>>5583739“For her part, she was obviously more interested in Father… Not for the reasons I started to enviously suspect, but because of her true purpose there. She began to try to wheedle a wedge between my parents, to… Insert herself into the relationship, while she plied Father for information on our family… To make certain there were no more of us, of course, and to catch my father off-guard. To little avail—Father was a devoted husband, and a private man with outsiders.”
The Green Knight falls silent again, and for a moment you think he’s fallen unconscious at last… But then he continues.
“Mother came to an accident. I still don’t know what sort, though I’m sure it was no accident—your mother murdered her, and hid the body, stealing even the closure of death from Father, and from me. For me, your mother became… A lifeline, someone to cling to as Father grew distant. I told her everything she might want to know… And, eager to impress her, I took her to see the familial armour and sword, most holy relics of our branch of the family which Father had astutely hidden away until I was ready to take them up, so they wouldn’t be coveted and stolen by others.
He is trembling now, from the cold of his shock or the freshness of this traumatic memory.
“The next day, returning from the market, I found them. Your mother, atop y father, in the bed he’d shared with MY mother. At first I felt betrayed, believing that… That my father, in his weakness and loneliness, had stolen ‘my’ beloved away. Only when I saw the look in his eyes, the foam at the edge of his mouth, and… The blood…”
He looks down, clenching his hands into fists.
“And the family sword… broken, on the ground, snapped by some dark power—despite its enchantments. That’s when it all clicked. Your mother had what she needed, and was finishing her job—destroying our bloodline, and our history and legacy.”
“How did she die?” you ask, simply taking in the tale.
“I took up the broken blade,” The Green Knight confesses, “and ran them both through. Whatever your mother began to transform into… It was no match for the last of the magic in that sword. She couldn’t free herself, was too weak to strike back. The Dragonslayer was made to kill your foul breed, after all.”
