Arma's Coming-of-Age Ceremony

AN: Placed under the baseline reference, for use with providing context.

POV: Arma

Within the sacred cloister, I stand in a small and circular room. It is made entirely from polished marble and decorated with intricate tapestries depicting scenes of heroism and valor from Armelia's - and the world's - distant history.

In front of me stands the Arch-Priestess, Esme Eorlene, who has held that office since the time of my own father's coming-of-age, and his father before him. She is a kind and gentle woman with silvered hair and warm brown eyes.

To either side of the Arch-Priestess are her aids for this ceremony, a pair of lesser priestesses known to me as Ceres and Telma. Lacking surnames, both have nondescript, common appearances appropriate for the humble clergy, with Ceres possessed of long dark hair while Telma has shorter brown hair cut to her shoulder. They hold ceremonial blades: not meant to draw blood, but to instead demonstrate the protection of the Goddess.

"We gather today to honor and celebrate the growth of her highness, Princess Arma Armelia," The Arch-Priestess says in a solemn tone as I kneel. She approaches me with a necklace bearing a small, glowing white gem - a Pearl of Purity - and a traditional ornament for the upcoming ceremony, meant to help me clear my thoughts so as to best convey my devotion to the Sacred-Goddess. "soon, she will take her place among us as an adult. At that time, the Goddess shall look upon her and, in finalizing her Class, tell to us how her highness shall carry out her will."

Traditionally, in this ceremony, I shall pray and speak words of sincerity, loyalty, and affection for the Goddess, the Kingdom, and indeed the world as a whole. By so doing and demonstrating this all-encompassing compassion, I will become a Sacred-Princess, or a 'Princess-Priestess' in layman's terms. However, the Goddess' focus is only upon this moment of my life. I must not become distracted by idle ambition or daydream, or she - in her endless magnanimity - may grant me a class related to such things instead.

...even if my heart desires a different path, it is the will of the Kingdom - the world - that I pursue the one which has been set before me.

"Now, as I place around her neck the Pearl of Purity," The Arch-Priestess says, reaching the conclusion of a speech I've had memorized for twelve years now, "just before the sun marks the hour of her birth, the Princess Arma shall commune with the Goddess." The gracefully-aged woman lowers the Pearl around my neck.

And it shatters.

There is a moment of shock. Of complete denial of perception, where I can't help but reach my hand to the necklace and poke at the stone, feeling it crumble to dust beneath my finger. I don't know what to feel, or say. I look up to the Arch-Priestess, breaking ceremony for the ceremony has already shattered alongside the Pearl, and despite myself I feel my eyes grow damp.

...and that dampness dries as my gaze widens in horror, for I see behind the Arch-Priestess, nestled in the roof of the chapel, there is a demon. On six doll-like legs, something between a spider, a scorpion, and a woman, it sits idly in the rafters. Upon me, my neck, its gaze is fixed, eyes agleam with crimson energy, and mouth twisted into cruel smirk.

The Arch-Priestess follows my gaze, radiant power forming a lash of golden energy that strikes at the demon. It skitters away from the below, tutting mockingly in a voice that somehow sounds like my own. "Tsk, tsk, how hasty, how hasty. Does not the poor girl desire her own future? Does humanity oft place such yokes upon its children?"

"Be silent, demon," The Arch-Priestess commands, her voice a wrathful whisper. "Princess a-" She wants to tell me to run. I want to run myself, but... this is the sacred place, and the ceremony has begun. Whatever I do now, the Goddess' eyes are already upon me. Surely, this demon's presence must be a trial I am to endure.

The Arch-Priestess, perhaps of similar mind, softens her gaze imperceptibly as she stares at my resolve with a thin and wry smile, "...I will protect you," She amends. "Clear your heart." The Arch-Priestess spreads her arms and radiant energy forms a cage around the two of us. Just outside it, the lesser Priestesses brandish their blades and infuse them with magic.

Above, the demon's crimson eyes glimmer as its shadowy form twists and wavers its way along the ceiling.

"Away with you!" Ceres calls - ever the brasher of the two. She flicks her sword out, and an arc of golden energy flies toward the demon. It misses, but the battle thus commences and... I must focus, but I cannot look away from the two priestesses' struggle. It feels disrespectful. It feels wrong. I should stand beside them, but here I am instead... failing to clear my mind.

The demon skitters and taunts, its shadowy form debasing the chapel with its every step as it moves from rafter to wall, to tapestry, to the statue of the Goddess itself. Its vaporous limbs scantly touch anything as it glides, such is its swiftness. Eventually, it tires of this game and - in a sudden motion - lunges forward. It seems intent on battering the Priestesses aside like a charging boar, and they've little time to do else but brace themselves. However, it does not charge through them.

Instead, it stops and lifts them up, deftly making use of their distraction.

The young women struggle, and my hand grips around the air as I yearn to strike the culprit down. The Arch-Priestess, bound to her protective barrier, barely shifts in place but... I can feel it in the radiant energy swirling about us, her desperation and yearning.

"Goddess," Telma and Ceres pray as they struggle in the demon's grip. "...grant us... strength...!"

However, what benediction may come, it comes too late as the demon casts them aside to the walls of the chapel. Their small and delicate forms fly like stones, and roll to a stop just the same. Their blades, forgotten, rest just outside my reach. I can't look away from them.

Could I have done anything? Could I do something now? I see even now the priestesses try struggling to their feet in the darkness. They lurch and stumble, barely standing. They will surely die. I would let them die.

"...no..." Someone speaks, a distant plea I can scarcely hear over the pounding of blood in my ears as my heart beats. "...it's..."

Unacceptable. I can't allow this monster to kill my people. The traditional prayers take hours. The Arch-Priestess may withstand this creature that long, but her subordinates already struggle. I can't allow this. What is a noble of House Armelia to do in such trying times, but strike the evil down?

At some point, I exited the barrier. My hand closed around the hilt of a sword, the demon shifted in place. I swung, and---

---I awoke in the chapel infirmary the next day.

Father tells me that the Arch-Priestess cast a spell to defend me, and that I would not have survived without it. In her distraction, the lead-- lead? --demon struck her ****. It and its compatriots -- compatriots? -- then turned toward me when he, in a breach of protocol born from terrible intuition, intruded upon the sacred grounds. The demons were executed with due haste, and I was hurried here alongside the Arch-Priestess.

"But... what of... what of Ceres? ...Telma?" I asked, and Father's face twisted.

I am told there were three demons within the chapel, not one. That the two subordinates were infiltrators, just as their arachnid leader, and between the three of them staged an elaborate play to draw me away from the Arch-Priestess' protection. Two bloodhorn demons - known for tremendous strength and lack of discretion - and one shadow demon, known just for the opposite.

It... didn't make any sense.

Atop everything else, I had been marked as a Princess-Knight rather than the holy role that was intended, and the nobility is up in arms about the breach of tradition, and... It still didn't make any sense.

I could only rest in my father's arms and, in his absence, lay in bed and stare until it made sense.

"..."

At some points, others came and went.

"..."

At some point, late in the night, I thought I heard something. A night terror.

"..."

At some point, it made sense.

"--ut you're... st...b...rn," someone whispered in a moonlit room, but my bleary eyes - stirred from slumber - saw nothing but the dancing of the moonlight against the walls, and shadows tricking me with their ghastly visage.

Curling inward, I cried. A breach of tradition, nearly slain, Old Esme endangered, father aggrieved by politics and the consequence for his rashness and... all for a pair of demons, just to earn the wrong Class.

Truly, I'm a mediocre Princess.