The Paladin was weak, and the Paladin was foolish. This was something that Veliuona had known from the beginning... but how weak and how foolish was something she was still learning, with both interest and perhaps the slightest feeling of pity. After all, she had no designs on him, and knew that antagonizing Morgan or worse yet, Sol, would just work against her.
But the Paladin was weak, and the Paladin was easy to manipulate... so easily twisted, as a matter of fact, that Veliuona was forced to manipulate him purely to halt the trials of others upon his head. He was foolish, and he was easily led astray, and most of all, he seemed to crave power: Veliuona wondered if Sol knew about his failings, or if she suspected, as the Goddess of Cursed Shades had come to, that it was not poor Morgan the Paladin loved, but rather... Morgan's power.
Still, the Paladin was also nothing more than a pawn, and one who was barely worth the time to look over: unicorn or not, he had no magic that could sap Morgan's strength, and Paladin or not, he was no strong fighter, no first-class warrior. He was a son of the Order, with no parents to return home to, his whole life taken up by the church. He was named, as all lost children were, with a name that spoke of his abandonment. A cruel reminder, Veliuona thought, that he had been born into the Order's chains.
The Paladin was terrified of her. But terror had an allure, and it had not been long before the Paladin was sneaking in and out of her encampment in the dark of the night. She would play host to him, mostly because the one advantage the Paladin held over her was his closeness to the legendary siblings... although she learned precious little from him. Partly because she did not want to use him to spy on the siblings, as she had no doubt that sending him on such a mission would end with his head on a platter, and Sol turning on her. Sol did not miss details: as it was, Veliuona suspected that Sol knew that the Paladin was visiting her secretly.
Poor Morgan, Veliuona thought! Her lover, a traitor to her. Perhaps not yet in the ways that Veliuona suspected he one day would be, but to love another, and to discover that they had been holding clandestine meetings with another... Veliuona knew her own wrath would be terrible, and that was even before considering what such secret meetings might hold. It was a breach of trust: so strange and ironic that a goddess of darkness should not be the one to call these meetings, but who was, in fact, trying to urge the Paladin to speak up.
That, perhaps, was her one wish, her one manipulation: to use the Paladin to bring Morgan back to her, back to where she could teach her, instruct her, show her their kinship. For she knew that Morgan was just like her, in her heart of hearts: she longed for a greater goal, but one that could only be accomplished with shadows and dark powers. She did not belong in Sol's blinding day: she, too, was a creature of the night.
Veliuona saw Sol only as a dangerous ally whom she knew would one day turn on her... but Morgan, she thought, could still be twisted. Could still be...saved, perhaps, was the word she was looking for.
Because for some reason, Veliuona did not expect even the love that Sol had for Morgan... would ever be enough to outweigh the tyrant heroine's love of herself, and hatred for the long, dark night.
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