Mother of Mourning: Her Lost Love

The tragedy of Almalexia's transformation has never truely been told. Ayem's Mercy is quick and final, rarely leaving any to repeat the tale.

One does not start out how we came to know her, Ayem hides a great pain and and emptiness that once held everything she had hoped to be, but was taken from her long ago. The many faces and roles she strove to embody were only lies she tried to hide this pain behind, purposes embraced to distract her immortal mourning. She is Face-snaked, writhing totems, visaged by shifting images to fill mortal needs, but with fangs and venom poised inward to guard her from the memory of that loss

What did she loose you wonder?

It's no accident the trophy our mother brought back from Red Mountain. Footsteps are fickle and fragile things, yet are all that remains of us once we are gone.

She bore the promise for Nerevar's milk to flow into the future, carried well and faithfully. So close she was to seeing it fulfilled.

Did young Lexia love the Hortator?

Truely and eternally she always will

There are many kinds of love, and she was once a carefree girl bubbling with them all for her husband.

Romantic love? Yes, once that was all she could see. That love lead to a new kind of love for her, one that lived within.

That new love? She now feigns to rain that on us, her people and Children of Ash. But that is only her futile attempt to force "that love" to walk, but it is dead and can't give new steps, only serves as dirt to hide away it's bones. All just a remnant of what wasn't, but almost was.

"That love" was robbed from her. Perished unfulfilled. Sadly it was ripped and torn away, along will any potential future replacement. Unconsented her skin was worn, vessel for a "god's" and her mortal's congress. She saw it happen as if in someone else's dream. Then the next morn, awoke to bloody feet and her mourning began.

Romantic love died with "that love".

What happened?

Just as Lexia loved her Captain, Neravar loved her back. But this caught notice from the twil, moons parted and her skin was worn by something else. Nerevar's love for his bride called his faith into question, a gift was offered in exchange for pledge. Then ritual copulation to reaffirm the concord.

Lexia, held captive within herself, experienced it all, from the embrace that cradled her husband, rechristening his namesake with the glowing celestials bodies emanated from her marienetted hands, to the terrifying ecstasy and horror of misuse to follow

What gift was given? You are better to ask the cost.

Ever wonder how Azura's immortal son entered the world? Lexia’s pain and loss was the gate. A sacrifice to the god was taken unasked. The girl’s cup just before bore promise, but instead was emptied when used as a burning altar. All that was left was Blood and Ash, and those only flow backwards, and new footprints can't spring from that.

The girl learned of Azura's mercy, left to live forever emptied. Vengeance denied by a wraith of rings.

Nerevar pitied his lover, but coldly taught her another lesson

”No gift from a God comes without sacrifice. And no submission is without a price.”

These words Ayem still remembers. And neither could she ever forgive.

At their muttering her love was forever changed.

Only a wizard-console and ward offered her understanding. Since their footsteps too would not outlast them, other victims of the amusings of other terrible gods. These two helped turn her towards her first mask to hide her pain behind. She redonned the wrappings of High Alma with new purpose, and would never again unwrap her name from her station. If “that love” would be denied her, a nation might be suckled as surrogate. Perhaps devotion and loving a people might help her forget?

And so the girl of love was lost to us, and the Mother of Mourning took her place.

Hail and pity Almalexia, Queen of the Mourning Hold... feet stained black with the blood her lost love

 

This document was recovered under lock and key beneath a chamber in the old Temple of Mournhold. The author's signature has been tampered with to be illegible, and the document bears an imprint of a single bloody lady's footprint, dried to the color of black.

While unverifiable in origin, the story paints close to a lost heresy referenced in sparse sources as "The Twilight Affair", but that original manuscript continues to allude us as well.