SILVA - Epic Ronin Story

Wrathwood

[Silva's POV]

Grub and Mub's pleas for mercy were just annoying. Mandrake wasn't even touching them - just telling them a story. I was next to them with my hands tied around my back. We were back in Wrathwood, the Boggan's dead fortress. The last time I was here was with Ronin and Nod's father... when he sacrificed himself for us.

"My son was born on a night like this. These were his baby fangs." Mandrake held them up for everyone to see. "And here's the first skin he ever molted." He held that up too. "He was big for a larva. He took after his mother." Mandrake grinned.

"Oh, your stories are boring and torturous!" Mub cried. We've been here for about two hours but Mandrake's only been talking for, like, 20 minutes and they were already complaining.

"Then Ronin took him from me!" He exclaimed, showing his anger and rage. He looked at us with dark eyes. "So I took something of his. It's basic etiquette." He chuckled at me, getting in my face.

"Bite me." I spit in his face. He growled and backhanded my face, causing me to hit the ground hard. I groaned and felt the rope painfully rubbing against my wrists while the Boggans laughed and cheered.

Mandrake held his hand up, silencing the crowd before he spoke up again. "Then Moonhaven praised him for it - so I gave them something to mourn." He looked at the pod Grub was holding. "Just as I have mourned my son."

"An eye," he poked Grub in the eye, "for an eye." He poked Mub in the eye.

"Ow! Jerk." Mub huffed at him.

"Tonight, your Pod will bloom here. Which is why I need you." He looked at me again. "When that Pod healed you, it lent you some of its power - power that it will take back as it blooms. And when a Pod blooms in darkness, it belongs to the darkness." He reached out for the Pod, casting a shadow over it, making it shrink back.

"It will become my little dark prince. I'll destroy the forest with the very thing you hoped would save it." He laughed at the irony. "And on another glorious note, when it blooms in the darkness - you die." He smirked at me.

"What?" I gasped.

"When I mentioned before, back at the Nim's that I could kill two birds with one stone, I was talking about when the Pod blooms tonight in darkness, it will destroy both you and the Forest." He smiled proudly.

Mub and Grub laughed next to me. "I hate to break it to you, but it doesn't say any of that in the scrolls." Grub said. Maybe I had hope after all...

"It does in the part I have." Mandrake responded, holding up a section of the scroll, making them gasp. Nevermind.

"So much for termites." I scoffed.

"Now, I've picked out a beautiful spot for you three. But first, I've got a bone to pick. Take the two slimes to the pit, General Silva will join them later. Everyone else, get back to work." He commanded the Boggans. They came and dragged Mub and Grub away with the Pod, leaving me and Mandrake on the main platform.

Mandrake walked around me a few times before speaking up. I glared at him and followed him with my head.

"I remember flying in the air with my son, watching as your partner flew away with the Queen and the Pod, trying to escape. Ronin caught one of the arrows my son shot and used it himself. He shot my son as I shot your sister." He spat, I struggled angrily in my bonds, but it was no use. I huffed at him, wanting to kill him.

"But even that hasn't made up for it, you see. My son was the heir to darkness - the one who would rule in our new kingdom! Once the Pod bloomed, I was going to hand over my crown to him but now he's gone!" Mandrake screamed at me.