Chapter Text
Star swallower. Moon slayer. Demon of night. Sun’s Assassin. Original phantom. The demon that has ruled - and plagued - the villages of the eastern river for generations was known by many names, and each of them was an expression of the vitriol they carried of their relentless master. Since time immemorial, the demon has demanded sacrifices, feasts, and celebrations in their honor, with the devastation of crops, livestock, buildings, and lives as punishment when such things are forgone. Paramount to these festivals was the Garden Offering - a sacrifice given every four years of a young, purehearted maiden in the Forbidden Garden, located within a poison-laden, destroyed ruin.
The selection of the maiden was of great concern to the leaders of the twelve villages. For the last six generations, only a single sacrifice was missed - leading to the total annihilation of Kasumi, the thirteenth village, and the deaths of all 2000 who lived there. They rotate who is mandated to offer a sacrifice, and they offer the daughters of prominent members in order to meet the demon’s criteria. These maidens are told from birth of their destiny, and grow in their lives knowing they will be offered to the demon for the protection of everyone in the region. This immense honor is undertaken with solemn grace by most, though not without dissidents.
Every attempt to take on the demon has resulted in the useless loss of life. 400 years of soldiers, warriors, and would-be heroes have taken on every possible crusade to free themselves of the chains of the demon - storming the Forbidden Garden, protecting their villages after missed festivals, and even surrounding the maiden as she entered the Garden. Not a single survived from any of these actions, and the villages have entered into complete and total subjugation under the demon’s rule.
The strife began when the elders of the thirteen villages were kidnapped under cover of night on one cold autumn day. They were returned to their respective village centers the next morning, covered in a series of cuts that left instructions for worship and unable to speak. It was shortly after that the ruins containing the Forbidden Garden were found, and even shorter until a combined force of 1000 soldiers marched into it to find the assailant, and found only their deaths in their place. The people of the villages prayed deeply to their local protector deity, the Dragon of the Sun, but she never came. One week following the soldiers’ funerals, a sacrifice was taken to the Garden, and the villages slept easily for the first time.
The villages are, in exchange, offered some form of protection by the demon. No blight has fallen upon their crop, and no great beast has slain men or livestock in the time since. In the great breadth of time that has passed under the demon’s rule, many have even taken to not just appeasing the demon, but worshiping them as the true benevolent protector, in place of the old god who never arrived. These devout are few in numbers, but their devotion is deep and powerful. To most, they are ignorant people making the best of a bad situation, but to some, they are beast worshippers intent on ending life in the region.
Life beyond their forced celebrations was rather simple. Most were farmers, feeding the masses that lived within the river valley, but a great swath of opportunity was available in the lack of feudal lords and taxes - artisans, craftsmen, and scholars were all fairly plentiful within the villages. In spite of the gilded lives an outsider may see, many sat in constant fear of their demonic ruler, and most dreamed of a world where they were free to leave, free to be, and free to live .
She had always been jealous of the Garden Maiden’s position. In those of her belief, there was no greater honor than to go to the protector as the Garden Offering, but she’d known since birth that she was not to be chosen, but the girl with pink hair and a bubbly disposition would be offered just short of her 21st birthday. When she was young, the girl was jealous of the one often called the Rose Maiden, and even tried to get close to her in an attempt to be closer to the Offering, in some twisted way, but what she found instead was friendship.
The maiden knew her destiny as long as she was able to comprehend it. In her life, it’s brought her a terrible mixture of anxiety, despair, comfort, hope, and honor, often all at once, but she’s always known she would never pass her beautiful curse onto another. Her brothers and sisters, all older, never wanted to get close to her, knowing the pain of loss would be too much to bear, and most everyone she knew growing up went the same way when they learned of her destiny. When she was old enough to curse, she often cursed the isolation the destiny brought more than the impending death that caused it. When a bizarre girl with mint colored hair suddenly decided to warm up to her, she welcomed the company with hesitation of her past and future and longing for the closeness she was denied so long.
“You know I’m the Garden Maiden, right?” Rosemi asked, her voice filled with anxiety, after a year of getting to know the strange girl.
The thought had slipped her mind. What she sought was the Garden Maiden, but what she found was a fun, warm, sweet, beautiful friend.
“Yeah, so?” Finana said, reminded and with a tone underlining a near ignorance of the situation. Rosemi couldn’t do much more than stare at the quiet, blank expression she was given as tears began to well up in her eyes. Finana turned from lackadaisical whim to panic in a moment’s notice. “What’s wrong? Did I say something bad?”
The Rose Maiden looked to the artisan’s daughter with a smile that countered the streams that ran alongside it. “You’re not going anywhere?” The words came rapidly seeking reassurance as it seemed old wounds opened to bleed. Finana grabbed her hand with both of her own and squeezed.
“You’re stuck with me.” she chuckled, and the crying maiden laughed along. In her fifteen years she was around, this was the first time she felt something permanent, even if she wasn’t. For the artisan’s daughter, she initially felt only envy, but every day they spent together bloomed that envy into admiration, and matured the admiration into what she felt now: connection.
Finana was an outcast in her youth. Other children were forbidden with even so much as talking to the children of the Protector’s Circle - the cult who worshiped the demon. In the tiny village of Niji, her family was the sole group of believers, bringing them a painful life in spite of her mother’s beloved artistry. She took pride in her devotion to the Protector despite all those who decry them, but that devotion was little comfort to her in each of her lonely years until she found the Rose Maiden.
From their fifteenth year in each of their lives, they were inseparable - a bond between outcasts with no destiny among the people of the Niji village. They were on an island away from everyone, but they were on that island together . The pair were constantly the target of rumor, stares, and jeers, but nothing could reach their island of companionship nor breach the comfort they found in each others’ voices.
In their seventeenth year of their lives, their lives changed forever. It was a year of the Garden Offering, and they traveled together with their families to witness the ceremonies near the grounds of the Forbidden Garden. In their youth, the ceremony had a different meaning for each of them - for Finana, it was a solemn devotion to the Protector, but for Rosemi, it was a glimpse into the destiny she would undergo herself in her 21st year. This Offering held a new meaning for each of them, akin to a sword being raised over their heads . Each knew the destiny that they marched toward, but suddenly, neither wanted to let the other go into it. Neither wanted to be alone.
On the night of remembrance which followed the night of the Offering, the pair snuck off together into the woods nearby. To go out at night was taboo already, but to do so at the Festival of the Offering was risking your life, though the pair needed to spend more time together after the event, more than they needed air, or so it felt. Rosemi was drawn to Finana’s torch, and the two scurried toward a small clearing deep within the forest, hand in hand in their hurry. They found themselves lying on the soft undergrowth, staring up into the tapestry of stars, unable to release the others’ hand. The duo was silent at first, until Finana spoke.
“What if we ran away together?” Her voice shook with the verge of tears.
“You know we couldn’t do that. What would happen to everyone else?” Rosemi attempted to put on strength in her voice, but her shaking timbre gave away her fear.
“They don’t deserve you, you know.”
“But they don’t deserve to die, either.” The Rose Maiden’s response was cut with coldness, but it was a clear attempt to give herself resolve.
“ I don’t deserve you.”
The maiden rose at this comment, pulling up the artisan’s daughter with her in a surprising show of strength. Rosemi pulled Finana closer to her to take her other hand with her own.
“You are my world in one that wouldn’t take me. It’s not about deserving, it’s about…” Rosemi became choked up as tears filled her eyes, glistening in the moonlight. “It’s about how you saved me. It’s about what we are for each other.”
Finana began to cry in turn, unable and unwilling to hold it back any further. The two fell to their knees in front of each other, embracing as the sobs choked out. They sat like this for several minutes, where only an eternity passed over them. When they finally withdrew, eyes finally clear, the sight before them stunned them. Finana saw a beautiful, kind, and warm girl who glowed beneath the moonlight, and Rosemi saw the fun, lovely, and light-in-the-dark girl who outshined every star in the sky above her. They grew in closer to these sights, completely taken with the art before them, and their locked eyes began to close as they drew in for a kiss.