Markus

When necessary, the people of Kokabel were very good at mobilizing. Once word got out about what was needed to be done, everything in the kingdom stopped for several days so that each inch of the kingdom could be checked for the fiendish creatures that devoured anything they could.

After some trial and error, the best method of dealing with them was found to be first breaking up swarms and then dealing with them in much smaller numbers. Pixies were small and fast, but were very similar to birds in their approach to things, acting defensively to defend the territory they were attempting to establish. Fires were the easiest way to clear them out and separate swarms, but that wasn’t always an option as they attached themselves to areas vital to their kingdom’s agriculture.

Luckily, it was found that they slept after they had their fill and were terribly heavy sleepers, which Markus remembered once hearing was one of the defining traits for Sariel. Insatiable appetites and death like sleeps, two traits that they passed on to their pixie creations.

It took just over two weeks before everything had calmed down and the kingdom could begin to return to normal, just in time for serious preparations for the summer solstice.

Pixie skulls were strung up over doorways and windows, decoration for the approaching festivals as much as they were trophies to the household. The air had a piquant smell to it from broths cooking with the remains of pixies, which when poured over crops were found to have a regenerative property to them and encouraged a speedy growth of whatever plant had been gnawed on by the razor-sharp teeth of the nefarious creatures.

Markus had spent the entire time with Hesperia, which he found to be about as pleasant as chewing glass.

Growing up under the shadow of Julius must not have been a pleasant experience, so he always assumed his aunts' hardness and cruelty to have been caused by that. They all had it, to some degree, but Hesperia was the worst of them and always had been.

Markus looked forward to finally being apart from her. Being in her presence for so long made him realize that, perhaps, it really was time to create Lycan of his own. At least then he would have others around him to help buffer himself from his Aunt, who had always had a soft spot for wolves.

He and Hesperia were beside a stream now, the very last left to check for any signs of pixies or their nests. Hesperia seemed to take a real enjoyment out of crawling about the grass, stabbing at whatever moved and sticking it into the bag on her hip to show off later. Only being second to Cydonia with her number of kills, Hesperia was always eager to try and catch up. With the amount of pixies she had taken out in the past two weeks, Markus was sure she would be presenting herself as the new record holder as soon as they returned and passing out her kills.

Hesperia had gone to the stream to drink from it and when she dunked her head under the waters and emerged, Markus caught a rare glimpse of the lightning-shaped scar that ran up the back of her neck that she was named for. He knew not what the history behind it was other than the fact that she received it during her birth, but it was something she didn’t like to talk about and liked even less to be asked about.

Markus had heard once that a seer had foretold Julius would be killed by lightning and, oddly enough, all three of his eldest daughters had lightning in their histories. Hesperia, with her scar, Malia having been born during the worst lightning storm in living memory, and Cydonia, who of course came to wield Helen’s lightning spitting spear early in her youth. The spear, of course, ended up being his demise, but Antonius said that Julius had been especially hard on the three of them out of paranoia that one might do him in, as they were born too close for him to know which was of the trio were the eldest, all sharing the same birthday and hour, rumored to even share the same birth moment.

When Hesperia was done in the stream she drifted off with an inquisitive look toward the treeline where a berry plant was wound around a tree. She told him to stay where he was in case anything came out behind her and he nodded silently as he watched her stomp off toward the trees with her dagger extended.

He dropped his armor at the bank of the stream and ran his hands over his hair, sweat-soaked and dusted with pixie blood. As he dropped his hands away he sensed a thought, a tiny fragile thought of being hungry, thirsty, and he followed it stealthily. He dropped his gaze to where his armor was in the grass and he crouched down to eye where the thoughts were coming from.

There in the grass near his armor was a tiny pixie, so similar in appearance to a human toddler. Peachy colored skin and a head with soft red curls, the only thing that distinguishes it from a normal child was its tiny size and the delicate wings on its back, curled inward like a butterfly having just emerged from its cocoon.

At some point during the slaughter, it must have fallen or been placed in his armor without his knowing, he realized. He hadn’t seen any younglings - seeing this one was...discerning. It was so human like, so perfect, he was left in awe.

It reached up with its little hands for the blade of grass to try and pull it toward him, but was unable to get it far enough to reach the drop of dew hanging from the tip. Markus watched as it tried and failed again, the dew falling to splash the pixie youngling on the head. It cried out, a little unhappy chirp, and shivered off the water before it looked around with a lost expression.

Markus hesitantly reached down with a finger to carefully press down another blade of grass, bringing another drop to the youngling. It looked to him with a confused expression before it reached up to the grass to bring its face to it to drink.

When it was finished it smacked its lips and looked up to Markus with a big smile and Markus felt himself smile a tiny little in return. It wasn’t like the ones he had slain - only focused on eating or trying to slash at faces, full of anger. Instead, it seemed to be an innocent little animal, like a kitten or a helpless, harmless baby bird.

Markus had a vague recollection of finding a baby bird in the grass once, and his heart ached at it, his head beginning to throb at the very top. He remembered a voice, garbled, telling him not to touch it or else its parents would abandon it. A hand, encased in a crisp white glove, reaching down to take his own dirtier, tinier hand, the same voice saying they would stay and watch it until its parents came back for it if that made him feel better.

But this little pixie didn’t have parents. Markus had killed them - and this little pixie hadn’t done anything wrong yet. Perhaps, Markus mused, he could keep it as a pet, to maybe study its habits so they would have a better understanding of the creatures. He’d keep it in a cage so it wouldn’t cause any type of harm. A good cage. He remembered a cage, presented to him when he was young, made out of gold and containing a bird made out of glass that sang a familiar lullaby. Could pixies sing? They chirped, so possibly.

The youngling reached up a hand for him and he carefully reached a finger down for it to grasp, its fingertips still free of claws. It cooed at him and he withdrew his hand to see if he had anything on him to offer it to eat, his mind made up to keep it-

Hesperia suddenly brought her heel down on the youngling's lower half and Markus winced at its scream. When his Aunt lifted her foot with a gleam in her eye and a slight lift of her lips, Markus swiftly killed the creature to end its suffering. That earned him an annoyed look from his Aunt when he looked up to her. 

“Why do you do that?” Markus asked.

“Why do I do what?” His aunt asked back mockingly. Markus didn’t ask her anything else, instead standing to turn his back on her. “You aren’t forgetting that they are the enemy, are you Markus?” His Aunt teased from behind him. Markus gave her a sullen look over his shoulder and she smirked darkly at him. “Don’t let them fool you, nephew. Infants always grow into very capable adults. Just because it’s cute now doesn’t mean it isn’t the enemy...all pawns are capable of becoming queens.”

The prince nodded dully as he reached down to hold his hands under the cool water, staring at them as the blood ran off his fingertips. After rinsing off his face and hair, dunking his armor in briefly, he replaced his armor and stood at attention.

“With that,” Hesperia said with a pointed look at the younglings smashed corpse, “I declare the threat is over - and just in time for the start of the Solstice festivities!” She clapped her hands with a tight, long smile as she did a little dance, ushering Markus to do the same. He declined. “We shall return then to report to my sisters!”

Together they returned to the palace, only to find Cydonia leaving the grounds as they entered.

“Penemue has sent their representative.” His aunt informed them as she passed, grabbing onto the side of Markus’ armor to turn him around to join her. Hesperia waved them off and said she wanted a drink and wished them well, signaling something to Cydonia with her hands afterward that made Cydonia snicker.

As Julius forbid sounds around him, his daughters had developed a unique way of communicating silently, using hand gestures, indicative looks and body language to have full conversations amongst themselves. Though they were far more vocal after his death, they still occasionally slipped into it.

Cydonia gave him a clever look and he figured out whatever had been gestured to her related to him. “Trying to collect little winged creatures again, are we?” She asked cleverly. Markus’ expression hardened and she laughed shortly, but did not say anything further. “Never mind that. We must go and speak with the representative at once. If Penemue is on board, things might just get very interesting around here.”