Out of the Ashes

Chapter 14: Revelations

(6,3k words, futa, size comparison, character focus, plot chapter, exposition, dialogue focus, character development, worldbuilding)

"People... please listen up! I will attend to any other urgent issues tomorrow. We all should get some rest now, stressful but productive days are ahead of us," Margaret said before hastily retreating into her bedroom.

She shut the door before anyone could word another request and let out a deep sigh while hearing the commotion outside slowly subside.

"Finally... alone," she exhaled and rested her head onto the wooden door that separated her from the entourage following her throughout the whole day.

Margaret only planned on accompanying Alexia on her way to the hospital wing and making sure 'kingmother' was put into the dungeon that day. Both tasks shouldn't have taken her longer than an hour at most - and certainly not far into the night.

Yet, she basically had to hide in her old room, exhausted and annoyed by a crowd of courtiers and nobles already positioning themselves for the upcoming power struggle surrounding the newly "crowned" king.

What spineless bootlickers they were. All of their open disdain appeared to have vanished and was replaced by warm words masking their cunning schemes. They were the type of people that wouldn't even spit in Margaret's direction a year ago.

Now they fought over her attention to further their own political gains. This is what she would have to deal with from now on Margaret thought.

Being king will turn out to be a burden, that she always knew. Still, there were a few things she genuinely looked forward to. Returning to her room, her own personal sanctuary, was one of those.

The blonde walked towards her bed, which now looked positively tiny for someone of her current stature. She sat down on the sheets and heard the bed creak in agony but it held firm, yet the sound brought a smile to the king's face. Her gaze explored the familiar four walls and a wave of nostalgia hit her - even more than that. It felt almost like a déjà vu.

Nothing had changed. Almost literally nothing in her room had changed. Even the dresses she dropped onto the floor when she rushed to get ready for her birthday "celebrations" all these months ago still laid where she remembered them.

Wouldn't it have been for the dress from 'queenmother' she ordered to be brought to her room and the vase she just spotted on the window ledge; she would have thought that her room was frozen in time until her return. Even the panties she nonchalantly tossed behind her mirror that morning peaked out from behind it. Without even a layer of dust on them or the mirror.

One could tell that someone took care that every small detail in the room remained untouched throughout her months of absence. Excluding the new addition at her window.

Margaret got up and curiously observed the flowers dangling over the porcelain vessel. White orchids, her favourites from the royal gardens.

The blonde lifted them up and inhaled their scent for a moment. Smelled like 'home', although she rarely ever felt like that, even in the gardens.

"Who could have put you here, I wonder?" Margaret whispered to herself.

She was about to put them back down and noticed the dried-up rings on the ledge, like the flowers were watered and swapped every now and then.

The king sighed and eventually put them down after the realisation hit her. Her family always expected her to come home, or at least never lost hope that she would return. Maybe even anticipated that. Just like her sister told her.

"Why would they try to kidnap me then?" she said.

Margaret shook her head and stared into her reflection in the window and just like with the mirror before, her reflection only reached up to her bulging breasts. She didn't need to see her face to know how that grim expression on her face looked like though.

"Tomorrow better should be an informative day," she sighed before heading to her creaking bed.

Margaret woke up early after another restless and highly frustrating night. The bed she slept in for years proved less comfortable and inviting than the damp and musky mattress she shared with Alexia. Maybe it was less the bed that bothered her, but the absence of her girlfriend, who might have experienced the same on her sickbed at the other end of the palace. Nevertheless, she had to talk to her mothers - she needed answers. Preferably before she would be pursued by over a dozen people surrounding her like the day before.

"My king!" the guard said, standing before the iron door leading to the dungeon.

"Good Morning, Larissa. Did anything of note happen during the night?"

"No, my king. Just the highqu-... pardon, your mother accompanying the prisoner."

"She stayed the whole night?"

"Yes, my king. She insisted on keeping her wife company."

"I see. I guess I better look what they are up to now, then," the king muttered.

"As you wish, my king."

"Oh... before I forget it: If anyone asks about my, or my mothers whereabouts... well, feel free to get creative," the blonde mused.

"I will assure you won't be bothered, my king."

This was the first time she had the displeasure of visiting a prisoner at the royal dungeon. Margaret was immediately surprised upon entering on how well illuminated that place was. Usually if someone thought of dungeons, someone would have pictured long dark corridors, riddled with rats and guarded by grim overseers. This place was none of those things. It looked like even when it came to be put in chains, nobility and royalty fared much better than the common folk.

The red stone shone in the light of the early morning sun and all cells were clean and empty. All but one at the end of the hallway.

"Good Morning, Margaret," Euridike said as she sat on the floor while holding her wife's hands through the iron bars separating the two.

"Queenm-..." the blonde said and cut herself off before willingly not calling her mother by her title anymore. "Mama. There was no need for you to stay here all night as well."

"No, but I wanted to," the former queen said.

She smiled at her chained wife and almost sensually rubbed her fingers before getting up and going to hug her daughter.

"Looks like you found something that fits you," Euridike said with a warm smile.

"Sorry, I didn't ask. But the maids meant you were the only one who had clothes that fit me now," Margaret said as she sank into her mother's embrace.

At least now she didn't have to fear that her clothes could rip at the slightest touch.

"It suits you very well. Still looks a tad too small in my opinion," Euridike said and stroked her daughter's cheeks. "You look tired. Is everything alright, my child?"

Margaret exhaled loudly and softly but assertively removed her mother's hands from her face.

"No... no, I am not. I want answers. What is going on?" she asked.

The former queen's face immediately lost all its warmth and grew instantly paler.

"Of course. We expected you to ask," the older blonde muttered. "Come. We owe you an explanation."

Euridike took Margaret's hand and lead her the last few steps to 'the prisoner'.

"Do you like a seat?" she offered the small stool originally designated for herself.

"I... think I would rather stand."

The former highking made for a pathetic, almost humiliating sight. Anastasia sat on her knees; her silk garments were still covered in the dust Margaret left her in. Her bulky arms and hands were tied together by a short, but thick metal chain emerging from a hole in the floor before her which barely offered any leeway.

"Mother," Margaret said coldly, without an ounce of pity in her voice.

"Margaret. Your mother's dress really suits you... ," Anastasia said.

"Stop pretending that you care about such things. You know why I am here."

"I care... I always cared," the prisoner muttered.

Her signature green eyes lost their spark. While she would stare down her smaller daughter in the past, probably even in such a pitiful state, this chained woman lacked this cold confidence and dominating determination.

"If you mean by caring 'kidnapping your own daughter', then we might come to an agreement here. Otherwise I must have been awfully unaware about your compassion," Margaret growled in a cynical tone.

"Margaret..." Euridike said and laid a hand onto her daughter's shoulder. "Please... don't."

The king shrugged off her mother's hand and returned her attention to the woman she only considered mother by name, nothing more.

She took a deep breath and felt her pent-up anger and frustration ease for the moment.

"If there is any explanation for such a thing, I am willing to listen to it," Margaret said sternly.

Anastasia looked at her wife for encouragement before meeting her child's unforgiving gaze once more. Usually she spoke with a voice of authority, one that people were always drawn to, one suited for big speeches, one that dominated any debate. This time her aura was gone. Like losing her crown reduced her status from being a legendary ruler to just being a woman, a mother.

"You have to understand that all I ever did was defending our people. To protect the ones, I love most. From the moment I joined the military I strived to achieve only one thing: Leaving our children a world to inherit where they could live in piece to-"

"Spare me with your tainted take on history," Margaret hissed. "You won't be remembered as a champion of your people, but as a murderer, a slaughterer of thousands of innocent men, women and even children."

Euridike once more had to calm down the blonde king. If it wouldn't have been for her soothing presence Margaret would have started screaming at her mother for all the crimes she committed.

"Please... let her talk," the former queen said.

Margaret shook her head and hissed. "Continue then..."

"Yes. I killed many, but every life I took, every death I ordered was to leave you and your sister a better world," Anastasia said and noticed the anger shoot up in Margaret's reddening face.

"You can't imagine the times we were in. You were born into a world where you didn't have to fear the people you now fight for. Would I have not taken charge and would have been the outcome any different we would not be having this conversation right now," the former king said calmly.

"So, you seriously want to tell me that you became king and fought two wars because of mercy or any other complacent excuse?!"

"I am not making excuses. I am stating facts," Anastasia replied calmly once again.

"You lived with humans for some time. You must have seen that they don't rely on us to cultivate and rule over these lands. We on the other hand do. Our people are too few in number that we could ever self-sustain ourselves in a manner that wouldn't leave us open to be exploited, enslaved or eradicated. We need them, Margaret, but they don't need us."

Margaret's breathing got deeper and louder as her anger returned with full force and kept growing within her. Fuelled by every word of her mother she had to listen.

"You think that killing them, would make them more forgiving or what? Sounds more like you were afraid of something you didn't even understand!" the fuming king said between gritted teeth.

"I am afraid because I understand, Margaret," Anastasia said.

"We were on the verge of open conflict for years, even when I was still young. It was only a matter of time before we would be fighting in an unwinnable war with an enemy who had no reason to spare any of us," she said.

"Maybe I read the wrong history books, but you were the one who started the war! Don't play the victim here, just because it fits your agenda!" Margaret exploded.

"I started a war, because it was the first time in history, we had a chance to win a decisive and lasting victory. It was one last opportunity before our people would have faced annihilation."

Margaret grimaced and shook her head. Her piercing gaze and grinding teeth barely concealed how much she disagreed with her mother's interpretation of history, but noticed that she wasn't lying - not actively at least.

"Care to elaborate? Or will you just continue to rewrite history?"

"Tell me Margaret. What would we be without our strength? Our discipline? What if years of experience and training could be undone by one illiterate peasant pulling a trigger? What if a people that doesn't need us, that didn't welcome nor appreciate us, that would show us no mercy could remove us by wielding weapons that would take away the only advantage we have? Do you really think, our people would have stood a chance against such an enemy? We had to strike first."

Margaret leaned forwards, the corners of her cheeks were trembling as she uttered just a handful of words in a cold burning, monotone voice to keep her fury under wraps.

"Stop lying to yourself."

"I am not the one avoiding the truth. You have witnessed it for yourself. How they slaughtered the people who swore to protect you as soon as were born into this world. There is no mercy to be expected from humans. No margin for error or ways to negotiate. We are all part of a war that will end in our people's annihilation if we don't keep our hands firmly around their throats! No matter the cost! If you grant them even a moment to catch their breath, they will use it to get their hands on our weapons, on our knowledge and use it against us! I hoped you would be able to understand by now! Regardless if you believe it or not, the only reason you are here loathing me is because I had what it takes to act! And I will never apologize for that!"

Margaret couldn't even tell what infuriated her most. Was it the way her mother's voice grew more dominant and condescending during her rant? Or how Anastasia's green eyes displayed the same fiery passion the princess learned to despise over the years? Maybe it was the total lack of empathy and regret in her words ... or the possibility that she might be correct about some things?

It didn't matter. The king heard enough. Her hate could no langer be contained.

She grabbed the iron bars with both their hands and would they have been made of a lesser material they would have snapped under the might of her clenching fingers. Her mother's cold gaze was one to be feared, but Margaret's expression proved that they were similar in that regard.

"You irredeemable monster! Are you feeling proud talking about what you did, huh?! How many lives you have destroyed, how many families you have torn apart?! Of course, someone like you would only view them from a distance, without even the dignity to address their suffering! Making calls about life and death on the assumption of people you clearly didn't even attempt to understand!" Margaret shouted.

Euridike stood silently next to her. Her head hung low, but her hand reached out to soothe her child.

"Don't even dare to touch me," Margaret hissed at her. "You are almost as bad as she is! You were in on all this and merely pretended to be interested in their suffering! They trusted you, many still do, mama! Yet you betrayed them too!"

The mature blonde shivered as she had to endure the tirade of her daughter - for the first time ever.

Margaret waited for a few moments and awaited any response she could crush within a heartbeat, but nothing came. Seeing 'Mama' like that was not a sight she enjoyed, but on the other hand she knew exactly who was responsible for this whole misery.

"You..." the king muttered and stared deep into the prisoner's petrified face. "... disgust me."

"Everything about you disgusts me! I have seen what your orders resulted in. You are a butcher who sees herself as a saviour, nothing more! Unlike you, I had to look your victims in the eye and listen to how much they have lost because of you! By my own mother! What they would have thought if I'd tell them that it was for some 'greater good' or because you were 'scared'. You hypocritical snake!" Margaret yelled at the tops of her lungs at her increasingly devastated looking mother.

"Margaret, please stop ..." Euridike tried to interrupt but got ignored.

"And who are you to talk about family? You have destroyed thousands by yourself! How could someone even expect you would fare better with your own!" the king screamed. Her voice began to break as the argument turned even more personal.

"You made my life a living hell! Day after day I felt nothing but rejection coming from you! Every time you forced me to attend a banquet or welcome visitors, I felt how much you hated me... everyone did. I was the laughing stock of the whole kingdom and you did nothing to stop that from happening. I needed you! For fucks sake, you might even have encouraged it! How can you even fucking dare to tell me that all you did was because of our family!?"

The imprisoned woman stared at the floor. Her black hair shielded her face from her daughter's fiery gaze but not from the wrath of her words. The chain around her hands didn't rattle and all motion on her brawny body stopped. She appeared to harden and turn to stone as she silently withstood the insults. She opened her mouth, the only visible part of her face to the blonde, but struggled to held back her trembling lips - the first sign of vulnerability she showed willingly today.

Anastasia was a proud woman, one who always displayed the composure and confidence a ruler was meant to possess. But all she now ruled over was her prison cell.

Silent tears dropped past her scar, down to her nose and onto the red floor before her. Her royal garments and imposing frame were the last remains that could remind someone that this pitiful woman was once a king - but even that seemed to break under the pressure of Margaret's anger.

"Are you fucking crying?! For real!? YOU are the one crying?!" Margaret raged and shook the iron bars with a loud blow with her palms.

"-am... -orry"

Anastasia muttered something under her breath but nothing she whimpered came close to match the king's explosive fury.

"What was that?! Look me in the face when you talk to me! You pathetic monster! Like I had to all those years!"

"Margaret... she doesn't deserve this," Euridike said and pushed herself into her daughter's clouded vision to take her attention away from her miserable wife.

Margaret's eyes remained transfixed on the crying prisoner though. Years of feeling unwanted, even hated by her own mother were surfacing with every knew outburst of hers and made her crave for retribution.

"Step aside, mama. She gets exactly what she deserves! This was long overdue."

"I suggested the kidnapping," Euridike said.

Nothing could ever take this moment of sweet revenge away from her. She would not allow it. The one outburst she held back for years and often dreamed about. Nothing but this revelation.

This shook her to the core. Moments ago, she was hellbent to make up for years of what felt like abuse to her. Now she forgot about all such notions and stumbled back and away from 'queenmother'.

"You? ... You... did that?" the shaken king muttered.

"I did... and would do it again... to protect you," Euridike said.

Her eyes wettened at the prospect of seeing her daughter look at her in confusion and disgust, but she was certain that Margaret knew that her intentions were pure.

Margaret's mind went blank. She couldn't conjure any words that could even roughly describe what she was feeling. She didn't even know it herself anymore.

She stared into her mother's face and wildly shook her head.

"This ... is not true. You... are just trying to protect her," Margaret gasped.

Her mother stepped forward, both her hands encompassing the shaking fingers of her daughter.

"I suggested it... and Ana put the logistics into place. We both agreed that it would be the best way to save you from things to come."