend on it... but she did not desire to stoop to such lows, either. And nor did she want to risk making an enemy of any of the siblings at this point, especially with Sol already so suspicious of her.
Besides. Such things could wait, she thought, as she studied the corpse of the death-puppet at her hooves. Such evil husks were raised by the Wyrms' toxic breath and words, vicious not-life whose only sentience was given by its hatred for the living... she didn't want to imagine what else the Wyrms were capable of. At least they seemed to fall when their masters were destroyed... but still, a... malignancy lingered in them, just as it did in the ground that the Wyrms scarred with their touch. Veliuona did not like what it meant... any more than she wanted to imagine what would happen should the Wyrms be allowed to gain a true foothold in this world.
No, she would not let that happen. Not for the sake of the ponies, perhaps, but for her own survival. And survival was the greatest reason of all to bow one's head and make allies out of one's worst enemies... she only hoped that Sol would be able to look past her prejudices and see that as well.
For in spite of all the machinations she might have, she knew that she could not make any of her desires a reality or bring any of her plans to fruition until these evil parasites were stomped completely out. And she knew that none of them could succeed in such a task alone against such vile evils.
No comments:
Post a Comment